Page 78 of Silver in the Bone

The carpet of decay—blackened leaves, animal carcasses, withered moss—dampened the clip-clopping of the horses. I kept my eyes on the trees and jagged rocks. There were far too many places for the Children to hide, folding their spidery bodies into crevices or retreating into the impenetrable darkness of caves created by the rise and fall of the rugged land.

I looked up, trying to see the sky through the gnarled branches of the dead trees. I could almost imagine it—how Avalon might resemble Tintagel if it were alive with the glow of green life.

Emrys’s body was rigid behind mine, his fingers unconsciously curling against my stomach as he surveyed the ravaged wilderness.

Less than an hour had passed since we’d left the tower when we entered a different stretch of forest. The trees here were in orderly lines, and the mist draped itself from their naked branches. The sweet rot of fruit assaulted my senses.

“The sacred grove?” I guessed.

I felt, rather than saw, Emrys nod. “Must be.”

A flicker of light caught my attention, and I turned the horse toward it. A fire burned a short distance away, at the head of a narrow watchtower that jutted up from the ground like a crooked finger. In the darkened air, its flames became the only beacon to guide the way.

My heart pounded against my ribs as Caitriona slowed her horse and dismounted, casting a thorough look around before tying it to a post. One by one, we did the same.

Caitriona lifted the heavy latch on the tower’s door. I pushed inside, Cabell close behind.

Dust swirled around us as thick as the mist beyond the stone walls. The grayed light bled in through a small opening in the wall, falling eerily on the still scene within.

A tattered sleeping bag. An unlit lantern. A rumpled candy wrapper.

The skeletal remains of a man sinking into the grasping earth.

The others blurred at the edge of my vision, becoming shadows. Unspent breath burned in my lungs. I couldn’t release it. I didn’t dare move and disturb the dust swirling around us. To shatter the strange dream that had me in its snare.

“We call him the Stranger,” came Caitriona’s voice from behind us. “For he never had a name or face to us. We did not bury him, in the hope his kin would come.”

Something heavy thumped to the ground. Cabell’s dark form moved slowly, so slowly, to kneel beside the remains.

Look, I told myself, fighting the need to turn away. You have to look.

“—this your idea of a cruel joke?” Emrys was saying. His harsh voice grated in the stillness of the watchtower. “You couldn’t have given them any kind of warning? It might not even be him—how can you be sure this isn’t someone born of Avalon?”

Bedivere bent, his armor creaking as he retrieved the silver wrapper from the ground. Baby Ruth.

Nash’s favorite.

“He had already succumbed to death when we lit the beacon of this watchtower last year,” Caitriona said. “Had he arrived after, he would have been able to use the shelter as it was intended—a safe place to hide from the Children of the Night.”

Her voice drifted away as I focused on Cabell’s hand reaching toward the remains.

The bones were browned beneath the remaining shreds of clothing, likely picked clean by insects or the Children. Ribbons of a once-white shirt clung to the exposed rib cage, swaying with the shifting air. The pants seemed modern, but it was difficult to tell after so long.

Cabell started there, feeling along what remained of the pockets. Turning the boots over. Even his practiced, delicate touch made the leather break and crumble.

“It might not even be him,” Emrys repeated.

Though he wasn’t on the sleeping bag, it was a peaceful pose, as if he’d merely taken off his boots and lain down to sleep and death had pulled the spirit from his body. Both hands were visible. No rings. No jewelry of any kind.

“What are you doing?” Caitriona asked, moving to stop Cabell as he knelt beside the head. “We searched through his clothing and found nothing—”

He shrugged off her hand, gently lifting the back of the skull from the ground. There, protected between the bone and the cold earth, was the well-preserved collar of the shirt. He turned the delicate fabric out toward me.

Inside, stitched by the hand of a little girl, were five letters in yellow thread.

N. LARK.

“I knew it,” he breathed out. “I knew that if he was alive and had the ring, he would have used it to help Avalon ...”

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