Page 286 of Blade of the Nightking

Saskia extended an arm, silently inviting me to walk beside her.

I fell into step, following the strange procession deeper into the forest.

Iwas going to be sick.

The Brinnekin lay on its back in the center of the village, a dozen women gathered around it. One drove her knife beneath its jaw and slit the hide cleanly to the belly. Others gripped the loosened edges and flayed the thick skin from the flesh beneath in long, smooth motions. The hide came away with a slow, wet tearing sound that made my stomach heave. Another reached into the opened cavity, drawing out fistfuls of slick entrails and setting them carefully aside. Heart. Liver. Lungs. Kidneys. Only the occasional unusable scrap was tossed into the fire.

A heavy axe rose and fell, and the Brinnekin's head came free with a dull crack of vertebrae. One of the women pulled it into her lap without hesitation and began stripping the flesh from the skull, removing the tongue and eyes before splitting it open to scoop out the brain.

Around the carcass, the others sat shoulder to shoulder, carving thick strips from the ribs and limbs, passing the meat into woven baskets while others scraped every last shred from the bones with short, wickedly sharp knives. Blue blood coated their forearms to the elbow, dripping steadily onto the earth. When the skeleton had been picked almost clean, mallets appeared.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

The sharp sounds echoed through the village as they split the long bones open one after another. White marrow glistened within. Without hesitation, they lifted each one to their lips and sucked the marrow free before sorting the emptied bones into neat piles according to size and shape.

I looked away, unable to stomach any more, fixing on the village instead.

Low huts of timber, woven reeds, and packed earth nestled between enormous grassy mounds, their roofs thick with thatch and moss as though they'd grown from the forest itself. Smoke drifted lazily from stone chimneys, kilns, and more cooking fires than I could count, carrying the rich scent of roasting meat.

I nearly gagged.

The Brinnekin.

My gaze drifted to the edge of the settlement, to the macabre barrier surrounding it.

Bones. Thousands of them.

The village had built its walls from the dead. A warning, perhaps—a promise of what awaited anyone foolish enough to venture too close.

Long bones jutted skyward like stakes. Skulls stared outward from weathered posts. Strings of vertebrae looped between the trees in deliberate patterns, clacking softly together in the wind. Some of those bones looked suspiciously human.

Someone lowered themselves beside me.

Saskia.

She plopped a basket onto her lap with a stack of split Brinnekin bones.

“Those bones are all Fae,” she said, following my line of sight. Her gaze flicked knowingly to the knife sheathed at my hip. “They possess magical properties human bones do not. Arrange them in the right patterns, and they become something like wards. The Fae won't cross them.”

A hoarse scream ripped through the village.

My back snapped rigid. Rìan.

When we'd arrived, they'd carried him into one of the huts. After a brief exchange with Saskia, an older white-haired woman she called the Bone Mother reached into a pocket and withdrew a charcoal-black stone, its surface dull and pitted, before disappearing inside after them.

A lodestone. Rare, Saskia had said. Forged where lightning kissed magnetite, each one carried a pull so powerful it could coax iron from living flesh. A life-saving process, but an agonizing one nonetheless.

Another scream split the air, raw enough that several women paused in their work to glance curiously toward the hut.

I pressed my hands between my knees to stop them from shaking.

"Don’t worry,” she observed. “He’ll be fine.”

“I know,” I said but my voice sounded small.