Dread, deep and black, overwhelms me, like my Light is already fading. What she’s speaking of is the worst form of murder—to murder a soul—something I never thought possible.
This is the reality Odiva has been laboring to drive into me: to her, the loss of the bone flute is worse than the loss of her daughter. And I’m responsible.
“I’m sorry.” My voice wavers, flimsy as seagrass. After the rite of passage, it was my job to place the bone flute back on the bed of lamb’s wool in the cedar chest. Now, not only is Ailesse’s life at risk because of me, but countless other lives are, as well. Ferrying needs to happen in fifteen days, during the new moon. “What can I do?”
“You can grow up.” Odiva grimaces like it costs her to reprimand me. “I have been too soft on you, Sabine. You are not a child anymore. If you had obtained more graces before tonight, you would have been able to overpower your assailant. Ailesse would have had a fighting chance.”
Fresh tears gather in my eyes, but I deserve this chastening. “I promise to hunt for more, Matrone.” I have to get over my qualms about killing animals. “But first . . . please, let me help my friend. Let me go with the elders.”
“With the graces of a fire salamander?” Odiva’s eyes fall to the tiny skull on my necklace. “Absolutely not.”
All seven elders emerge into the courtyard to cross through. Their most striking grace bones gleam under the moonlight. Roxane’s stag antler hair wreath. Dolssa’s snake rib necklace. Milicent’s vulture wing bone earrings. Pernelle’s fox vertebra pendant. Nadine’s eel skull hair comb. Chantae’s boar jawbone choker. Damiana’s wolf fang bracelet.
I fight the urge to hide my own pitiful grace bone as they leave through another tunnel on their way out of Château Creux. “Please, Matrone. I’m the one who was with Ailesse tonight. I’ve seen what her amouré is capable of. He and his accomplices must have studied the Leurress. They knew what they were doing. What if they’ve abducted her?” As terrible as that would be, at least it would mean Ailesse isn’t dead. “What if the elders can’t find her?”
“If they cannot, it is no matter.” Odiva’s raven brows lower over her sharpened eyes. “I will find her. Ailesse is blood of my blood, bones of my bones. There is magic between a mother and daughter that even the gods cannot explain.” A deep ache rises in my chest, a yearning to experience what Odiva is talking about. Mon étoile, my mother used to call me. My star. “I will draw on that magic to track her. I will save my child.” Her voice exudes calm confidence. “Ailesse is alive. I can feel it now.”
A cautious breath fills my lungs. “Truly?”
“Truly.” Odiva smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Now go to sleep, Sabine. Your wounds will finish healing while you rest. Tomorrow, you will begin the hunt for your new graces. The gods may have need of you sooner than you think.” Her hand drifts to the lump of her hidden necklace. “I want you to be ready.”
I try not to squirm under her lingering stare. Odiva wants me to become a Ferrier—she’s made that painfully clear—but I also have the uneasy feeling she wants something more from me. Something I won’t like.
“Ailesse will survive,” she reassures me. “I possess the strength of five grace bones. I will see to it. So do not pursue her.” Her tone is clear and final. “Leave my daughter to me.”
Odiva turns away, signaling the end of our conversation, and she withdraws to the place where I first saw her praying. She starts to murmur an unfamiliar chant. I can’t make out all her words, but I hear Ailesse’s name as Odiva lifts her hand to her bat skull crown. She cuts her finger on its teeth and drips her blood onto the limestone below, where the Leurress have etched the face of Tyrus’s golden jackal in the curve of Elara’s sickle moon. My stomach turns. I’ve never seen or heard of a ritual like the one she’s doing.
The matrone’s pitch-dark eyes slowly rise to me while her blood keeps spilling. “Goodnight, Sabine.”
My knees wobble. “Goodnight.”
She turns her back to me again, a mirror reflection of before—her arms outstretched in prayer, her cupped hands tipped downward. A marrow-deep shiver runs through me, and I hasten away.
In my room, I grab my bow and a quiver of bone-tipped arrows. I have no intention of sleeping tonight. I’d only toss and turn. Instead, I sneak through a side tunnel, bypassing the courtyard, and I leave Château Creux.
Clutching my wounded side, I run as fast as possible. Once I clear the castle by a mile, I remove my salamander grace bone and tie it onto Ailesse’s shoulder necklace. The act of clasping it around my own neck and shoulder seals my vow to her.
I will save you, Ailesse.
I can’t rely on the elders or Odiva to do what I must, especially since my matrone is more concerned about the bone flute.
As I begin my journey to Castelpont, Elara’s Light, like courage, seeps inside my soul. Even stronger is my fierce determination. I’ll search for the flute in the riverbed, then I’ll strike out for the hunting grounds of the forest. I’ll kill to obtain my last two grace bones, if that’s what it takes to save my friend. And this time I won’t weep.
I will be like Ailesse.
11
Ailesse
CURSE BASTIEN AND EVERY BONE in his body. I can’t see anything through this blindfold. My foot catches on a tree root—or maybe a rock—and I pitch forward. He hoists me back up before I hit the ground. I thrash against his iron grip on my arm. “Let go!” But he won’t. He hasn’t since we left Castelpont—since I failed to kill him.
Humiliation scalds my cheeks. My mother will never believe I’m capable again. Far worse than losing my grace bones, I lost the bone flute. Sabine will go back for it—that’s my only consolation—but I can’t shake the image of my mother’s furious eyes when Sabine tells her what happened.
I struggle to stay on my feet as Bastien continues to drag me through the forest. His two friends hedge us in, helping to guard me as we travel, Marcel in front and Jules behind. Their footsteps fall loud and clumsy. Marcel shuffles as he walks, and Jules limps on her hurt leg. Thank you for that, Sabine.
“You’re playing a game you’ll never win,” I warn them. “If you three had any wisdom between you, you’d let me go while you still have the chance. My mother will come looking for me, and you do not want to face her wrath.”
Bastien’s grip tightens, and my arm prickles with numbness. “If your mother wants you back, she’ll have to come to us in our territory.”
“You really think you can hide me?” I scoff. “There is nowhere you can dream of that my mother won’t find.”
“I’m counting on it.”
We come to an abrupt stop in the forest. I’ve tried to track my steps over the past hour and a half, but we’ve changed directions too many times. We’ve even walked through streams, with the current and against it. Bastien is trying to disorient me, and without my falcon, shark, and ibex graces, it’s working. Maybe he fears my mother will see through my eyes—impossible—and he thinks his tactics will help outrun her. Fool.