The Bone Witch Read online

  And then Fox wrote of strange and terrible tidings. These rumors sprouted up like bindweed along the edges of the kingdom and gorged themselves on whispers and fears. They told of daeva—strange and terrible monsters, maimed creatures assembled from scale-slicked bodies and yellowed fangs and spined limbs and horns. I was familiar with the legend: the daeva are the False Prince’s final curse on the world, and the Faceless are said to command them. Occasionally, the curse would take hold once more, and a daeva would rise from the dead to wreak havoc. Fox was periodically assigned to patrols that guarded Odalia’s borders and had seen one of the creatures for himself. But their commander had ordered a retreat; it was the Deathseekers’ job to kill the beasts in their stead. Fox had been impressed by these elite, magic-wielding fighters.

  Shortly after that, Fox was killed “by creatures unknown,” as General Lode’s letter read. Military speak for daeva, Father said. There was nothing else—just a simple pine coffin, three months’ worth of his wages, and a single note that felt indifferent and regretful all at once.

  My mother and sisters wept; they could have flooded Knightscross with the strength of their grief. My father and brothers held vigil for three days and three nights and said nothing with their impassive faces and wet eyes. I was only twelve, and I couldn’t see the kind, playful Fox I had known in that rigid body. I couldn’t recognize him in that pale, grim face. This was my brother, who had raised me and fed me and carried me on his shoulders, and it hurt to see him so still.

  I was quiet when the mourners pulled the coffin lid shut. I was silent when they set the wooden box in the hole they had dug. Only when they poured the last shovelfuls of dirt onto the new grave did I speak. Even now I can recall how heavy those words felt when they fell from my lips.

  “You can’t put him there. He can’t get out.”

  “Sweetheart,” my mother wept, “Fox isn’t coming back.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said. “You’re wrong. I saw him move. As sure as I know my own breath, I saw him move, but he can’t get out.” The syllables tripped on my tongue, tasting old and formal. It felt as if they came from someone using my mouth as a passageway through which words not my own raced. I had heard Fox. I had seen him move. In my mind’s eye, I had seen past the heavy stone, past the soil and the dirt and the rot, and I had watched my dead brother open his eyes.

  I dashed toward the grave. Wolf and Hawk barred my path, but I ducked underneath their strong arms and slipped past. For a moment I imagined myself as my brother’s namesake, strong and sly, shaking hounds off the length of my tail. But the illusion soon passed, and I was a child again, tripping and falling. The ground slashed at me, marking both my knees and the palms of my hands with the sharpness of knives. Blood dripped down onto the cold gravestone and spilled across the ground.

  A chorus of noises thrummed inside my head, a peculiar buzzing that also carried with it my brother’s voice, asking and pleading and yearning, answering a question I had not yet asked aloud: Yes, Tea, Fox whispered to me in my head. Yes, I am willing.

  It was wrong of them to put him in the ground when he did not want to die.

  A strange symbol burned before me. Without thinking, my bloodied fingers traced the pattern in the air, again and again and again, until my brothers took me by the waist and dragged me away.

  “What has gotten into you, girl?” My father was shaken and angry. “There is no excuse for behaving in this manner—and at your brother’s wake, no less!”

  What other reprimands he intended died on his tongue when the ground began to move. A terrible rumbling and heaving began underneath us, beneath the fresh dirt that made up Fox’s grave. There was a muffled splintering inside that small mound, like something within the coffin had escaped its confinement. As we watched, a cold, gray hand rose up, scratching and stretching, and gripped the tufts of weeds growing close to the grave. The strange being lifted itself out of its earthly prison with little difficulty and brushed the dirt off its tall, thin form. My mother fainted.

  When it raised its head, I saw that it had my brother’s face, drawn and bloodless and dead.

  “Tea,” the figure said.

  But then it smiled, and it was Fox’s smile, quiet and kind.

