“I know,” Kreya said calmly. “Come upstairs and have some tea.”
Looking at Kreya, she saw Eklor’s army of atrocities and the plain littered with the dead and the dying... It was Eklor’s arrogance and his willingness to violate the laws of both nature and Vos that had led to the Bone War. “Heused human bone.”
“I’m not him.”
“But you’ve crossed the same line he did. You’ve become the very horror we all fought against. The very horror that Jentt died to defeat.”
“For very different reasons.”
“You’ll be burned to death,” Zera said.
“Someday, yes. But not today. Unless you wield the torch.”
Zera wondered if it was going to come to that and wished wholeheartedly that she’d stayed cocooned in her lovely human-corpse-free palace in Cerre. Casually putting her hand back in the pocket with the strength talisman, she said, “Explain to me why I shouldn’t.”
Chapter Five
Kreya guided Zera upstairs. She kept her voice soft and calm, even though the fear of what Zera was going to do or say was enough to choke her. “A nice cup of tea will help.”
“Will it really?” Her voice had a note of hysteria. “Because it won’t erase the sight of your not-so-recently-deceased husband. Or the knowledge that you’ve done what’s forbidden.”
She had a point. “It will settle your stomach and clean your mouth.” Lightly, Kreya added, “Your breath right now is worse than a wild boar’s.”
When Zera didn’t even display a flicker of annoyance at that insult, Kreya felt her nerves ramp up. She didn’t let it show, though. Entering the library, she led Zera around the stacks of books and across the threadbare carpet. She knocked a pile of blankets off the one cushioned chair.
Zera sat, which Kreya thought was at least better than her running out of the tower screaming. Or burning it all down.
Kreya crossed the library to the fireplace. She’d had a low fire going already, and the kettle had water. She hung the kettle over the fire, just above the flame. Her hands were shaking, and she tried to hide it as she busied herself searching for a clean cup.
She located one without chips, but it wasn’t entirely clean. She contemplated taking it down to the sink, but that would require leaving Zera alone.Not going to risk that,she thought. Instead, Kreya wiped the cup with a stray towel that smelled of mildew and hoped Zera was too distraught to notice.
“It’s my duty to stop you,” Zera said.
Locating a canister of tea leaves, Kreya opened the top and sniffed it. “It isn’t.”
“Decency demands it.”
“It doesn’t.” She scooped dried leaves into the cup.
“The law demands it.”
She located a spoon and checked it for cleanliness.Close enough.
“There are lines we do not cross, Kreya, and for good reason. Bone readers—if they try to twist the truth of what they see, it drives them mad. Bone wizards—if we carve talismans that affect the mind, it’s a straight path to prison. And bone makers... You saw what Eklor made, how he twisted your art. Using human bone. There’s a reason it’s forbidden.”
At least Zera was still sitting. Kreya tried to formulate the correct arguments. It had been a long time since she’d spoken to anyone but Jentt, and even longer since she’d had to explain herself to anyone. “When I first realized what was required for the spell to work, I reacted the same way you did.”
“I’m so glad. At what point did you change from a reasonable reaction to ‘I’m going to commit an atrocity’?”
“When I realized that the spell worked.”
The kettle whistled, and Kreya removed it from the heat,poured the boiling water into the teacup, and carried it to Zera. She couldn’t hide her shaking hands as she gave it to her. Zera studied her. “I see fear, Kreya. You know what you’re doing is wrong.”
“I know what I’m doing is dangerous. So yes, I am afraid.”
“Afraid of me?”
“Afraid of failure.”
