The Bone Harvest

The horn’s bellow still vibrates in your sternum as you press your palm against the cold, bleached curve of a rib that arches overhead like a cathedral’s nave. The entrance yawns before you, a throat of interlocking vertebrae and pelvic bones, and the crowd of hopefuls surges forward—farmers, soldiers, a woman with a child’s locket clutched in her fist. You hang back, fingers brushing the worn leather of your satchel, feeling the weight of the surgeon’s kit against your hip. Somewhere beyond that bone-lined dark, a vial waits. Your daughter’s breath, shallow and fading, echoes in your memory.

A man beside you—broad-shouldered, scarred knuckles—glances down. “Healer, are you?” His voice is rough. “You’ll slow us down.”

You don’t answer. You’re already counting the gaps between ribs, the soft tissue beneath the jaw, the vulnerable hollow behind the knee. You’ve never held a blade in anger. But you know where the body breaks.

The walls groan. Behind you, the entrance seals with a wet, grinding snap.