A Lair of Bones by Helen Scheuerer

Author:Helen Scheuerer [Scheuerer, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780648673149
Google: qz0szgEACAAJ
Amazon: B0985XF333
Publisher: ALCHEMY
Published: 2021-07-11T16:00:00+00:00

Build something. It sounded so simple, yet between the two little words lay a churning sea of doubt. What would be worthy of the lair? What made something original? What sort of creation was practical for a sector of highborns who had everything they needed?

Down in the workshop, Roh tried to palm the exhaustion from her eyes. After the ordeal of the tour and Arcelia’s news, she and Odi had wandered all over Saddoriel, searching for inspiration for the trial. But it was as though upon mention of the trial, a solid wall sprang up between Roh and any semblance of an idea, blocking her at every possible turn. It hadn’t helped that all throughout the evening, the phantom echo of the nestling’s cry from the Pool of Weeping filled her mind, rendering her listless. For a time she had tried to lose herself in the heavy tome she’d borrowed from Andwana: Life, Law and the Lair, but in truth, she had no idea where to start. The table of contents alone was twenty pages long. Which was why they had ended up in the workshop, yet again. Roh, Harlyn and Orson sat huddled around Ames’ desk at the front of the workshop, while Odi paced between the workbenches, toying with the protective token he’d come so close to losing.

Harlyn monitored him suspiciously, not taking her eyes off the human as she talked. ‘Why don’t you use your music theatre?’ she asked, waving a hand to the back of the room where Roh’s model sat hidden beneath its cloth.

Roh shook her head. ‘It has to be built specifically for this tournament.’

‘So build another.’

Sighing, Roh went to the back of the room and brought the model back to the bench, removing the fabric. She’d never shown her friends what it looked like up close and in detail, but now seemed like the right time. ‘This took me months,’ she explained. ‘The initial sketches alone took weeks.’

‘But you have the sketches,’ Harlyn argued, turning the model around to examine it from all angles. ‘It won’t take half as long if you start again now.’

Odi stopped his pacing, approaching curiously. Roh found herself wringing her hands as she watched him wordlessly take in the details of her design. Her stomach swooped uncomfortably and she curled her toes in her boots; she didn’t like feeling like this – exposed. Besides the tournament and her friends, her miniature music theatre was everything she cared about. She’d poured her heart and her soul into its design and creation for so long and now … Odi was seeing it, judging it. She may as well have been naked.

‘I don’t think the Council of Elders will see this to mean much to Saddoriel,’ Orson said quietly.

Although Roh had already been disagreeing with Harlyn, her heart sank.

‘Not because it’s not incredible,’ Orson added quickly, with a worried glance at Roh’s fallen face. ‘But because it’s for the Lower Sector. If it’s not for them … Well, they won’t see the meaning, will they? They want for nothing up there.

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