“Bone worker!”
“Stop her!”
“Grab her!”
“Burn her!”
She hacked at the shoulder, but without the bear strength, she didn’t have the force to slice through the burnt flesh. A hand grabbed her arm, and she pulled away, kicking behind her. She felt her foot make impact.
She thought she heard Jentt shouting at her, inside her head: “Run, Kreya! Run!”
Not without you! she cried back.
Abandoning the shoulder, she hacked at the fingers. One snapped off under her blade. She shoved it in a pocket, and then she ran—not into the crowd, but instead around the pyre toward the Cliff of the Dead. As she ran, she yanked out the talisman for steadiness.
Please, work!
She whispered its word.
Kreya didn’t slow as she ran straight toward the rock face.
Fueled by the talisman, her feet stuck into the crags and nooks. She climbed as fast as she could. Glancing down, she saw the villagers below her. It was sacrilege to climb a Cliff of the Dead—none would risk angering their beloved lost ones.
But that did not stop them from throwing rocks.
The first hit the stone beside her and shattered. She felt her grip slip. Don’t fail me! Continuing to climb, she pushed herself up higher and higher. Her arms began to shake, and her palms were sweating within the gloves. She didn’t know how long the talisman would last. It had been weak to begin with, and she was draining it fast.
Another rock hit. Even closer.
She kept climbing. She could see the top—
The third rock hit between her shoulder blades. She cried out, but she made herself keep climbing. Another rock hit beside her. One grazed her ankle.
Her fingers reached up and touched grass. Clawing at the soil, she kept pushing until she heaved herself over the edge. Panting, she lay there. Her arm muscles were screaming.
Cheek pressed into the dirt and grass, she felt the ground vibrate. Quake? Or people—running up a path, toward the top of the cliff, toward her. She scrambled shakily to her feet. Reaching into her pockets, she felt for another talisman. Strength. Speed. Anything.
Her fingers closed over the carved bear knuckle and claw, and she activated it with a whispered word. She felt cool relief flood through her body, and she had the strength to run.
She fled into the pine forest, fueled by magic. Branches whipped against her, and Kreya felt a sting on her cheek as one bit into her. She reached up and touched wetness—blood. But she didn’t slow. She heard crashing behind her, the villagers chasing her, and she knew she couldn’t lead them straight to her tower, where Jentt waited for her. Her constructs couldn’t defend against a mob. Or, really, anything more dangerous than an errant cobweb—she hadn’t designed them for that. She’d counted on stone walls and isolation to protect her, but that wouldn’t hold against angry and determined mourners.
I’m sorry, she wanted to tell them. But I need her bones more than she did.
She didn’t know if she’d even been able to salvage enough to make a difference, and she couldn’t check now. Her lungs burned, her legs ached, and the spot between her shoulder blades throbbed. Some of her pursuers were quite a bit younger, and they had rage to urge them on. Most of her rage had burned out years ago.
But the bit she had left wasn’t going to fade.
Kreya weighed her options. She knew the mountain as well as or better than these villagers who never ventured beyond their sheep pastures. If she had the right talismans—I should’ve been more prepared. She thought of the waste of all those beautiful bones, rich with power, burned to ash by now.
What’s done is done. Now, focus!
She heard the rattle of the cable car. For an instant, she imagined herself leaping from a cliff onto the top of it and riding it away from her pursuers. Maybe Jentt could have done that, years ago. He’d been capable of manipulating talismans to pull off amazing feats. She knew her limitations, though, and part of that was the lack of any usable talismans. Instead, she used the rattle of the cable car to hide the sound of her switching direction—she veered left, between the trees, crashing through branches without fear of being heard.
Ahead she knew the path turned right, but instead she went straight toward a collection of rocks. Her lungs were screaming, and she was sure she’d pay for this tomorrow. Of course, that depended on whether or not she lived to see tomorrow. She knew what the people of Vos did to bone workers caught stealing human bones.
She had no doubt the villagers had left the fire burning for her.
Kreya saw the outcropping ahead of her. She forced herself to run faster, as the cable car rattled louder overhead. She spurted across a meadow and then ducked between the rocks.
Shaking, she leaned flat against one rock. Her breath raked across her throat, and her vision became speckled with black dots. The world tilted, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
Don’t faint. Not now.
She heard her pursuers shout to one another as they crashed out of the woods. They’d reached the meadow. She didn’t know if any of them were good enough trackers to spot the direction in which she’d run. She knew she couldn’t count on incompetence to save her, though in her experience the incompetence of people was surprisingly reliable.
Move, she told herself.
She peeled herself off the rock where she’d been leaning, and she plunged deeper between the rocks, into the caves she knew were there. She’d discovered them several years ago, after being caught in a thunderstorm. She’d returned a few times to map them. It had kept her occupied one summer while she waited for news of a fresh corpse.
Keeping her hand on one wall, Kreya hurried into the cave. As the evening light disappeared behind her, she slowed, picking her way deeper into the mountain.
Shouts came from behind her, at the cave entrance.
Kreya didn’t slow. The odds that the villagers knew these caves, that they’d risk entering without knowing if there were crevasses that could swallow them or unstable rocks that could fall and crush them, were low. She hadn’t seen anyone holding a lantern or torch. Their smartest bet would be to seal the cave entrance, she thought.
If they caused a rockfall, then they’d either crush her or trap her. A sensible option. She didn’t know, though, if any of the villagers were thinking sensibly after the death of one of their children. But she couldn’t control what other people thought; she could only control what she did, and what she did was not stop.
Left.
Right.
Right.
Pressing against the rock wall, she skirted around a drop she knew was there. She slowed even more as the cave dipped downward, careful to keep her footing on the loose pebbles.
Behind her, she heard a rumble and a crash.
The villagers had collapsed the entrance after all.
Smart, she thought. Just not smart enough.
She followed the caves unerringly through the dark, until she saw a sliver of graying light ahead of her. Moonlight. Climbing over fallen rocks, she emerged into the night, many miles from the village.
Standing, Kreya looked up at the moon, three-quarters full and heavy over the mountains, and the stars, splattered across the sky. She reached into her pocket and drew out the dead girl’s finger. It was only a sliver. Even less bone than she’d hoped.
At best, it would give them a day.
Ash flaked away and was caught by the wind and carried off the side of the mountain. Far below, the deadly valley that ran throughout Vos between the mountains was invisible, shrouded in shadowy mist. It would swallow the ash, eventually. Her hand closed around the tiny bit of charred flesh and bone.