Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A child was born, one gifted with godlike abilities.
—Fabia’s Fables, “People of the Stars.”
Awave of nausea washed over me as I entered Lord Astraeus’s holding cell.
Xenelpha said he wasn’t the threat she thought he was.
Who did she think he was? Blood stained the icy floor.
The tang of iron mingled with the rancid stench of piss and vomit covering Lord Astraeus’s pants and the front of his blue coat.
Guilt swept through me as I took in his injuries, my mind flying to the brutal death of the Lady of Tomorrow in Lotrennia.
Cold blood soaked into my leathers as I knelt beside him and rubbed the celosia powder beneath his bloodied nose. His long lashes fluttered for a moment, the curved shadow hovering above deep bruising beneath his eyes. I wiped his blood on my leathers as he wheezed, rising to consciousness.
“Bonscaíh,” he murmured, eyes blinking open. “I see you fared better than I.”
“Take this off and I will cut you loose,” I urged, doing my best to avoid looking at the terrible gash in his leg. I moved behind him, examining his hands, when he said, “How did you get loose? Did you find the bone?”
“Hurry, we don’t have much time,” I lied, “If we move quickly, we might be able to escape before the sun comes up.”
His hand opened around my wrist for the cuff. Rough, calloused fingers slid around my palm, brushing against the star, until they stilled.
“You’re lying, Bonscaíh,” he said quietly, letting his head fall back against the post he was tied to.
“Hurry,” I urged him, “I cannot get us out with this on.”
A wet chuckle gurgled from his lips. “Lies,” he breathed. “I can see you have your Honor back. I could tell from the way you moved just now.”
My fingers stilled against his hand.
“They freed you.”
My mouth clamped shut, and I listened to his ragged breathing for a few moments before saying, “Take the rubelline off, Astraeus.”
A bitter laugh reverberated through the chamber.
“Learned a thing or two while I was being tortured, did you?” My stomach churned. “What else did they tell you?”
“Take it off.”
“I’ll take it off on one condition. The bone is mine.”
“You can’t decide who can harness the bone. It needs to stay with the Bellators.”
“And you’re the one to determine that? I have more right to that bone than any of you.”
“What are you talking about?”
Silence.
“Astraeus.”
“It’s not yours.”
“It’s not yours either.”
“It’s not for me.”
“Then who—”
“I’m not taking it off unless the bone leaves with me,” he snapped, cutting me off. “Keep me here, let me rot, if you wish.”
Fuck. Fuck.
The Obscura thrashed beneath the thick wall of the rubelline at his words. I wasn’t going to cut off his damned hand. As much as I hated the man, seeing him like this…
I made to stand when Ronan stormed in through the sliding ice door and slammed his fist into Astraeus’s face. The pirate lord’s head cracked against the trunk, and he slumped over.
“What are you doing?” I snapped, “Look at him! He probably already has a concussion!”
Ronan rolled his shoulders, “He’ll be fine. He obviously doesn’t need to be conscious to get the rubelline off if Xenelpha suggested taking his entire hand.”
I blinked. He was right, I realized, feeling utterly stupid for waking him with the celosia powder when I could have tried his hands on my own.
“Try,” he said, nodding to Vienah as she timidly stepped in, her hand flying to her nose at the stench.
“Oh gods,” she murmured as her eyes scanned the pirate. She knelt behind him, her hands going to his. “When he loosened the hold on Carina and Nerissa, I saw him slide his forefinger and thumb like this.”
She slid my coat up over the cuff, still glowing bright red, and placed Astraeus’s hands around it, sliding his finger and thumb along its edge.
As she did, the phantom grip within me loosened.
A flash of shimmering black and gold exploded behind my eyes as she completed the twist. The cuff clanked off, the brilliant glowing red winking out.
I gasped, sucking in the frigid air, as the Obscura and Transcindiel surged through my veins, savoring their freedom. The darkness danced against my palms to the song that floated from the transformational power. They were back.
Vienah’s smile was bright as she scanned my eyes. I helped with hers, and she sighed as the cuff fell off. I tucked one away in the pocket of my coat and clamped the other on Astraeus’s wrist.
“He’s a mage?” Vienah asked, eyes wide.
“Full of secrets, apparently,” Ronan murmured, eyeing the unconscious pirate. “What do we do with him?”
I sighed, scanning his injuries. “Clean him up. Keep him with the others.”
“I’ll help,” Vienah said, her voice edged with pity.
