Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(89)
Author: Alexandra Bracken

The tenderness of the moment turned my lungs to stone. It seemed impossible that Caitriona could have been the one to bring this darkness to the isle, but I couldn’t shake the sickening misgiving that her plans had been derailed by Cabell’s transformation.

 

But she didn’t kill him, I thought, when she was completely capable of it.

 

That meant something, didn’t it?

 

Rhona and Seren had taken up positions on either side of the table. Rhona gripped one of Caitriona’s hands, stroking it.

 

“You’ll look a fair bit more ferocious now,” Seren was telling her. “The scars will only enhance your magnificent glower.”

 

“It will be simply tremendous,” Rhona agreed.

 

“Like the heroes of old,” Seren continued.

 

“And the greatest of Sir Bedivere’s companions,” Rhona finished.

 

“Will I . . . lose . . . the arm?” Caitriona rasped out.

 

“Olwen didn’t think so,” Rhona said, then paused.

 

“Tell me . . . all of . . . it . . . ,” Caitriona said.

 

The raven-haired priestess sighed. “She cannot be sure you’ll have the full use of it once it heals. Time will tell, as it does with all things.”

 

Caitriona wheezed, her breath wet, considering this. It was Flea who looked up at our approach.

 

“Get out of here!” Flea snarled at me. “Ye do not belong and never ’ave!”

 

The focus of the room fell on me, the pressure gathering like a thundercloud from all sides. Emrys edged in closer at my side and Neve came to stand with us, smoothing her hands down the bloodied apron she wore. Tear tracks had dried in the soot and dust on her cheeks.

 

“Flea, enough,” Seren chided.

 

“I . . .” Words abandoned me. I moved to stand beside Caitriona, but Rhona instinctively shifted, as if to block me.

 

Caitriona’s hair streamed out on the table under her, having broken free from its usual tight braid. The entire right side of her face was covered in some sort of tincture and bloodied bandages that wrapped down the length of her throat and over her mauled shoulder. They’d stripped off her ruined armor to bind the shallow claw marks across her torso. Her eyes tracked my movement.

 

“I’m sorry,” I told her, torment welling up in my chest until it was almost too tight to speak. “I’m so sorry.”

 

“Is your brother . . . all right . . . ?” Caitriona asked.

 

“Don’t do that,” I said. “Be terrible to me, please. It’s the only thing I can stand right now.”

 

“Not . . . ,” she managed. “Not . . . his . . . fault.”

 

Her gaze shifted to Flea. The girl let out a huff, her bottom lip trembling as she cleaned the blood and dirt from Caitriona’s silvery hair with a wet rag.

 

Neve drew close to kneel beside them. Some of the rigidity in Caitriona’s body eased as she looked to Neve. The pale, freckled hand resting on her stomach curled.

 

“Thank you for saving my life,” Neve told her. “You were so brave.”

 

What was visible of Caitriona’s pale skin flushed. All of us pretended not to see.

 

Caitriona squeezed Rhona’s hand to get her attention.

 

“Her . . . wand . . . ,” she said, the words failing as her mind drifted back toward unconsciousness. “Get it . . . for her . . .”

 

“Really?” Neve asked, looking between the two of them. “Are you sure? What’s changed?”

 

Caitriona’s eyes closed as she breathed out a single word. “Everything.”

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t know why I didn’t tell anyone what had happened in the tunnel.

 

There were plenty of opportunities throughout the rest of the night and into the gray morning.

 

When I helped Mari scrub the blood off the tables and floors of the great hall.

 

When I passed Emrys, Deri, and the others trying to replant the section of the courtyard that had been ravaged by claws during the fight.

 

When I sat beside a near-catatonic Cabell and tried to get him to eat.

 

During the funerary rites for the dead, watching their bodies turn to ash and their souls release with the rising sparks.

 

Part of me insisted it was nothing more than a hallucination brought on by exhaustion and stress; another feared it was something worse. But until I could explain it to myself, I couldn’t explain it to anyone.

 

That next morning, I found myself outside the bedchamber Emrys and Cabell shared, leaving the small carved bird balanced on the door’s latch. Hours later, after the pulse of the tower had slowed with sleep, I made my way down to the great hall. Emrys was already there, perched on one of the long tables. For a moment, I just watched his strong hands work as he whittled.

 

He caught me staring and bit back a smile. I hoped the darkness covered my flush.

 

“Got your message,” he said, putting his knife and the small piece of wood away. “What’s going on?”

 

After shadowing Mari and helping her with her tasks, I’d gone to the library to help Neve research the curses. I should have relished the fact that I was getting to read texts that no one in the mortal realm had even heard of, but instead, I’d come to resent their uselessness.

 

“We have to get out of here,” I begged him. “We have to find a way out of the tower and back to the portal.”

 

“I know,” he said, rubbing at his face. He looked haunted by his exhaustion.

 

“There’s barely ten days of food left,” I told him. “And the Children can attack again at any time!”

 

“I know,” he said. “Tamsin, I know.”

 

I sat beside him on the table, staring at the statue of the Goddess with a growing bitterness. It wasn’t just that the situation was out of control—so was I. My emotions were spiraling again, and it was becoming harder to get a grip on them.

 

Emrys ran a hand through his chestnut hair. It was wilder than I’d ever seen it, unkempt and curling at the edges.

 

I liked it.

 

Reaching up, I plucked a small green leaf from the coarse strands, holding it up into the light of his head lamp.

 

“Sage,” he said reflexively. “For colds and coughs, but also tasty in a stew.”