Bonesmith (House of the Dead, #1)(79)
“There’s someone else down here,” she cut in, finishing with her pants and adjusting her shirt. “Someone alive. I think he was a ghostsmith.”
He reared back, throwing a startled look in her direction before he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to be looking, and turned away again. She was mostly covered anyway, except for the open buttons on her shirt, so she tugged the blanket down and turned her back to him to fasten them.
“What makes you say that?”
“He had eyes the color of a ghost, for a start,” she said. “Plus, he was talking to them. The undead. There were five of them, and they didn’t attack him. He actually called them to his side, and when he spoke… they listened.”
“Wren,” Julian said uneasily. “I’m not sure…”
“Come on,” Wren said forcefully, pulling on her boots and coming to stand before him. “This could be where those Corpse Queen rumors came from! These revenants have been acting strange ever since we arrived. Moving in packs, working together, guarding—”
“And they talk to you, too.”
Wren’s gaze darted away. Yes, that was definitely a large part of her curiosity, but it went beyond that. “I know you think I just go blundering into things, but if there are people here, inside the Breach, controlling the undead… It’s relevant to everyone, no matter what side of the Wall you live on.”
And maybe they could find something to explain what Locke had done. What Wren was doing.
“Please?” she whispered.
He lifted his chin, considering. “Okay.”
* * *
They took the boat. They had only one oar, so Julian used it to paddle them deeper into the ruins while Wren remained on high alert, her single bone sword across her back and the rest of the artillery she had left tucked in her belt and bandolier. She had taken a moment to hastily reapply her eye black, aware of Julian’s attention on her, but it had felt empowering to rebuild that smallest of barriers between them—her lips cold, dark, and untouched, her eyes shadowed and unreadable.
As they moved through the cavern, she kept her senses stretched wide and was certain the only undead nearby were those few that had rematerialized along the shore and the solitary figure that had joined the boy inside the distant building.
This was the Breach, however, and she knew better than to assume. Dozens could be lurking just out of her range, so they had to be extremely cautious. They’d sneak into the building and peek around, but stealth and safety were their top priority, and the water gave them an easy escape route.
What she’d seen… She couldn’t just forget it. The boy must be a ghostsmith—there was no other explanation—but they had long since been considered extinct. All of them buried along with their undead city.
Suddenly, the impossible was possible—all thanks, apparently, to the Breach. She thought of her uncle Locke, of the crushed bodies, of all the things she didn’t understand.
Beyond her curiosity, if Wren could return with Leo and information that could save the Dominions, she’d be even more valuable to her father and her family. But she needed something concrete, not snatches of words and wild claims that her father probably wouldn’t believe. This boy could be useful to them. And if he didn’t want to be useful, then he was an enemy they had to keep track of.
Their boat bumped against the shore of the building Wren had seen, the structure bigger and more impressive than it had appeared at a distance. And more disturbing.
It was little more than a facade, a portico, while the rest of the building went deep into the rock behind it, carved from the natural stone.
The columns on either side of the arched entryway—easily twice Wren’s height, if not more—were revealed to be carved figures with their hands raised, as if they held the roof upright. Only they weren’t like the other sculptures Wren had seen in her lifetime, beautiful and idealized, with perfect musculature and faces frozen in eternal dignity. These were unmistakably meant to be undead… their texture mottled and uneven, sculpted bones protruding from rotted flesh, and their faces fixed in expressions of pain and agony.
There were other examples of similar embellishments, including a frieze atop the entryway depicting ghostlike figures, their shapeless bodies writhing and their mouths forever opened in silent screams.
These were monuments not to the undead but to the ghostsmith power over them. Everywhere Wren looked, she saw ghosts and revenants in subservience. It made her stomach twist, especially because of the incongruous familiarity.
The House of Bone aesthetic could certainly be considered gruesome. They had a forest made of bones, after all, and Marrow Hall had walls of skulls and catacombs stocked with skeletons. But while the House of Bone dealt with the dead, they did so from a place of mercy and reverence.
Though valkyrs might “fight” ghosts, it was only so that a reapyr could perform their sacred duty to save the dead from their fleshly prisons. Wren felt a stab of guilt at the idea of how much she had always enjoyed her work, but if the goal had been to dominate and control the poor souls, she was certain the task would have quickly lost its appeal.
Yes, the House of Bone might be dark, but this House of Ghost was far more sinister… exultant in its darkness and proud of its power. They bent the undead to their will, to serve their own ends. They commanded them.