A Lair of Bones Read online

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

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  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Helen Scheuerer

  Copyright © Helen Scheuerer 2021

  www.helenscheuerer.com

  Helen Scheuerer asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

  First printing, 2021

  Print paperback ISBN 978-0-6486731-3-2

  Print hardcover ISBN 978-0-6486731-4-9

  Ebook ISBN 978-0-6486731-5-6

  Cover design by Deranged Doctor Design

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  This book could only ever be for Gary.

  Because of you, my world, and the world within these pages, is all the richer.

  Prologue

  Far below the darkest waters, in a cell made of bones, a creature was born. She was the only one of her kind to have entered the realm in such a way: on the cold, bloody stones of Saddoriel’s prison. In the waning torchlight, her mother, the prisoner, closed her lilac eyes. Bracing herself against the raw beat of lingering pain, she already sensed the deathsong that hummed within her daughter, as strong as the ancestors before her. It was the quiet promise of poignant keys and mesmerising notes: magic, ready to be honed into one of the most powerful weapons known to the realms above, belonging to a cyren of the vast and ancient deep.

  The prisoner gazed down at the small being in the crook of her elbow. In all her centuries of existence, she had never seen a newborn up close before, and this one was hers. She peered at the tiny, pink face in wonder. Without the glimmer of scales at her temples, or the dark fingernails that turned to talons, the infant could have been human. The prisoner unsheathed her own talons, studying the jagged and torn points – a consequence of the manic etchings on the rocky walls around her: drawings, rhymes and snippets of songs long lost. Once, there had been scores that marked the passing days, too, but as decades turned to centuries, time became but one endless darkness.

  The gleam of blood on the stone beneath her caught her attention. Ribbons of crimson flowed freely from her still, forming narrow rivers in the cracks of the prison floor, slipping beneath the bars of bone that held her captive. She followed their course, until they reached a pair of familiar boots. Opposite her cell were bodies, standing preserved in all their former glory but for a blue tinge to their skin: the water warlocks. Their vacant stares had kept her company for quite some time now. Her gaze fell to the man in the middle, positioned for her best viewing. His name tasted hauntingly familiar on her lips, but she did not speak it; she had promised herself long ago that she had said it aloud for the last time. More often than not, as the years blurred and the torches became faint embers, she saw his ice-green eyes blink at her through the darkness, or his grip on the quartz dagger shift just a little. But it was only a trick of the light, or of the mind.

  She adjusted herself on the stone, trying to ease her pain. Now, more than ever, she yearned for music. To feel song coursing through her very being like her life’s blood through her veins. But the vibrant melodies of the lair above did not reach the confines of the cells. As though sensing her mother’s turmoil, the infant stirred, her little face scrunching into a would-be cry. A long-forgotten tune fluttered at the back of the prisoner’s mind, the words forming on her cracked lips.

  ‘Hush, little cyren …’ Her song voice was raw from decades of silence and she clutched desperately at any semblance of melody. The child drew a trembling breath and the prisoner hesitated no longer:

  ‘Little nestling, little nestling,

  We cry not in the ancient deep.

  Little nestling, little nestling,

  Follow my voice, to the land of sleep.

  Hush, hush, little cyren, so strong yet so small,

  For down in deep Saddoriel, we let no tears fall.

  Oh hush now, little nestling,

  One day you will find your song.

  But quiet now, little nestling,

  For in dream is where you belong.

  Hush, hush, little cyren, listen to my call,

  For under these starless nights, we let no tears fall …’

  The soft scrape of shoes upon the gravelled path sounded, and a long shadow was cast across the prisoner and her child.

  ‘What did you think would happen, Cerys?’ the onlooker asked quietly, scales glimmering at her temples. ‘Did you really think we would allow you to raise your nestling within this cell?’

  Cerys … It had been an age since someone had spoken her name aloud, let alone with such familiarity. Cerys. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend they were in another place, another time … But she kept her eyes open.

  The cyren outside her cell hadn’t changed. Her lilac eyes were as bright as ever, her dark hair brushing her hips. She stood before the bars of bone, wearing a coloured silk robe, belted with jewels at the waist, and flowing pants, the hem dark with the filth of the prison. Cerys squinted. Sometimes she saw great wings behind the onlooker, sometimes she didn’t, but always, she saw shadows.

  Her guest gripped the bars of the cell gently, eyeing the child in her arms with concern. ‘Don’t you want her to know music?’

  Cerys peered down. The heat from the bundle she carried pressed against her cold, clammy skin as she imagined what a gift a real melody would be. For her daughter to hear the music she herself could not …

  ‘What will you call her?’ The onlooker’s voice was a whisper, as though she feared disturbing the sleeping child.

  ‘You … you would allow me to …?’

