The Call of Bones: A Court of Edryale Novel Read online

  The Call of Bones

  A Court of Edryale Novel

  M. Sahagun

  The Call of Bones is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any mention of herbs or “medicinal properties” is strictly fiction. Foxglove is toxic to mortals.

  If you are fey, do not consume plants without consulting an Álfar.

  Copyright © 2021 Margaret Sorensen (Sahagun, M., pseud.)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  To request permissions, contact the publisher at: [email protected]

  Paperback: 9798517008107

  First paperback edition July 2021

  Edited by Katelynn Murray

  Art by M. Sahagun

  Layout by M. Sahagun

  Printed by Amazon in the USA

  Bibliophile Publishing

  Nevada, USA

  https://mjsahagun2020.wixsite.com/author

  To my sisters, for your never-ending support, love, and editing advice. I owe you everything.

  “He will crush me.

  He will break me apart.

  I will let him.”

  ― Rina Kent, Shadowed

  Before.

  †

  The girl in blue watched Georgina’s wild brown curls bounce as she chased a monarch butterfly through the meadow. She was followed, as always, by a tow-headed Juliette whose eyes were the size of saucers and blue as the sea. The sisters had been playing in this meadow for nearly four hours and showed no signs of exhaustion. Their magic danced alongside them, curling around the flowers like ribbons. Bright and warm light shined on their rounded cheeks as they turned and motioned for their sister to follow. She shook her head and continued to play with the strings of stars that flitted from her palms.

  Juliette laughed and spun in a circle, calling again for her younger sister to join them. The girl ignored her, focusing instead on the extravagant feats of magic that would boost her up in the Coven. The Circle had promised her that the powers she wielded would only grow stronger. She lowered her eyebrows and frowned. They’d never grant her advancement if she couldn’t get past elemental magic. Her powers would fester and die.

  Georgina called out to her as Juliette ran through the tall grass, but the girl shook her head. There wasn’t time for frivolity. Mother had something special planned for her. She closed her eyes again and took a deep breath, feeling the thick warmth of power in her sternum.

  The magic rooted itself to her heart, bright and white, in a way that the healers had never seen before. They had pulled mother aside in those first few years and warned her of a faerie prince that would come to steal her away. She was “fated” to him. Her mother had been pleased, grateful for the powerful ties. A child destined to love and belong to a faerie prince. What witch wouldn’t want that?

  The girl squeezed her power again. If the faeries came to the Library, all that she loved would be lost. She had to learn to protect them all from the Circle before they invited the prince there themselves. The girl settled her racing heart and closed her eyes.

  Concentrate, she told herself.

  The magic burst from her fingertips, splitting the skin, and she winced. Georgina stopped in her tracks. The girl stared at her sisters as their smiles faded. Juliette’s eyes filled with tears, and she trembled beside their older sister. Georgina twisted her fingers a few times, calling out to the oldest of the four girls, and whimpered.

  Of course, Velaria would never answer; she’d run off to Edryale, the land of faeries, to be some kind of consort to the High Prince. She hadn’t been home in years. The girl ignored the despair painted on her sisters’ faces and sent out a ray of light, bathing them in starlight. It was beautiful. She looked around and tightened her grip on the stars, fading them into the background so that Georgina’s meadow wasn’t lost in the night. They always wore those sad looks whenever the girl used her power.

  As she loosened her grip, the ground trembled and opened, shattering the peaceful illusion the girls had worked so hard to create. As their magic faded, so did the meadows and butterflies. Someone had torn it all away. The girl jumped up and ran to her sisters’ sides. Their arms wrapped protectively around her as the ground rumbled beneath their feet. A low, angry growl spurred them all into action. Mother was coming.

  The girls stood in a single file, staring at the rotting ceiling above them. The Library shook as Circe, their mother, climbed the stairs. The girl fought the urge to hide behind Georgina and balled her hands into tight fists. The magic should have stopped, but her palms glowed still. She’d manifested, and her mother was going to use her power up until she was nothing. Mortal. Weak.

  Circe smiled a cruel, harsh kind of grin and walked toward her cowering children. She motioned to her youngest daughter.

  “Come now, my dear,” she cooed. “Show Mummy what you’ve done.”

  Georgina stepped forward. “You’ll not touch her, mother. She is too young for this.”

  Circe rolled her eyes and waved a hand, flinging Georgina into a weakened wall. Plaster and brick sprayed around her limp body. Juliette called out but was rooted in place by their mother’s wild magic. Deep tree roots curled around her feet.

  “Mind yourself, Juliette, or I’ll send you to sleep next.”

  The girls huddled together as Circe approached and squatted down to their eye level. Her dark auburn hair gleamed even in the low light of the attic, and the girl clung to her sister tighter. Juliette straightened her spine.

  “Leave her alone, Circe. She hasn’t even realized what she holds.”

  Circe’s eyes lit up, and she tugged on the roots at Juliette’s feet, sending the girl’s sister down through the floor. The girl screamed, reaching out for her sister. The power in her palms had been sitting dormant for too long. It burst from her hands and lit the room. Circe smiled again and grabbed the younger girl by the throat.

