Find Me Their Bones (Bring Me Their Hearts, #2)

by Sara Wolf

“Life rises out of death, death rises out of life; in being opposite they yearn to each other, they give birth to each other and are forever reborn. And with them, all is reborn, the flower of the apple tree, the light of the stars. In life is death. In death is rebirth. What then is life without death? Life unchanging, everlasting, eternal? What is it but death-death without rebirth?” —Ursula K. Le Guin

“Congratulations are in order, Zera. You are now the Second Heartless of the Laughing Daughter.”

She has it. Just as Varia took control of my reins, she’s standing right in front of me with my heart. No bars around it, no glass between it and me. I can hear it beating. I can see every blue vein in it pulsing with my memories, my human life. The thing I came to Vetris for. The thing I suffered these three years and two long weeks for.

“You came to Vetris for your heart.” Varia breathes raggedly. “All Heartless want their hearts. But you’re not all Heartless, are you, Zera? In the clearing, I saw the way my brother looked at you. And I saw how you looked at him, too.”

The only thing between my humanity and me is the valkerax behind that gate. Not a lonely prince who must be seduced and deceived but a valkerax who must be taught.

“Make sure not to get eaten before then,” I call to Yorl. “Make sure not to eat anyone before then,” he deadpans back.

I chase irony down like an overzealous kitten hunting butterflies.

‘That I could give the whole world of Arathess peace, I would. That there was some polymath contraption, some lever I could hit or button I could press that would give peace to all, know that I would die with my hand on it—’” “‘And still in death my skeleton would go on, the bones moving of their own accord, and my flesh feeding its furnace,’”

“I want my people to live in peace, Zera.”

how courageous can a mouse be, when it faces a wolf tearing mice apart? The hunger sneers. and yet there you stand, foolishly, still thinking a mouse and a wolf could ever be friends…

“They are d’Malvanes,” I hear someone whisper. “But they are human, too.”

There is a me somewhere who’s not Heartless, who hasn’t lied to him, who sits beside him at this banquet and smiles at him, and he smiles back, and they are in love. But I am not her. I have, maybe, never been her. And now I never will be.

Not a noble or a Heartless but just a girl. Reduced to my barest parts, reduced to what I’ve always wanted to be. Just a human girl.

“And yet,” he says, “emotions aren’t convenient pieces of jewelry you can put on and take off whenever you want to.”

“How can something that was a lie mean anything at all?” Not like this. I want the real Lucien. Not this one.

“Pain is the question and going is the answer.”

“Everything that chimes has a true name. Everything that is true, we will know.”

“This we know. It is like life, like death, like the little cliffs of the bloodeyes—always true. The chimes took our bones, and they took your heart.”

the valkerax and I breathe into the utter blackness together. It feels like it’s just us in this moment—two monsters below the world.

“We can’t remember who we were,” I start. “We’re always hurting. Always hungry. That isn’t home. This—” I hold my hand to my chest. “This isn’t a home. This is a prison.”

“I can’t give you your freedom,” I say, my teeth retreating, all my senses dulling to a human’s once more. “But I can help you remember what it was like to hold it.”

But Vetris is no place to dream for a Heartless.

“The tree of bone will always call to the chime strong enough to become its roots.”

“Immortal hate, immortal anger. Life squirming in a world of undeath. Below the sun and above the moons, together at last.” The valkerax’s voice is a bare whisper. “The mother calls to the son; two long to become one. A daughter like a weapon. A rose between them. A wolf to end the world. A WOLF. TO END. THE WORLD!”

The Prophecy

“The tree of bone will always call to the chime strong enough to become its roots.” That one sentence, among all the gibberish, haunts the space between my ears.

A chime—the valkerax uses that word for witches.

Pain is the great equalizer. It makes us all look foolish and weak. It makes us all cry out the same, and Gavik is no different.

A certainty that, if I didn’t reach those twin rosaries, something horrible would happen. If she finds the Tree, it will mean disaster.