  The cave itself was sparsely furnished—two chairs, a stool, a long, wooden table, and a small, polished mirror hanging from a wall from where another smaller table stood, littered with glass bottles of various sizes. There was an impressive arrangement of flowers: a burst of color in otherwise somber surroundings. A wooden divider foraged from driftwood marked off a separate area, presumably for changing and sleeping. It made for impressive accommodations, despite its suggestion of impermanence.

  A small cot lay near the entrance—mine for the duration of my stay, I was told. The girl placed the two stones she carried at the end of the wooden table, adding them to a row of six other gems similar in shape though boasting different hues. A small, jeweled case lay at their center, polished so it gleamed.

  “Most asha fall sick that first time,” she said. “Some may encounter no more than a small wave of dizziness or a fever lasting a few hours. But for bone witches, it can be fatal. It took me three days to recover.

  “I had the most curious dream then. In it, I found a black cat, which I hid in my room. It was a beautiful kitten with the shiniest fur and the softest paws. People came and went asking for it, seeking with their blurred faces and watchful eyes. I was never sure why I lied, only that it was important that they not know I was keeping him, that something terrible would happen should they discover him.

  “My kitten would change form at odd times. Sometimes it was a black dress and then a dark mask and then a beautiful obsidian gemstone. It didn’t worry me in this dream that I owned a cat that didn’t always stay one.

  “Finally, it turned into a majestic-looking sword, as black as shadows—its hilt to its blade steeped in creeping, moving darkness. I knew then that I need not hide it any longer and raised up my sword.

  “But the dream ended, and I woke.”

  She took a sip from her wooden bowl and laughed softly. “Would events have been different, I wonder, if I had died then? Perhaps the dream was some kind of prophecy, a portent of what was to come. But I cannot predict the future like the oracle or even my sister Lilac. That is not the kind of magic I wield.”

  Her fingers moved lower, tracing the long, raised scar on her thigh.

  “The only sight I seem to possess nowadays is hindsight.”

  2

  She was a beautiful woman. Her long hair billowed out behind her like a cloak of sun-kissed yellow, and her eyes were dark caves from where blue gems glinted. She was young, in the way a woman of sixty might carefully tuck away the years around her to appear twenty. She looked nothing like a bone witch ought to look. She was soft and willowy and comely, and everyone in Knightscross was afraid of her.

  My mother told me later of the fear the lady inspired when she first rode into Knightscross. Her horse was a beautiful palomino with a glossy chestnut mane, and the woman herself wore a robe of varying blues and dark greens, as if to mimic the colors of the ocean. Silvery fish adorned the edges of her dress, swimming into view and back out again whenever her skirts rustled. She wore a waist wrap of pale lavender with an embossed pattern of pearls. Gemstones attached to long pins were woven into her golden hair, and they glinted each time she moved her head.

  On a chain around her neck, a heartsglass swung. It had metalworks of hammered gold and tiny jewels, the surface glossy mirrored and silver sharp.

  But it was also empty.

  “Crone,” muttered the bravest in the crowd. “Crow.” But even the most courageous of the lot melted away at her approach or were led away by those with better sense. The villagers knew she was the worst of witches, a demon in womanskin. But the king had decreed otherwise, and whatever their breed of cowardice, they were neither traitors nor
fools.

  She arrived within two days of the attempted funeral, though the news had not yet traveled to Murkwick, the nearest township fifteen leagues to the east. She strode down the path leading into the square without a word, villagers trailing behind her despite themselves. She marched straight into my home, where my family had shut Fox up in the forge, away from the terrified mob.

  “Milady,” she said to Lilac, “I would be grateful if you could calm the people gathered outside. It wouldn’t do to have your family’s livelihood burned for so poor an excuse.” Next, she turned to Rose. “And might I ask you, milady, for a treatment of wortroot and farrow, lavender oil and bathwater.”

  Rose and Lilac—reasonable, respectable witches by comparison to the frightful woman, an accursed bone witch—hurried to do as she commanded.

