Bonesmith (House of the Dead, #1)(21)

“Unfortunately, it didn’t hold up on its own,” Odile said. “Heavy rain, the freezing and thawing of the ground… They cause the bones to shift over time, creating gaps and weak points. And on a Wall that traverses nearly a hundred miles of wilderness, it was impossible to catch every variance. Now it acts more as a deterrent than an actual barrier. Stronger undead can sense the holes and pass right through, and tier fives… Some of them can even touch it.”

Wren stared out past the palisade, imagining what it would be like to see a walking corpse. To fight one. “What are they like?” she asked. “The tier fives? The revenants?”

Odile cocked her head at Wren, considering. “Didn’t your father…?”

Wren shrugged, kicking at a stone on the ground. “He doesn’t talk much, about the war. About any of it.”

When she looked up again, Odile had glanced away. “I suppose not.” She sighed. “It’s difficult to explain. Some of them look almost human. Fully intact, moving with the lingering familiarity of the living. Those are the hardest to deal with.” She cleared her throat. “Others, they’re so badly decomposed, the spirit shines through their bones and barely there scraps of flesh, turning them into something more akin to a puppet on strings. Either way, our usual methods don’t work against them.” She reached up and tapped Wren’s temple. “Use this, if ever you should face one. And this…”

She lowered her hand, and Wren thought she was going for her chest. “My heart?”

Odile rolled her eyes and then used the back of her hand to smack Wren in the stomach.

“Your gut, Wren Graven. Listen to your gut. Your instincts will know what to do, even if your training fails you.”

The tour didn’t last long after that. Odile pointed out the distant towers, how far Silver Gate was, and various other features.

“You said if…” Wren began as they strode back to the fort. A distant patrol could be seen riding from the south, back toward the gate. “Does that mean—do you not see any action here anymore?”

It’s what she’d heard, but better to find out firsthand. Her father seemed to believe things could go bad again at any moment, and she wanted to know if there was merit in that or if he was just being paranoid.

“Not of the sort you’re imagining. Our patrols”—she gestured to the riders who’d beaten them to the gate up ahead—“are more likely to encounter living problems than undead ones.”

“What about the Haunted Territory?”

“We haven’t journeyed past the palisade for ten years. And no one has entered the Haunted Territory since the Uprising.”

Since the final battle, when her uncle—and hundreds of others—had died.

“You look disappointed,” Odile observed. “When I first arrived at the temporary camp that would become the Breachfort, it was with a dozen other bonesmith tributes. Only half of us survived the week.”

Wren looked up, shocked.

Odile nodded sadly. “This was in the immediate aftermath of the Breach, back when we used to send patrols deep into the Haunted Territory. We were still trying to understand what had happened. What we were dealing with.”

“It’s just…,” Wren began, hating the whine in her voice but unable to master it. “He told me—my father—he told me to come here and play by the rules, follow orders, and prove myself. But if we don’t patrol beyond the palisade, if there’s no real danger from the undead… I won’t get the chance.”

“I never said there was no real danger,” Odile clarified. “Merely that we no longer patrol beyond the palisade. Ignorance is bliss, as they say, and Commander Duncan is only too pleased to report the lack of activity on his watch.”

Wren considered that, frustration building inside her. “So it doesn’t matter either way? Even if there is danger beyond this border, I’ll never see it?”

“Not necessarily,” Odile said carefully. “Besides, there are other ways to prove oneself than in combat.”

“How?” Wren asked desperately.

Odile laughed, shaking her head. “Gravens,” she muttered. “I’m certain you’ll have your chance,” she continued, expression growing more serious. Then she smiled. “And in the meantime—I’m the one who reports back to your father. We’ll make a hero of you yet.”

“But—why?” Wren asked, totally taken aback. “Why help me?”

Odile looked at her for a long time, but it wasn’t her father’s measuring stare or her grandmother’s cold evaluation. It was soft and gentle and maybe a little sad.

“Because somebody should.”





EIGHT


Despite Odile’s promise of other ways to prove herself, Wren’s first weeks at the fort passed in a blur of boredom—and no undead. She didn’t know what Odile wrote to her father in her reports, but unless she invented tales of intrigue and danger, the details of Wren’s activities at the fort would be very dull indeed.

Still, she tried. She did as she was told. Played by the rules. Followed orders. Showed up for training, was never late for patrol, and stayed out of every kind of trouble.

For all the good it did her.

She was doing everything right for the first time in her life… and it didn’t matter.