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.
They weren’t soldiers in the midst of a battle for their lives—they were security guards watching a boundary line that nobody crossed.
It was a far cry from the glory days her escort Ralph had talked about. Wren and Odile were the only two permanent bonesmith tributes at the Breachfort; any others were there on temporary contracts, and all of them were fabricators—meant to repair damages and move on. As such, Wren went out on every patrol, though she supposed if they actually found any undead, they’d have to send for Odile to finish the job.
But, of course, they never did.
There were no run-ins with the undead, no skirmishes with the promised bandits and raiders. They were more likely to run into regular people who lived east of the Wall, trying to sneak over the Border or buying and selling contraband.
“Some of the guards will do business with them to supplement their wages,” Odile explained when Wren returned from patrol one night after turning away a group of Breachside locals and their wagon filled to the brim with items for trade. She was standing in the main workroom, organizing jars of bonedust and other smithing supplies. “Whether Commander Duncan likes it or not.”
“I didn’t realize there were so many people living east of the Wall,” Wren admitted, leaning against the table. “Or that they had anything of value to trade.”
“Oh, they have items of value,” Odile said without looking up from her task. “There are whole towns along the coast. They are not thriving as they once were, but they are surviving, at any rate. Not everyone got out when the Wall went up, as you well know. The Haunted Territory that surrounds the Breach spans less than half of the region trapped behind the Border.” She indicated a large map mounted on the wall, depicting the Dominions and the land beyond the Border Wall. Wiping her hands on her robes, she walked over to the map, indicating each region in turn. “The Adamantine Mountains, the Serpentine River… there are natural barriers that keep the worst of the undead activity trapped in the northeast. The coastal towns are relatively safe, if isolated. Their shallow shores and dangerous currents make it impossible for ships to dock, not that any would dare, given the state of things. They struggle more for food and supplies—that’s what they trade the guards for—than against undead, though they are troubled by them often enough. Without bonesmiths east of the Wall to perform burials and death rites, even those who die peacefully in their sleep are destined to rise again and torment the ones they love. Sometimes they bring their bodies here for me to deal with.”
“And do you?” Wren asked, surprised.
“Of course,” Odile said, somewhat defensively. “I am a reapyr. It’s my duty.”
Technically, Odile’s duty was to Lady-Smith Svetlana and the House of Bone, to whom she had sworn fealty, but Wren understood the sentiment. She came to stand next to her, eyeing the map. “Couldn’t they just cross? Through one of the gates? Would the king deny them entry?”
Odile sighed. “Unfortunately, many threw their lot in with the House of Iron during the Uprising, so technically, they’re traitors to the crown. Plus, where would they go? Live in refugee camps? Most of the wealthy who lived here left in the first wave after the Breach, though some stayed because the source of their wealth was here, in lands that had been in their families for generations. Same with the ironsmith families. Their ore is in these hills, and the Iron Citadel in the north is their seat of power, where they train and work. How could they leave it all behind? I’m sure they’d feel differently now, after the Uprising. I don’t think they expected to be wiped out.”