A warm push of relief reached me as I walked toward Xenelpha’s dwelling.
I scanned the break in trees above the village, searching for any sign of Aquila, knowing he was smart enough not to be seen.
My heart warmed as his emotions reached me, and I smiled, allowing myself a small bit of hope that the others were fine.
Xenelpha stepped from her chamber. I balked, startled by her change in appearance.
Gone were the white paint and bone armor.
Dark, copper skin shone in the midday sun, and a lovely smile spread across her face.
Wrinkles crinkled in the corners of her dark eyes, years of wisdom lounging in their depths.
“Freedom feels good, does it not?”
I nodded. “Indeed.” A soft growl rumbled behind her, and I jumped as the large, reptilian head snaked around Xenelpha and peered at me with intelligent eyes. The wolf-like body inched around her, its scaled tail snapping back and forth. I paled at the sight of the dune runner.
“My amatohk,” the matron murmured. “She doesn’t trust you after your encounter at the lake.”
The beast growled, and I took a step back, hands up, though the Obscura leaped down my veins. The dune runner, the amatohk, glanced between my palms and softened its gaze, tilting its head, almost dog-like.
“We’ve collected the bodies of those you killed,” Xenelpha said, her voice softening. The creature’s fangs glinted in the sunlight, and I had a hard time feeling guilty. “Their deaths will be honored. And we will wear their bones as armor.”
“And the others at the camp?” I asked.
The sides of Xenelpha’s lips tilted, “There was an encounter, of course. An elf and three humans are being held at a neighboring village. We’ll bring them here if you wish.”
I nodded, my stomach twisting with nerves. “Please. What state are they in?”
“A human is still healing from our amatohk, and the small mystic has been unconscious. It seems she tried to use more power than she was capable of with the rubelline on her wrist.”
I averted my eyes and gave her a nod, hiding my relief. Vulcan and Nerissa had to have escaped.
“This way to the bone,” Xenelpha murmured after a moment.
She led me to an elaborately carved tunnel where she placed a torch in a shallow pool of liquid that sat in a raised line in the center of the hall. Fire flew down in a thin stream, illuminating the shadows of the walls that shifted from ice to stone.
Xenelpha slid a small key to the center of an eight-pointed star carved in the rock at the end of the tunnel.
She murmured beneath her breath, and as she pressed her hand into the rock, she rotated it, the circular carving following in its direction.
The rock smoothly slid open to Faron’s burial chamber.
The familiar scent of dry, dusty air filled my nostrils as we stepped into the ancient room. Xenelpha bowed as we entered, and I followed suit, my mind drifting to the last set of remains I examined, the brutal damage to the elf in Lotrennia pricking against my mind.
“Lord Astraeus is mistaken,” Xenelpha said in hushed tones as she approached the stone sarcophagus. “A line of Bellators runs in his blood, but he has no connection to this bone.”
I balked. Astraeus’s bloodline? I squinted at her through the darkness. “Do the bones only answer to those within the original Bellators’ bloodlines?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
Xenelpha shook her head, the straight salt and pepper hair swaying like shadows in the darkness as she murmured, “We do not know how the bones choose.”
“You think the bones choose their warriors? Like they are sentient?”
Xenelpha’s mouth curved as she said, “You tell me.”
I bristled under the weight of her gaze and looked toward Faron’s sarcophagus.
“How do you know all of this?”
“Death tells us a story. You know this already.”
“The god of death? Did Tynan tell you this?” Was it possible she somehow communicated with the god of death, or was this another riddle?
I ran my fingers over the carvings of the sarcophagus, tracing the bloody battle. Waves of magic blasted apart castles, and winged beasts rained fire from above.
“Your human eyes see the physical markings on bones,” Xenelpha continued, her eyes bright, “What was left behind, the tales of the being whose body they held. How old they were, what type of life they led. Imagine what you could see if you could read the non-physical markings on the bones.”
“You mean use magic to examine bones? Does that have something to do with why you wear them?” I asked, brows pinched.
A small dip in her chin as she reverently ran her fingers over the stone, following the path in the smooth divots.
“One of them. They also symbolize our victories. Bones are added to our warriors’ armor only when they earn it.
Bone is what remains long after our passing,” she explained, “Bones are the keepers of our stories. The keepers of our truths. What is it your Death Scholars say? There is truth in death?”
I nodded, churning her words over in my mind.
“How do you know all this?” I asked, eyeing her across the tomb.
