Page 43 of The Scattered Bones

The sight takes my breath away. Valka’s inner sanctum. His Holy of Holies. I’ve only ever been inside Hreinasta’s temple, which was all pale marble and glittering gold. Bright and soft and white. Pure and feminine, a gorgeous backdrop for her beautiful vessels. I stood briefly in Lovec’s abandoned house of worship, its grey stone unadorned, but time and snow and beasts had tarnished any grandeur it once held. But this? This is a room of power. The stairs lead to a small balcony that wraps around the circumference of the chamber, and my guess is that when Valka blesses his acolytes with his presence, they stand watch up here over him as if he’s a warrior in the arena below. Rich, opulent tiles and golden artifacts decorate every inch of the floor and walls. His sacred fire burns at the head of the room, the flames spouting from a massive, ornate shield. Carved pillars hold up the balcony, and exquisite murals adorn the walls, each scene depicting the enormous god in the throes of battle. Each portrayal is more violent than the last, but it’s the one behind the altar that steals my breath and chills my skin despite the flame’s warmth. It’s of a nude man, stretched out before Valka as War severs his arm. The limb is falling through the air, blood spurting from the wound. Valka is painted in striking detail, his muscles bulging, his skin shining, his short hair almost lifelike. His victim is less detailed, a nearly featureless dark-haired man, but in the pit of my stomach, I know. It’s Kaid. This is his execution.

Anger floods me, and my fear evaporates. This is why I felt the pull. I know where Kaid is. He’s behind that mural, and so help me Stranger, Varas, Lovec—whoever is listening—I will break that wall to pieces.

I search the balcony for a way down, but there are no steps. I’m trapped up here, the fall to the floor high enough to break my legs. It seems to enter the Holy of Holies, one must use the heavy, ornate, gold-plated doors below, but entering that way would surely get me killed. The inner sanctum is oddly empty, and I suspect Varas has intervened on my behalf, the ashes shielding me. Perhaps the Stranger was right. The Great Thief wants revenge for what was done behind his back, and what better way than to help me steal his acolyte’s remains from under War’s nose?

I swing over the balcony railing and aim for a pillar. I drop with a painful thud against it but manage to use its circumference to slide down. The descent is awkward and too fast, delivering me to the tiles with a sickening crack of my ankles, but after five minutes the pain recedes, and I’m alone in Valka’s inner sanctum. After fleeing Hreinasta, I avoided all temples save Lovec’s frozen one, but his was in such disrepair, it almost didn’t count. Curiosity begs me to gawk at this lavish chamber, but I don’t have time. I’ve been blessed with solitude so far. I won’t push my luck.

I scan the room for anything that’ll help me destroy Kaid’s mural, and I grin in triumph when I see the garish display of ceremonial weapons. They’re studded with jewels and fine metals, intended only for worship and not battle. Against blades of steel, they would be useless, but against painted tiles?

I lift a golden axe off its mount. It’s beautiful, and it’s almost a shame that I plan to use it as a bludgeoning tool, but Kaid is more precious than any wealth. I pull two more weapons from the wall as backups. Once I begin, the sound will echo, and the soldiers will undoubtedly descend upon me. I’ll have to work fast, and I won’t have time to find a new tool if this ceremonial axe breaks. I most likely won’t have time for more than the first blow, but I ignore that reality as I move to the painting.

If I squint, the featureless man morphs into Kaid, and an overwhelming longing floods me. I miss him so much. More than the sun misses the moon, the lover she shares a sky with but never at the same time. More than the desert misses rain. All the physical pain I’ve endured on this journey is nothing compared to the ache in my heart from missing him, and standing before a mural that depicts the last time I saw him alive is torture.

The pull of his bones is so strong that I force myself to gaze at the painting, and the moment my eyes land on the painted victim’s head, it hits me. Kaid’s final resting place is not a vault locked away below the earth. Valka walled his head in behind the depiction’s skull. I can’t stop the laugh that pushes past my lips at the obviousness. A vault would have been more secure, but it seems War enjoys his humor. It also seems he expected no one to make it this far without his soldiers’ knowledge. Valka created a fortress, an unseizable temple, but he made a mistake. He prepared for an army, for a battle won with brute force. He should have been preparing for a thief’s wife.

With renewed hope, I climb atop the altar, careful to avoid the flames licking the air in their shield behind me, and I raise the axe.Kaid, I’m here. I’m coming for you.

And then I swing with all my strength.

The Escape

SEASON OF THE HARVEST, CYCLE 78920

Kaid’s headless and limbless torso lay before me in a warm pool of blood. I was too numb to move, to cry, to feel. I was hollow. Kaid was dead. My husband was dead.

We’d just promised our wedding vows in the eyes of Elskere. In three days, we were to flee Szent for the sea and sail south. He’d just been alive, a living, breathing man of impossible beauty with a voice so deep it rattled my chest. But now? Now he was nothing. They had carved him into pieces like cattle, forever silencing his voice, and that thought ripped a hole in my soul. I wouldn’t survive this. No wife could.

I registered movement beside me, and to my shock, Hreinasta’s vessel slipped through the blood and placed a slender palm on my shoulder. Her tanned skin was smooth and unblemished, the expensive lotions and oils keeping her vessels gorgeous until she shed them. I gagged at the scent of her hands. The fragrance she wore was floral and delicate, and mixed with the stench of death, they made my stomach roil.