  “I warned you not to try so hard,” Georgina muttered from her place beside the rubble. The young girl bowed her head in shame, but her sister had already lost consciousness.

  Circe licked her lips.

  “Come now, pet,” she curled her long fingers around the child’s wrist and tugged. “I’ve been waiting a long time for you to manifest.”

  The girl stared blankly ahead, noticing for the first time the gleaming iron poker that hissed in her mother’s hand. The girl tried to pull back, but Circe’s grip was too firm.

  “You belong to us now, daughter. You will wear the mark.”

  The girl shook her head and tried again to yank free.

  “Let’s go. We have work to do.”

  As Circe tugged her again, the girl found her voice.

  “What work?”

  “First,” her mother said wickedly, “we’re going to show my sisters what true power is. Then, my sweet cherub, we’re going to meet with the High King. He’d like your help building something, something incredible.”

  The girl’s feet dragged behind her as the steaming iron glared from Circe’s hand. She would be bound to the Library forever, even though she hadn’t committed any crimes. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

  “Yet,” her mother said, reading her thoughts, “but don’t worry dear, we have time.”

  One.

  †

  Caspian

  I had never been my father’s favorite. My brothers- who moved in and out of polite society with ease, fulfilled every qualification our father required of them. Royal and elegant, they had no trouble fitting into the Faerie Courts. They were wild with loyalty to the crown and wholly dull.

  I had never been so simple. I was born on a late spring morning. The rain tumbled through the stone walls of my mother’s birthing room in slick puddles. The torrential downpour was uncharacteristic for Edryale, but the world was already preparing for my arrival. It had taken minutes of screaming and pushing before I came into the world, silent. I did not cry, not even when the midwives slapped my bottom and suckled mucus from my nose. I simply stared, already too aware, and then, my mother died. There was no sound, just her last breath. Then silence. The fey had a word for someone like me: maledicti. The moniker had followed me throughout my adolescence, Caspian the Cursed. I’d always found it fitting. After all, my father, High King Than Deathbringer, had already taken the better title.

  We sat, gathered in the council room, discussing the current fate of the Courts of Edryale. I crossed my legs at the ankle and leaned forward. According to my father, who twirled a map piece in his long fingers, I was born to end this war. Though, to be honest, I didn’t see the need now that the courts were relatively peaceful.

  My father’s kingdom was broken up into four smaller territories, often referred to as Courts. Though the lower courts had fractured even further as time passed. The first court was ours, the High Court. All of Edryale answered to the king, and if I were honest, they feared us. I looked around the room and smirked at the gathered crowd. Representatives of each court glared at me. Some chewed on the fleshy ligament that had been served to them. I speared my own piece of meat with my dagger and bit a chunk out of the tender muscle. There was little in the way of entertainment at council meetings, but the folk watching was unparalleled. Each representative spoke, and I pretended to listen.

 
The Seelie Court was the court of Spring and Summer. It was my favorite place to spend my time. I smiled at Domivoi, the high lord of Astana- home of the merfolk- and rolled my eyes. He grinned back, shuffling his food with his dark fingers. The lords beside him stiffened, unused to the casual lean of his shoulders. The high lords were expected to act like any other faerie folk, subservient and quiet in the king's presence. Domivoi and I tended to ignore that suggestion.

  The Unseelie representatives stiffened. They were as cold as the autumn and winter their lands held tight to. The Midlands and Winterwood fell within the borders of Unseelie, and they took pride in being the cruelest of our kind. I winked at Lord Aides. His back grew stiffer, and rage colored his powdered white cheeks. Age wrinkled and creased in his graying skin. His fury only aged him further.

  I sat in my oversized chair along the heavy wood table and dragged my grease-stained dagger across the curving parchment. Father rolled his yellow eyes and pinched the bridge of his crooked nose. I smirked and pushed a piece closer to the black dot that marred the edge of the map. When I’d first been invited to council meetings, I’d thought the spot was a stain, but I had come to know the land and the area around the heavy darkness intimately. It wasn’t a stain at all.

  I rolled my eyes and tried to hone into my father’s conversation, staring at the blighted map in front of us. He moved pieces around the map and spoke openly to each member, pointedly avoiding the court I’d obsessed over in the upper corner of the map. The darkest, basest faeries lived in the trees there. My tendrils of power tightened around my body at the temptation. Dark, wild magic flowed in the grounds of the Shadow Court. It coursed through the land like water. I, unfortunately, had yet to discover a way to tap into that power. I was no longer allowed to explore the grounds. As it was, it was the only spot on the map we were forbidden to discuss.

  The Shadow Court glared at me, mockingly, every time I sat at the table. It was a constant reminder of my greatest crime and my worst failure. My father cleared his throat and motioned for me to stand. I obeyed, albeit reluctantly. I refused to invoke his wrath this early in the morning. I was the last-born son and had drawn the short straw. While my brothers spent their lives loitering in the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, I was trapped here. Despite my services, I would never be king. That title belonged to one of the stuffy, whiny males I called brother. My lip curled in disgust as I walked toward my father’s outstretched hand. As I approached, he dropped his arm. I sighed. More games. It was always this way with my father.

