Amanda Downum - The Bone Palace

“You’re as bad as Ashlin,” Savedra gasped, steadying herself against a corroded iron spike.

The top of the wall was a yard across; a small mercy in the ice-slick dark. Several spikes had rusted away, leaving only jagged nubs of iron protruding from the stone. Peering over the edge, Isyllt saw Ashlin waving. The ground was a shadowed tangle of snow and briars and saints only knew what else.

“Go on,” she told Savedra. “They’re waiting.”

“You go first.” The woman’s hair had come free of its pins, tangling around her face in a wild black cloud. Her face was grey as the falling ashes beneath.

“And leave you alone, too scared to jump or climb back down?”

Savedra scowled, but didn’t deny it. “I can’t do this.”

“Oh, yes you can, Pallakis. Your prince is waiting in there, remember?” She swept one arm toward the shadowed white ruin.

“Damn you,” Savedra whispered. And, more softly, “Thank you.” She edged closer to the drop. “What do I do?”

“Hold on and lower yourself down. Push off and let go, and remember to crumple when you hit the ground.”

“Easy for you to say,” she muttered, but sank to her knees and backed slowly toward the edge, both hands white-knuckled on the barbs. “Oh, saints-”

She shrieked as she let go, followed by a muffled whump from below. Isyllt gave the others a moment to drag her out of the way.

The fall lasted long enough for her to regret every part of this plan. Then the ground met her boots with a jolt, and the shock of landing rippled up her legs and spine and snapped her head back. She rolled, curling her arms around her head as a knot of brambles stopped her. She lay still, winded and throbbing, while black and red spots swam across her eyes. When she had her first breath back she spent it on curses. The taste of copper filled her mouth; she’d bitten her tongue.

“I am never doing that again,” Savedra muttered somewhere nearby. Ashlin laughed.

“I’ll make an adventurer of you yet,” the princess said.

Isyllt sat up, wincing at the rectangular bruise her kit had left on her hip. A heartbeat later she realized the ringing in her ears wasn’t from the fall-it was silence.

The noise of the riots ended at the wall; within the stone boundary, a preternatural hush reigned. A red fog drifted over them, spice-sweet and charnel. Isyllt coughed as the smell coated her nose and mouth, mingling with the taste of blood. Savedra gagged, muffling the sound with one hand. A conjured witchlight did nothing to drive back the haze, only stained it porphyry.

“Saints and specters,” Denaris gasped, and Isyllt frowned at the strain in her voice. “What is that?”

“Phaedra’s magic.” She rose to her knees, peering through the red-tinged darkness till she found the captain sitting at the base of the wall. “Meant to disorient anyone who makes it this far. What’s wrong?”

The woman snorted. Her face glistened with sweat, and a muscle jumped in her jaw. “My ankle. Broken, I think. I’m too old for tumbling.”

“Shadows,” Savedra breathed. “What can we do?”

“Go on,” she said. “Find the prince and take care of this witch. Then send me some handsome soldiers with a litter, and tell stories of my valor.” Her hands shook as she touched her injured leg, belying the words.

Isyllt nodded. “Stay here. Stay quiet. You may see things in the shadows, spirits trying to trick you. Ignore them. Even if they look like your dearest friend.” She brushed her hand across the woman’s slick brow and whispered a word of obfuscation.

“Keep them safe, necromancer,” Denaris whispered, closing her eyes.

Isyllt looked at the seething crimson fog, at the ruins rising from it like a giant’s bones. “We’re far past safe, Captain.”

The silence didn’t last. The fog was full of spirits, hissing and chittering and laughing as the three women pressed deeper into the ruin. Voices carried through the haze, some frightened and angry, some tearfully imploring. Isyllt heard Dahlia’s voice pleading for help, and Ciaran’s, and Khelséa’s. From the grim expression Ashlin and Savedra shared, they heard their own loved ones in danger.

They tried to follow paths, but the stones were cracked and overgrown, and turned or ended unexpectedly. Crumbling walls and broken pillars loomed around them, and voices mocked them from the shadows. The fog thickened, till the world drowned in red an armspan all around. The echo of sour magic lessened in the open air, but the pulse of it from the ground still made Isyllt’s stomach twist and drove a splinter of pain between her eyes. Amidst all the distractions, she felt someone watching, a familiar whisper at the edge of her awareness. Spider.

“We could be going in circles,” Savedra said after they stumbled through a second knot of thorns. Her eyes were liquid, her jaw clenched tight. Ashlin’s free hand reached for hers and squeezed.

“Here.” Isyllt drew her exorcist’s kit from her coat pocket and fumbled a silk-wrapped lump from the leather wallet. Phaedra’s ruby glittered as she unfolded it. “Take this. It will seek out its own.”

“I’m no mage,” Savedra said, eyeing the stone with distrust.

“You don’t need to be. All you need to do is wear it and pay attention. You’ll feel the pull.” Sending anixeroi out in this alone might be murder, but she needed fewer distractions to deal with her stalker. She closed her eyes in concentration as she called another light, fixing this one to the foreign magic in the stone.

“Where are you going?” Ashlin asked.

“We’re being followed. I’m going to deal with it.”

Savedra twisted the ring onto her left hand. The band dug into her flesh as she made a fist. “I feel it,” she whispered. The pink tinge of the new witchlight cast her face flushed and fevered.

“Then go,” Isyllt said. “I’ll catch up.”

As Savedra and the princess vanished into the fog, she hoped that wasn’t a lie.

This might not have been the best plan,” Ashlin muttered, squinting into the eddying darkness. Her hair shone red in the unnerving light, dark with sweat at the nape. The sheen on her brow could have been blood.

Savedra laughed breathlessly. The ruins had been bad enough with Isyllt beside them; with her gone they were a dozen times worse. She wanted to take the princess’s hand again, but knew better than to interfere with someone holding a sword. The ruby shivered on her finger, tugging her deeper into the fog.

Something sharp and cold clawed her ankle, pricking through the soft suede of her boots. Savedra shrieked and kicked. Brambles, she prayed as she whirled, shrubs or rubble -The ground at her feet was clear.

“What-” began Ashlin, only to shout and jump in turn. “Something grabbed me!”

“Me too.” Sharp unseen fingers tugged at her hair and pinched her arm hard enough to bruise. “Shadows!” Each time she saw nothing, but she heard skittering in the fog, and mocking inhuman laughter.

“Keep moving.” Ashlin’s eyes were wild but her sword held steady. “Isyllt said all they can do is distract us.”

“This is more than distraction,” Savedra muttered, rubbing her arm.

They didn’t dare run, but they stumbled and scrambled as fast as they could. Savedra wept, from pain and fear and frustration, never knowing where the next vicious pinch or bite would come from. She tried to think of Nikos, but soon gave that up for the more immediate concern of not sprawling headlong and being eaten.

The tower appeared so quickly they nearly collided with it. A darker shadow against the sky, till the fog thinned to reveal pale, vine-laced stones. Reliefs had covered the walls once, but time had worn the figures soft and faceless. The ruby sparked with a sullen light as Savedra touched the carven sandstone.