“To defile an acolyte of mine, especially my chosen vessel, is an offense that cannot go unpunished,” she crooned, and I hated her. I despised her voice, loathed her beauty, abhorred her softness.

“He did not defile me,” I spat. “He made me whole.”

Hreinasta tsked disapprovingly. “This is why I don’t dwell among mankind, choosing to inhabit the bodies of my priestesses instead. Men cannot be trusted. They are vulgar, disgusting things. Fickle and cruel and driven by their baser needs. I cannot allow my primordial body to be tarnished, which is why this body serves me now… as will yours.”

“What?” I balked at her words, flinging myself backward so fast that Kaid’s blood splattered my face. Surely, I’d misheard her. I was no longer pure in Hreinasta’s eyes. A man had taken me, but it had been my choice. I’d given Kaid my love, my body, and my trust willingly, and while I’d never felt so whole as when I was in his arms, the goddess only saw my disobedience.

“You are my chosen vessel,” she said. “And your beauty is unrivaled. Yes, I demand purity and righteousness from my devotees, but my spirit does not reside in you yet, therefore your sin was against your own soul, not mine. I claimed you as my next host when you were but ten cycles of age. If I were to recant that decree, I would have to admit that a man entered my sacred temple and violated my priestess. That will not do. The trespasser has been brought to justice, and we shall proceed with the transference as planned.”

I couldn’t have heard her right, but as I scanned the sanctuary, I suddenly understood the scene. No trial, no priestesses, no city magistrates. Varas was absent, despite it being his servant’s execution. Only Hreinasta and Valka bore witness to his death, along with the few soldiers War trusted with his secrets. No witnesses to this treachery. No pure acolytes to observe my sin. Hreinasta wanted my beauty so fiercely, to save her own image with such intensity, that she murdered my husband in the dead of night and planned to take me as her vessel. No one would be the wiser. Only I would know, but my consciousness would fall dormant for the coming decades once she possessed me, and her current host would remember nothing when her spirit left her. No one would ever learn the truth.

My body went ice cold, and bile burned my throat. That couldn’t be happening. I wouldn’t let it.

“Come, come, acolyte,” she said. “It is a great honor to be chosen as my vessel. Think of the glory, the prestige, the pride. This thief was nothing, a rat to be put down. He wanted to destroy you, but I will elevate you to grandeur.”

“I would rather die than allow you to inhabit my body,” I growled.

“But I’ll make sure you don’t.” She turned to Valka, and my stomach dropped at their silent exchange. For a second, their eyes remained locked together, and then War strode to the holy fires. He dipped a torch into the flames, then aimed for Kaid’s torso. With a horrifying sickness, I understood. He meant to burn Kaid’s chest, and rage consumed me. The soldiers were gone, having carried his limbs and head away into the night. Both gods stood at my back, the path to the door unobstructed, and my legs were moving before my brain had time to process my decision. With a speed I didn’t think myself capable of, I launched myself off the floor and raced for my husband’s bloody torso. I scooped his remains up in one graceful movement, and then I was running for the exit. I half expected Valka to shove his blade through my spine as Hreinasta screamed for my apprehension, but the blow never came. War might revel in executions dealt in secrecy, but it seemed he wasn’t a lapdog to be ordered after a girl. I heard Hreinasta’s feet slapping the tile as she sprinted after me, but I knew she couldn’t catch me. In her primordial form, she would have captured me before I made it two steps, but her human vessel was older than I was, accustomed to the comforts of a worshiped and served woman. Kaid’s training had forged me into a warrior in my own way, and clutching his disfigured body and wearing his blood-stained clothes, I disappeared into the night, never looking back.

Fifteen

The blow cracks the painted victim’s face down its center, and I cannot describe the joy that washes over me. I do not stop. I do not hesitate. The soldiers will come for me, but I don’t let that deter my violence. I repeatedly slam the mural until my limbs ache and the golden axe deforms. Crack by crack, the wall shatters, and the fissure becomes a gaping wound as the axe snaps in half. I seize the ceremonial sword and continue hacking at the painting until it crumbles to the floor. I’m sweating uncontrollably from the fire at my back and shaking from the exertion, but the destruction is done. The spray of dust assaults my face, and I cough violently, the debris stinging my lungs. But when it settles, I see it. I see him.

Kaid’s expression is preserved in suffering, the skin unblemished but pale from the lack of blood. I stumble forward, climbing through the rubble to reach him, but the second my fingers trail over his scarred lips, I gag. Kaid. My Kaid. His final scattered bones. Blind to anything but him, I pull his head from its resting place and clutch it to my chest. Even in death, he is beautiful to behold. I found him, all of him. My journey is at an end, and I don’t know whether to be relieved or terrified.

Metal rings behind me, and I freeze. I may not be a great warrior, but I recognize that sound. A weapon is being drawn. Many weapons. Valka’s soldiers have discovered me, and if they know I’m here, so does he.

With careful movements, I place Kaid’s head in my pack and then grip the ceremonial sword. For a terrifying moment, I brace for the attack, but the men don’t move. They don’t speak. They simply stand frozen behind me, and I realize it’s because they’re confused. A slender, feral girl appeared in Valka’s Holy of Holies and defaced his image while his trained acolytes stood guard. No one saw me enter. They believe their temple to be an impenetrable fortress, yet here I stand as if I materialized from thin air to desecrate their altar and misuse their weapons of worship.

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