Wilson - Empire of bones.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright 2013 by N. D. Wilson
Jacket art copyright 2013 by Jeff Nentrup

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids

Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools,
visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wilson, Nathan D.
Empire of bones / N.D. Wilson. First edition.
pages cm. (Ashtown burials; book 3)
Summary: Hunted and on the run, Cyrus and Antigone Smith race to find the inheritance left to them by their benefactor, Billy Bones, before rampaging transmortals can descend on Ashtown and free their buried brothers. Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-375-86441-4
eBook ISBN: 978-0-375-89574-6
[1. Secret societiesFiction. 2. SupernaturalFiction. 3. Brothers and sistersFiction. 4. ApprenticesFiction. 5. MagicFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.W69744Emp 2013 [Fic]dc23 2013015916

Random House Childrens Books supports
the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v3.1

For JKT the IVth

(because you changed everything )

O N A WIND-BATTERED HILLSIDE , above a lifeless house, beyond the jagged battle line where sandstone cliffs held back the gray churning sea, in soft mossy earth beneath a towering redwood tree, there was a hole in the ground six feet deep. Two brothers, breathing hard, scrambled out over the wet sandy mound beside it and dropped their shovels. A sister watched them pick up ropes beneath a long pine box. A tall man with dark skin and another with a thick, square beard stepped in to help.

With arms crossed against the cold, Antigone Smith watched her fathers pine box being lowered into shadow. Her cheeks were wet, washed with rain, wiped with wind.

Wood sighed as the box settled in its hole. The brothers dropped their rope ends into the grave and backed toward their sister.

Rupert Greeves raised his face to the wet sky and spoke the words of blessing for an Explorer gone ahead.

Antigone stood between her brothers and knew that this was where she would always be standing. For the rest of her life, her soul would keep roots in this place, at the foot of her fathers grave in the California hills, above the cliffs, above the sea.

Cyrus and Daniel Smith picked up their shovels. Gravel and sand and earth slapped down onto the box of pine and trickled through the cracks. And while the brothers worked, planting a man, the Captain sang a dirge of departing, his voice swaying like a sailing ship, his words lost in ancient English but his sorrow as real as the rain. Finally, when the box was swallowed like a seed, Antigone lifted her eyes to where the bark had been cut from the redwood tree, to the carved words that marked their father.

LAWRENCE JOHN SMITH
through deepest shadow
across darkest sea
he sails for the sun

one

P EOPLE WEAR PLACES LIKE THEY WEAR SHOES . A place shifts around you, and you shift inside it, growing blisters and then calluses, becoming used to each other. But shoelaces tatter. Soles grow thin. Every day spent in a place frays the carpets, compresses the dirt, scuffs the sidewalks, or kills the grass just a little bit more. Floors creak, stairs bounce, trees, moss, weeds, and mildew grow, walls sag, pipes chatter and finally leak. Every breath changes the paint in a room, or the growth of green things beside you; every switch of the lights sends lightning rivers racing through secret grooves in hidden copper wires.

No place is ever the same tomorrow.

Take off your shoes and leave them in the tall grass for a year. Return and slip them on if you can. Disturb the ants and centipedes and beetles that now live inside. Wiggle your toes. You have changed.

No place is yours forever.

The evening sun dragged its light sideways across a lake, across miles of hills and barns and highways until it found Cyrus Smith, tipping back in a wooden patio chair in a place that had once been his own. Cyrus inhaled a rich slice of autumn air, scented with distant cattle and ripe fields and dusty asphalt and whole forests of yellowing trees. The smell was familiar, and it plucked memory strings inside him. But everything else had changed. The Archer Motel was nothing like the decaying roadside carcass that he and Antigone and Daniel had once made their home. As Cyrus looked around, he felt like he was being lied to. The motel was a little bit taller now, and the new metal roof gleamed. The walls were bright Jamaica blue, new windows set inside angel-white trim threw perfect reflections back at him, and working air conditioners hummed to themselves in diligent boredom. At the far end of the building, the motel had even grown a sparkling diner with huge windows and bright-red bar stools. Out front, smooth asphalt wore fresh yellow reflective parking stripes with casual pride. And at night, the Golden Lady, with her arrow drawn, bathed the motel with warm, uninterrupted neon.

Strangest of all, immediately in front of where Cyrus sat, tipping in his chair with one knee bouncing, chlorine-blue water slurped gently at the edges of a swimming pool that had once held only a collection of cast-off tires.

To be completely fair, Cyrus Smith wasnt much like the boy the motel remembered, either.

It had been well over a year since he had called Room 111 his own, since he and his sister had been swallowed up by the Order of Brendan. A year of training, a year of struggle, a year of blood.

Cyruss shoulders were broader than when the motel had seen him last, and his arms were longer and knotted. Veins striped his dark forearms and the backs of his hands. His black hair was short enough to be uncombable, but long enough to jut out from his scalp in whichever direction it liked. A seamless white silk bandage was wound tight around his left wrist, stained on the inside with the ooze of an unhealed wound where Oliver Laughlin, nephew of Phoenix, had slashed him with the Dragons Tooth.

He rubbed the bandage with his thumb while his knee bounced.

The biggest change was in his dark eyes.

Cyrus Smith knew who he was. He had seen nightmares become real. He knew what it was to be hunted, and he knew what it was to hunt, to run and to attack, to stand his ground, willing to kill and willing to die. He knew the smell of Deaths breath and how cold it felt on his skin.