Bone Priestess Read online

  Bone Priestess

  A J Gala

  Copyright © 2020 by A J Gala

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  About the Author

  Dear friends,

  What do you make of Death?

  1

  On that morning, Tillie Boyce woke her six-year-old son. Her cheeks were wet and her brown eyes puffy. Every year, without fail, the day was scorching hot without a cloud in sight. They both cleaned up with the fancy lavender soapweed, scrubbing the summer dust off their freckled, brown skin. Afterward, they dressed in their finest. Tillie chose her favorite yellow dress and brocade bodice, and little Rowan joined her in a dark blue doublet. At last, they left their small wooden cottage on the outskirts of Beralin.

  Tillie was sure to grab the lunches on her way out—last year she had forgotten them and they had been stuck with a pack of rations from the corner store in the next town. Little Rowan held his own lunch this year, his small hands clutching tight onto the cloth bag. Tillie held the other two bags and together they walked to Victory River.

  There were more people at the docks this year. It was busier and busier as the years went by, but no matter the crowds, Victory River was still just as big, blue, and beautiful as it always had been, running through the Siopenne Mainland like a vein of liquid sapphire. Riverboats, sailboats, canoes; they floated up and down during all hours of the day. The city of Beralin was the hub of river commerce in Central Siopenne.

  “Rowan, look!” Tillie pointed out a hawk gliding across the tall line of conifers on the other side of the river. “That was a big one, wasn’t it?”

  They stood in line to board the Queen Otter, a riverboat going south to the town of Riddenholm. The journey would have taken two days by wagon, and while Tillie knew they could accomplish it easily enough, the ride down the river was magical. They would be having a candle-lit picnic in the warm summer evening by sunset.

  The Queen Otter’s captain was a broad dwarven man with a full brown beard save for one jagged triangle on his cheek where there was scar tissue. Tillie knew him well—she’d been riding the Queen Otter since she was little. She boarded, grasping Rowan’s hand as the wooden ramp creaked with their weight. She bumped past the myriad of other passengers until they had a spot to stand together on the deck. They watched the forests of Beralin disappear into the golden, grassy plains just south.

  The deck was full of chatter from all around. Accents she’d never heard before. Bits and pieces of tales from outside Siopenne. Tillie never imagined she’d be able to get off the mainland, but squashed out the inner complaint. Siopenne was the largest continent on all of Rosamar—there was no place better in all the world to be confined.

  “Where’s this thing’s first stop?”

  She looked around for the voice but couldn’t pin it on anyone in particular. “Riddenholm,” she called out.

  Rowan squeezed her hand. “I remember when we used to live there, Ma.”

  “You do?” She gazed down at his big, dark brown eyes. “You were so little then.”

  “We lived next to a book place. You went there every day.”

  “That’s right. That’s where I used to work. I rewrote old books and made them pretty again! I’m impressed you remember.” She mussed his hair but didn’t talk about the past anymore.

  Along the riverbanks, Tillie and Rowan saw glimpses of a competition. People sparred with short swords or fired at targets with regulation short bows. She even thought she could see axe-throwing.

  She focused on it with everything she had. Don’t think about the past, she told herself. Not now. Not yet.

  When dusk was an hour away, the Queen Otter pulled in at the port of Riddenholm. Half the passengers disembarked and just as many boarded in their place. Travel was constant. Tillie took Rowan’s hand again and they hiked into town.

  Several landmark oaks stood tall and proud but most of Riddenholm was covered in honey-colored plainsgrass swaying gently in the breeze. Tillie breathed in the sweet scent deep. She missed her old home. The Mages Academy had their newest students ambling up and down the streets to light the lanterns. Tonight, the magical fire glittered like diamonds in the glass cages.

  “Come on baby, we’re just about there.”

  After a long walk Tillie brought them beneath the arches of the Silver Lady Cemetery. A turn to the left, twenty steps down, and two gravestones to the right. The one with the weathered stone rabbit sleeping peacefully atop a granite marker.

  Galen Boyce

  Eternally Beloved

  1106-1133

  Rowan already knew what to do and helped his mother unroll the blanket in her bag. They laid it out and peppered the area with little candles before sitting down. Tillie handed him the third bundle of lunch.

  “Here. It’s almost sunset. You should give your father the meal this year.”

  He sniffled and untied the cloth bag. Inside was fresh rosemary bread they’d baked the day before, smoked fish from the river, and a bright orange peach.

  “The peach will be his favorite,” Rowan said. “He always ate peaches when it got really hot outside.”

  Tillie couldn’t help but tear up as she smiled. “He sure did. Here, I’ll cut it up for him. Why don’t you tell him about how we caught the fish? He’ll love that.”

  Rowan nestled up to the stone rabbit and made himself comfortable, and in no time at all the words were pouring out of him. Tillie loved that he’d become an expert storyteller. At six years old he could take a simple fishing trip and weave it into a tale that would leave any adult on the edge of their seat. She passed him peach slices and he artfully arranged them by the granite marker.

