The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and Ash 3)

And Alastir’s plan would likely come to fruition because I would never allow the Ascended to use me for anything.

Anger at them—and myself—exploded within me and then quickly gave way to panic as I staggered to the wall. I barely felt the pain of the bindings tightening. Desperate, I reached for the spear. If I could get that blade, I wouldn’t be weaponless, even with the damn bone and root bindings. I tried to seize it, but my arm wouldn’t lift. It didn’t feel as if it were a part of me any longer. My legs became heavy, numb.

“No, no,” I whispered, fighting the insidious warmth seeping into my muscles, my skin.

But it was no use.

Numbness swept through my body, deadening my eyelids. There was no pain when the nothingness came for me this time. I simply fell asleep, knowing I would wake to a nightmare.

Chapter 6

Twinkling lights blanketed the ceiling of the crypt when I opened my eyes. My lips parted as I dragged in deep gulps of…fresh, clean air. That wasn’t the ceiling or lights I saw. They were stars. I was outside, no longer in the crypt.

“Dammit,” a man to my right swore. “She’s awake.”

My body immediately reacted to the sound of the voice. I reared up—

Pressure pressed down all over my body, followed by a sharp, stinging wave. My jaw clamped shut against the cry of pain as my head lifted off a flat, hard surface. Ivory bones entwined with thick, dark roots lay across me from my chest to my knees.

“It’s okay. She’s not getting free.”

My gaze swept in the direction of the voice. Commander Jansen stood to my left, a silver wolven mask hiding his face. He angled his body toward mine. Beyond him, I saw the crumbling remains of a stone wall bathed in moonlight, and then nothing but darkness beyond. “Where am I?” I rasped.

His head tilted to the side, his eyes nothing but shadows inside the thin slits of the mask. “You’re in what remains of the city of Irelone. This,” he answered as he swept his arms out widely, “is what is left of the once-great Castle Bauer.”

Irelone? That sounded vaguely familiar. It took a couple of moments for my mind to clear enough for the old maps with their faded ink, created before the War of Two Kings, to form. Irelone… Yes, I knew that name. It had been a port city to the north and east of where Carsodonia was now. The city had fallen before Pompay during the war. Good gods, that meant…

I was in the Wastelands.

My heart thundered in my chest. How long had I been asleep? Hours or days? I didn’t know where the Crypt of the Forgotten Ones had been in the Skotos Mountains. For all I knew, the crypts could’ve existed in the foothills of the mountains, a half a day’s ride north of the outer reaches of the Wastelands.

Throat dry, I lifted just my head to look around. Dozens of the so-called Protectors stood in the center of what could’ve been the castle’s Great Hall at one time and around the edges of the decaying structure, all hidden behind gleaming bronze masks. It was the kind of sight conjured from the depths of the darkest nightmares. Was Alastir among them?

In the darkness beyond the ruins, a single torch flared to life. “They’re here,” a masked man announced. “The Ascended.”

Air halted in my throat as several more torches caught fire, casting an orange glow over heaps of fallen stone and earth that had refused to house new life in the hundreds of years that had passed. Shadows formed, and I heard the sounds of hooves and wheels on packed earth.

“Believe it or not,”—Jansen drew closer, placing his hands on the stone as he leaned over me—“I wouldn’t wish your fate upon anyone.”

My gaze shot to his as anger coated my insides. “I’d be more worried about your fate than mine.”

Jansen stared down at me for a moment and then reached into the pocket of his pants. “You know,” he said, lifting his hand now filled with a bundle of cloth, “at least you knew when to keep your mouth shut when you were the Maiden.”

“I’m going—” He shoved the wad of fabric into my mouth, securing the ends behind my head and effectively silencing my threats. Nausea churned at the taste and the spike of helplessness I felt.

He arched a brow at me before pushing away from the stone slab, his hand falling to the hilt of a short sword. His shoulders tensed, and I wished I could see his expression. He turned from me as others drew swords. “Keep alert,” he barked. “But do not engage.”

The masked men moved out of my line of sight as the creak of carriage wheels ceased. I couldn’t allow myself to think beyond the next second, that very moment, as I watched the torches drift forward, thrust into the ground around the broken remains of Castle Bauer. My heart pounded. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I twisted my head to the side, hoping to dislodge the bindings, but they didn’t move.