  The other cyren’s eyes swept across the cell, to the blood that neared her slippered feet. ‘A courtesy, Cerys. A final tribute to a friendship that once was.’

  For a moment, as the words lingered between them, the onlooker and prisoner locked eyes. A fleeting acknowledgement of a past so tangled and distant, it was but a dream.

  ‘You requested my presence?’ said a quiet voice. A male cyren appeared from the passageway, clad in plain grey robes. From beneath his sharp collar, a small patch of discoloured skin peeked. He glanced from the guest to the prisoner, his own lilac eyes intense.

  ‘I did. Take the child,’ the onlooker ordered.

  It was only then that the male cyren’s gaze fell upon the blood and the newborn clutched in the prisoner’s talons. If he was shocked, he didn’t show it. He produced a crowded ring of keys from his robes and went to work on the multiple locks and chains.

  At last, the cell gate swung inwards with a screech and he stepped inside, eyeing Cerys warily. But she didn’t move. Her face was blank as he reached down and took
the infant from her. She did not fight, despite the sudden cold in her arms.

  It wasn’t until cyren and infant were on the other side of the cell, and each lock had clicked back into place, that Cerys spoke. ‘Rohesia,’ she said.

  Her guest took half a step forward. ‘What?’

  ‘Rohesia. That is the name I choose for her.’

  Sadness crossed the onlooker’s face as the male cyren left without a moment’s pause, taking the child with him.

  The onlooker gave Cerys one final, lingering look. ‘No harm will come to her,’ she vowed.

  Hours after her visitors had departed, the old lullaby still swam in Cerys’ mind. She swayed with the pain, watching more blood seep through the cracks in the stone, wondering if she was going to die. Part of her very much wished she would. She had spent so long cloaked in darkness.

  But she knew the onlooker would never allow it. Cerys was to live. Soon, fresh torchlight flooded the passageway and a heavily guarded healer began attending to her. As a pain-relief serum clouded her senses, Cerys’ unfocused gaze swept from one blue-tinged warlock to another and the words of the old nursery tune found her once again …

  ‘Hush, hush, little cyren, so strong yet so small,

  For down in deep Saddoriel, we let no tears fall …’

  As gentle hands washed her, Cerys thought hazily of how cold and alone she felt without her infant nestled against her. But something else warmed her from within, an ember of hope, slowly flaring to life in her chest. It didn’t matter that she lay here bleeding, empty and abandoned. Her nestling, Rohesia, was exactly where she needed to be.

  Chapter One

  The quiet, square workshop smelled of bone shavings and sawdust, and specks of ivory gleamed on the floor in the flickering torchlight. In the early, eerie hours, if Roh stilled her aching fingers and strained her ears, she could hear the faint notes of music trickling down from the Upper Sector of Saddoriel. Delicate sea-blue scales glimmered at her temples, and dark, wavy hair fell across her face as she rested on her elbows against the workbench and closed her eyes, savouring the delicate sound of harp strings being plucked far above. The melody stirred ancient magic in her chest; a beast awakening after a long winter. Roh imagined the feeling was akin to the sun warming her skin. As quickly as it had come, though, the music was snatched away, leaving only the stifling quiet once more.

  Roh stretched and turned back to her work. On the bench before her was the project that had her out of her bed hours before any of the other fledglings. The measurements and sketches alone had taken her at least eight moons to finalise, but there was no point in creating a working model if it wasn’t to scale. Ames, her mentor, had taught her that. His stern respect for the finer details of architecture had rubbed off on her and she was begrudgingly grateful. She studied her project carefully. Made with bone splinters she’d saved from around the workshop, her creation mirrored everything she yearned for: a place where melodies could be captured and driven upwards to starving ears, a colosseum with a semi-circular stage, a space where cyrens like her could at last hear the same rich notes and cresting choruses as those above.

  Sighing, she consulted her drawings and sought the particular piece of bone she needed. With her dark talons retracted, this sort of work was much easier. She double- and triple-checked before fixing the piece into place and stepping back to survey her progress. As she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, her fingers brushed the thin line of gold that circled her head. The pulse of a longstanding grievance thrummed through her. Gold … The weakest, most meagre metal the cyrens possessed; a circlet of it, to mark those lesser than the rest. It was a humiliation she’d worn since she could remember, a permanent reminder of her place in Talon’s Reach. Only a handful of cyrens bore this particular shame: the offspring of criminals – not that she’d ever seen another like her. They were probably hidden away in the darkest pockets of the territory, just as she was.

  Determined not to dwell on her shortcomings, Roh returned her focus to the project at hand. The model was far from finished. She could only work on it in the brief moments of time she stole for herself while the rest of her cohort slept. But she was glad for the months of distraction it had gifted her. Months … Barely a blink in the long life of a cyren, but she was thankful all the same. The soft notes of music drifted down again, a hint at the breathtaking sounds the Upper Sector enjoyed —

  An ear-piercing scraping noise cut the melody short and Roh jumped in surprise. Her head snapped up to see her friend, Harlyn, dragging her talons down the grimy workshop window. Harlyn grinned, her razor-sharp cheekbones all the more prominent. Behind her was a huge trolley, stacked with half a dozen barrels.

