Amanda Downum - The Bone Palace

Her magic filled her like shards of glass; it would slice her to the bone if she seized it. But her death-sense remained: As soon as she touched him, she knew the wound was mortal. The blade shuddered with his heartbeat when she touched the hilt. A scalpel, a tiny thing, but it had found its mark.

“What do I do?” she asked, touching his face with trembling fingers. “What can I do?”

“Forgive me.” A bubble of blood burst on his lips. “Pull the knife out and let me die swiftly. Or leave it in, and let me spend a few more moments with you. Whichever option seems best to you.”

She cradled his head in her lap. Tears and blood dripped off her chin. “I’ll kill her,” she whispered. “I swear it.”

“Don’t.” His hand groped for hers, clung tight. Already cold, but some strength remained. “No revenge. You see what it does to you. But yes, you should stop her. It would be a mercy.” Each word was softer than the last. His dark eyes began to dim.

“You don’t have to die,” she whispered, lowering her head. Her hair and her tears fell over his face. “Not truly.”

“And become a demon? Undead? Could you stand the sight of me?”

She sobbed at the thought. Cold and empty, forever, dead and undying-

“I love you. Always you.”

“I knew it would be you-”

The words faded into a long rattling breath and the last spark inside him guttered. Death surrounded them, an owl-winged shadow reaching for Kiril. Isyllt flung herself against it, scrambling for power that sliced and crumbled at her touch.

She followed him into the dark.

The dark would not have her.

Savedra didn’t watch Mathiros die.

Nikos tried to intervene but his knees gave way, dragging them both to the floor. She pulled his head against her chest and buried her face in his hair, whispering meaningless sounds to drown the wet noises coming from Phaedra and the king.

When she opened her eyes again, Mathiros hung like an empty husk in Phaedra’s hands. Blood coated him, dripping from his fingers to dapple the floor. More slicked Phaedra’s hands and mouth. As Savedra watched, the red stains vanished into her skin-the splatters on her white gown remained. When the last drops were gone, the sorceress let him fall. Her face crumpled as she stared at the sunken corpse, exultation fled.

“How does it feel?”

Savedra started, scarcely recognizing Isyllt’s voice. The necromancer still knelt by Kiril, her face a half-mask of blood beneath the shroud of her hair.

“Was it worth it?”

“For a moment,” Phaedra said, almost too soft to hear. “For a moment it was. Now… it doesn’t matter now. It’s done.”

A spark of steel caught Savedra’s eye. Ginevra was awake, bound hands groping across the floor for Savedra’s knife. If Phaedra noticed the movement, she gave no sign.

“Now what?” Isyllt asked. Her eyes flickered-she noticed, and was trying to keep Phaedra distracted.

The demon stared at her hands, clean of blood. “Now I finish it, I suppose. I don’t want to wear this flesh anymore.”

“It won’t be different in anyone else’s,” Savedra said, finding her voice at last.

Phaedra turned. “It will, for a time.” Behind her, Ginevra had finished sawing through her bonds and chafed her raw wrists, jaw clenched against any sound of pain.

“Mathiros is dead,” Isyllt said. “Spider is dead. Kiril is dead.” Her voice was too hollow to crack. “You have your revenge, but your plans are ruined.”

“Perhaps you’re right. I only wanted-” Phaedra shook her head. “I don’t know what I wanted. Rest, perhaps.” She glanced at Savedra and Nikos. “Keep your prince. The other is all I need.”

At last she turned toward Ginevra, in time for the girl to launch herself off the floor, knife in hand.

Clumsy and slow, but Phaedra only gaped as the blade flashed toward her, rocked back as it struck her face. Ginevra fell, wan and sweating, and Phaedra stumbled back, one hand clapped to her cheek.

“You-” She pulled her hand away, and blood glistened on her palm. Mathiros’s blood, Savedra supposed. The slice laid her cheek open to the bone; flesh gapped as she spoke. Dark rivulets ran down her chin to stain her bodice.

“Dead flesh doesn’t feel pain,” she told Ginevra. “I’ll be more careful when I’m wearing yours.”

Ginevra’s grey eyes were dark with pain and hopelessness, but she gave Savedra a fleeting smile.

“I find,” she said softly as Phaedra walked toward her, “that I’m tired of being anyone’s pawn or plaything.” She turned the knife. Savedra’s lips moved as she understood, too slow to stop it.

The blade flashed one last time, as Ginevra drove it into the soft flesh beneath her chin.

Savedra screamed as Ginevra fell. Phaedra shrieked in rage. Isyllt breathed a name.

“Forsythia.”

A whisper was all the dead needed. Her ring sparked and the ghost appeared beside her, translucent and wild-eyed.

Isyllt reached for her magic as well, for the biting cold that gave her strength, but it fell to ashes at her touch. Her power would return, Kiril had said. She could endure this. But for the moment she was useless.

“What’s happening?” Forsythia asked, watching Phaedra kneel in the spreading pool of Ginevra’s blood. “Is that-”

“That’s her. I need your help to stop her.”

Transparent hands knotted in her skirts. “I can’t. I can’t.”

“You can.” Isyllt levered herself off Kiril’s shoulder, trying not to think of the cooling flesh beneath her. “You’re the only one who can. If we don’t she’ll do this over and over again.” She touched Forsythia’s shoulder, numbing her fingers to the bone. “I’m too weak to do it alone.”

The ghost straightened. “What do you need from me?”

“Possess me.” Her jaw wanted to lock on the words. “Wear my flesh. I can’t use my magic, but maybe you can.” Her voice shook. “It might destroy us both.”

Forsythia smiled crookedly, an echo of her mortal beauty. “I’m already dead, aren’t I? What do I do?”

Isyllt cupped the dead woman’s face in her hands, drawing her close. “Come inside.” Her defenses, already shaken and cracked, fell away, leaving her bare.

It was as cold as she’d ever imagined. Colder. Painful, too-shudders wracked her, muscles cramping and contracting, pulling her into a fetal ball. Fingernails cracked as she clawed the stones.

The pain ended, but the cold remained. With it came a fierce strength and hunger. All her aches and scrapes and fatigue faded away; she was strong again. Alive. Colors dizzied her, the texture of stone and cloth and the weight of her hair against her neck overwhelming in their intensity.

Focus, she whispered, before Forsythia grew drunk on sensation. We have to stop her before she recovers .

“Phaedra.” She felt her lips and tongue shape the sound, but control wasn’t hers. Dried salt and blood and mucus cracked and flaked as she moved. The air reeked like a slaughterhouse.

The sorceress rose, blood sticking her gown to her knees. Her hair fell in stormwrack swags around her ruined face. Her eyes burned.

“I’m sorry for Kiril,” she said as Isyllt tried to stand. “I never wanted that.”

“I’m sorry too.” She-they-gained their feet, and took a halting marionette step. In time she-and-Forsythia would be as strong and graceful as Phaedra, but they didn’t have that time. Was this how it always felt? The boundaries of host and possessor slowly blurring? Too slowly-she couldn’t teach Forsythia how to use the magic she’d studied for decades in only a moment.

“You can’t stop me,” Phaedra said. “You know that, don’t you? You can barely stand.”