Turning the object in her hands, she spotted additional carvings. There were two spread-winged birds, one on either side of the flat bezel top, and where a signet or gemstone might be, something dark and polished flashed in the moonlight.
It looked almost like metal, pointed in a spike, and it protruded from the surface of the ring like a nail through a board of wood, its flat head visible on the underside.
It was too small a point to be much good as a weapon, and the longer she examined it, the more confused she felt. There was something distinctly off about that small black spike, the way it pierced the bone. Something wrong.
Wren knew of only one kind of material that shone black like that.
Ironsmith metal.
But the thought of bonesmith and ironsmith artisans coming together to construct such an artifact was difficult to imagine. The Houses of Iron and Bone had been enemies for decades—ever since the ironsmiths had caused the Breach. Wren’s father hated them with particular vitriol, but she supposed that was to be expected. He’d been on the front lines of the battles that had followed, and his older brother, Locke—the original heir to the House of Bone—had died in the fighting.
The House of Bone was the Dominions’ only chance to stem the flow of walking undead that had poured forth from the Breach, but the bonesmiths had never faced such a threat. There was a reason the ghostsmiths had been exiled in the first place—their necromancy was not only unnatural, but it was a danger to the very survival of the Dominions. The same things that limited ghosts—their incorporeal state and the fact that they couldn’t move far from their bodies—were negated by undead that could carry their bones with them.
Tier fives had always fascinated Wren, who loved the idea of testing her skills against the revenants, but as her instructors constantly reminded her, it wasn’t all fun and games. Countless people had died at their undead hands, including bonesmiths and ironsmiths, as the lands to the east had been lost one by one to the ever-growing Haunted Territory.
In fact, the Border Wall had been built in an attempt to save the rest of the Dominions from being overrun. It was a massive structure spanning the entire island from north to south, and unfortunately for them, the House of Iron was trapped on the wrong side of it. Even though they had caused the Breach in the first place, the king had offered the House of Iron the chance to relocate to the safe side of the Border Wall, but they’d refused.
Then, barely five years afterward, they staged an uprising, determined to destroy the Border Wall and have both their lands and their place in the Dominions—by any means necessary. Once again, the king called upon the House of Bone. Now they were fighting living foes as well as undead ones and were integral in putting the rebellion down and keeping the Border Wall intact.
The ironsmiths had been all but obliterated, the Knights of the Iron Citadel—their ruling bloodline—wiped out, and the House of Bone had lost their shining heir, plus hundreds of other bonesmiths besides.
Wren sometimes wondered if her father had been different, before. Before all the fighting. Before his brother had died. But that was also before Wren had even existed, so she supposed it didn’t matter, and he sure wasn’t going to tell her.
Needless to say, there was no love lost between their houses. And yet here, in the depths of the House of Bone’s territory, was a ring that was at least partially ironsmith-made.
It could easily predate the Iron Uprising and the Breach, of course, but it was still a strange object, and Wren couldn’t help her inquisitiveness. It was a character flaw, she’d been told, by her grandmother, her father, and several of her teachers.
She stared at the ring in the palm of her hand—then pocketed it.
Getting to her feet, she moved toward the wall and her swords.
She had barely taken a step when something stirred in the air behind her. An almost-wind brushed the hair along her neck, the slightest touch of cold against her sweat-dampened skin.
She turned her head slowly, hardly daring to breathe, and found herself face-to-face with a newly risen ghost, hovering in the air above the corpse she’d just been examining.
They were barely a foot apart.
Dead spirits took on the last shape they’d known in life, wearing the same clothes, hair, and flesh.
However damaged.
This ghost wore the same travel-worn clothing that lay on the ground at Wren’s feet, stained with brightly glowing drops of blood. Light poured from the death wound on the back of its head, causing Wren to squint in the sudden, fierce glare. Ghostlight also emanated from the eyes—windows to the soul, or so her tutors claimed—but thanks to the head wound, the entire face had become little more than a gaping maw of sickly green glow.
But while they might look as they had in life, ghosts did not move like living things.
No, they streaked and exploded into motion, only to halt suddenly, trembling with agitation and pent-up aggression. In many ways, ghosts behaved like fire buffeted in a breeze—just as likely to flicker out as to be stoked to blazing brightness.
Wren blinked furiously, cursing herself for her foolishness—both in exploring the corpse and in leaving her bone blades several feet away and out of reach. She gave several hard tugs with her magic, but they were just at the edge of her range, and the mud held them hostage.
Some ghosts, once unleashed, took time to acclimate to the living world.
This ghost did not.
After a breathless, still moment, it set upon its nearest living target—Wren—with rapid, malicious intent, streaking forward in a terrifying blur.
Wren did the only thing she could do: She cried out and fell backward.
The spirit swooped toward her, over her, missing her body by inches as it ripped past. The momentum took it careening toward her swords, cutting Wren off from her best weapons.
She scrambled to her knees, jostling more bones.
No, not just bones.
Bodies.
There were others there, in the mud.
With a sinking feeling, Wren realized that of course this giant hole hadn’t been dug to bury a single body. It had been dug to bury many. Then years later, this fresh one had been unceremoniously thrown on top.
She had stumbled into a mass grave.
Panic seared her chest. Surely Inara hadn’t meant to kill her? Not that it mattered. Whether Inara had intended it or not, Wren was in a fight for her life.
There were five at least, maybe closer to ten, though it was difficult to tell with all the random bones that had shifted during her slide down here. Their bodies were older than the first, their bones broken and scattered, but their ghosts would be no less malevolent.
Hand shaking, she withdrew Ghostbane, but it would be of little use.
Already the other undead were rising, filling the cavern with light.
Wren might have had a chance against one ghost, or a handful of tier ones or even twos, but judging by the attentive, violent stares of the undead she had uncovered, they were tier threes at least.
She’d managed to get into a crouch, putting the wall of the cavern behind her, but she was trapped. To her left were her abandoned weapons and the first ghost. To her right, the rest of the steadily rising undead.
Her knucklebones would not stop the ghosts, only anger them, and her bonedust, while having the same ghost-repelling properties as any intact bone, was less powerful. The dust dissipated in the air, making a flimsier barrier than true bone, and was best used in a fight as a distraction or deterrent. It was, however, more versatile, and it did have other uses…