  “Where is she?” was her next question, and my father showed her the room I shared with my sisters. She found me curled up on my small bed, forehead burning from the strain of the magic.

  I was in no condition to remember what happened, but my mother told me everything. The witch bathed my face and chest with bitter herbs and sweet water. She measured sage and fallowtree in a bowl and spooned small doses of the concoction into my mouth. When evening came to dust the sky with tiny, twinkling stars, my fever had broken. The furnace in my mind reduced to kindling, I slept undisturbed until dawn the next day while the witch stood guard.

  The sickness was gone when I awoke, and in its place was the woman, sleeping in a chair at the foot of the bed. I rose to a sitting position and stared at my visitor. A soft haze surrounded her, a subdued light both familiar and frightening.

  “My dead father was my first summon,” the lovely woman said without opening her eyes. “Don’t know what came over me, I’m sure. I was his daughter, but he thought I fared better as his property. Denied me even the smallest freedoms and imprisoned me in petticoats and sewing lessons. Had he lived longer, he would have confined me to a convent or deeded me over to a wealthy merchant to wed. Perhaps I did it to show him there was more to me than as someone else’s dowry. He was not as imposing dead as he was alive though, and he was most unwilling, so I sent him back quickly. Sick as a dog for four days for my trouble. You seem to have fared better, with only two nights’ worth of illness. My name is Mykaela. You might have heard of me.”

  Six months ago, a visiting merchant told my father of a daeva that terrorized the town of Lardbrook ninety leagues away. A strange woman they called Mykaela of the Hollows had killed it, he said. Surely no one else in Odalia had hair so pale or skin so light.

  I trembled. “Yes. They call you the bone witch.”

  “Your parents tell me you’re quite the precocious child.” The woman smiled, two rows of pearly whites against scarlet lips. “That’s not the worst they call me, and that will not be the worst they will call you.”

  Bone witches were not a respectable trade. They said bone witches gave sleeping sicknesses to innocent princesses with the prick of a finger, and they said bone witches ate the hearts of children who strayed too far into forests. Bone witches did not truly serve the Eight Kingdoms as they claim, because they dabbled in the Dark runes just like the False Prince and his Faceless followers. Bone witches raised armies from the dead. Bone witches could raise daeva—like the one that had killed Fox.

  My heart beat faster, my chest painfully tight. “Will you send my brother back?”

  “No.” The witch traced an obscure pattern in the air. “That is not how this works. He is your creation, not mine. Your brother did not know when he asked, and you did not know when you answered, but unlike my father, I suspect Fox Pahlavi is where you both want him to be. You can summon the dead, and they will come at first, because they are creatures curious of the life they once tasted and long to savor again. But you cannot bind dead folk without their consent, and you cannot make them stay. That is the first rule of the Dark. There are only two types of people you cannot raise from the dead: those with silver heartsglass like ours and those who are not willing. And your brother is very willing.”

  I felt sick all over again. I did not want to be a bone witch. I could not be a bone witch. Lilac had promised me gems and dresses and a handsome prince. “And if I don’t want to?”

  The lady’s bright eyes looked back at me, knowing. “Do you know that it is considered in poor taste to lie to the one who saved your life?”

  I averted my gaze because she was right. I did not want the woman’s presence in my room, tainting the air with a truth I had no desire to hear. I did not want to think about my brother, torn between the living and the dead by my own hand. But I had wielded the magic, and I had liked its flavor. Even then, my fingers itched to trace that exquisite rune in the air again, to sample it with my mind. The spell’s aftertaste still lingered in my mouth—like sweet peaches, like silken honey that had burst underneath my tongue and ran smoothly down my throat.

  “The Dark are greedy runes. Draw them once, and they ruin you for any other magic. The Dark are also jealous runes. We cannot channel Fire and Water and Earth and Wood runes any more than we can attack with the shadows on the walls. But most importantly, the Dark are seductive runes that steal into your head and make free with your thoughts when you least anticipate them. And for that, you will require watching.”

  “I don’t need watching,” I said out of a desire to be stubborn.

