Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(57)
Author: Alexandra Bracken
Bedivere bent, his armor creaking as he retrieved the silver wrapper from the ground. Baby Ruth.
Nash’s favorite.
“He had already succumbed to death when we lit the beacon of this watchtower last year,” Caitriona said. “Had he arrived after, he would have been able to use the shelter as it was intended—a safe place to hide from the Children of the Night.”
Her voice drifted away as I focused on Cabell’s hand reaching toward the remains.
The bones were browned beneath the remaining shreds of clothing, likely picked clean by insects or the Children. Ribbons of a once-white shirt clung to the exposed rib cage, swaying with the shifting air. The pants seemed modern, but it was difficult to tell after so long.
Cabell started there, feeling along what remained of the pockets. Turning the boots over. Even his practiced, delicate touch made the leather break and crumble.
“It might not even be him,” Emrys repeated.
Though he wasn’t on the sleeping bag, it was a peaceful pose, as if he’d merely taken off his boots and lain down to sleep and death had pulled the spirit from his body. Both hands were visible. No rings. No jewelry of any kind.
“What are you doing?” Caitriona asked, moving to stop Cabell as he knelt beside the head. “We searched through his clothing and found nothing—”
He shrugged off her hand, gently lifting the back of the skull from the ground. There, protected between the bone and the cold earth, was the well-preserved collar of the shirt. He turned the delicate fabric out toward me.
Inside, stitched by the hand of a little girl, were five letters in yellow thread.
N. LARK.
“I knew it,” he breathed out. “I knew that if he was alive and had the ring, he would have used it to help Avalon . . .”
“The ring?” Caitriona asked, her voice sharp.
Cabell released the fabric and the skull, falling back from where he’d been crouched. He draped his arms over his knees and bent his head. His shoulders shook as he cried, the tears dripping silently to the black tattoos on his forearms, to the ground.
At the sight of him, as raw as a newly opened scar, that thin tether, the one that had barely kept my mind from shattering, finally snapped.
Rage and pain bellowed up in me, unbearable with their white-hot blades. My view of the remains blurred. A driving pressure threatened to crack open my skull and reveal the roiling memories and feelings I’d fought so hard to lock away.
I hated him. I hated him.
I was reaching for the mace before I knew what I was doing, lifting its impossible weight over my head as I staggered toward the skeleton. Caitriona lunged to stop me, but it was a different pair of arms that locked around my waist, pulling me back from the body.
“You can’t.” Emrys’s voice was calm, even as I tried to pull myself free, even as the scream tore out of my throat. “I know, Tamsin, but you can’t—”
Can’t. The word shuddered in my mind. Can’t.
The mace dropped from my numb fingers as I sagged back against his chest. Emrys held on, keeping me upright as the rage burned through and left my body hollow.
I wanted to destroy whatever was left of Nash—destroy him like he’d tried to destroy us.
Once you’ve heard the crack of a bone resetting itself and taking new shape, it embeds itself in your mind like a barbed root. I heard it then, accompanied by a sharp inhale. Cabell doubled over beside the skeleton, his back arching up at an unnatural angle.
The pain—the tide of grief that had violently swept over him—it was too much.
“Are you well, lad?” Bedivere asked from his side.
“No,” I gasped out. “Cabell, it’s all right—take a breath—”
Bones shifted beneath the thick layer of Cabell’s leather jacket, slithering like serpents under a cover of leaves. They bulged up as they broke and reknit themselves into different, monstrous shapes. His vertebrae arced up one by one as his body curled into itself like an old scroll.
“What in the hell . . . ?” Emrys breathed out.
Caitriona reached behind her, gripping the hilt of her sword and taking an instinctive step in front of Emrys and me. She focused her gaze on Cabell’s writhing form. Ready to kill.
“Cab, listen to me!” I pulled myself forward, but Emrys hauled me back. “Listen to the words I’m saying, focus on them . . . In ages past, in a kingdom lost to time—”
The familiar phrase died on my lips as Cabell went rigid. His hands tore at the loose strands of his black hair until I was sure he would pull it away in bloodied clumps. Bedivere either hadn’t heard me or hadn’t cared to. His grip on Cabell’s shoulder tightened as he knelt beside him. He held up a hand, stopping Caitriona’s path forward.
“Lad,” he said softly. “Cabell, isn’t it? Look at me. Look me in the eye.”
I twisted and tried to drop, but Emrys’s arms were a steel band across my center. His heart was pounding in time with mine. His breath hitched as Cabell lifted his head.
Though his back was to us, the elongating shape of his skull and the emergence of canine ears were obvious. I looked away, squeezing my eyes shut against the image.
Not now, I thought desperately. They’ll think he’s one of the Children—they’ll kill him—
“That’s it,” Bedivere said, his gruff voice low and soothing. “Look at me and only me. Are you the master or the servant?”
Cabell reached for him with clawed hands—not to attack, but to grip the man’s arm as if it were the only thing keeping him from being carried away by the dark river roaring through him.
“Are you the master or the servant?” Bedivere asked again.
“M-master,” Cabell managed to say. His body began to shift again, cracking and twisting horrifically as it resumed its human shape.
“How . . . ?” I breathed out.
Emrys’s grip loosened as he leaned close to my ear. “Coaxer?”
“Tell me your name,” Bedivere said.
There was a clear command in his tone, one that reverberated around us like a soft echo. As he spoke, I saw a faint shimmer in the air where his hand rested on my brother’s hunched shoulder.
Emrys was right. Bedivere had magic that apparently worked similarly to a Cunningfolk Coaxer. Able to soothe and commune with beasts.