Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(59)
Author: Alexandra Bracken
Like Aled and Dilwyn, she was slight, with greenish skin like an unripe fruit, but her long, dark hair was shot through with a thick streak of white. Compared to the others, she seemed . . . not fragile, exactly. It wasn’t her size, either. It was more that, looking at her, I had the strangest sense that she was there with us in her body, but not her mind.
The elfin turned to Caitriona. “You took them to see the Stranger? Was it the man they’re searching for?”
“Yes, Mari, it was,” Caitriona said.
“Tricked us into thinking he was still alive, only to introduce us to a corpse, is probably a more accurate description,” Emrys said coldly.
Neve looked at Caitriona, outraged. “How could you do something like that?”
“This is not about my deception,” Caitriona said, “but your own.”
“Cait,” Olwen chided.
The other girl sighed, bowing her head. “I apologize for deceiving you, but I cannot, and will not, apologize for doing whatever I must to protect this isle.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I’m not going to apologize for doing whatever I must to help my brother.”
She gazed down at me, imperious and unyielding. But I saw a flicker of something in her expression—a murmur of understanding in a vow of no surrender.
“Why didn’t you warn them he was dead?” Olwen asked, aghast. “I’ve never known you to be dishonest.”
“I wasn’t dishonest!” Caitriona said, the words bursting out of her. She crossed her arms over her chest, turning her face away. “I was being careful. I did not believe their story to be truthful. I needed to see their unguarded response to the Stranger.”
“Well, congratulations, you proved yourself wrong,” Emrys said. “By the way, withholding information is still dishonesty.”
Caitriona’s freckled face flushed. She opened her mouth, only to close it. When she finally spoke, she’d regained her composure. “Regardless, you left out several essential pieces of your story.”
“Explain, please,” Olwen said, eyeing them both.
It was strange to hear the story recounted by Caitriona, with all the remoteness of someone who hadn’t been forced to close an old, unfinished book.
“Your brother is cursed to shift into a hound?” Olwen asked, her brows raised. “Truly?”
“Yes.” My stomach churned, hating that I had to share this with near strangers. It didn’t feel right to talk about it when Cabell wasn’t here. “He used to be able to push back against the shift, but it’s happening more often. Any intense emotion triggers it.”
Emrys made a small noise at the back of his throat. “How long has he been like this?”
“Actually, I think the better question is how Cabell was cursed,” Olwen countered, resting a cheek against her palm in thought. “Was he born with it, or was it cast upon him?”
“We don’t know,” I said, then hesitated. “Our guardian found him as a boy. He was wandering alone on the moorland of our mortal world, with no memory of anything but his own name. We have tried . . . everything . . . everything to break its hold on him. Tonics, the Cunningfolk healers, even sorceresses. Without knowing who cast the curse or why, there’s no way to know how to break it.”
Neve stared down at her hands, lost in thought. No one seemed sure what to say, but better silence than hopeful platitudes that would never amount to anything but wasted breath.
“I wish you comfort in the loss of your guardian,” Mari told me. “May his memory remain even as the Goddess grants his soul new life.”
“Please ask your Goddess not to bother,” I said bitterly. “There are better uses for her time.”
Both Caitriona’s and Olwen’s eyebrows rose sharply. Mari merely tilted her head, studying me in a way that was unnerving.
“If I may,” Olwen said. “My confusion lies in the fact that, in spite of this, you have journeyed into Avalon to search for him . . . ?”
“They weren’t looking for him,” Caitriona said, crossing her arms over her chest. “They were after some sort of ring they believed he had. A ring that breaks curses.”
“Oh,” Mari said, eyes sharpening with sudden, startling focus. “The Ring of Dispel?”
Olwen ran a hand over her ink-blue hair. “Goddess bless you for reading every book in this tower, Mari. Is that the one made by High Priestess Viviane?”
“Yes, for Sir Lancelot, who was raised here by her before joining Arthur at his court,” Mari said. “After I read of it in her writings, I spoke to Sir Bedivere. He witnessed its power on more than one occasion.”
I slumped into the seat beside Neve, unsure of how to feel now that my theory of Bedivere was confirmed.
“So you search on behalf of Cabell for this ring,” Caitriona said. “Which may once have been in your father’s possession.”
“Why not tell us that from the start?” Olwen asked. “No one would fault you for wanting to help your brother. We would have been glad to offer any assistance we could.”
“Because of the nature of the ring,” Mari said in that dreamy, faraway voice of hers. “And what it requires to wield it.”
God’s teeth, I thought.
“That’s not—” I began, panic making the words stick in my throat. I grasped at the thinnest of straws to change the subject. “I just didn’t know if I could trust any of you to help us. Was I supposed to tell you this after you threw us in the dungeon—which, by the way, if this is supposed to be such a peaceful and beautiful place, why do you have a dungeon?”
“That’s actually where we used to lock up the wine and mead,” Olwen supplied helpfully. “Some of the small fae developed a taste for it, and around Beltane—”
She stopped when Caitriona placed a hand on her arm.
“What’s required to use the ring?” Neve asked.
“It’s not—it—” I turned to her, my jaw working, but it was too late.
“The ring was created for Sir Lancelot by a priestess who was unusually skilled at silver craft—blessing jewelry and other objects with the Goddess’s power,” Mari said. “Giving them purpose. But rather than destroy the curses and enchantments cast upon its wearer, the ring began to drink them in. It learned the taste of blood, and liked it.”