  It was darling to see her son spending time with what they had left of his father, but Tillie’s attention wavered. There was commotion and light from farther in the cemetery. A celebration. She rose and patted Rowan on the shoulder.

  “You eat that fish with your daddy. I’m going to see what’s going on at the warden’s station. I’ll be right back, okay baby?”

  Her late husband’s grave was the only safe place in the world as far as she was concerned. Whether there was a guardian spirit there for him or not, she knew he would be alright. She set off toward the noise, leaving her food and bag behind. Before long she saw a crowd of richly dressed people, city officials most likely, raising goblets.

  “May you live out the rest of your days in peace, my friend!” A man with long salt and pepper hair and reddish skin shook his hand in the air before clapping it on an elderly man’s shoulder. Lord Osprey Tutson—the governor of Riddenholm, and Brin Colt—the grave warden.

  Well, the old grave warden, so it seemed.

  “Thank you, thank you!” Brin’s vocal cords struggled to make noise. “It was an honor to have served this fine town for so many years, my lord.” Tillie was sure he would crumble under Lord Tutson’s grasp, but he stayed strong. There were others surrounding him, including another man about Lord Tutson’s age with short, wispy, graying hair and a wicked grin. Tillie knew him only as Master Tano, the patriarch of one of Riddenholm’s oldest families.

  “You can’t give us one more year, Brin?” a lady in green velvet asked.

  “Shel, I am ninety-two
years old. Truth is, I should have hung up my cloak over a decade ago. Maybe two decades ago,” Brin said. “It’s a wonder no one has taken advantage of this frail old man yet. My days of fighting and defending are long gone.”

  Then he gestured to someone else, the youngest one in the group by far. Tillie didn’t think he had made it past his twenties.

  “We are lucky,” Brin said, “that this man moved to Riddenholm! Mister Sheltier, I must make comment on how perfect a fit you are for this job!”

  The young man’s cheeks reddened just a hint. “It is luckier for me that you’d choose a stranger.” He ran a hand through his fluffy brown waves. “Are you sure there was no one more qualified?”

  Some of the others in the group exchanged glances and uncomfortably shifted their weight.

  “Oh, so humble a man!” Lord Tutson clapped his hands. “Even better!”

  The young man let a laugh slip into the celebration, flaunting a wide and charming smile that featured a little gap in his front teeth.

  “Well, don’t let me go without thanking you for the opportunity! I’ll keep a watchful eye over this place, I promise. And please, call me Dane! Mister Sheltier is too stuffy. Maybe in twenty years.”

  A round of laughter came and went, some genuine and some nervous. Tillie left and returned to Rowan and the grave, her mind busy at work.

  “Ma, the fish turned out so good!” Rowan waved to her as she neared. “He’s gonna love it!”

  They watched the sunset and Tillie took her turn talking to Galen. She talked to him about Brin Colt—the same man who had helped bury him—leaving the cemetery after being its warden all her life and most of her mother’s life.

  “I know he’s old,” she sighed, “but I thought he’d have an apprentice or something. Instead it seems like he just plucked a random man off the streets and dropped him here.”

  Rowan fell asleep in her lap as she rambled.

  “His name is Dane Sheltier.” Tillie wove her fingers through Rowan’s hair. “Will you keep an eye on him? I don’t trust him. I can think of at least five other people in this town who could have gotten the job, but no. This new man, somehow perfect for the job, shows up at just the right time. Seems fishy to me.”

  The sun was gone and stars emerged one by one. Tillie knew it was time to go. She said sweet nothings to her late husband and kissed the stone rabbit on the head, then packed, heaved a sleepy Rowan into her arms, and left.

  Her heart was heavy and a little cold. Last year there had been more to say. Galen’s memory was feeling more distant by the day.

  2

  Tillie woke the following morning at her mother’s home in Riddenholm. Her mind picked up right where it had left off as though the last seven hours hadn’t passed at all. Sun beamed in through old lacy curtains and the scent of fatty, salty bacon pulled her out of bed, into clean clothes, and toward the kitchen.

  There was a note on the stone counter by the hearth. Her mother had gone to work at the fletcher’s and had taken Rowan with her. Tillie ate her breakfast in peaceful silence, imagining Rowan talking a mile a minute about the day before. Fortunately, her mother was a very patient woman.

  As soon as she had finished her meal and tidied up, Tillie grabbed her bag and set off for her final errand in Riddenholm. Her destination was the Physician’s College.

  Riddenholm’s Physician’s College was the only place in all of Central Siopenne where a person could officially become a doctor. Lack of education never stopped anyone from practicing in the smaller towns, but all the best doctors on the mainland studied in Riddenholm. Tillie tried not to think about how different life would have been if she’d studied to become a doctor.

  Those thoughts won’t do you any good, she reminded herself. Galen is gone. You couldn’t have changed that.

  The college was massive. Old stone reached stories and stories into the sky, with covered balconies weaving their way around like a snake. Courtyards trailed through the grounds and were home to miles of wisteria clinging to every brick.

