Naked BONES OF THE BETRAYED

CHAPTER 1 — The Things Bones Remember

Screams were already echoing through the palace courtyard when they dragged Chris Oakwood in by the wrists. “Let go, please, I can walk,” he whispered.

“Shut up, bone-empty,” the guard snapped, shoving him forward.

Chris stumbled across the stone tiles, nearly collapsing. The morning sun hit him like a slap, bright, accusing, exposing him to hundreds of eyes waiting for the spectacle.

He didn’t understand. He had been summoned to receive an award. To be thanked. To be honored for saving the governor’s dying daughter the night before.

But instead… there was a stage. And chains. And rows of nobles whispering like a nest of snakes. Chris’s heartbeat thudded painfully. “Why… why is this happening?”

A guard laughed. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

Jenna Valeforge stood at the center of the platform, beautiful, poised, wearing a crimson dress that looked like she chose it specifically to bury him. His wife. His only family.

“Jenna?” His voice cracked. “What’s going on?”

She didn’t answer him. She addressed the crowd instead. “Today,” she declared, “we reveal the crime committed by this man, Christopher Oakwood, who falsified his bone-core level and deceived the palace.”

Gasps swept through the courtyard. Chris blinked hard. “What? No, Jenna, I never”

“Silence,” she said sharply.

Her voice felt like a blade slicing into him. He stepped forward, trembling. “Jenna… please. You know me. I would never lie about something like”

“I said silence.”

Her eyes did not soften. Not even for a second. The High Marshal, Jenna’s father, spoke next, voice booming across the courtyard.

“Let it be known that this man used fraud and impure methods to approach our noble household. We believed him harmless because he had no bone-core. But we were wrong.”

Chris stared at him, confused. “I saved a child last night! Why would I”

“You used forbidden techniques,” the Marshal snapped. “Magic available only to those who carry a bone-core. Yet you claim you have none. You cannot explain your abilities, therefore you are a danger.”

“I didn’t use magic,” Chris insisted. “I listened, I just”

Jenna scoffed. “Listened? To what, bones?”

Mockery dripped from her voice. “Chris, do you hear yourself?”

A ripple of cruel laughter spread through the crowd. Chris opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried again. “Jenna, everything I did, it was for you. For us.”

She stepped close, face unreadable. Then she whispered: “There was never an us.”

His breath caught. She straightened her posture and lifted a document. “I, Jenna Valeforge, hereby sever our marriage. Effective immediately.”

The words hit harder than the guards dragging him. “Divorce?” Chris whispered. “Jenna… why?”

She looked him squarely in the eyes. “You were a convenient cover. Nothing more.”

The nobles murmured approvingly. Chris’s voice shook. “I loved you.”

“Then you were a fool.”

The air changed. Something cold and brittle rippled beneath the courtyard stones. Chris froze. No one else reacted. No one heard it. But he did.

A low, agonizing hum vibrated through the ground, crawling up his legs, filling his chest. A thousand whispers scraped against his mind, soft, cracked, like old bone grinding against old pain.

Help... Left to rot… We remember…

Chris clutched his head. “Stop, please,  stop”

Jenna sneered. “Already pretending to hear voices? Pathetic.”

He dropped to his knees, not because of her cruelty, but because the sound was unbearable. Bones were screaming. Not just one. All of them.

Dozens buried beneath the courtyard, beneath the palace, beneath the entire city. “Why… why are they crying?” he whispered.

The High Marshal raised a hand. “Restrain him.”

Two guards seized Chris by the arms. He tried to steady his breath. “Please, there’s something wrong beneath us. The bones, they’re hurting”

“See?” Jenna announced to the crowd. “He rants like a madman. Proof enough that he’s unstable.”

“No, listen to me,” Chris begged. “Someone,  anyone, just listen.”

“Enough!” the Marshal roared.

A guard struck him in the stomach. Chris doubled over, wheezing. The governor stepped forward, hesitation in his eyes. “Marshal… this seems too harsh. The boy saved my daughter’s life.”

Jenna’s lips tightened. “He endangered her first.”

“That’s a lie,” Chris gasped.

The crowd erupted in mutters. Lies spread fast. Lies spread like plagues. “Jenna,” the governor said, “you owe the boy the truth.”

She walked close again. Too close. Close enough for her breath to brush his cheek. “Truth?” she said softly.

Then, in a whisper meant only for him: “You were never meant to rise.”

The world tilted under his feet. His chest cracked with something sharp. Something breaking. Jenna pulled away, voice loud again. “Remove this fraud from palace grounds.”

The guards grabbed him. Chris struggled weakly. “Jenna, please, please don’t do this.”

“You embarrass yourself,” she hissed. “Accept your place.”

He swallowed hard. “I… I thought I was your husband.”

“You were a leash,” she whispered. “Now you’re nothing.”

The guards dragged him backward toward the courtyard gates. Chris stared at her until his vision blurred. “Goodbye, Christopher,” Jenna said.

Then, with a cruel smirk: “Bone-empty trash.”

The bones beneath the courtyard wailed, louder, sharper, like they felt his pain and screamed with him. Chris’s breath hitched. He didn’t know which hurt more:

The betrayal. Or the cries of the dead. He whispered to no one, “Why are you screaming…? What happened to you?”

A whisper tore through his skull: They betrayed us too.

Chris froze. His heart hammered so violently he thought he might faint. “Who… who betrayed you?”

The ones who fear what you are.

The gates slammed shut behind him. The palace guards threw him onto the dirt road outside the walls. Chris lay still for a moment, chest heaving, cheek pressed to cold gravel. He whispered, “I don’t understand…”

A guard spat in his direction. “Stay down, filth.”

“Next time you come near the palace,” another said, “we break your legs.”

The group laughed and marched away. Leaving Chris alone. Broken. Humiliated. Terrified. But the whispers didn’t stop. The bones beneath the city sang in agony.

We remember… We remember you… Bonekeeper…

Chris’s pulse stopped cold. “What… what did you call me?”

Silence. Then, one final whisper: Prince. His stomach knotted. “No,” he whispered. “That’s not me. I’m nobody.”

But the bones hummed, deep, ancient, undeniable.

You will return.

Chris pushed himself up slowly, trembling from head to toe. He didn’t know who he really was. He didn’t know why the bones screamed.

But he knew one thing: Everything Jenna said… everything they accused him of… everything they believed about him, was wrong. Terrifyingly wrong.

And the city of Ardenfall had no idea what they had just cast out. Because the last Bonekeeper Prince had awakened. And he was listening.