“There are many ways to see—” she began, her eyes again searching the air around my head, as realization hit.
“You see them,” I cut her off, eyes widening. “You can see the threads. The magic, the connections binding us.” I stepped around the sarcophagus and eyed her pleased expression.
“Can you—”
“I cannot tell you what happened to the person at the end of that soulbinding thread,” she murmured, “I am only blessed enough to discern the types of threads holding you to another. That is the only reason you are here, alive,” she said, her words edged in steel.
I fucking knew it. My heart stuttered in grief. I should have pushed Bayne... I opened my mouth, and she held a small hand up. “We are not here to discuss my threadsight,” she declared with an air of finality.
Xenelpha’s dark hand slid down the side of the sarcophagus and up to the very top of the lid, where a small bird had been carved.
She pressed her finger on its head, the small bit of stone sinking beneath the rest. The center of the sarcophagus hissed, and a round stone, small enough to fit in both hands, rose from the lid.
Xenelpha motioned to me, and I gently took the stone from the center of the lid. The buzz off the stone wasn’t as abhorrent as it had been with the elixir. Without the cuff, my senses clear, it was more of a flutter, I realized. The small wings of a hummingbird, rather than an irritating insect.
As I leaned over the sarcophagus, I spied the darkness of the inside of the tomb below. My eyes lingered on the ivory bones that gleamed at its center, and I couldn’t help the curiosity that bubbled up.
“Do not linger,” Xenelpha murmured, eyeing me as I let my gaze search the bones beneath the lid. “I will grant you limited access to this room each day to attempt to open it. And then you must return it to its place.”
I nodded as my eyes scanned the round stone in my hand. Etchings of strange, membranous wings stretched from the center of the stone to its edges around a spiral design. I ran my fingers over them as if I could feel Tiberius’s velvety feathers beneath. My heart squeezed in response.
“What do you know of his caeluma?” I asked as Xenelpha watched me.
“Her last form was as an amatohk.”
A dune runner caeluma, I mused, glancing up at Xenelpha as I processed her words. “Last form?”
A slight dip in the matron’s chin as she eyed me and murmured, “We all change, Lyvia. I’ll wait outside.”
Alone with the block of stone, I let myself sink into the beat of the bone’s fluttering. Though the amatohk had no wings.
The stone container holding Enya’s bone of power was a puzzle. I tried twisting the sides of it, but the etching wasn’t mismatched. This wasn’t a puzzle. Gods, I wished Drystan was here.
I blew out a breath as I turned over Xenelpha’s words and recited the riddle we’d seen on the lid of the tunnel leading to the tomb. Did I need to speak to it for it to open?
Who will you be? Xenelpha had asked. Maybe I could try answering that? A list of ridiculous names cycled through my head.
“I am Lyvia. I am a Bellator.” I think, I added silently, in my head. “I am a scholar…”
This was fucking stupid. Icy anger slithered into my growing frustration, and I let the words flow.
“I am afraid. I am changed. I am… a murderer…”
My breath came out in a soft, gray cloud. I was fucking afraid. And I deserved to be. What awaited me in Tynan’s Hell after the lives I’d taken?
The round stone sat in my hands, utterly unchanged. I stuck my tongue out at it, some feeble attempt to quell the realization that had hit me.
I searched inward for that unbreakable bond, that thread of steel that connected me to Tiberius. As I grabbed hold of it, throwing myself into its connection, a brief, salt-filled whiff of wind hit me before Tiberius’s consciousness twined with my own. I let out a soft sigh.
Are you alright?
His answer came several moments later.
Yes. Are you? What happened? I tried to hold your cast to show you Bayne, but… Did you find the bone?
I had the strange, yet familiar sensation of Tiberius gazing through my eyes, but fatigue ripped at my mind. And his voice was strained, stressed. We were too far for this.
Yes, I replied, We’re with the Rhashtai. Safe for now, I think. They are the Guardians of the Dead, the people of the Death Dunes.
Fitting, they found themselves a death digger.
Tiberius’s tone returned to his usual light-heartedness.
I responded with a chuckle, sending a wave of warmth down the bond to him.
I recited the riddle on the entrance to the tomb.
Ti was silent, and I looked up, scanning the rest of the burial chamber for him.
Any ideas? I urged, already feeling him slip.
Several moments passed.
Ti?
I’m coming to you.
What? You’re flying this far, alone?
I’m not alo—