Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(85)
Author: Alexandra Bracken

“You recognize those sigils on the ground, don’t you?” I asked.

 

“Neve, if you know something . . . ,” Cabell began.

 

Finally, Neve turned back toward us. “I saw it in a book I wasn’t supposed to be looking at in Olwen’s infirmary—it didn’t have any sort of title on it, and she’d hidden it behind some of her jars, and I really didn’t mean to betray her trust but—”

 

“You are talking to three Hollowers,” Emrys said. “This is a judgment-free space when it comes to snooping.”

 

Neve looked like she might be sick. “It’s a druid mark. Like sorceresses, they used a written language to control the magic Lord Death gave them. It’s meant to sever a soul from a body.”

 

My whole body recoiled.

 

“You’re sure?” I asked. “Absolutely positive?”

 

“Beyond a shadow of a doubt,” she rasped out.

 

My head pounded, blood storming through my veins.

 

“Then we’re right,” Emrys said. “Someone in Avalon is still using death magic. Whatever was done to the isle was done intentionally. The only question is why. Because they’re sympathetic to the druids, or because they serve Lord Death?”

 

My heart sped until my body felt strangely hollow. An overwhelming nausea swept through me, and I had to lean against Cabell to keep from bending over.

 

“You okay?” he asked, gripping my arm.

 

I waved him off, but he didn’t let go.

 

“And you think Caitriona is behind it?” Neve said, shaking her head. “You’re piecing all these so-called clues together, but what’s her motive? Why would she destroy Avalon?”

 

“Maybe Lord Death promised her something in return,” Emrys said, “to finish what the druids started.”

 

“Caitriona isn’t behind this,” Neve said. “There’s no way.”

 

“I can see that you hate this theory,” Emrys said, “and believe me, I do too, but I don’t think we can discount the idea that Caitriona is controlling the Children, or at least working with whoever is.”

 

“How do we even know they’re being controlled?” Cabell asked, scratching at the stubble on his jaw.

 

“They’re still out there, doing nothing,” Emrys said. “Not hunting, not digging, not scouting, just waiting. Waiting for an order.”

 

“There’s just no way,” Neve said, but her words became muddled in my ears, then thinned as Emrys replied, and I felt my consciousness slipping . . .

 

My body felt as if it were in an icy coffin, without even a scant bit of space to move in. The cavern around us revealed itself, blanketed in mist, but a horn pierced it. The glossy black eyes of the unicorn stared back at me from the other side of the moat’s sludge. For a moment, we only watched each other, and I didn’t dare breathe for fear of breaking the spell.

 

But still, it shattered.

 

The unicorn reared up, and the vision shifted behind my eyelids, each detail more horrific than the last. The unicorn faded back into the mist, and in its place came hairless gray scalps, then long, spidery limbs. Claws embedding themselves in the wet stone.

 

Tamsin? I thought I heard my name from somewhere nearby.

 

Children rising from beneath the thick mire of the moat, dragging themselves onto the platform, galloping on their strange, spidery limbs down the tunnel, toward the hidden entrance—

 

I gasped, my eyes snapping open.

 

“Tamsin?” Cabell had me by both shoulders, his grip like iron as he shook me.

 

“What’s wrong?” Emrys asked.

 

The bile was too thick in my throat to speak. I shook my head, dropping into a crouch.

 

“Come on,” Neve said as she and Emrys helped me stand again, supporting me from either side. “Let’s head back up and get some fresh air. I can get Olwen—”

 

I shook my head fiercely, but when my eyes slid shut, I saw that same scene play out again. The Children’s rancid breath fanning over my face . . .

 

I forced my eyes open to find Emrys’s face hovering nearby.

 

“You look like you’re about to be sick,” he said. “Neve’s right, we should go.”

 

“When are you going to realize that I’m always . . .” Neve trailed off, looping one of my arms over her neck. She looked around us, searching the shadows. “Do you hear that?”

 

Behind us, where the sludgy moat lapped against stone, the dank water began to gurgle. Roil.

 

Mist rose, sweeping past us with stunning force. And within the depths of it, four shadows emerged, scaling the edge of the platform.

 

 

 

 

 

The moment turned gauzy around me. As surreal as my waking nightmare just moments before.

 

No. This was—it was—

 

“Run,” Emrys breathed out. “Run.”

 

We made it all of five feet before the first of the Children screeched, scrabbling after us. Ten before Cabell realized I couldn’t keep up and stopped to throw me over his shoulder.

 

My body ached as it was jostled, but my attention was fixed behind us. The Children broke ranks as we passed through the antechamber back into the tunnel. They clawed their way up and over the walls, crawling along them. Rather than being repelled, their jaws snapped around Neve’s lights, devouring them one after another. That threw the tunnel behind us into complete darkness and made them appear to ride the wave of an unnatural shadow.

 

The tunnel dead-ended where the platform was meant to lower down from the armory. Cabell slid to a stop, and to my left, I saw Emrys dive for an iron lever on the wall. The platform rumbled as it started to lower.

 

“Now, Neve!” Cabell shouted.

 

Her scream pierced the pathway a breath before the spell’s lights did; they roared across the stone, tearing through the Children until there was nothing left but ash.

 

As soon as the floor was low enough, Cabell dropped me on it and turned back toward the others. The sorceress swayed, her face graying with exhaustion from the spell. Emrys caught her arm, and he and Cabell lifted her and themselves onto the slowly rising platform.

 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Cabell told Neve.

 

“How . . . ,” she gasped out between heavy breaths, “did . . . they get in?”