Bones of the Betrayed: Rise of the Last Bonekeeper

The courtroom smelled of bone-dust and rosewater, sweet enough to mask the stench of cruelty, sharp enough to remind Elias Dray that nothing about today was meant to be gentle.

“Elias Dray,” Judge Marrow intoned, his voice echoing against polished bone walls, “do you understand the accusation brought against you?”

Elias swallowed. “Yes, Your Honor.”

Lyra Vintrel, his wife for three humiliating years, didn’t even look at him. She stood tall in her silk mourning-black, the color nobles wore when discarding someone beneath their dignity.

Her gaze remained fixed ahead, jaw rigid, as if acknowledging him would dirty her tongue. The gallery buzzed like vultures circling a corpse.

“Then let us proceed.” The judge turned to Lyra. “Lady Vintrel, your grounds for divorce?”

Lyra’s voice rang out like a blade. “My husband is defective.”

A ripple of snickers swept through the chamber. Elias clenched his hands. “Lyra, please”

“Do not address me,” she snapped.

Judge Marrow lifted a hand. “Evidence?”

Lyra reached into the bone-scribed satchel beside her and retrieved a glowing marrow crystal. “I present the results of the Bone Resonance Test.” She held it aloft, and the chamber gasped.

The crystal was dead. No glow. No pulse. No magic. “As everyone can see,” she continued coldly, “my husband’s bones are empty. Utterly barren. He has no core, no resonance, and thus no value to the Vintrel line.”

A noblewoman near the front whispered too loudly, “A man without bone magic is barely a man at all.”

Laughter erupted. Elias felt heat tighten his chest. “You knew this when you married me,” he murmured.

Lyra finally turned. Her eyes were ice, beautiful, merciless. “I married who I thought you were. An orphan with potential. A humble scholar with a quiet mind. I did not marry a useless mistake.”

“Lyra…” His voice cracked. “I—I loved you.”

Her expression didn’t flicker. “And I regret allowing you to believe that mattered.”

The judge slammed his bone-gavel. “Order!”

Elias stared at her, throat burning. “Why are you doing this?”

She leaned closer, her whisper meant only for him. “Because I want a life worth living. And you, Elias Dray, can offer nothing.”

He flinched. Lyra straightened. “Let the record show: I request full dissolution of marriage, forfeiture of shared property, and removal of Elias Dray from Vintrel estate holdings.”

Elias whispered, “Please. We, we can talk about this. In private.”

Lyra’s lips curled. “There is nothing private between us anymore.”

“Lady Vintrel,” the judge said, “is there evidence of wrongdoing?”

“Yes,” Lyra replied smoothly. “He brings misfortune. Ill-health follows him. And” she paused for dramatic weight “he hears things that aren’t there.”

The gallery gasped. Elias’s stomach dropped. “That’s not true”

“Oh? Shall I recount the nights you woke screaming about bones whispering to you?” she countered. “Or how you claimed you could hear a man’s fractured rib before he fell ill?”

“That was real,” Elias said quietly.

Lyra spread her hands. “Delusion.”

Someone in the gallery shouted, “Banish him!”

Another called, “Bone-mad!”

The judge turned to Elias. “Do you deny this… hearing of bones?”

Elias’s pulse thundered. “I don’t,  I don’t know what it is. But I’m not mad.”

Lyra’s voice sliced through him. “You are broken.”

Elias closed his eyes. He had endured three years of her distant blame, her growing disgust, her silences sharp as knives. But standing here, before the entire noble court, he finally understood:

She had never loved him. She had simply waited for a more advantageous moment to discard him. The judge exhaled. “Given the evidence and Lady Vintrel’s testimony, the court rules”

He paused. Elias’s heartbeat pounded in his skull. “that the marriage is dissolved. Elias Dray is hereby stripped of all Vintrel titles, property, and protections. By noble decree, he is to be removed from Highbone District by nightfall.”

Gasps rose. Stripped. Exiled. Publicly shamed. Elias’s knees nearly buckled. Lyra bowed gracefully. “Thank you, Your Honor.”

Elias tried to speak, but his throat had closed. The gallery erupted into whispers and jeers. “Pathetic.”

“Imagine being boneless at his age…”

“Didn’t even fight back.”

“Vintrel made the right choice.”

He forced his voice to work. “Lyra… please. Was I so terrible?”

She looked at him with chilling indifference. “You were an inconvenience I tolerated. Nothing more.”

Something inside him broke, not his heart, but something deeper, a bruised and fragile bone of hope. Guards stepped forward. “Time to go, Dray.”

Elias didn’t resist. He simply turned and walked down the aisle, past the sneering nobles and bone-bright chandeliers, his steps hollow on the polished floor.

Lyra never looked back. Cold wind slapped his face as he stumbled into the open street. The capital’s towering bone-spires loomed above, their white surfaces gleaming like the ribs of some ancient monster.

He pressed a hand to his chest. His ribs trembled. Not from grief, but from sound. Thrum. It echoed inside him, faint but real. “What… was that?”

Thrum…

A soft hum, like a voice buried in marrow. Elias froze. “No. Not now.”

Another pulse, deeper, resonant.

Hear us…

His breath caught. “No. Stop. Please stop.”

The bone-song had never been this loud. People passed him with curious looks, but he barely noticed. His skull buzzed, vibrating with whispers he didn’t understand.

We have waited…

Elias stumbled into an alley, clutching his head. “Stop, I said stop!”

The humming ceased. Silence crashed over him like a wave. He sagged against the cold wall. “What’s happening to me?”

A new voice cut through the quiet. “Elias?”

He jerked upright. A girl, no older than nine, stood trembling at the mouth of the alley, clutching her arm. Her clothes were ragged, her skin pale. Her eyes were filled with terror.

“Please… help me,” she whispered. “My bones… they’re crying.”

Elias froze. His blood turned cold. Because when he looked at her, really looked, he heard it. A scream inside her bones. High-pitched. Piercing. Like a child begging for escape.

Elias stepped forward, heart pounding. “What happened to you?”

“They took my brother,” she sobbed. “And they said they’d take me next, if I didn’t keep quiet.”

Elias knelt, voice shaking. “Who?”

She swallowed. “The Bone Alchemists.”

The world tilted. He whispered, “Why did you come to me?”

She shivered. “Because the bones told me… you can hear them.”

Elias inhaled sharply. His bones thrummed again. Rise, heir…

He looked toward the distant spires, where Lyra lived in comfort and his name was already being erased.  And then he looked down at the trembling girl.

In that moment, a single truth settled over him like a weight he could finally carry: He wasn’t powerless.

He wasn’t empty. He wasn’t broken. He was awakening.