A 2021 American epic fantasy novel by Sarah Beth Durst.
In the Land of Vos, bone mages animate fantastic constructs, bestow superhuman abilities, and even divine the future. Kreya seeks to raise the dead.
It has been twenty-five years since Kreya led the five Heroes of Vos to victory against the corrupt magician Eklor, losing her husband in the attack. The forbidden magic to return him to life is almost within her grasp. However, her search reveals that Eklor's influence did not end with his death, forcing her to end her self-imposed exile and reunite her former comrades.
The Bone Maker provides examples of:
- Crafted from Animals: Bone Magic works best when it can imbue some attribute of the source animal into the finished product, like a tailsman that grants its wearer a bear's strength or a construct that can scale cliffs like a mountain goat. And then there's the forbidden power of human bone...
- Due to the Dead: People of Vos burn their dead on funeral pyres to mourn them and to render their bones magically inert. Bone magic is a common industry in Vos, but the use of human bone is utterly taboo.
- Elemental Crafting: Though the source of the bone is the most important factor, bone tailsmans inlaid with more precious metals appear to be more powerful. Kreya recognizes gold-inlaid tailsmans as being the best, and assumes that one inlaid with an unidentified matte-white metal is stronger still.
- Experienced Protagonist: Kreya and her crew are the five Heroes of Vos - expert mages and warriors who became legendary for slaying the Sorcerous Overlord Eklor twenty-five years before the time of the book. Now, new signs of Eklor's Villainous Legacy draw them out of retirement and force them to reevaluate the people they've become.
- Farm Boy: Zera began life as a farmer's daughter, joined the Bone Worker's Guild, became one of the five Heroes of Vos, and ended up as a fabulously wealthy and well-renowned bone wizard in Cerre's most elite district. When she asks a friend what he thinks of her hedonistic lifestyle, he points out how well she's done for herself.
- Haute Cuisine Is Weird: Kreya and Jentt's meal at Zera's opulent estate begins with an artfully plated something that looks like a squishy white square and tastes of herbal soap. They spit it out in unison but, fortunately, find the other courses much more palatable.Jentt: Vegetable, animal, or mineral?
- Hidden Depths: Guine is introduced as one of Zera's many beautiful, muscular, interchangeable boy-toys — of which he is definitely the first two. However, he also reveals himself to be quite perceptive, good at administrative work, and reliable in a crisis, and after they admit they genuinely care about each other, Zera promotes him to her second-in-command as Guild Master.
- Meal Ticket: Zera is a female example, living in palatial luxury with a large and ever-rotating stable of beautiful, athletic lovers. She offhandedly reassures Guine that she'll set him up for life in a house of his own when she tires of him. Ironically, he's the one to reveal Hidden Depths and eventually get promoted to her second-in-command.
- Mr. Vice Guy: Zera lives in a palatial estate with more casual lovers than she can even name. She's also one of the legendary Heroes of Vos, one of the most proficient and respected bone wizards on the continent, and even more capable than she was in her glory days.
- Naked Nutter: As a Mad Oracle, Marso took to spending his days naked in a public fountain in a busy market square. The choice of locale was intended to drown out his visions with mundane noise; the lack of clothing was presumably because he's dead broke and unhinged from reality.
- No Man Should Have This Power: Kreya ultimately hides Eklor's spell to bring people Back from the Dead by granting them part of the spellcaster's own lifespan, deciding that it poses too great a temptation to use wisely. Crucially, it can be modified to steal a third party's lifespan instead.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Eklor insists that he and Kreya are alike because they were both driven to forbidden magic by the death of a loved one. She's equally insistent that his mass-murder, Revenge by Proxy, and abdication of personal responsibility set him apart.
- Ominous Fog: One perpetually misty mountain valley is so infested with deadly monsters that the locals assume anybody who enters the mists is as good as gone. The heroes exploit this to cover their tracks, but have some very near misses there themselves.
- Post-Adventure Adventure: Set 25 years after the five legendary Heroes of Vos killed the Sorcerous Overlord Eklor. The protagonist, their former leader, has to do a Retired Badass Roundup when she catches wind that Eklor came Back from the Dead.
- Power Perversion Potential: Zera mentions that some of her customers use her Magic Enhancement talismans for intimate purposes. It's unclear whether she's telling the truth about Super-Speed-enhanced orgies, but she is about one official whose wife likes Super-Strength in the bedroom.
- Putting the Band Back Together: Twenty-five years after the five Heroes of Vos defeated the Sorcerous Overlord Eklor, their leader spots signs of a Villainous Legacy that drive her to bring them out of retirement. This is somewhat complicated by one of them being a father, another insane, and a third dead. Nonetheless, they all eventually join her.
- Shared Life Energy: Kreya uncovered a spell to bring people Back from the Dead by transferring years of the spellcaster's own life. She happily splits her remaining lifespan with her dead husband, but they decide No Man Should Have This Power when they learn that the the spell can steal other people's lifespans instead.
- Wet Blanket Wife: Subverted with the Retired Badass Stran's wife Amurra. She's initially opposed to him coming out of retirement and admits to hating Kreya for calling on him. However, when they realize it's for a truly important cause, she throws her full support behind them and becomes a valuable ally.