  ‘Draw the short straw again?’ Roh asked as she held the door open.

  Harlyn scowled as she pushed the trolley through the wide doorway. ‘I always draw the damn short straw. Been carting these barrels around all night, haven’t I?’ Harlyn had a permanent crease between her brows, a pointed chin and unusual white-blonde hair that was currently swept off the back of her neck with a leather strap. ‘Why in the names of Dresmis and Thera are you here so early?’ she asked.

  Roh waved a hand at the structure sitting atop their workbench. Only three people knew of its existence: Harlyn, their friend, Orson, and Ames.

  Harlyn nodded knowingly. ‘You can’t keep away from that thing, can you? Rohesia the bone cleaner’s secret passion …’ She brought the trolley to a stop in the far corner of the workshop and twisted her body, cracking her back with a satisfied groan.

  ‘Like you can talk.’ Roh gave a pointed look to the handcrafted lute strapped across Harlyn’s shoulders. Her friend had made it herself by carving wood from an old bench, spending days meticulously setting the strings. Harlyn was as obsessed with her lute as Roh was with her design work. But it was against the Law of the Lair for cyrens to play music; that was what humans were for. Cyrens were supposed to focus all their energies on honing their deathsong, cultivating their power from within. To spend talent and time giving their musical gift to human instruments was considered an insult to their kind. But a bone cleaner was low on the Council of Seven Elders’ list of priorities, and so Harlyn had taught herself how to play the one-of-a-kind instrument. It was one of the rare sources of music for the cyrens of the Lower Sector.

  Harlyn elbowed her. ‘No need to stare.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Roh muttered. She hadn’t realised she had been gawking at the lute. Still a fledgling, her wide, moss-green eyes hadn’t yet taken on the striking lilac hue of the fully matured cyrens. Even for a youngster they were considered an unusual colour, and Harlyn insisted that they made Roh unnerving. The dark shadows below her bottom lashes were permanent features thanks to exhaustion, while her dark brows and the speckle of blue scales at her temples intensified her discerning gaze.

  Harlyn was now wrangling a barrel from the trolley dramatically and Roh clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘Can you hurry this up? I want to finish this section of the model before the others get here.’

  But Harlyn leaned back against the trolley leisurely and picked her teeth with an extended black talon. ‘I’d love to. I’m just dying to count these bones all on my lonesome.’

  Roh couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her face. Harlyn’s humour was one of the reasons Roh loved her. With a resigned sigh, she threw the dirty cloth over her project and moved it to the far end of the workshop, where she kept it hidden from sight. ‘Can’t have you counting bones solo,’ she told Harlyn. ‘We both know you’d make a mess of it.’

  ‘Too true, Rohesia. Too true.’ Harlyn carefully swung the lute strap from her shoulders and hid the instrument alongside Roh’s model.

  Using an iron rod, the two fledglings prised the lid off the first barrel. The foul stench of rotting flesh within assaulted their senses and had them dry-retching.

  Eyes watering, with a hand over her mouth and nose, Harlyn looked at Roh with a deadpan face. ‘I do love how rewarding this job is.’r />
  Roh snorted.

  Elbow-deep in pungent vinegar water, Roh and Harlyn had just finished their count as the other fifteen fledglings and cyrens filed in. All had completed the sixteen years of education required of their kind, like Roh and Harlyn, and some were fresh from their lessons, while others had cleaned bones in the workshop for decades. Then there was the occasional younger face, like Jesmond, who apparently had no affinity for learning and so had been allowed to split her time between the workshop and the lesson rooms.

  ‘You’ve been here a while?’ a familiar soft voice sounded. Orson slid into her seat at the bench between Roh and Harlyn. Her face was the other side of Harlyn’s harsh coin: round, with gentle, wide-set, almost-lilac eyes. When she smiled shyly, her chin dimpled. It made her seem more youthful, though she was a whole decade older than both Roh and Harlyn.

  ‘About three hours,’ Roh told her, spotting Ames entering the room. Roh had known him her whole life. A quiet but steely creature, he was the poor male cyren who’d been charged with her care from infancy, though why she had become the ward of the workshop master, she did not know. Ames was older than any cyren Roh knew. He’d been around for centuries, if lair gossip was to be believed, and was one of the few cyrens who actually aged. His weathered skin was lined and he wore a permanent expression of exasperation.

  Harlyn elbowed Roh and her attention snapped back to the new crate of bones that had just been emptied onto their bench with a loud rattle.