When their lips parted, she asked gently, “Do you still need to say whatever you need to say?”
“Yes,” he said, and drew a breath. “I’m sorry. Deeply, truly sorry.”
“Me too. I should have told you about the cost.”
He studied her. “You don’t mean that.”
She smiled. “True. I would have lied to you until we died. Sometimes honesty is cruelty, and love is lies.”
“That’s shitty relationship advice.” But he was smiling too.
“Good thing I’m not a role model. I’m just a hero past her prime who, very literally, loves you as much as she loves life itself. And I’m trying to learn from my mistakes. So how about we save the day before we walk off into the sunset?”
He passed her the first bone, the femur of a black bear. Taking it, she drew her knife and then activated a speed talisman. She’d been carving bones for so long that she didn’t need to think—her hands and muscles knew what to do. And so they moved faster than she could think, carving symbols into the soft bone. Three bones for the first pillar. She installed them with wire, tying true bone to the spines made of stone. The second pillar was a twelve-foot upright lizard. She used four bones on it. Methodically, she worked through every pillar in the greatroom before she moved to the jeweled skeletal statues in the yard. Sweat dripped from her, and her muscles shook. She’d never worked so fast or so hard, but she didn’t allow herself to slow, reactivating the talisman as needed. Jentt stayed beside her, passing her bones, forcing her to drink water at intervals.
Mountain lion bones.
Croco-raptors.
Owl.
Elk.
Wolverine.
One statue, she laced with a hundred mice bones. Another she infused with the strength of a dozen badgers. Another carried eagle bones.
At last, when her muscles ached and her head throbbed and she’d lost all sense of time, she finished, with bones installed on every statue in Zera’s garden and every pillar within the palace, over fifty statues total.
Quietly—who knew how long she’d been standing there—Amurra asked, “Will it be enough? If Eklor’s army comes... will it be enough to defeat them?”
She’d seen his army on the plains. Fifty statues wouldn’t be enough to defeat it. Five hundred wouldn’t be enough. “No.”
“Then why—”
“We don’t need to defeat his army. We just need to hold them back long enough to get all the bone workers Eklor is trying to surprise on our side. Thentheycan defeat them.” If they could buy the other masters enough time to recognize the danger, gather their strength, and defend themselves, that could be enough. She hoped.
It’s always about time, isn’t it?she thought.
“Okay—will these statues be enough to hold his army back?”
“Not yet.” Luckily, though, Zera was not the only fifth-tier citizen with a statue garden. She didn’t even own the only house with skeletal pillars. Calling across the salon, Kreya asked, “Zera, do you think your neighbors would be willing to give up their statues?”
“Not likely,” Zera said. “Unless we bought them all, of course. And before you ask, even I don’t have access to that much gold. My neighbors have expensive tastes.”
Kreya considered options. One, she could make do with what she had. She nixed that immediately, having just told Amurra that it wasn’t enough. Two, she could ask Jentt to steal them. She rejected that idea as well. She wanted the largest statues for her stone army, so theft wasn’t practical. Three, she could threaten Zera’s neighbors and force them to cooperate... “What do you think we should do?”
Zera gawked at her.
“What?”
“You’re asking our opinion,” Zera said. “It’s refreshing.”
Marso spoke up. “Everyone in Cerre has been hearing the music, seeing the plays, and retelling the stories of the Bone War for days. They remember us, and they remember him. I think Zera’s neighbors will listen to reason.”
“We can’t rely on people.” She thought of the villagers from Eren who had burned her tower and would have burned her and Jentt if they could have. She thought of Marso, who’d been pushed away by the guild, disbelieved and denied to the point where he tried to shred his own mind. She thought of Eklor... Okay, he was a lousy example of how to treat people.
Glancing across the room, she saw Zera’s followers, clumped together, cowering, eyeing Kreya and her friends as if expecting them to breathe fire.
