Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(101)
Author: Alexandra Bracken

 

You’re all right, I told myself over and over. You’re okay. This is for Cabell.

 

The mist seemed to take pity on me, stretching itself thin enough that I could see the way ahead. Finally, the rounded top of the burial mound came into view, and I could feel my body again.

 

Unlike the river, the small lake, no more than a mile across, had retained some of its water. It had thickened at its edges with slime and moss that gave it a boglike appearance.

 

The burial mound—the barrow—was massive, taking up the entirety of the small island at the center of the murky water. After the endless parade of gray, the shock of bright green grass covering the mound’s rise took my breath away. There had to be some sort of old protective magic on it. Somehow, impossibly, it had held.

 

I walked along the edge of the lake until the mist revealed a small rowboat caught on the bank. Pulling it free from the grasping mud, I moved it along to clearer water and pushed down, testing it for leaks.

 

“Sinking would be the least of your problems,” I muttered, climbing inside and seizing the oars. Both they and the long neck of the boat were carved to look like dragons.

 

Pushing off the bank, I paddled forward as quietly as I could, my hands shaking until I could barely grip the oars. My breath was harsh in my ears. A fresh sweat broke out along my back and chest.

 

The silence of the lake was worse than the Children’s purring had been. It possessed all the terrible potential of the unknown.

 

The boat bumped up against the island and let out a miserable creak as I stepped ashore.

 

“This is the part you know how to do,” I whispered to myself. “This is the easy part.”

 

I reached into my workbag, feeling for crystals at the bottom of it. Depending on the wards, I might need magical assistance to get inside.

 

As I made my way around the barrow to the north side, the grass faded to yellow and then a desiccated brown. Still, there was a simple, primal beauty to the mound—so unlike the cold stone of the tombs beneath the tower. I wondered then, running my fingers along the side of the structure, if Viviane would have preferred to be interred with Morgan. At least then they wouldn’t be separated in death as they had been in life.

 

The flowers that had once bloomed around the stone doorway lay scattered like shriveled tissue. I pushed the brittle leaves on the wall aside, revealing a muddy handprint.

 

The hair on my body rose like needles against my skin. I crouched and closed my eyes for a moment, saying a prayer to the gods of luck. Switching my flashlight on, I aimed it into the barrow.

 

There was no pale stone.

 

The earth was split and overturned from front to back, bones and decomposing corpses exposed to the damp air.

 

Behind me, the water gurgled. The slime on its surface bubbled up, carrying with it long, stringy dark weeds.

 

But then there were eyes, white and lidless, over the water.

 

A face.

 

A body.

 

I fell back against the entrance of the barrow as she rose to float over the lake, a rough creature of silver bone and mud and rotting flesh. Not at all like the Children.

 

A revenant. It had to be. An unsettled spirit that fought to reclaim a body through whatever means available.

 

She lifted her hand toward me, so much like the White Lady in the snow all those years before that I choked at the sight. Mist gathered at her feet. Clumps of black moss dripped from her arm, but a metallic glint at the end of it caught my eye. There was a ring on the finger pointed at me, its large stone flat and a grayed brown.

 

The Ring of Dispel.

 

A strange, cold spell stole over my body and mind. Everything faded to darkness beyond it. My own hand rose, straining for it.

 

Metal sliced the air between us, blazing through the skin of my arm. I let out a strangled scream, dropping my flashlight to clutch the vicious wound. The revenant screeched in victory, lifting her arms toward the sky, as if in prayer.

 

One hand had the ring, but the other wasn’t a hand at all. It was an untarnished knife melded with her wrist—the athame.

 

Terror and adrenaline surged as the creature drifted toward me, her feet floating above the ground. Mud dripped from her expressionless face, revealing patches of silver bone. Hot blood poured out between my fingers to the ground as I staggered back. The thought came suddenly, as if someone else had whispered it.

 

I have a blade. I have a weapon.

 

I had to use both hands to lift my dagger, the edges of my vision going dark with the effort. But not so dark I couldn’t see what lay beneath the torn flesh of my own forearm.

 

Bone, gleaming silver in the low light.

 

I screamed and the creature lunged, knocking the dagger away and dragging me into the murky water.

 

 

 

 

 

The cold depths knifed at my body.

 

I gasped, inhaling icy water into my lungs until I choked. The creature’s hold tightened, strangling, as we sank. Floods of white bubbles and dark blood rose around us. At the surface, the gray light dimmed until it disappeared altogether behind the creature’s body.

 

This has happened before, a voice whispered in my mind. Wake up, Tamsin.

 

I hit the silt at the bottom of the lake, something sharp digging into my back. I pushed at the creature, turning my head. White bones in the mud. A halo of them around me.

 

This has happened before.

 

The mud melted away from her face, revealing a skull as silver as the bone of my arm. Her jaw unhinged like a snake’s. Jagged, broken teeth flashed in the gloom.

 

This has happened before.

 

The white rose. The monsters in the mist. The flaming sword.

 

The dream.

 

Gathering power whispered in the darkness. Wake up.

 

I felt along the ground until my fingers brushed freezing steel. Through the cloud of inky blood, through the black haze overtaking my vision, I gripped the hilt and swung.

 

The blade of the sword flared to life, its blue flames heating the water into a fury. The creature screamed as I sliced across her front. Mud and rancid skin broke away from her body, but she had no blood to bleed.

 

Starved for air, I kicked off the bottom of the lake, swimming with desperate strokes for the surface. The athame slashed through my boot to my ankle.

 

The blade—I needed that blade. For Cabell. For everyone.

 

I pushed through the pain, the heaviness of my body, and brought the sword down again. At the last moment, the creature reared back, and the burning sword passed through only water.