  He moved a few more pieces along the map and nodded to the fey in the room. His lead general, Kilian, shoved a hand through his silk smooth hair and shook his head. I avoided meeting his eyes. He was going to be braver than me, the fool.

  “It will never work.” He muttered. “Respectfully, my king, your son doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to dispatching enemies.”

  High King Than ignored him and gestured to me.

  “If that is your wish, Father.”

  Personally, I was inclined to believe Kilian. It would never work. I didn’t really care to save my father’s throne, only to let it fall to one of my brothers. The usurper had avoided us for months, but my father believed we would be able to track him. If I went searching.

  High King Than nodded and smiled, too toothy for anyone to suspect him as anything less than faerie. I looked away from the blood-stained grin and squared my shoulders. Whatever awaited me on this journey was the first entertainment I’d had in centuries. The war had long staggered into a dull recession. We had enough foot soldiers that I had been rendered practically useless. The idol boredom was…exhausting.

  My father lifted his oversized goblet to his lips and drank deeply. A small part of me wondered if this was just another one of his ploys to gain control over more territories. My eyes passed over the dark island on the map once more, and I narrowed my eyes. The Shadow Court wasn’t a place that even my father could infiltrate. Thanks, in part, to my incessant meddling. King Samael suffered, and I was lauded the biggest fuck up in Edryale history. He was supposed to be dead. Instead, he rotted with his loyalists. I smiled wickedly. Edryale may see it as a mistake, letting the Shadow King live, but it was my greatest and cruelest punishment.

  “Do not disappoint me.”

  My father’s voice was gravel against my ears. I winced at the sound and snapped my attention back to his aging face.

  The statement was a dismissal, but I found myself hesitating. The king did not look up from the parchment in his hand. His fourth joints curled around it like a Colchian Dragon in the grove. The room grew stagnant in the silence. Representatives shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Still, I waited. The fey were not used to anyone challenging the High King’s orders- even if it simply meant remaining in a meeting for longer than welcome. My father looked up, finally, and raised an eyebrow.

  “What is it?”

  “I only wondered,” I said, shifting forward in my seat, “what exactly is it I’m looking for?”

  ��

  I don’t remember when this existence grew tedious when the never-ending parade of time became more of a scourge than a boon… Sometime, between winning all of my father’s wars for him and learning to wield the power of a third-born son, I guess I’d grown weary.

  I leaned against the gold-framed bed that dominated my sister’s bedroom and heaved a sigh. She didn’t look up from the stacks of correspondence that littered her desk, but her shoulders tensed. She paused, mid-sentence, and a splotch of ink dripped from her quill. If she noticed, she showed no sign of it.

  She raised a delicately arched brow and waited for me to speak. Her face was still soft with youth. Nine hundred fifteen mortal years had yet to harden the planes of it. Large grey eyes offset her thick mouth, and between it, all rested a slender nose that seemed permanently turned up at the world. A sneer marked her face whenever she deigned to look directly at someone. (Especially when that someone was me.) A circlet of horns curled from just above her ears, and her ice-white hair flowed down her back. She twisted the group of earrings in her pointed lobes and stared at me expectantly.

  I rolled my eyes and flopped against the large bed, tucking my long braid behind my shoulder. It sat heavily against my skin; a reminder of the warrior I had been trained to be since birth. I was revered for my skills in battle. My eldest brothers had been taught only as a precaution. Lords in their own right and our father’s favorite children, they often spent their days appeasing the High Lords and Ladies of other courts. They had spent the last few years in temporary positions for our father to use until my eldest brother came of age. Their semi-permanent positions as consorts afforded them luxury and access to the inner workings of the Courts. The kind of access I’d never be privy to.

  My brothers had been sent off by our father to satiate whatever culled the Queens’ appetites. I shuddered at the thought of the faerie queens with their long spindling fingers and their eyes opposite only to each other. One was blue as the summer sky and the other a black so deep that even obsidian seemed pale. My sisters and I often took bets, laughing at which would be sent back home carved up. I never failed to place my money on the Seelie Queen carving up Cirun, the heir to my father’s crown. My eldest brother had his share of faults. Rumor had it, his unflinching ability to infuriate the wrong people seemed to have made his time in the Court of Light almost as uncomfortable as mine at home.

  I watched Aewyn finish her work with quick and determined accuracy. She turned her petite shoulders to me. We had no idea where her small, slight frame came from. All the older siblings were tall and lean. Aewyn had stayed a wisp of a thing. Even though I was the youngest, I was the tallest of us all. She peeled her writing gloves from her slender fingers and shook her head.

  “He’s sent you away?” Her voice had always been a twinkling of bells, and I leaned in to hear it, propping myself up on an elbow. It was uncommon, I knew, for males to have such a bond with their sisters, but Aewyn had never treated me with anything less than kindness, so I kept her close. A far cry from how the others regarded me. To them, I had always been useless for anything except slaughter. This fact made our older sister Bryn avoid me altogether. I rolled my eyes and held up a thick piece of parchment, a letter that I’d stared at for the last week.