Thread of Bones (The Shadewarden Saga #1)

1. Pyre and Smoke

Pyre and Smoke

A legacy.

Such a fragile, intangible thing.

What was meant as an honor had always felt like a burden to me. But it was mine all the same. To protect. To maintain. To destroy if I wasn’t careful.

Mother thought I was careless. She said it in that absent way parents often do, but it never seemed to bother her.

Though perhaps her duties demanded too much of her attention.

Either way, I wondered if she ever noticed just how reckless I could be.

Maybe if she had, she would have taken greater pains to drive it out of me.

Was she watching me now, from her place upon the pyre? Did the gods even allow such things? I’d never taken the time to think about it, nor listened well enough in my lessons with the Temple acolytes. I wished I had, if only to ease the piercing ache in my heart.

The softness of the glow emanating from the pyre—a hulking mass of tree limbs cut from the Sacred Forest—was a stark contrast to the intensity of its heat.

My face warmed uncomfortably, making me inch back a few steps.

But I couldn’t turn away from her. Not yet.

With the throngs of people behind me, and their subsequent expectations, I wasn’t going anywhere.

The rites and dirges ended long ago. We stood in stoic silence now, bound under the gray winter sky by my own inability to step away. I had to be the first. Anyone who went before me did so to their own detriment. It would appear disrespectful, and then I’d be expected to do something about it.

But what did it matter? They never knew the woman burning to ash in front of us. Not like I did.

“Your Majesty,” a gruff voice spoke from my side, comforting in its familiarity.

“Don’t call me that.” I could stomach the title from almost anyone. But right now, her body crumbling to cinders, hearing him call me that was a knife to my already bleeding heart.

“Vor.” Lenn’s tone was gentle, pulling at my senses with the smallest tug. I knew he didn’t mean to—he couldn’t always control his gifts—but I bristled at the unwelcome contact all the same. At my glare, the connection faded away.

But there was still pity in Lenn’s gaze. The color of a storm-tossed sea, they were eyes I’d known and loved all my life. How I hated the way they looked at me now.

I couldn’t help the sneer that curled my lips, pulling uncomfortably at the thin scar stretching from my chin to my left ear. “Tell them all they have my leave to go,” I said, turning away. “I don’t care what they do. I’m not leaving.”

A hand like a bear’s paw rested on my shoulder, gripping without causing pain. His comforting touch drew the tears I’d been holding off to my eyes.

No. I will not cry in front of them.

“It’s time to go home,” Lenn said simply.

Home.

A stupid, abstract concept. No better than the supposed legacy that was now my burden.

I knew what Lenn meant. He wanted me to leave this desolate place and return to Kjarra—to the Citadel within its walls where I’d lived all my life.

But how could that place be home again when the only light it’d ever held lay dead before me?

I shrugged his hand off, drawing my bearskin cloak tighter to my chest. Though the fire was relentless in its blaze, a bitter winter wind blew at our backs.

Storm clouds gathered in the north, a billowing blanket of white that promised a snowfall deep enough to keep us house-ridden for a day or two.

Those in the rear of the crowd would be freezing.

Perhaps I should start heading back, if only for their sake.

Fuck them all, the voice in my head hissed. This is the queen’s funeral. So what if they get frostbite? They’ll be honored to show their shrunken, blackened toes to their grandchildren one day.

My brows raised involuntarily, the sudden intrusion uncomfortable. Shut your mouth, I said .

Most people referred to the voice in their head in a hypothetical sense. Maybe if I’d been born to a common family, that nagging voice would mirror my father’s, always meddling where it didn’t belong.

But my family was not common.

Normal people did not carry shades with them wherever they walked. They did not hear the whispers of the dead in their dreams. Such ignorance was for everyone else, not for House Erling.

I don’t want to hear another word out of you for the rest of the day, I continued griping at that ever-present being.

The hairs on my arms sprang up, gooseskin stippling over my entire body. Her annoyance seeped into my mind like ink spilled across parchment. Where did my despair end and her anger begin? Ever since Mother’s death, I no longer knew the difference.

You know I’m right, the voice snapped, drawing away.

The pressure behind my eyes lessened a little, but the Shadow was never truly gone. She was the weight on my chest I would never be free of again.

