“I’ll finish after I’ve washed up.”
“I thought you said you didn’t sense anything nearby.”
“Right now I don’t. Doesn’t mean it won’t change, especially when I’m unconscious. I sleep like the dead,” she said with a wicked smile.
He was apparently immune to her charms. He looked confused. “The running water…”
“It helps, especially with any attack that might be coming from the opposite shore, but just because they can’t cross it doesn’t mean they won’t approach it at all.”
“Will this”—he gestured at the fine white powder—“work like the Wall?”
There was much superstition surrounding all the smiths and their various tricks and talents, but none so much as the bonesmiths. They had been oddballs and outcasts before the Breach made them indispensable not just to burials and funeral rites but to the very survival of the Dominions.
Wren figured it was a good sign that he was trying to understand the magic at play here, and maybe an explanation would put his mind at ease. “More or less. Ghosts hate dead bones, so they avoid them at all costs, and they’ll start to dissolve if they make contact with them. My bonedust is made with anchor bones—the bones that held the strongest connection to the soul, which also make them the strongest deterrent against the undead.”
“What about a revenant? A walking undead?”
Wren considered for a moment. “They still won’t like it, even if they can make themselves cross it. The protections extend beyond the dust itself—above and below—but either way, if one gets near, I should sense it.”
Seeming satisfied, he bent to add more wood to the stove.
Wren left him to it, walking to the shore and splashing a bit of water on her hands and face. Her eye black was greasy and difficult to get off without oil or fully submerging her face, so she left it for now, focusing on cleaning her cuts and some of the grime under her fingernails.
Afterward, she returned to the house and closed the door.
Julian had taken her place at the table while Wren used the remaining bonedust to finish the outline of the house and seal them in its protections.
“What if I have to, uh, relieve myself?” Julian asked abruptly, watching Wren make final adjustments.
Relieve himself? How proper. Wren smirked. “Be quick.”
He almost smiled at that, and Wren considered it a victory.
Her task done, she dug through her belongings until she found one of the blankets they’d pilfered from the bandits. She laid it out in front of the wood stove. Considering the size of the place and the radius of the fire’s warmth, they’d need to sleep side by side.
Julian seemed to realize it as she did, but he didn’t make any move to join her.
Looking up at him as she settled onto her makeshift bed, she quirked an eyebrow. “Given what I understand of the Haunted Territory, we’re not likely to be as safe as we are here anytime soon. Get your rest. The bonedust will do its job.”
“And what if there are more bandits?”
Wren shrugged, wrapping herself in her blanket. “That’s your job.”
SEVENTEEN
All in all, it hadn’t been one of Leo’s best days of travel. And honestly, that was saying something. He’d once rode in a manure cart for the better part of an afternoon in an attempt to make it back to the palace after an overlong stay at a local fair, and he’d been known to take a pony, donkey—even a large dog, once, though that had been for companionship more than anything else—if a horse was unavailable.
That being said, it also hadn’t been one of his best. The saddle had been hard and the ride uncomfortable, but he had endured worse.
Or so he told himself.
In truth, the day had started wrong from the moment he’d opened his eyes, burdened with a vicious hangover and the less-than-desirable knowledge that he was going to be kidnapped.
Still, he wasn’t going to let a little thing like a hostage situation dampen his spirits. He was hardly the first royal to be held for ransom, and he doubted he would be the last.
They’d forced him to wear a smelly bag over his head for most of the journey—whenever they passed other travelers or identifying landmarks, as if he could do anything about it even if he did know where they were or where they were going.
Well, to be fair, he could do something, he was quite certain. And intended to, by the way—but they didn’t know that. And it was thanks to his own dramatics that the bag was ever removed at all. He pretended to lose his balance in the saddle whenever it was on, actually falling once to commit to the bit—and thoroughly bruising his backside in the process—but it meant they let him remove it whenever someone in the party gave the all clear.
Even with the cursed sack, he had a very good guess of their destination, if not the exact route they would take.
It would be nice to get a confirmation, though. “Where are you taking me?” he asked the kidnapper next to him. They’d been riding for hours, and the sun had long since set behind them.
There were always the same two kidnappers nearby: one, grizzled and gruff and prone to speaking in single-word replies. The other was the total opposite: young and green, wide-eyed and handsome.
Leo could use that.
Unfortunately, it was old Gray-Beard who answered. “Quiet.”
Leo rolled his eyes, then put them to good use, scanning his surroundings. They had allowed him to ditch the bag after darkness fell, and Leo had watched as everyone in their party grew tense and wary in the coming night. His own shoulders had hunched, especially when the kidnappers started talking among themselves.
“Think we’ll see her?” the kidnapper in front of Leo muttered, craning his neck to scan the empty road and barren landscape, painted silver in the moonlight.
“You’d better hope not,” said the one riding beside him.
“If you do, it’ll be the last thing you ever see,” said a third from farther up the line, laughing.
“It’s not funny,” said the first. “My cousin’s friend disappeared three weeks back. Swears he saw her in the trees, right near the path his friend had taken. No one’s seen him since.”
“Who is this mysterious woman you’re all so afraid of?” Leo asked.
“Nobody,” came Gray-Beard’s predictable response.
Leo pressed his lips together, then noticed the young kidnapper was watching him. “It’s a harmless question, isn’t it?” Leo asked, keeping his voice low so it wouldn’t be heard over the sound of the horses’ hooves. “Indulge me, won’t you?” He batted his eyelashes. They were no longer golden, unfortunately. They’d stopped earlier in their journey to strip him of every scrap of metal on his body—well, every scrap they could find, anyway. “I’m painfully bored.”
The boy tilted his head, considering. “They call her the Corpse Queen.”
Corpse Queen? Leo racked his brain. He’d studied ancient smith lore, and the name rang a bell.
“Isn’t she the monster that will eat children who stay up past their bedtime? Surely hardened soldiers like you don’t believe such nonsense?”
Leo gave the boy his best grin, and the boy almost returned it before he caught Gray-Beard’s frown and hastily looked away.