Page 165 of Silver in the Bone

You brought him here because you thought you knew best.

It was all for nothing.

You got what you deserved.

And he died hating you.

My brother—the sensitive, brilliant, talented, charming one. The best not just of the Larks but of any world. Avalon had brought him nothing but pain and death. I never should have asked him to come with me.

I never should have gone looking for Nash.

The weight of the loss hit again, knocking the breath from my body. Cabell had been so close to the end of his nightmare. So close to breaking free of the darkness that had tried to smother every last trace of hope he’d had. To devour him.

I couldn’t close my eyes without imagining it. How quickly and savagely death had come for all of them—within hours of the isle’s salvation.

A sickening fury crept through me, bringing the taste of bile to my mouth again. There was no Goddess or any other god. There was no fate. There had only ever been the cruel uncertainties of life.

The isle’s mist roamed between the trees, spreading its long, searching fingers toward the tower. The last of the Nine’s magic had dwindled, and the fires inside the moat were no longer burning. I stared down into it, eyes skimming over the bones, the charred wood, the swords and shields that had fallen in and become distorted with heat.

What was I supposed to do? There was hardly anything left of my brother to bury. The way to the barge, to the human world, was clear now and there was nothing to stop me or anyone else from leaving, but what was left for me there? A small life riddled with painful memories of being left behind and made to feel useless. A job I’d inherited, a guild that had never wanted me, no friends to lean on, no place to go but back to a home that was meant to be shared, full of things my brother would never need again.

At the end of everything, what was left?

Quiet weeping filled the gloaming, and a faint light rose below. With stiff muscles, I pulled myself away from the wall and looked down into the courtyard.

Olwen was laying the bodies out alongside one another, tenderly arranging even the most grotesque of them. She tried to clean their faces, their arms and legs, but when she came to Betrys, she began to shake. She pressed her face into her bloodied apron to muffle her cries.

This.

The word sang through me, as clearly as if someone had whispered it in my ear.

This. This was what was left.

Them.

I made my way along the wall, stopping to hook my arms beneath the body of a man slumped over his broken bow. I brought him down the stairs, struggling beneath his weight, and laid him out beside the others. Olwen looked up, but I had already started back toward the stairs, where more of the dead waited.

We worked in silence, and I found that the movement, the focus, stilled my thoughts. At some point, Neve joined us, washing and preparing the dead as Olwen and I brought them to her. Neve, who had once been so intrigued by death, had lost the last trace of light from her eyes as the grim reality overtook her.

Then Caitriona came, carrying Mari’s frail body out of the tower. She laid Mari beside her sisters, her face rigid with barely suppressed emotion.

She brought Flea out last, but as she came near us, she stopped. Her grip on the girl tightened, her face strained beneath her bandages.

“Cait,” Olwen said softly, lifting her arms.

“No,” the other girl said roughly, cradling Flea.

“She’s already gone, dear heart,” Olwen said. “There is nothing to be done now.”

“No.” Caitriona closed her eyes, pleading.

Neve rose and went to Caitriona, placing a gentle hand on her back and guiding her forward. I wiped the sweat and grime from my face with the sleeve of my jacket, barely able to look as the little girl was placed with the others.

Flea looked almost peaceful, and somehow that made it worse, because I knew her final moments had been anything but.

I crouched beside her, touching her hand, studying her like I had the others. I didn’t want to forget any part of her. Her small-boned frame. The thin blue veins on her eyelids. The white-blond strands tucked up into her knit cap.

I took her left hand and cleaned it with a new rag. Olwen took her right, placing a small bundle of herbs and dried flowers in it, as she had with all the others. Caitriona hung back, tears streaming down her face. Neve stayed close to her side, giving me a helpless look as she hooked her hand around Caitriona’s elbow.

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