Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(98)
Author: Alexandra Bracken

 

Tonight, by the time I’d made it back to our chamber, Neve was deep asleep, sprawled out on the mattress. Eventually, I gave up on trying to follow her lead and climbed out of bed. I paced as if I could shake the thoughts loose that way.

 

When that didn’t work, I settled into the chair in front of the hearth and found my way back to my own ritual, nudging the salamander stones together to create a small fire. Crossing my legs, I propped my elbow against my knee and my chin against my palm. The flames rose from the cold stones, golden bright.

 

I let thoughts stream through my mind without trying to grasp any of them. Old memories of vaults and primordial forests. Cabell and me in the library. My knife slicing Septimus moments before he was torn apart. The Children rising from the mists. The gleaming bottles in Olwen’s infirmary. The hound racing toward Caitriona. The white rose. Nash’s yellowed bones . . .

 

It was the last image that lingered long after the others had settled. That picture of quiet, anonymous death after such a loud and infamous life.

 

For the first time since he’d vanished, the thought of Nash didn’t bring anger. It only brought an aching at my core. Regret.

 

Let the dead die, Tamsy, he told me once. It’s only memory that truly pains us, and they release it when they go.

 

Nash’s memories had come in song, in fireside stories, over the clink of pints, but they were silent now, and always would be. Unlike the sorceresses and the priestesses, who strove to crystallize their memories, who refused to let their lives be forgotten, he would have welcomed the unburdening. He’d always been selfish like that.

 

Let the dead die.

 

And any memory of my parents along with him.

 

My eyelids grew heavy. I didn’t fight the insistent pull of exhaustion.

 

The air turned to dark water around me as my mind sank deeper and deeper into unconsciousness. Flurries of bubbles streamed toward the retreating light at the surface until, finally, I reached a soft bed of earth. Silvery shells rose as the dirt dissolved beneath me, pearly and sinister.

 

Not shells. Bones.

 

I tried to scream, but water filled my mouth and lungs. I pushed away, but they were everywhere, shivering and clattering as they started to assemble themselves. Their pieces fitting together into monstrous forms that crawled forward, grasping at my legs.

 

My fingers brushed ice beneath the silt and I gripped it, tearing it free.

 

A sword. In my hand, the blade blazed with blue fire, the fire that burned in the hearts of stars. It roiled the water until it became a barrier of light against the shadowed world.

 

I surfaced from the dream, my lungs burning with a harsh gasp.

 

Clutching at my head, I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to stop the dizzying spin of the room before I vomited.

 

A soft knock sounded at the door. I looked up, bracing myself—uncertain if the dream still had me in its grip.

 

Neve sighed softly in sleep behind me. I looked around, taking in the familiar sight of the room with growing composure. Real. This was real.

 

There was another knock, as faint as the first.

 

I forced myself onto unsteady legs and went to unlatch the door.

 

Bedivere stood in the darkness, clutching a lantern. He had dressed fully in armor—far more than he wore while on watch—and had a sword at his side.

 

“What’s wrong?” I whispered, stepping into the hall and shutting the door behind me. “Is it Cabell?”

 

He inclined his head toward the stairs and I followed, surprised at how quietly he moved, despite the metal that covered his body.

 

“I am sorry to have woken you,” he said, his voice low. “I would not come to you except in grave need. I must ask you to do something for me.”

 

“I don’t like the sound of ‘grave need,’” I whispered.

 

He let out a soft breath that might have been a laugh in any other circumstance. “I long to believe the ritual could save the isle.”

 

“What do you mean?” I asked, my pulse jumping. “How do you know it can’t?”

 

“High Priestess Viviane,” he said. “She came to visit me when I lived away from the tower, keeping watch over my king. In that time, she told me of the need for rituals to be performed as written. They are commands from the Goddess, and must be followed, or else they are doomed to fail.”

 

My hands felt numb with the cold. With dread.

 

“So . . . what? You’re saying it’s pointless to try?”

 

“No,” he said. “They must try, only with the true athame.”

 

“But it was lost . . .” My voice trailed off as I saw his look of guilt. “You know where it is?”

 

The old knight closed his eyes. “To my great shame, I was the one who took it. I had no knowledge of its importance, only that the High Priestess carried it with her always, and I thought it hers and cherished so deeply that it should be buried with her as well.”

 

Realization flared in my mind. “Caitriona said they burned her body.”

 

“Some of it, yes.” Bedivere’s expression turned tortured. “I have lied to them and forsaken my own honor in doing so. I could not abide the idea that her gentle soul would not be reborn. I pulled her bones from the fire as the others slept and buried them in the place where all High Priestesses are borne back to the Goddess.”

 

The athame isn’t lost. The words lit a flame in my chest. The ritual will work.

 

“You’re going to get it,” I said, “aren’t you?”

 

Bedivere nodded. “I must. If I tell the priestesses, they will try to go themselves, and it is my wrong to put right. And so I come to you with one request. If I do not return, tell the others what’s become of me. Remind Cabell of his strength.”

 

My mind raced. This couldn’t happen. Bedivere was needed here, in so many ways, by so many. His fighting ability, his guidance, his work with Cabell. My brother was already walking along a cliff’s edge, and if the one person who could help pull him back didn’t return . . .

 

He would never recover.

 

And I would never forgive myself.

 

A calm surety took hold of me. Everyone had a role here. The Nine and Neve needed to perform the ritual. Emrys needed to help them grow what food they could. Bedivere was an experienced fighter who could keep them alive. Cabell needed the chance to learn control over his curse. The Avalonians needed to keep the tower secure and themselves alive.