Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(3)
Author: Alexandra Bracken

 

“In ages past, in a kingdom lost to time, a king named Arthur ruled man and Fair Folk alike,” Nash began, carefully making his way around the crystals. He used the tip of his axe to scratch out the curse sigils as he passed by them. “But it is not him I speak of now—rather, the fair isle of Avalon. A place where apples grow that can heal all ailments, and priestesses tend to those who live among its divine groves. For a time, Arthur’s own half sister Morgana belonged to their order. She served as a wise and fair counsel to him, despite how many of those Victorian-era shills chose to remember her.”

 

He’d told us this tale before. A hundred times, around a hundred different smoky campfires. As if Arthur and his knights were accompanying us on all our jobs . . . but it was a good kind of familiar.

 

I focused on the sound of Nash’s warm, rumbly voice, not the horrible faces around us. The blood frozen in halos around them.

 

“The priestesses honor the goddess who created the very land Arthur came to rule—some say she made it from her own heart.”

 

“That’s stupid,” I whispered, my voice trembling only a little. Cabell reached back, taking my hand tight in his own.

 

Nash snorted. “Maybe to you, girl, but to them, their stories are as real as you or me. The isle was once part of our world, where Glaston-bury Tor now proudly stands, but many centuries ago, when new religions rose and man grew to fear and hate magic, it was splintered away, becoming one of the Otherlands. There, priestesses, druids, and Fair Folk escaped the dangers of the mortal world, and lived in peace . . .”

 

“Until the sorceresses rebelled,” Cabell said, risking a look around. His voice was growing stronger.

 

“Until the sorceresses rebelled,” Nash agreed. “The sorceresses we know today are the descendants of those who were banished from Avalon, after taking to darker magic . . .”

 

I focused on the feel of Cabell’s hand, his fingers squeezing tight as we passed by the last body and moved through a stone archway. Beyond it, the ice-slick path wound its way down. We stopped again when Cabell felt—before he even saw—a curse sigil buried underfoot.

 

“Why are you so desperate to find this stupid dagger, anyway?” I asked, hugging my arms to my chest to try to keep warm.

 

Nash had spent the last year searching, blowing off paying work and easier finds. I’d found us the lead for this vault . . . not that Nash would ever acknowledge the research I did.

 

“You don’t think finding a legendary relic is reason enough?” he asked, swiping at his red-tipped nose. “When you desire something, you must fight for it tooth and claw, or not at all.”

 

“The path’s clear,” Cabell said, standing again. “We can keep going.”

 

Nash moved ahead of us. “Remember, my wee imps, that Sorceress Edda was renowned for her love of trickery. All will not be what it first seems.”

 

It only took a few steps to understand what he meant.

 

It began with a kerosene lantern, casually left beside one of the bodies in the ice, as if the hunter had merely set it down, leaned forward against the freezing surface, and been swallowed whole.

 

We passed it without a second look.

 

Next was the ladder, the one that offered safety for the long climb down to a lower level.

 

We used our ropes.

 

Then, just as the temperature plunged deeper into a killing freeze, a pristine white fur coat. So soft and warm and just the kind that an absent-minded sorceress might have left behind, tossing it over an equally tempting crate of food jars.

 

Take me, they whispered. Use me.

 

And pay the price in blood.

 

Ignatius’s light revealed the truth. The razors and rusted nails lining the interior of the coat. The spiders waiting in the jars. All but one rung missing from the ladder. Even the lantern was filled with the Smothering Mother, a vapor that tightened your lungs until breathing became impossible, made from the blood of a mother who’d killed her children. Anyone who opened the glass to light the wick would be dead in an instant.

 

We passed it all, Cabell redirecting the dark magic of the curses laid between each trap. Finally, after what seemed like hours, we reached the inner chamber of the vault.

 

The round chamber shone with the same pale, icy light. At its center was an altar, and there, sitting on a velvet pillow, was a dagger with a bone-white hilt.

 

And Nash, who never struggled for a word, was silent. Not happy, like I would have thought. Not bouncing on his toes with glee as Cabell broke the last of the curses protecting it.

 

“What’s the matter with you?” I demanded. “Don’t tell me it’s not the right dagger.”

 

“No, it is,” Nash said, his voice taking on a strange tone. Cabell stepped back from the altar, allowing Nash to come forward.

 

“Well,” he breathed out, his hand hovering above the hilt for an instant before closing around it. “Hello.”

 

“What now?” Cabell asked, peering down at it.

 

A better question was probably who he was going to sell it to. Maybe, for once, we could afford a decent place to live and food to eat.

 

“Now,” Nash said quietly, holding the blade up into the gleaming light. “We go to Tintagel and recover the true prize.”

 

 

 

We traveled to Cornwall by train, arriving just as a fierce storm blew in over the cliffs and ensnared the dark ruins of Tintagel Castle in its wild, thundering depths. After we battled to set up our tent in the lashing rain and wind, I crashed into sleep. The bodies in the ice were waiting for me in dreams, only now they weren’t Hollowers, but King Arthur and his knights.

 

Nash stood in front of them, his back to me as he watched the surface of the ice rippling like water. I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Not even a scream as he stepped forward through the ice, as if to join them.

 

I jolted awake with a gasp, twisting and thrashing to free myself from my sleeping bag. The first bit of sunlight gave the red fabric of our tent a faint glow.

 

Enough for me to see that I was alone.

 

They’re gone.

 

Static filled my ears, turning my body to pins and needles. My fingers were too numb to grip the zipper on the tent’s flap.

 

They’re gone.

 

I couldn’t breathe. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. They’d left me behind again.

 

With a frustrated scream, I broke the zipper and ripped the flap away, tumbling out into the cold mud.