Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(114)
Author: Alexandra Bracken

 

Instead of pulling away, Caitriona curled into me, sobbing against my shoulder. My throat was painfully raw, but I didn’t know what I would say if I could speak.

 

Neve and Olwen ran toward us and wrapped their arms around our small huddle, alive and whole and trembling. I clung to them, letting the insistent wind cool the sweat on my skin and the blood in my veins. But there was a warmth in me like the sun, rising and rising until I thought I might burst with it.

 

I pulled away from them, looking over my shoulder to seek out Emrys’s gaze.

 

But there was only ash and mist swirling in the air.

 

I unwound my arms from the others, fear slamming through my chest like a spike. “Emrys? Emrys!”

 

There was no answer.

 

I ran toward the hill, searching the remains of the Children that hadn’t burned to dust.

 

“Emrys!” If something had happened while I wasn’t looking—

 

I heard the others calling for him, their voices echoing through the silence, growing in pitch and fear.

 

Neve came to my side, shaking her head. “I don’t understand . . . The spell wouldn’t have harmed him. Could one of the Children have carried him away?”

 

The thought came like a blow to the stomach. I bent at the waist, trying not to vomit.

 

“Wait,” Neve said, grasping my arm and pulling me up again. “Look.”

 

Behind her, Olwen’s face drained of color. My heart rose into my throat as she and Caitriona came toward us.

 

A trail of footsteps led back up and over the hill, heading away from the tomb and us—heading, I knew, to the portal back to our world.

 

I knew.

 

The Ring of Dispel was gone, and so was Emrys Dye.

 

And that sun I had felt in me, the one that had burned so bright, sank back below the dark horizon.

 

 

 

 

 

The light was failing by the time we started our return to the tower. Caitriona had initially suggested waiting out the darkness in one of the watchtowers—but that was before we came across the first of the Children among the trees.

 

They lay scattered where they had fallen from the branches. Their bodies were whole, but unmoving, as if the spark of life had simply been plucked from them.

 

Maybe it had.

 

My companions stopped, dropping behind the broken body of a hollow log, but I continued forward.

 

“Tamsin, wait—” Neve tried to grab hold of me, but I pulled free.

 

I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t curious.

 

I couldn’t feel anything at all.

 

I moved like I was at the bottom of the lake, each step forward taking more strength than the last. Each bit of ground a fight to keep underfoot.

 

Caitriona had fashioned a sheath for the sword so I could carry it on my back, rather than wield the heavy weapon like a torch. Between Neve and the priestesses, with their command over the mists, they were able to create enough light to guide the way.

 

I walked toward the nearest monster and stared down at it. Robbed of life and the terrifying instinct that had compelled it, the creature was almost pitiful. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth and its limbs drooped as I used my foot to roll it onto its back.

 

Its empty sockets stared up at me. Scavenger beetles had already made quick work of the eyes.

 

Olwen dropped onto her haunches beside the creature, her forehead creasing as she touched the shriveled gray skin of its chest.

 

She looked back at Caitriona and shook her head.

 

“The High Priestess—the revenant—gave them life, then,” Caitriona said, looking exhausted. The bandages on her face were soaked with sweat and grime. “And the curse, or whatever power sustained them, ended with her.”

 

Neve drew in a sharp breath as she touched one of the creatures with a single finger.

 

“What troubles you?” Olwen asked.

 

“Curses can outlive their caster,” Neve explained. “But I don’t think that’s the case here. It’s like we cut the head off from the rest of the body.”

 

“Is there still a chance the ritual could restore them?” Caitriona rasped out.

 

“I believe the best we can hope for . . .” Olwen swallowed. “The best that we might hope for is that the ritual will release whatever piece of their souls might still be trapped inside these bodies.”

 

My top lip curled back at the devastation in their faces. If they’d been stupid enough to believe the ritual would restore everything to the way it was, they deserved the pain it had won them.

 

“There’s never been any hope for them,” I said acidly as I continued forward through the wasted forest, stepping over the bodies in the trampled snow. The air was sharp and icy in my chest. “You just couldn’t accept it.”

 

With my eyes fixed on the corpses, I nearly crashed into Neve as she stepped in front of me. Her face was pinched with worry. When I moved to go around her, she moved with me, mirroring the action.

 

“Move,” I told her coldly.

 

She didn’t.

 

“Move,” I said again, a pressure rising in my ears.

 

Neve stepped forward, and before I could pull away, she gripped my shoulders. I tried to shift, but she was surprisingly strong, locking me in place. Forcing me to be still. To feel it—all of it.

 

I had never felt as exposed as I did then, stripped of a lifetime’s worth of lies and careful performance. The humiliating truth was bared for all to see. Hidden beneath all those cynical, cold layers wasn’t a core of strength. It was fear. It was the little girl even I’d tried to leave behind.

 

I slumped against Neve, my face buried in her shoulder.

 

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, wrapping her arms around me. “Please don’t turn away from us.”

 

Every part of me felt like it might snap. For a moment, I smelled pine and realized I’d never taken his sweater off. I pulled away, ripping it off me and letting it fall over the creature. The cold was better than having it touch my skin.

 

“I’m so stupid,” I said in a ragged voice. “I let it happen again.”

 

Alone.

 

Discarded for something more important. And it was more important—saving his mother, getting away from his father, all of it had outstripped whatever trust had grown between us.