Chapter 1
SHAW
For all my preparation for Samhain, nothing could have equipped me for how the night had gone. The specter beneath my fingers felt vile. My back screamed from the slashes it had so generously reaped upon me, but I couldn’t dwell on the pain. Holding this monstrosity beneath me was like trying to cling to a wave. The tide wished to drown me and only Rosamund Holt was holding me afloat. She had the specter pinned by the neck, keeping it outwardly docile. Inwardly, it was anything but.
I’d always envisioned specters as especially horrible spirits. Angrier, meaner, and scarier, but fundamentally the same. I’d been wrong. The specter that had formed from Madam Dyer’s curse—this unholy combination of bone witch, feral bone familiar, and ghost—was unlike any undead being I’d ever come across. The dark energy that flickered off the specter like tendrils of smoke was pure, concentrated death magic. A hundred times more powerful than an average bone magic ritual could produce. A thousand times more powerful than what the average bone witch could control.
There was no way to kill this thing. Not alone. Not even with Rosamund’s help. I would have to simultaneously kill the living body while exorcising the dead inside. Maybe if I was bonded …
My gaze flicked momentarily to Rosamund. She was shifted into a badger, another new form, another casual display of power most familiars spent their whole lives dreaming to achieve. I’d tried to woo her for the majority of the fall term under the guise of a fake courtship. In the end, I’d been left cold and alone.
The specter’s energy heaved up, and I returned my attention to containing it. I threw my leg over the back of its wolfish body, helping Rosamund physically hold it down while my magic did what it could to wrangle the specter’s unleashed energy.
I didn’t have the power to kill it, but perhaps I could unmake it. I dug my fingernails into the specter’s skin. Its fur was sharper than a wolf’s, even a bone wolf’s, should have been. The death magic reacted as I began to bodily pull at the specter’s shoulder blades. Black tendrils grabbed at my wrists, sinking into my veins.
Give up, the magic said. Let go. I’ll catch you. I’ll give you peace.
For one second, one terrifying second, I wanted to give in. For the briefest moment, I was tempted to die.
But I would not. I could not. I was Shaw Colchuck, heir to the Cursed Throne. Future Witch Queen of the Cursed Kingdom. My destiny did not end here, in the heart of the Bone Forest, at the hands of a blood curse gone rogue. My kingdom was on the verge of war with the Empire of Vinland, and I had a responsibility to my people to keep them safe.
I yanked at the specter’s body, forcing the death magic to part underneath my fingers and reveal the entwined souls beneath.
The ghost was the first to come loose, releasing with something like a sigh. The specter grew more solid beneath me as one third of its power was removed. I reached back inside the specter with my bone magic. I pulled out Madam Dyer next, her soul flickering between rational ghost and disturbed spirit as I threw it into the open air. I didn’t have time to worry about that. There was still the bone wolf. This was Ylva Holt’s body. If I had any chance of saving her, I had to soothe her soul back in place before—
It was too late. Ylva’s essence slipped my grasp, out the gap I’d formed in her body. The death magic that remained shook as though angry. Like it held all their agony and rage and now had nowhere to channel it. It lashed out with a massive push.
I landed hard on my back, only just managing to keep my head up. Fresh blood gushed from my wounds, soaking the dirt and bone shards below me. I rolled over, biting my lip so I wouldn’t give in to the urge to scream. I sought out Rosamund instinctively and found her shifted back to her human form on the other side of the clearing. The bone wolf’s body had collapsed between us. Even as I watched, the body began to disintegrate. Fur fell away as skin melted off the skeletal base. The death magic consumed what it could, and then, with a great shudder, it bled out in dark globs over the floor of the Bone Forest.
The Forest soaked it up like rain.
I wanted to collapse and rest my aching body, but it was still Samhain. The specter might have interrupted the ritual, but the clearing was full of angry spirits to calm and ghosts to help move on. I struggled to my feet. I wished that Yuyan, the flower witch of my entourage and our trusted healer, was here. But it was just me, the other senior bone witches, and the senior bone familiars. We’d have to tend to our wounds ourselves—once we dealt with the threat of the dead.
I took several unsteady steps, going slowly until I was sure my legs would hold me, then strode the rest of the way to where Rosamund still lay prone. My heart was in my throat, until I saw that she was awake—eyes fixed upon the place where her grandmother’s body had disappeared. I reached out, and she let me help her stand. Together, we turned upon the spirits attacking the rest of our classmates.
