The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

“Sorry.” Emil unhooked his swords. “I was kind of taken
aback by the sight of fully functional, fucking skeletons with
weapons. My apologies.”
I stared at the sword—the blade was as black as the
statues. The same kind of blades I’d seen in the crypts with
the deities. “Shadowstone.” An image of my mother flashed
before me, of her pulling a slender, black blade from her
boot. “Their blades are like the one my mother had. That
had to be a real memory.”
“Poppy, I’m glad you know it was real.” Casteel
withdrew his swords. “But we should probably discuss that
later, like when we’re not facing an army of the dead?”
“Question,” Delano called out, blade in hand as the top
of a skull appeared from the hole nearest him. “How exactly
does one kill what is presumably already dead?”
“Like super dead,” Vonetta clarified as the one before
her was now halfway out of the hole, a ragged, dull brown
tunic draped over the skeleton’s shoulder. Through the torn
clothing, I saw a twisted mass of dirt beat behind its ribs.
Casteel moved as fast as bottled lightning, thrusting his
sword into the chest of the skeleton and piercing the lump
of dirt. The skeleton shattered, sword and all, breaking apart
into dust. “Like that?”
“Oh,” Vonetta replied. “All right, then.”
I turned as Kieran shoved his sword into the chest of
one. There were about a dozen holes behind us—a dozen
skeleton guards halfway out of the ground. Another image
filled my mind, one not of my mother but of a woman with
silvery-white hair—the one I’d seen in my mind while I stood
in the Chambers of Nyktos. She’d slammed her hands into
the dirt, and the ground had cracked open, bone fingers
digging their way out.
“Her soldiers,” I whispered.
“What?” Casteel demanded.
“These are her—”