  The witch guffawed, a strange sound from one who looked so elegant. “Yes, child. You need no watching, and I should have stayed in my asha-ka in Ankyo and let the Dark sup on the waste of your bones. And then your family would have two funerals instead of one.” She sighed. “We have little choice, you and I. It is the law: if you do not serve the kingdoms, then the Faceless shall seek you out. Which path would you prefer: bone witch or traitor?”

  I took a long, shuddering breath. This was true; I owed her my life if not yet my trust. “What’s going to happen next?”

  “We leave for Ankyo as soon as you are able.”

  I froze. I had never left my village, much less traveled to Kneave, Odalia’s capital. I knew that Ankyo was even farther than that, across Odalia’s borders and into the kingdom of Kion.

  Mykaela of the Hollows smiled at my stricken face. “There are many things that I need to teach you, Tea, and it would inconvenience me to have the villagers’ fear running underfoot when it is most inappropriate. Your family may visit if you wish them to. It is a long journey, but if your studies go well, we can arrange to have their expenses paid for by our House. And we shall take your brother with us.”

  “Will you make him better?”

  Lady Mykaela turned to me, and only then did I see how terribly old the woman was. Not old from the passage of years but from seeing too much of what most would rather see little of.

  “You can’t make the better of the dead, sweet child,” she said, “though I reckon death could make the better of us.”

  • • •

  Fox showed no inclination to eat anyone once the doors were unbarred, though food could have improved his features. He was too ashen, his eyes red rimmed, but he stood obedient while Lady Mykaela made her inspections. A crowd still gathered as news of my condition had spread. Mrs. Drury stood to one side and gave me the evil eye, and when the people muttered and whispered, they looked at me the same way they looked at the bone witch.

  “You’re in better shape than most I’ve seen.” She reached up and smoothed Fox’s hair, and my mother’s hand twitched in response. “All your fingers and toes and the wits still in your head. Do you feel at ease in this skin?”

  “I am not uncomfortable,” Fox replied.

  “I am sorry,” the lady said, this time to my parents. “Tea will not be safe here. Not from the villagers’ prejudice, which can be rectified. Your daughter must have training or the Dark will chew holes into her heart, eat her from the inside out, until she shall be more husk than the
dead we trade in.”

  “Do you want to do this, Tea?” Father asked, like he believed I still had a choice.

  I did not want to, but Fox was now my responsibility, the way I had been Fox’s in those days before he went to war. “I am going to protect my brother,” I said slowly, trying out the words to see how they sounded.

  My brother smiled at my gumption, though it did not quite reach his eyes.

  “We must go soon,” the bone witch said, “but before we do, I owe you one more thing at least. You will not have a chance to enjoy your Heartsrune day, so I hope this is of some consolation.” She held out to me the most beautiful heartsglass I had ever seen—gold spun into intricate leaves winding through the glass on all sides. Small stones of ruby and beryl balanced out its paleness. Shivering, I allowed my sister Lilac to clasp it around my neck.

  Lady Mykaela of the Hollows drew a shape in the air, and I felt nothing more than a small tug at my chest as the bone witch coaxed my heart out and into the glass. In that early sunless dawn, it shone—not pink and red, as my parents’ and siblings’, or even purple like my witch-sisters’, but a dazzling silver white.

  She prepared our meal with simple tools, in rudimentary fashion—a metal pan over a small fire, oyster shells for spoons, coconut husks for bowls. Mine was a feast worth more than I was: a leg of turkey stuffed with sage and thyme and dripping in gravy, freshly baked bread as if just from the ovens, and fish swimming in a tangy sauce made from chopped apples and glazed lemons. There was wine of the finest vintage from Tresea’s famed vineyards.

  “I came prepared,” she said, smiling at my astonishment. “A merchant from a nearby town supplies my needs and asks no questions. In many places, money speaks louder than one’s beliefs. Did you think I would come here to forage for scraps when I have other skills at my disposal?”