  Like most days, the front doors were open until sundown. Tillie stepped inside and up to the reception desk, building herself up with a smile. A gentleman with a long goatee regarded her with a nod and adjusted his glasses.

  “Well, if it isn’t Missus Tillie Boyce! It’s been awhile, little lady!” His smile looked down on her.

  “Been a whole year already.” The corners of her mouth fell a little. She patted the loose bun at the nape of her neck and cleared her throat. “I am here to make my donation.”

  The man took a thin book out from underneath the desk and readied his fountain pen. “To the Anatomy Wing, as usual?”

  “Yes, Sir Caster. One gold piece to the Anatomy Wing.” Saying it out loud made her face hot with shame. She pulled her eyes away from the book, but not before seeing the other names on the page and their donations of triple digit amounts.

  “Oh Missus Boyce, please don’t fret. We are very grateful for your continued support. Especially the Anatomy Wing. Their studies until recently went mostly unnoticed.”

  He logged her name and donation, then took out a small blue purse emblazoned with the college’s crest. Tillie stared at the sun symbol sewn in gold thread and its five rays ending in different leaves. Then she watched her money disappear.

  “I think you’ll be happy to know that this has been making a difference lately, Missus Boyce.” He tugged on the drawstrings and pulled the purse shut on her single gold coin. “Have you heard the news?”

  She tilted her head. “I have not.”

  “Lord Deloren, head of the Anatomy Wing as you know, has been hard at work with his students. They have a new study. A discovery. And it could be relevant to, well—” his next words stuck in his throat for a moment, “—ah, Galen’s death.”

  Tillie’s eyebrows rose. “Really? Galen’s father died of something so similar, I’m worried the same thing could happen to Rowan. But if they’ve made a discovery…”

  “It’s promising,” the receptionist said, putting the purse away back beneath the desk. “Or at least it sounds that way. He’s going into strange territory with this study. There’s things that involve genealogy and subjects of other Wings. Lord Deloren has been running tests and exper—” he stopped again, searching the air for the right words, “—paying people to help test his theories, is what I meant.”

  “Of course.” Tillie tried to grin but wasn’t sure she had made it that far. “I understand the lengths the medical field must go to for the rest of us.”

  He closed the donation logbook and put it away next. “Don’t be a stranger. You can come see us any time. Not just once a year. Not just for a donation. This town will always be a part of your family, Tillie.”

  She bid him farewell and left to see her mother and son at the fletcher’s. It was time to return to Beralin. The next river boat going back would be at the port in only a couple of hours, and then she could try to go back to normal. Try to forget.

  But the receptionist’s news wouldn’t leave her mind. Her husband’s condition seemed to run in his family. It was a festering in the stomach that eventually ended him, and his mother didn’t speak up about it until after the death ceremony. Every time Tillie looked at Rowan, she wondered if he was harboring the same thing that very second.

  If Lord Deloren figured out what it was, what caused it, maybe Rowan could be spared. She imagined the students hard at work as the receptionist had said.

  But then she wondered a little more. What did that work actually look like?

  How many stomachs, alive or dead, did the Anatomy Wing have to study to get where they were? And where did they come from? Who donated body parts? Were there really people lining up to let Lord Deloren run his tests and experiments?

  Cut that out, Tillie. She breathed in deep. Stop thinking about it. You’re working yourself up for nothing.

  When she arrived at the fletcher’s, Rowan had an endless story about making arrows with grandma. The arrows in actua
lity were steel-tipped, but to him they were dragon scales and ogre teeth and lion claws. Tillie’s mother gave them a hug, and then they left.

  Tillie and Rowan took the next riverboat to Beralin and were back when stars covered the dark sky above. She made one last stop in the city before going home. She couldn’t let today go by unnoticed.

  “Ma, isn’t this the City Watch building?”

  It was. Tillie held onto his hand as they approached the sturdy masonry that held the City Watch and its officials. A proud blue banner flapped in the night breeze. Blue for Hanarn, the god of Justice and Law.

  “We’ll be just a minute here, okay baby? Then we can go home.”

  Inside, the building was only lit with a handful of oil lamps. The dim yellow light flickered in and out as the flames threatened to die. A woman trimmed new wicks from a long braid of rope nearby, ready to replace them as they burned out. When Tillie crossed her vision, she smiled.

  “Hello there. Are you two okay?” she asked.

  “Doing well,” Tillie said. “I just came by to—well, I suppose I want to leave an anonymous tip. I don’t know if it’s anything, but I can’t ignore it.”

  “Of course.” The woman went to a desk and procured a slip of paper and a leather wrapped pencil. “Here. Write down the details for us and we’ll have it looked into as soon as we’re able.”

  She felt silly having so little to go on, but she wrote anyway. When she left the City Watch, she did it with a bit of weight off her heart. She skipped home beneath the stars with Rowan.

  3

  The next morning, just after Tillie sent Rowan away to the schoolhouse, there was a knock at her door. Heavy handed and four perfectly timed raps. She surveyed the front room of her little cottage, and though it was cramped, it was clean enough for visitors. She wiped her hands on a rag and opened the door.