Page 51 of Vasmora

Still smiling, she held the oddly twisted bone up to the candlelight, the tallow illuminating the inner column, almost translucent against the light. “Well, this is strange,” she said, running a magnifying glass over it. “These bones have roots.”

“That isn’t common with bones that are buried?”

“It is, yes. But look here.” She pointed to a long, skinny vein deep in the bone. “It appears to have been snapped away. And here, the core is completely intact.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The bones healed around the root.”

Frowning, Dolion stared at the shadow of the core that had, in fact, swallowed the skinny root. “Are you suggesting these bones healed after death?”

“I’m suggesting the body rose from death. These roots are snapped and fail to penetrate the new growth.” She lifted another bone from the pile showing the same pattern, and with the magnifying glass, she scanned down to a patch of silver in the marrow.

“What is that?”

“Necromancy residue.”

“Ichor,” Dolion clarified and thumbed through his text. “The Corvi people carried some of Morsana’s ichor in their blood. Maevyth carries it, as well.” He ran his finger over a page, scanning for what he’d read earlier that morning. “When the other gods become too powerful, death chooses a vessel and resets the balance of things. That silver ichor is a means to control. A magnet of sorts. Whatever houses it is drawn to the goddess’s command.”

Dolion pushed up from his chair and flicked his fingers. “Come. I want to show you something.”

Allura lowered the bone she was studying. “What is it?”

“Come. Come.” He pointed to the table of bones, gathering a few into his arms. “Bring some of them with you.”

Allura pushed up from her chair and, after gathering an armful of the bones, followed the mage out of the library and through the lower level, where they passed Rykaia lounging on a velvet chaise.

“Where are you two off to?” she asked, apple paused midway to her mouth as she gave an amused glance toward Allura.

“The dungeon. I have a theory.”

“Ooh. I love theories. I’m coming with you.” Rykaia jumped to her feet and trailed after them, through the door and down the winding staircase to the dungeons.

Dolion strode toward the cells in which he and Maevyth had once slept, sparing a glance toward the door in the floor where Branimir dwelled with his spiders. Without the stones, the mage was far less confident he could keep them away, but he strode on, warily glancing around for any of the vicious little creatures. Once inside Maevyth’s cell, he directed Allura to place the bones in the center of the room. He darted out of the cell, eyes on that door as he slipped into his old cell, crossing the space for the crucible sitting out on the small table. The crucible that’d once held the sampling of Maevyth’s bloodstone that Zevander had brought back from Mortasia. He swiped it up quickly, noting the long-dried silver dust from Maevyth’s blood still clinging to the bowl, and returned to the other cell.

Holding the crucible out with one hand, he called upon Maevyth’s aura, a procedure often used by forenzicarys when studying a crime scene. The bits of dust in the bowl rose upward, lingering above them in the air.

“A bit of Maevyth’s ichor is captured in this bowl,” he said, watching the dust particles drift toward the center of the cell.

A look of disgust twisted Rykaia’s face. “You kept a bowl of Maevyth’s ichor all this time? That’s repulsive.”

Dolion shook his head, refocusing.

A hollow clacking drew his attention to the bones on the floor. They shifted abruptly, and Allura’s brows lowered as she watched beside him. Jerking and trembling, the bones rose up from the floor, as if pulled by the cloud of ichor hovering above them.

“They’re drawn to it,” Dolion said, his voice tinged in awe.

All at once, the bones snapped together, forming a crude skeletal leg and its twisted spinal column.

Mouth hung open, Rykaia stepped closer, head tilted as she studied it. “What in the gods have you two been doing in that library?”

“Learning Maevyth’s purpose,” Dolion answered, stepping cautiously toward the bones.

“Assembling bones?”

“She’s to assemble an army.”

“An army of bones?” Rykaia glanced toward him and back, her frown still in place. “What an awful thing to bestow on someone. It’s like a puzzle with endless pieces.”