Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(111)
Author: Alexandra Bracken

 

I tensed. “As shiny as a polished coin. Just rotten to the core, I guess.”

 

Emrys gripped my shoulder, but Neve cut in before he could speak.

 

“It doesn’t mean what you clearly think it does,” she said sternly as she came toward us. “So stop feeling sorry for yourself about it.”

 

My lips parted in indignation.

 

“Yes, you are, and it’s understandable, but it doesn’t make all of your worst thoughts true,” Neve continued. “And here I was thinking that finding a mystical fire sword would have cheered you up.”

 

I sighed. “Well . . . there’s something else I have to tell you about that, too.”

 

Olwen nodded as I explained about the dreams, absorbing the information with the same imperviousness I’d come to expect from her. Caitriona hung back, an odd expression on her face I couldn’t quite read.

 

“Why didn’t you say something about this before?” Emrys asked, troubled.

 

“I don’t know, I just . . . didn’t know what it meant or if it meant anything at all.” I looked at Olwen. “You don’t think it’s related to the silver, do you?”

 

“I think it has a far simpler explanation,” Olwen said, exchanging another knowing look with Caitriona. “The Goddess uses the mist to speak to us in different ways. Song, dreams, even visions. Perhaps she, in all her great wisdom, has need for you to listen, and is speaking to you the only way she knows you will hear her.”

 

“By sending me visions of unicorns?” I asked, pained. “She needs to work on her communication skills.”

 

“Perhaps that is merely how she chose to appear to you,” Olwen said.

 

“I have to admit, some part of me was afraid I was dreaming these things into existence,” I said hoarsely.

 

Olwen glanced over to the door, where Emrys had leaned the sword I pulled from the lake. “A fascinating thought. Objects may be born from the mist in rare cases, but I believe that sword has been in existence far longer than you’ve been in Avalon.”

 

“Do you recognize it?” Neve asked.

 

“It reminds me of a story Mari told us once, though I cannot quite recall it all now,” Olwen said.

 

“You must ask her when you return to the tower,” Caitriona said. “Such a treasure will delight her.”

 

“I do have a suspicion about the silver, if you’d like to hear it,” Olwen offered, reaching into her bag for a rolled bandage.

 

Emrys’s hand was still on my shoulder, warm and reassuring. I had to tuck my hand under my leg to keep from reaching for it. “All ears.”

 

“Well,” she said, eyes shining with an excitement I might have appreciated more under different circumstances. “I believe bone turns silver when you come across a great deal of death magic. You’re certain you never happened upon a curse or spell—perhaps in an object you touched?”

 

The ghost of the woman in the snowy field flashed through my mind. The icy fire of her touch as she’d tried to drag me into death with her. The mark over my heart burned with the memory.

 

Neve touched my shoulder, guessing my thoughts. By the look on Emrys’s face, he’d figured it out, too.

 

I breathed in deeply, nodding. “That’s probably it.”

 

Olwen tied off the bandage. “Does that feel all right?”

 

I nodded. “Thanks. But here comes the hard part—are you both really willing to do what it takes to destroy the revenant, knowing she has some small piece of your High Priestess in her?”

 

“There is no other choice but to uproot her dark magic,” Caitriona said simply. “We must get the athame to perform the purification ritual.”

 

Olwen nodded. “If the ritual can restore the land and return the Children to their original selves, some good may yet come of this pain.”

 

“Well, it should be easy enough to destroy the magic the revenant is feeding on, right?” I said.

 

Caitriona and Olwen exchanged a long, horrified look.

 

“Right?” I repeated.

 

“Is it possible to merely . . . trap and relocate the revenant before killing her?” Caitriona asked, a pleading note in her tone.

 

“Is that your way of telling us you can’t remove the high magic attached to her new source?” I asked.

 

“Both Cait and I have the ability to do so,” Olwen said. “Only a priestess of Avalon may cross the wards protecting it.”

 

“Again, what’s the problem?” Emrys asked.

 

“The location in question,” Olwen said faintly, “is the living tomb of King Arthur.”

 

 

 

 

 

The words seemed to inhale all the air in the cottage.

 

Caitriona began to pace again, hugging her injured right arm to her chest to stabilize her shoulder. Her face was tight with thought as she tried desperately to untie the knot Olwen had just presented us with.

 

“It is an obligation of the Nine to protect the sleeping king,” Caitriona said, more to herself than to us. “Inherited from our sisters of ages past. If we remove the protective magic around the tomb, Arthur will die once and for all.”

 

Emrys swore beneath his breath.

 

I was the only one willing to ask the obvious question. “Does it matter?”

 

“What do you mean?” Olwen asked.

 

“Does it matter if he finally dies?” I asked. “The whole reason he was kept alive was to come to the aid of the mortal world in their time of greatest need, and the guy couldn’t even be bothered to wake up and help Avalon. Maybe we don’t want his help.”

 

Caitriona’s back was to us, her body rigid with the war no doubt raging inside. “You do not understand. You cannot.”

 

Olwen looked at us, her eyes pleading. “It’s one of the few duties we’ve been able to fulfill since the isle fell to darkness. We took a vow.”

 

Caitriona was only partly right. I might not have understood the point in keeping Arthur alive in the face of all we were up against, but I did recognize he meant something to them, just as he had meant something else to Nash, and to all those who longed for the legends to be true. The role the Nine played in protecting him was one of the few pure things that hadn’t been corrupted by the decay spreading through this wasteland.