Bone Season 01: The Bone Season: A Novel by Samantha Shannon Page A

his mind quieted did I open my eyes and sit up. No movement.
    Barefoot, I approached the bed and I slid my fingers between the drapes, opening them just enough to see him. He lay on his side, covered by the sheets, his skin glistening in the half-light. His coarse brown hair was snarled over his face. As I watched, a dim light spread through the bedding, close to where his right arm lay.
    I brushed his dreamscape. Something was different. I couldn’t get much from it, but it wasn’t quite as it should be. Every dreamscape had a kind of invisible light: an inner glow, imperceptible to amaurotic senses. Now his vital light was going out.
    He was still as the grave. When I looked down at the sheets, I found them spotted with a softly luminous, yellow-green liquid. It had a thin, metallic scent. My sixth sense felt as if it was being plucked, as if I was inhaling the æther. I rolled the heavy bedclothes down.
    A bite oozed on the inside of his arm. I swallowed. I could see the faint imprints of teeth, skin ripped in a vicious frenzy. The wound wept beads of light. Blood.
    It was his blood .
    He must have told the other Rephaim he was going somewhere. They would have known he was doing something dangerous. There was no way they could find the evidence to blame me if he died.
    Then I remembered what Liss had said to me in the shack. Rephs aren’t human. No matter how much they look like us, they’re not like us.
    Like they would care if there was no evidence. They could fabricate evidence. They could say whatever they liked. If he died on this bed, they could easily claim I’d smothered him. It would give Nashira an excuse to kill me early.
    Maybe I should do it. This was my chance to get rid of him. I’d killed before. I could do it again.
    I had three options. I could sit here and watch him die, kill him, or try and stop it. I’d rather watch him die, but I sensed it might be better to save him. I was reasonably safe in Magdalen. The last thing I wanted to do at this stage was move.
    He hadn’t hurt me yet, but he would. To own me he would have to subjugate me, torture me, make me obey by any means necessary. If I killed him now, I might save myself. My hand reached for a pillow. I could do it, I could suffocate him. Yes, come on, kill him . I flexed my fingers, grasped the cotton. Kill him!
    I couldn’t. He’d wake up. He’d wake up and break my neck. Even if he didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to escape. The guards outside would string me up for murder.
    I had to save him.
    Something told me not to touch the sheets. I didn’t trust that liquid. The glow said radioactive , and I couldn’t forget Scion’s warnings of contamination. I went to the drawer and pulled on a pair of his gloves. They were massive, made for Rephaite hands. My fingers lacked dexterity. I ripped up one of the cleaner sheets. Flimsy things, useless for warmth. Once I had a few long strips, I took them to the bathroom and soaked them in hot water. This might not work, but it might just buy him a few hours to wake up and seek treatment from the other Rephaim. If he was lucky.
    Back in the chamber, I steeled my nerves. Warden looked and felt like death. The cold seeped through the gloves. His skin had a gray tinge. I wrung out the sheet and set to work on the wound. At first I was cautious, but he didn’t stir. He wasn’t going to wake.
    Outside, through the windows, the play of sunlight began to change. I squeezed water on the wound, cleaned away the blood, coaxed grit from the mangled flesh. After what seemed like hours, I’d finally made a dent in the mess. I could see the rise and fall of his chest, the soft surge in his throat. I used another sheet to pad the wound, secured the makeshift wadding with the sash of my tunic, then pulled the bedding over his arm. It was up to him to survive now.
     
    I woke a few hours later.
    I could tell from the silence that the room was unoccupied. The bed was made. The sheets had been replaced. The drapes