Though Rosamund and I weren’t bonded, touching her gave me a surge of energy. I didn’t want to think about how compatible we were. It might have meant something before she’d torn apart my courtship necklace and thrown it at me. I’d gathered the pieces of that broken necklace and kept them. From the aching across the top of my thigh, I was sure they’d left a dozen little bruises from where I’d rolled over them during the fight against Rosamund’s feral grandmother and the specter she’d become.
I’d always prided myself on logic over emotion, and tonight would be no different. No matter the pain I still felt over Rosamund’s rejection, she was here now and I owed it to my classmates to use her offered help. She shifted into a bone wolf, and I anchored myself with a hand in her ruff. I lifted the other hand toward the remaining spirits and, pulling on Rosamund’s intrinsic magic as a bone familiar and my own innate skills as a bone witch, settled them back into ghosts. I was strong enough to force a spirit to dissipate, especially with Rosamund anchoring me, but my people deserved dignity in death. If they’d lingered as a ghost, they’d held some unfinished business in their hearts strong enough that they’d felt they couldn’t pass on without it being heard. I would give them the power to tell it to us and allow them to fade of their own accord.
Once all the spirits were calmed, I instructed my classmates to split into pairs and begin talking with the hundred or so ghosts scattered around the clearing. Rosamund and I made our own rounds. I was in my final year of schooling at Witch Hall—I’d trained for years on how to help a ghost move on. I barely had to pay attention as I listened to their stories, making mental notes about the ones with messages I’d have to try to bring back to various family members.
My lethargy sputtered at the sight of one of our classmates. Guanyu Cosho, born Guanyu Sun, was a flower familiar in our grade who’d been killed when Vinlander terrorists attacked the market at Multah. I hadn’t been there, hadn’t even had the chance to try to save him. I didn’t know if that was better or worse. Rosamund had, and I could see the guilt weigh heavy on her shoulders as Guanyu told us his story.
Rosamund promised to give Guanyu’s witch his final message, and like all ghosts without lasting business, Guanyu began to fade into motes of light.
“Will you grant me a favor too, Princess?” he asked, his translucent form already half gone.
“If it’s within my power, it’s yours,” I said, the rote line given to every ghost. It felt less rote in the face of someone I’d spent the last six years of my life learning beside.
Guanyu smiled, and it was a vicious little thing. For just a moment, I understood why Shantie Cosho had been so enamored.
“Then, avenge me,” he said.
I didn’t hesitate before promising. War with Vinland was a terrifying prospect, but I refused to allow more of my classmates to be slaughtered so needlessly. Not while I had strength left to stand before them.
“Me too, Shaw,” Rosamund said, once the last of Guanyu’s light had faded. “I’ll help get justice for Guanyu. I have to help.”
I remembered how distraught Rosamund had been after Guanyu’s death. How she’d floated like one of the dead herself, only barely clinging to existence.
Now it was as if someone had lit a spark under her. She’d finally woken from the half state she’d been in from the moment she’d come back from the Market Day fire. Even her anger the day she’d broken our courtship and run away from school couldn’t compare to the fervor of her words now.
“I spent six years being afraid of myself, of my wolf,” Rosamund told me. “Of the weapon I could become in the army’s hands. But I don’t care about that anymore. I won’t be their weapon, but I will be yours.”
I waited for the elation. I had finally won, hadn’t I? Wasn’t this what I’d wanted? The whole reason I’d tested Rosamund and Charles and all the other bone familiars last term? I was prophesied to lead us through the coming war. I needed to use everything and everyone at my disposal.
All I felt was cold. “I never wanted a weapon,” I said, only just realizing it was true. “I wanted a partner.”
Something broke in Rosamund’s expression. Like her eyes were mirrors that had shattered and now reflected only fractal beings.
“I can’t be your queen, Shaw,” she said, too gentle. Gentle enough to make it hurt all the worse. “I won’t rule this kingdom with you. I can’t give you that. But I will make sure you live to rule it. We don’t need a bond to work together, to fight together. Tonight proved that. So, let me be your weapon. Use me to win this war. And when we’ve won—because we must win—when the war is over, you’ll gift me a ranch, like your grandmother did for mine. I’ll raise horses and you’ll find a familiar who can rule beside you. And that will be our victory.”
I reached down and felt the outline of moonstone bones in my pocket, caressing those pieces of a broken promise. Why did her words hurt so badly? I’d known she wasn’t going to be mine, hadn’t I? She’d run away as soon as the whispers of war became rumblings. I needed a familiar strong enough to stand beside me through it all.
But no, she wasn’t refusing to stand with me in war. She was refusing to stand with me after. To be more than a tool to use and discard. To be the queen I knew she could be, if she’d only let herself.
Copyright © 2026 by Jasmine Skye
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