Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(109)
Author: Alexandra Bracken
Nothing. The word clanged in my mind. I only stared at her as she shook her head. My life wasn’t worth trading theirs. Neither Emrys nor the others should have followed. I tried to tell them, but something was happening in my chest, in my throat, and the urge to cry suddenly became too much.
Emrys bent to retrieve the sword, then put a gentle hand on my shoulder, guiding me inside so the door could be shut and latched firmly behind us.
The inside of the cottage was surprisingly homey, with a bed in the far corner, a dining table set up in front of the hearth, and a pair of stuffed chairs near a bookshelf jammed with what appeared to be record books of some kind.
“What is this place?” Emrys asked, all but collapsing into one of the chairs.
“This home belongs to the keeper of the orchards,” Caitriona said, sheathing her sword. Softly, she corrected herself. “Belonged.”
“Talk about burying the lede,” I muttered. “Is that really a dragon?”
“It was Caron, the last of her kind,” Olwen explained. “She was a dear friend to a keeper of the orchards years and years ago.”
Neve sat me in the other chair, putting her hands on my shoulders to push me not so gently down into it. I made a face at her assessing look and she returned it, twice over.
You shouldn’t be here, I thought desperately. None of you should have left the tower. The whole point of my mission had been to keep everyone safe, and now they were in far more danger because of me. This was the last thing I’d wanted.
Neve’s expression turned serious, as if she could see the flow of thoughts passing through my mind. “You really thought we wouldn’t?”
I looked down. “You shouldn’t have put yourselves at risk.”
“Too bad,” Neve told me. “You don’t get to decide that. I’m sorry to inform you that, despite your best efforts, people care about you, myself included.”
Turning back to where Olwen was using magic to heat a small pot of water, Neve said, “I’ll finish that, Olwen. I think you’d better have a look at these two.”
“Start with Tamsin,” Emrys said, “and don’t judge me too harshly, Olwen. I did my best.”
I shrugged out of my jacket, turning my arm up for the healer to assess. She washed her hands and came toward me, her eyes narrowing as she knelt and took in the sight of the stitches and the ointment. She sniffed at it.
“Echinacea and yarrow?” she asked approvingly.
“And a touch of oregano oil,” Emrys confirmed.
“Your stitching needs work,” Olwen informed him after inspecting both my arm and ankle. She gave me a soft pat on the hand. “I’ll clean it properly and apply something that should help it heal. How did you come by such a deep wound? Was it one of the Children?”
“Not . . . quite,” I said faintly.
Behind her, Caitriona stopped pacing, allowing Neve to pass by with a steaming cup of something that smelled divine. Dried apples and herbs bobbed at its surface.
“Bedivere told us about the athame, but the storm set in as we reached the lake and we lost your tracks,” Caitriona said. “Did you find it?”
Her bandaged face made it difficult to read her expression, but the thread of hope in her voice was enough to make my lungs squeeze. I hadn’t thought of this part—of having to tell them what had become of their beloved High Priestess, and how she had cursed them all.
As I took my first sip of the tonic, I got to experience what Neve had that very first night. A warm, golden glow seemed to pass through me, easing the soreness of my body and the ache in my stomach instantaneously. That restorative effect had to be Avalon’s famed apples, healing and nurturing all at once. It gave me that last bit of courage I needed.
“I found it,” I told them. Olwen looked up from where she was bandaging my ankle, drawing in a breath of surprise. Her relief was just as terrible as Caitriona’s hope. “But you are really not going to like where it is.”
When I finished, Olwen was in tears and Caitriona had slumped into one of the chairs at the table, bracing her head in her hands. I could practically feel her mind working, running through the story I’d presented—weighing if she could trust it.
“How could this be true?” Olwen asked, dashing the wetness from her cheeks with her hand. “A revenant, from so few bones—who could have cast such a curse on her?”
“Only herself,” came Caitriona’s dark reply. She sat back against the chair, misery etched on her features.
“No,” Olwen said. “It cannot be.”
“Who else, then?” Caitriona asked, bereft. “Our High Priestess was the only one in all of Avalon we know for certain called upon death magic. I’ve denied the possibility for years, but knowing this . . .”
“Could it have been a mistake?” Neve asked softly. “She could have misunderstood one of the druidic spells.”
“Or she was no longer a servant of the Goddess,” Caitriona said, her long body curling up into the chair. “And accepted the greater magic of death.”
“No,” Olwen said. “No. There are many things I’d believe, but that is not one of them.”
“Olwen,” Caitriona said. “You know how she spoke of her longing to return Morgan to life, to have but one more day with her. Perhaps she sought the magic to resurrect her, and it led to our ruin.”
The other priestess shook her head. “No. She would not upset the balance in such a way.”
“Did the High Priestess tell you how revenants form?” I asked.
Olwen pushed her thick, dark curls over her shoulder. “Very little, though I have gleaned pieces from memories.”
“All that’s needed for a revenant to form is the presence of strong magic lingering in the body, and a desire to go on,” I said. “Sometimes revenants aren’t even malicious. They’re just determined to see some task through and won’t let anyone stop them.”
Emrys nodded. “If this wasn’t intentional, her desire to go on could have been nothing more than a wish to protect Avalon.”
“Or,” I said, “she really was a servant of Lord Death, and she knew that becoming a revenant would make her nearly unstoppable.”
Olwen pressed her hands to her face, struggling to contain herself at the thought. Behind her, Neve let her head fall back in exasperation.