Bonesmith (House of the Dead, #1)(64)

Besides, ghosts made for poor company. They couldn’t talk, think, or communicate…. But even as Wren thought it, she amended the statement. Normally. Normally they couldn’t talk, think, or communicate. But like everything else so far, that had been different here in the Breachlands.

“No,” Julian said, his voice hard once more. “He’s undead, doomed to wander, to exist here in this—this hell—forever.”

“If we don’t get out of here soon, you’ll be joining him.”

“I need to know—”

“You can’t,” Wren snapped, her patience fraying. The clouds were moving in their direction, bringing early night with them, and the bridge was a long walk away. “That’s death. You can’t always know. You think I don’t wish, that I don’t wonder—” She cut herself off. She had a dead parent of her own, after all. But now wasn’t the time.

He gave her a curious look before clenching his hands and turning away.

She sighed, the frustration leaving her as swiftly as it had come. “We can make a marker, if you’d like.”

He kept his back to her, but his head turned—the only sign he’d heard her.

“I know marble is the preferred material,” she said, casting her gaze wide. “But I think granite will do nicely. It’s what the southern kings used.”

Still he didn’t move, so Wren took the task upon herself. She found a good-size stone, turning it on its side so it jutted from the earth. She considered her weapons, wondering if she could spare a blade to leave here, embedded into the ground in front of the marker, but then Julian was there, offering one of his own. It was short and simple, withdrawn from one of several sheaths on his belt.

Wren wondered if it was a family heirloom. If it was, Julian would surely never gamble it like she had with Ghostbane.

Once the blade was deep in the earth, Wren knelt before it.

Julian, meanwhile, stood next to her, hovering uncertainly. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. First he wiped them on his legs, as if trying to remove nonexistent dirt. Then he fidgeted with his armor before clenching them into fists at his sides.

With an impatient—but not wholly unaffectionate—eye roll, Wren reached up and took hold of his right hand, yanking him down onto his knees next to her. He stumbled and shuffled into position, but when he tried to pull his hand back, Wren gripped it tighter, meeting his gaze. Sometimes people did this—held hands as they attended burials and funeral rites. She could only assume it was a way to feel less alone, and being here on the edge of such a brutal battlefield, Wren figured he could use it.

Maybe they both could.

He looked down at their joined hands, surprise quickly shifting into desperate, aching gratitude, and suddenly Wren had to look away.

She took a deep breath, then spoke the ritual words. She’d never performed death rites herself before, but she’d borne witness countless times.

“Death is as certain as the dawn, and just as a new day will come, so too will the new dead rise. And we will be there. To find. To fight. To free. So the living may thrive…” She glanced at Julian, and he joined her in the last few, which would be more familiar to him. “And the dead may rest in peace.”





TWENTY-TWO


Despite Julian’s stance on the matter, Wren had taken some bonedust from several of the bonesmith corpses before they left. She had not relished it, but she needed to replenish. Besides, the House of Bone didn’t have the same conventions as the ironsmiths did. Wren would welcome any bonesmith who needed to loot her corpse should she happen to die on this mission. It was only pragmatic, like Julian had said.

The bridge loomed in the distance as they left the battlefield behind, tantalizingly close but also too far. They had at least an hour until they reached the crossing, and glancing up at the sky, Wren thought they had even less time until darkness fell. The clouds above hung heavy and low in the sky, bringing early night and threatening rain, stealing what little protection sunlight might have given them.

They were just making their final approach when her senses started to prickle. Squinting into the growing darkness, she came to an abrupt halt, throwing out an arm to stop Julian as well.

Revenants blocked their path.

There were three of them in varying states of decay, maybe twenty paces from where Wren and Julian stood. Beyond, just visible over the rise, was the bridge.

Wren’s hands went for her swords.

“Go,” they said, all three of them in unison. Just like those from the forest, speaking without lips or lungs and making the same simple request.

Fear lanced through her, quickly followed by anger. Her hands, resting idly on the hilts of her swords, tightened. This was the world of the living, and she was a bonesmith, a valkyr, here to protect the living from the undead. She would not allow herself to be afraid of them, and she’d be damned if she started taking orders from them.

“No,” she replied firmly. Julian’s head whipped around, as if he thought she’d been talking to him.

“Go. Now.”

“No,” Wren said again, grip tightening on her swords. “Why should we?”

“Go. Because she wills it. And he commands it.”

She wills it? Maybe that meant the Corpse Queen… but then who was this he they were referring to?