Page 87 of Silver in the Bone

“You weren’t going to tell me about how the ring is claimed, were you?” Neve whispered into the darkness.

“No.”

“Because you thought I was a fool and that by the time I’d found out, it would be too late.”

“I never thought you were a fool,” I whispered. “But I am sorry.”

I didn’t explain the rest. That it was different between us now. That I’d never thought it would turn into this. None of it mattered now, and all I wanted was the silence. The cold expanse of nothing that used to exist between us.

The only safe place there’d ever been to hide.

That night, I dreamt of the woman in the snow for the first time in years.

It was as clear as the day it happened. Cabell and Nash had left me on our borrowed riverboat so they could search a nearby vault for Arthur’s dagger. I’d heard her voice, how the longing in it had somehow harmonized with my own. As if I had been looking for her, and her me.

She waited for me in the open field, the falling snow giving shape to her translucent form as she hovered over the ground. Her hand stretched out toward me, and I went to her, desperate for that touch. To be wanted.

The White Lady was beautiful, but her face grew pained as she took in the sight of me.

Something had stirred in me as I approached her. A thought. A tale, told by Nash months before. Of women who died by their own hand before they could reveal the location of a treasure. How they were meant to guard it until they killed another to take their place.

But the thought melted away, and then there was only her. Her hand, reaching out to touch my chest, just above my heart.

And pain. Pain sharper, and crueler, than any I’d ever known. As if she had taken a knife and plunged it there, again and again. I tried to pull back, but my body was too weak. I couldn’t even scream. Her face, so serene, turned monstrous with delight in my suffering.

But the wind called, icy and imperious as it cut over the field. The snow turned frenzied with the words it sang.

Not her. Not this child.

And the shivering light of the spirit obeyed, fading like the last stroke of sun into night.

The dream shifted.

I was back on the path leading to the tower’s imposing gate, following a white horse with no rider. As I walked, the thick mist around us parted, and the world changed. Glowing green with unstoppable life—birds, fish in the glistening moat, small fairies gathered along the walls. The Mother tree’s branches were thick with leaves and tendrils of adoring mist.

The horse’s hooves echoed on the stone. At the steps to the tower it turned, as if to ensure I was still following.

I saw my face reflected in its black eye. A spiraling ivory horn rose from its head. An effervescence moved beneath my skin as it bowed its head at the base of the tower steps, touching its horn to the ground. And there, a single white rose cleaved up through the dark earth, through the stones. Its trembling face unfolded.

I jerked awake, gasping. I pressed my hands to my clammy face, but the phantom smell of petals lingered on my skin. I pushed out of the bed, relishing the feel of the freezing stones under my feet. That was real. That was true.

I wiped my hands against my shirt, the blanket, anything to rid them of that smell. I only stopped when I saw that the other side of the bed was empty, but politely half made.

Neve was already gone for the day. I didn’t blame her.

The cracking ache in my skull sent the bedchamber swirling into shadows. A gray light filtered through the window behind me.

Daylight.

I didn’t bother to put on my shoes or straighten the clothes I’d slept in. I bolted from the room, running up the stairs to the library. I was certain I’d find Neve at a table, buried behind a stack of books, but the room was empty.

I slowed in the doorway. With all the tapestries pushed aside, steely light pierced the window glass like blades. The tables and rugs looked worn and morose.

I was almost afraid to look as I stepped close to the cold glass. People moved in the courtyard below and flanked the fortress’s walls. My heart leapt. The moat fire was out, but the creatures had clustered beneath the trees, suffering the dim light by building hideous mounds and lurking behind the boulders for shelter.

There was a gasp behind me. I spun around, raising my hands defensively. Olwen stared back at me, clutching a small cauldron, three candlesticks, and a wreath of dried greens to her chest. Her dark blue curls seemed to float at her shoulders.

“You startled me,” she said with a shaky laugh. “I wasn’t expecting anyone but Flea up here.”

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