Feelings aren’t temporary jewelry, but neither are they permanent tattoos,

“I don’t remember. If I could, I’m sure it would make more sense. I just remember he started singing—” “The tree of bone and the tree of glass will sit together as family at last.” I let the words tumble from my mouth, my voice shaky and the notes a bare skeleton of what I can remember Gavik singing. Lucien’s face lights up instantly. “You know it?” He grabs my shoulders. “Kavar’s eye—how in the afterlife do you know it?”

“You obviously don’t know me, sir,” I shout, pushing my sweaty hair off my eyes again. “I need at least three ‘pleases’ and one grovel before I do anything at all!”

Love this

Of the silence, in the silence. Standing on a rusty pipe, fleeing a guard while running toward a boy I cannot possibly have is an awfully strange place to get a revelation, but I’ve never been one for normality. This is what it means to be silent, what Reginall, who taught me to Weep, meant—in the middle of cacophony, in the midst of the chaos of living, to find that moment where the only thing that matters is what one does next. The past doesn’t matter. The future doesn’t matter. All that has meaning is the moment. This is what silence means—to live only for the next moment.

He might not be mine ever again, but I refuse to live in a world without him in it.

“Right, yes—because now is a great time to discuss our relationship! When everything is on literal fire!”

Well, that officially makes you the smarter one, which means I’m the pretty one. Um. Not that your giant fangs and claws aren’t pretty. Because they are.” I swear from the other side of the arena, I hear Yorl smack his paw to his forehead.

“What does the Ironspeaker say, Starving Wolf?” the valkerax asks. Half disgusted at the valkerax’s wounds, my words come out short. “Why do you keep calling me that?” “Those are the true names of you.” The valkerax pulls away from me, its body heat fading into the cold darkness. “You are the Starving Wolf. The warmblood watching us with many eyes is the Ironspeaker. True names hold your power.”

“Life is a garden,” the valkerax insists. “In which death is required to flourish.”

Nothing distracts me from my own thoughts better than a book. And I need distraction now more than ever. I need to read someone else’s words to clear my head of all the ones buzzing around in my skull.

Life of a reader

Feelings aren’t jewelry. But neither are they scars. They aren’t fleeting, but neither are they permanent. I think of Y’shennria, of the scars on her neck, and then of her gentle smile at me. Even scars can fade.

“Whether you had died or not, you were willing to take the pain for them,” Lucien continues. “For once, Lady Zera, I ask of you: be as merciful with yourself as you are with everyone else.”

I know then this is not the kiss from the Hunt. That kiss was a moon, longing and sweet. This kiss is the sun, blazing hot and brighter than the apex of sunrise, prickling my skin with sweat, nothing sweet or subtle about it.

WOOHOOO!!!!!

Pushing into the dark tunnel, I slide the last piece into its slot. Yorl is not the valkerax. And now, for the very first time in my Heartless life, I start to think, solidly and wholly and clearly: I am not the hunger.

“If you feel the air grow hot, you’re about to die.” “Good.” I draw Father’s sword, my hand only mildly shaking. “I was hoping you’d say something sweet and sultry like that.”

“The last thing I want is for him to lose family over me. For him to lose anything over me.” “You know,” Malachite says after a beat, “I’m actually inclined to believe you—you, the greatest con man Vetris has ever seen—this one time.” “That’s a very impressive-sounding title for only having put on a few dresses and talking about potatoes,” I grumble. This ekes a laugh from him.

You helped.” “Did I?” I whisper. “It feels like all I did was hurt.”

“Life is a garden that must flourish,” Evlorasin hisses, then, “And we will water its soil.”

“You have given us a ‘nicking-name.’ We will give you the blood promise. We will not give it to the Laughing Daughter. She is not the rain to our drought. But you, Starving Wolf, have tasted of our drought, our darkness. In you, the blood promise will remain true.”

You are of the silence.” “We are in the silence.”

“Drink of my blood. I give you this gift of myself, so that the Wolf might never howl alone again.”

“I am you,” Evlorasin says. “We sing the same and Weep the same. My blood is your blood. This is never-goodbye.”