The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

A chill swept through me as I stared at her. Fire of the
gods? Her gaze met mine as she took a step back. “I’m sure
we will meet again,” she said.
“We will.”
I sat in the wooden chair of the hunting cabin Casteel
had brought me to, after he’d saved my life and risked so
much in the process, and stared at the bed.
Tawny lay there, her face too pale, her breathing too
shallow. I’d tried to heal her. I’d tried once when I went back
to the woods. My gift had flared to life then, and the wound
had closed, but she didn’t wake. I tried again when we
stopped halfway here, after we’d mounted the horses that
Hisa had brought. I placed my hands on her too-warm skin
as soon as we arrived at the cabin, but she didn’t wake, and
those dark veins had spread up her throat.
We’d traveled straight through the Wastelands and had
reached the hunting cabin as night descended. We had to
stop. Everyone was tired, and Tawny… I didn’t know what
was wrong with her or what had pierced her flesh to cause
this—for my gift to not do much beyond closing her skin.
The arrow the Handmaiden had held resurfaced. It had
been fashioned from shadowstone. The same weapon my
mother had had the night the Craven came to the inn. The
same kind of weapon the deities had been buried with and
the skeleton soldiers had held. I couldn’t remember seeing
what kind of weapons the guards had. I’d…I’d obliterated
the ones who stood in front of me, but the Handmaiden had
said it would put me down for a while. I glanced at Tawny.
Could it have been shadowstone? Was that why my gifts had
only worked to a certain point?