The three dolls stared down at her, chittering to one another in a language that, near as Kreya could determine, wasn’t a language at all. They were simply imitating sounds they heard, mashed in their cloth mouths.
“Never mind. Stay there, if you like.” She pulled a tray next to the bed and set the jewelry box with the bone on it, beside her favorite knife.
Only then did she let her eyes fall on her husband.
He was clothed in linen sheets from head to toe. Gently, she unpinned them and pushed them back from his arms, his torso, his legs, and his face. It had been three months since she’d last woken him, and it showed. His cheeks were sunken, his skin gray, and his chest had collapsed so every rib was visible. She’d tucked sachets of lavender beneath the mattress to mask the stench, and she’d instructed her rag doll constructs to bathe him daily to keep him free of maggots and other indignities of death, but that only did so much.
“You look terrible,” she told him. “Never wear gray.”
She reached for the knife and realized her hand was trembling. Glaring at it, she held her wrist steady until it stopped. She’d overused her muscles climbing that rock face, even with the talisman helping her.
I really should wait,she thought.
But looking at her husband’s gray-toned face, she knew she wouldn’t.
Closing her hand over the knife’s handle, she lifted it up and, in one swift movement, sliced her palm. She winced at the sting but didn’t take her eyes off her husband’s face. Squeezing her hand, she made blood well into her fist, then she laid down the knife and opened the jewelry box with her uncut hand. She smeared her blood onto the bit of bone.
“Take my day, take my night, take my sunrise, take my life.” She lifted the bit of bone, stained with her blood, and then took the knife again and sliced over her husband’s heart.
It didn’t bleed.
She pressed the bit of bone into his flesh and then covered the wound with her bloody hand. “Take my breath, take my blood.Iri nascre, murro sai enri. Iri prian, murro ken fa. Iri sangra sheeva lai. Ancre murro sai enzal. Iri, iri, nascre ray.”
The bit of bone dissolved with her words, melting into his flesh like sugar in water.
Outside, the wind hit the tower, and the windows shivered. The rag doll constructs crooned to one another in their senseless language. Kreya felt a shudder run through her body. It was hard to breathe, but she made herself hold still, her hand pressed to Jentt’s chest as the bone magic spread through him. Her muscles began to shake.
See, I was right,she thought.I should have waited.One night’s sleep wasn’t enough recovery time for this drain. The drain of a magic that she wasn’t supposed to use, that wasn’t even supposed to be possible...
But she locked her knees and didn’t sag.
Beneath her hand, his body began to change. It plumped as the flesh was restored. She felt his heart—a stutter and then a steady beat. Blood began to flow through his veins, and the gray faded from his skin.
She’d never been able to grant life to any of her constructs. That wasn’t how it worked. A bone maker’s magic only animated them. But this... this was different. She wasn’t giving him the power of the bone like she did with constructs. Here she was using the bone to give him what was inside her. That was the key, and the secret, of the resurrection spell.
For each day he lived again, she would live one day less.
Worth it,she thought.A thousand times worth it.
His face was his own again, with flesh thick and healthy over his bones. It wasn’t the illusion of life. It was life itself. Restored. She waited, barely breathing, for his eyes to open. At last, they did. He blinked them open, looked at her, and then looked beyond her.
“Fuck, those things are creepy,” Jentt said.
She twisted to look up at the rafters, where now five of her rag doll constructs peered down at them. “Useful, though. Especially when you’re indisposed.”
“Oh? Is that what we’re calling it now? ‘Indisposed’? Like I ate a bad fish?”
“You looked like a bad fish.”
“Nice.” He pushed himself, slowly, gingerly, up to sitting, and looked down at his chest, which was streaked with a thin smear of blood. He wrinkled his nose. “And I assume the smell of rotting fish is me, too. Sorry. Is there time for a bath?”
Kreya’s heart gave a little lurch. She knew what that question really meant:How long will I live this time?She wished she didn’t have to answer. Her mouth felt dry as she tried to formulate the words to tell him as gently as she could.
She didn’t have to tell him. He read it in her face. He guessed, “An hour?”
“A day. If we’re lucky.”
“A day,” he repeated, then he smiled at her and covered her hand with his. “I’ll take a day.” The look in his eyes made her feel more alive than she’d felt in months. She smiled back, and all the lonely hours and days fell away. He added, “And I’ll take a bath.”
