Amanda Downum - The Bone Palace

Her heartbeat’s advantage was already spent. He moved in a white blur and she staggered, a sudden pressure on her jaw warming to pain. Copper washed her tongue again, mingling with the acrid taste of nerves. Her jaw wasn’t broken; luck, or had he pulled the blow? She turned the stumble into a crouch, rocking on the balls of her feet as she tried to keep him in sight.

Easier tried than done-he moved silently and weightlessly as any ghost, but much faster. She blocked a blow that would have opened her throat, and it felt like dragging her limbs through honey. She was rewarded with the jolt of blade on bone and Spider’s quite audible cursing. He cradled his hand to his chest, black blood seeping between his fingers.

“This is foolish, little witch.”

“It certainly is.” She flung another blaze of light and lunged again. Her shoulder struck his chest and her knife turned on his ribs, slicing through cloth and skin and desiccated muscle. The smell of musk and anise and bitter earth filled her nose.

Spider snarled, fangs shining inches from her face. He tore the knife from her hand; it clattered across the stones, out of reach. His other hand seized her jaw, redoubling the ache from his last blow.

“I would have let you live,” he murmured as he forced her head back. She kicked and clawed, but it was like fighting a statue.

She hadn’t wanted to use the cold, not with Phaedra still to face, but she was out of options. She reached for the emptiness inside her-the Arcanost called it entropomancy, but to her it was the nothing, the chill that ran deeper than death.

“Oh, Spider.”

Isyllt teetered on the brink of the void; Spider froze, his jaw distending like a snake’s as he leaned in for the kill. She knew that voice, like slow-pouring water….

“This is not what we do.”

He dropped Isyllt and spun, fangs bared as he faced Tenebris.

The red fog curled away from her. Shadows deepened in its place, spilling ink-black from beneath pillars and arches to cling to her skirts. They twined her arms and nestled in her hair, pressing against her neck like children. Of her face Isyllt could see nothing, save for the angry glitter of her eyes and the gleam of her fangs when she spoke.

“Did you think we would take no notice of your revolution?”

“Why would you?” Spider spat. “You sleep away the years and do nothing while the mortals keep us locked in the darkness.”

“We are the darkness, little fledgling.” Humor and sadness veined her voice, a warmer current amidst the cold tide. “We are darkness and dust. It may be our nature to hunger for warmth and light, but we must extinguish them or be seared. We are hunters, teeth in the night, not shepherds to keep humans for chattel. The kingdoms of men mean nothing to us.”

“Rot in your ossuaries, then. I want something more, and I’m not alone.”

“Really?” Again the humor, sharper now. “You seem quite alone to me, little one.”

Which is why, Isyllt thought, you don’t use allies as scapegoats . She didn’t say it, though-she didn’t feel like attracting more of Tenebris’s attention.

“I, on the other hand,” the vrykola continued, “am not.”

A pale shape moved in the shadows and Spider recoiled. “Aphra!”

The elder vrykola was slight and fine-boned. She wore grey velvet, yellowed with age and rotting at the seams. Lace snagged and tattered on the broken flagstones. Her hair was the color of old ivory, her skin dull and grey until the light kissed her-then she glittered like raw marble, a statue brought to life.

“Spider.” Her voice was the whisper of dust across cathedral floors, the sound of stone dissolving in the relentless flow of time.

“You’re awake.”

Isyllt had never heard his voice sound so human, threaded with fear and longing and anger.

“Azarné came to us, told us what you’ve done.” She advanced on him slowly, inexorably, one long grey hand rising. “Oh, child. I thought you would fare better than this.”

“I only wanted-” His voice cracked and died. His shoulders slumped, legs wavering as he struggled to stand.

“You wanted the world. And that is no longer ours.” She touched his hair, and he fell to his knees as if she’d cut his strings. Black tears tracked his cheeks.

Stone scraped against Isyllt’s palms as she crawled forward. She hadn’t meant to move, but his weakness and misery were unbearable. He should die fighting-

“Hush, child.” Tenebris’s icy hands closed on her arms, drawing her gently up. “It’s better this way. She is his maker-the unmaking is also hers.” Shadow fingers stroked Isyllt’s bruised cheek, wiped a drop of blood from her split lip. “I’m sorry he hurt you.”

The vampire draped an arm across Isyllt’s shoulders, turning her away from Aphra and Spider. He was crying now, low keening sobs. The sound twisted Isyllt’s stomach. She tried to look back, but Tenebris held her, wrapped her in shadows like liquid silk.

“It’s better if you don’t watch.”

She was wrong-the wet sounds that followed were worse by themselves, mingled with Spider’s soft gasps.

Finally they stopped, and Tenebris drew her shadow-draperies away.

Isyllt turned to see Aphra bending over Spider. Blood shone black on the vrykola’s colorless mouth as she straightened, and on the ruin of Spider’s throat. His head hung against his chest, his hair a spiderweb shroud. He was too pale to show the petrification that took the vrykolos in death, but Isyllt watched his limbs tremble and grow still. Her vision blurred, and she scrubbed away a glaze of foolish tears.

Aphra laid a hand on Spider’s head again, a final caress. Then she twisted. His spine cracked like crushed gravel and his head fell and shattered on the ground. The rest of him toppled slowly after, disintegrating into a glittering drift of dust.

Aphra turned to Isyllt, fixing her with colorless crystalline eyes. “He did care for you,” the vrykola whispered. “As much as he was able.” She turned and vanished into the fog before Isyllt could think of anything to say.

Tenebris lifted the shadow of her face toward the sky. “We will return to the catacombs and take our wayward children with us. They won’t bother you again, at least tonight. The demon in the tower, though, is not of our doing, and none of our concern. Good luck, necromancer.”

And she was gone.

The wind chilled Isyllt’s face; she was crying again. She wiped her cheeks and began searching for her knife.

The climb might have lasted a year, but Savedra knew the tower had no more than four or five stories. Spirits crowded the stairs, scuttling and chirping, but didn’t touch her. The only light was the spark of her rings, orange and blood red. That glow drew her upward, though her heart pounded to break her ribs and queasy sweat greased her palms. The darkness changed as she climbed, greying with the promise of light.

The door at the top of the stairs stood open, lined in gentle lamplight. Savedra stood before it, pressing a sweat-and-blood-slick hand against the stitch in her side. She heard nothing from the other side; she heard nothing at all but the sick pounding of her heart. When her pulse slowed and the pain in her ribs dulled, she drew a breath and stepped across the threshold.

She didn’t know what a haematurge’s lair should look like, but whatever she expected, it wasn’t the disrepair she walked into. No blood or filth, but scattered books and rugs and missing furniture, like a half-vacated house. After the frozen night, the warmth of braziers stifled.

Her breath left in a deflated rush. No Nikos, no demons-where were they? Then a red lump in the corner that she’d taken for cushions stirred, and she jumped.