19

SO THE BONE TELLS

Corayne

At home, time divided into long portions, weeks or months, to suit trade demands, voyages of the Tempestborn, and the change of seasons. The days were a hallway, a clear passage of open doors. In Lemarta that meant days of waiting, plotting around distant storms or political upheaval on some foreign coast. Corayne felt bored more often than not, watching the horizon with her ledger, letters, and reports tucked close. But she had room to maneuver, to think, to plan.

Now Corayne felt like she was back in the hedge maze, running blindly around corners with gods-knew-what waiting on the other side. She could only react and hope to survive. Not exactly ideal.

“What could it be now?” she muttered as they followed Andry out of the mill.

The abandoned farm had a haze to it in the morning light, a golden mist that softened the hedges and overgrown fields. It was as lovely as a painting. Corayne hated it. Too quiet, too safe, she thought, glaring at the rutted lane. Everything felt like a trap. She had strapped the Spindleblade on before they left the mill, and it dug into the newborn welts on her shoulders and waist. That did not improve her mood.

Andry waved them over the threshold of the dilapidated farmhouse. Half of it still had a roof, but it was more cobweb than timber. The rest opened to the sky, like a giant had come along and put his fist through the ceiling. Debris gathered in the corners, and most of the furniture was broken or gone, with only an iron pot half buried in the hearth. Anything else of use piled on the floor, in ordered rows like a regiment of soldiers. Andry has been busy.

Sorasa sniffed at the pot, her eyes narrowed. Corayne followed, peering in to see a pile of boiled bones. They seemed to radiate cold, despite the warm sun spilling over the house.

“Animal,” Sorasa muttered, her eyes narrowed. “But fresh.”

On the other side of the room, Andry stood over a pile of rags, his copper cheeks tinged with red. “I didn’t notice her at first,” he said hesitantly. “I wasn’t quiet, but she didn’t stir.”

Corayne stiffened, eyeing the rags again. It was difficult to tell what lay beneath. The bone cold seemed to thrum. “Did you say her?”

Andry swallowed. “I don’t know if she’s—”

“She’s alive,” Dom answered, cocking his head. Apparently he could hear a heartbeat, one of the more unsettling things about the Elder warrior. There was a steadily growing list.

He bent to the rags, crouching on his heels, and inhaled deeply, like a dog catching a scent. Gently, he pulled back the first layer, a patchwork blanket in every color of dirt. A head of gray, frizzing hair peeked out between his feet, stuck with twigs, leaves, and beaded braids that made Corayne twinge. Why, she could not say.

She took a step forward, her knees shaky with exhaustion. But a fist closed on her arm, the fingers digging in sharply.

“Wait,” Sorasa warned, holding her back.

“Mistress, we’re sorry to intrude,” Andry said, taking a knee next to the pile. The gray head didn’t move. Corayne strained to see her face but Dom and Andry blocked her view.

Dom ran a hand over his blond beard. “She’s in a deep sleep. Too deep for a mortal.”

“Leave her and we’ll be on our way,” Sorasa said. “She hasn’t seen our faces; she won’t be able to aid anyone looking for us.”

The Elder bit his lip. “Are you certain of that?”

The assassin shrugged. “Fine, slit her throat.”

“Sorasa,” Corayne hissed, sucking in a breath.

Andry squared his shoulders. “You’ll do no such thing,” he barked, and Corayne saw the flash of a knight in him.

Sorasa glanced between them, puzzled. “You’re being hunted by the Queen of Galland and a demon king. I don’t recommend making it any easier for them.”

The sleeping woman sat up quickly, as if she’d never been sleeping at all. Her eyes opened, blue as the most brilliant sky. Her mouth was like a gash, her lips thin, lined by wrinkles from a lifetime of smiling.

“Kill me and Allward is as good as gone,” the old woman said cheerfully. Her voice lilted, playful, edged in a familiar accent. The woman’s gaze bore into her like a battering ram, a grin jagged on her pale, old face. “Don’t gape, pyrta gaera; it hasn’t been so long.”

Corayne clenched her teeth against a cry of shock.

“You,” she breathed. The old woman from the ship, the Jydi peddler. Useless trinkets and silly rhymes.

Dom rose from his crouch as the woman scrambled to her feet. “You know her?”

“She was on the ship to the capital,” Sorasa said, putting her body between Corayne and the Jydi. “She boarded when we put in at Corranport and then got off in Ascal with the rest.” Her eyes roved over the old woman. She looked the same as she had on the galley, swaddled in a mismatched shawl and filthy dress. Her feet were bare and black with dirt. “You followed us.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible, Sorasa,” Corayne breathed. From the docks, to the palace, chased out of the city. It doesn’t make sense. She would have to know where we were going before we did. Her hand twitched at her side. Cold prickled in her fingers.

The old woman shook her head, laughing.

“You followed me,” she crowed, patting down her manic hair. “Or your horses did, good beasts they be.” She shuffled toward the pot in the hearth. Her hands were like bird wings, fragile and flapping.

Sorasa pushed Corayne away, backing them both out of the woman’s path.

She paid them no attention and upended the pot, spilling bones across the floor. Rib bones, leg bones, vertebrae, and skulls. Rats, rabbits, birds. All picked clean, white as clouds. She let them fall, observing a pattern the rest couldn’t see.

“You’re a witch,” Andry said, sounding dazed.

She didn’t answer, inspecting her mess. The Jydi was lithe for her age, turning and twisting, even dropping to the floor to inspect the spread of bones from every possible angle.

“A witch,” Corayne murmured. In her pocket, her fingers closed around a twist of wood. She pulled it loose, the sharp ends black with dried blood.

The Jydi shrugged. “I’m what I am, and that should be.” Then she tutted to herself, a liver-spotted hand on her chin as she searched the bones. “I should have done this under a tree.”