ears, like a note too low to hear anywhere but in her gut. The deeper they went, the cooler and stiller the air became, until she winced at every crunch of her footsteps.
They passed three more sets of dead Hawks before they found the bottom, and Fie could only hope they were wholly below the bottom of the Well of Grace now. Her torchlight caught the edges of columns a few paces out; everything beyond it was a sea of dark.
Tavin found a small brass wheel in the wall and gave it a full turn. There was a soft gurgle. Then he touched his torch to a brazier mounted beside the wheel.
Fire caught on oil and spilled down channels cut along the walls, unfurling into a spiderweb of flame over the whole of a great, round room near as wide across as the Well of Grace. Doors lined the chamber in dark arches, gaping like toothless mouths. More dead generals were stationed beside every one, and great curving beams held up an eight-sectioned dome above.
More bones lined the room, set into morbid mosaics around each door, curving ribs outlining flames, fingerbones forming the rays of a backbone sun. Over each door sat a skull.
It all felt … different from the royal palace. Familiar. Fie couldn’t place why until she realized every column was studded with the same eight-pointed star she’d seen in Little Witness’s tower. All the stonework reminded her of the watchtower the longer she looked at it, if it had been buried underground instead of thrust into the sea.
So the catacombs were at least as old as Little Witness’s grave. The notion felt peculiar to her.
Tavin waved his torch at the doorways. “There are different crypts for different, well, kinds of Phoenix. The priests have their crypt there, and then there’s one for spouses of the monarch if they want it, and one for the immediate members of the family who never hold the throne, like siblings. Cousins get their own crypt, too. Or they did. Phoenixes are … fewer, these days.”
Fie squinted at the skulls over the doorways. Something was off about their jaws. She blinked. “Where are their teeth?”
“They’re pulled out in the burial ceremony,” Tavin said.
“For the Crows?” she asked, like she didn’t have near a half dozen Phoenix teeth stashed on her at that very moment. Tavin nodded. She frowned. Play the fool. “But … why would you need to pay the Crows? You survived the Sinner’s Plague.”
It was his turn to give her a tight, thin smile. “My father didn’t. But it’s been part of our traditions for so long, I don’t know what would happen if we changed it. Maybe the priests would all quit.” He barked an uncomfortable laugh. “Let me guess. You want to see the Tomb of Monarchs.”
“Do you want to show me the Tomb of Monarchs?” she asked, sly, and realized with a curl of revulsion that she hadn’t even needed Niemi’s help to flirt back.
He laughed again, more genuine this time, and pulled her forward.
It was like the first time she’d approached the Well of Grace all over again. Each step seemed to ring and rebound and hum in her ears, that pressure building and building in her skull. Tavin’s hand became less a comfort and more an anchor. She heard whispers—voices—chanting—
Bones, she realized. The Well of Grace had to be directly overhead, and that was bad enough, but everywhere she looked, she saw bones. The most dead she’d seen at once had been Karostei, one hundred scattered across the village. There had to be hundreds, maybe thousands of dead here, packed tight and dry, their bones singing to her in their sleep.
Tavin led her to a set of double doors across from the hallway and pushed them open. Inside was another round room, but it climbed like a massive chimney; the fire-lines had lit in here as well, carving bars of light all the way to the ceiling high above Fie’s head. Great stacks of what looked like spokeless wheels rose above them, studded in toothless skulls. At the eye-level wheel, Fie saw a stone casket for every skull; the ring of skulls was not complete, though, with four empty caskets lying in wait.
“Once it’s full up, there’s some kind of mechanism to raise all the rings,” Tavin said, letting go of her to turn in a slow circle. “Then they wheel in a new one and start filling it in. Oh. And, of course, there’s