Ignoring the abominable creature, I turned to face Lenn. He’d remained quiet after my rebuff, but his broad shoulders were relaxed, muscle-bound arms hanging limply at his sides. The tears I’d bid away earlier sprang back to life.

“How can I go home without her?” Perhaps it was pathetic to let them see me cry, but what did it matter anymore? Lenn was right. Wallowing here in the frigid cold wouldn’t do anyone any good, least of all me.

His grizzled appearance was at odds with the sympathetic sigh he released.

Taking a step forward, he wrapped his enormous arms around me.

This man was a Thane: chief advisor and confidant.

Moreover, he was the Thane of the queen .

The most respected general in the realm and a battle-hardened warrior…

But he was more than that to me. He always had been.

“Vor, skatten min, ” he said, stroking my hair as I tucked my head beneath his bearded chin and nuzzled the dark blue velvet of his surcoat. “I would take your pain in a heartbeat, if the gods would allow it. Let’s get you back.”

Weakly, I nodded against his chest and pulled away. The crowd parted before us like the sea to the prow of a ship. I absently registered that they inclined their heads as I passed, some even dropping to one knee. That would take some getting used to.

“You did well,” Lenn said so only I could hear. “Your mother would be proud.”

Somehow, that didn’t feel true.

As we walked through the parted crowd, the others who’d been afforded places at the front fell into step behind us. I was keenly aware of the presence of one in particular, yet I couldn’t bring myself to look back. Not after I’d pushed him away.

Grief is a strange thing.

Though I knew I should want to seek comfort from Lukas, I didn’t. We’d argued about it that morning when I told him I wanted to stand alone before the pyre. He believed, as my betrothed, it would send a message if he wasn’t at my side. My stomach clenched at the memory.

How could I explain it felt wrong not to drown in this pain?

Turning my attention back to my Thane, I said, “Any word?”

I knew the answer before Lenn shook his head. A week had passed, and there wasn’t any new information about the assassin who’d slipped into the night, leaving my mother and one of her Talons dead in their wake.

A fact made more infuriating by our inability to question the only man who’d seen the killer with his own eyes.

I gritted my teeth painfully. A burning spark lit in my chest, and I couldn't be sure if it was my own fury or the Shadow’s. Perhaps a bit of both. She hummed quietly as she poked at the edges of my mind.

My fingers twitched, aching to pull on that thread hovering under the surface. The darkthread—a string of power that tied the Shadow to me, as it had each of my ancestors for the last thousand years.

I said no more from you, I snapped at her. My brow furrowed as that glint of fury began to shift into… something else. It was as though a fishhook—one of those three-pronged monstrosities favored by the sailors of Kollavik—was embedded in my gut, pulling urgently at some primal need.

The Shadow rippled, her indifference flooding my mind. As much as I’d love to claim responsibility, this is all your doing . Figure it out.

A part of me knew she was right. I was about to lose control of this roiling power, and it was not because the Shadow taunted me. Something similar happened the day of my coronation. I’d been able to hold it off then—barely.

Drawing in a breath to steady myself, I balled my hands into fists, digging them into the folds of my gown. This would not get the better of me today.

Slowly, the aching need to tug ebbed away as my breath evened out, replaced by the hollow hole that claimed residence in my chest a week ago.

My heartbeat thrummed in my ears and drowned out the Shadow’s pervasive thoughts.

Mother warned me it would be difficult at first, but this was nothing like she described.

Finally, we reached the end of the crowd. Our horses stood gathered by the road, flanked by a few Hersir warriors and some of the clan leader’s personal guards. Lenn accompanied me to my mount.

The horse, Yorik, was a magnificent black stallion given to me by Lenn on my twentieth birthday.

I loved him dearly, though he was a little big for me.

Normally, I wouldn’t care that I struggled to get into the saddle on my own.

But today, when it seemed like everyone was passing judgment, hot shame crept into my cheeks as I flopped into the polished leather seat.

Lenn tightened the saddle cinch a bit, patting my leg in reassurance before walking off to find his own mount.

Without him there, I suddenly felt exposed.

I took up the reins, squeezing them tightly in my gloved hands and keeping my head bent.

If I didn’t look at them, their scrutiny wouldn’t reach me.

At least, that’s what I wanted to believe.

But I couldn’t stay looking down forever.

In the corner of my eye, a flash of red fabric drew my attention.

So Corbyn came after all, the Shadow whispered.