by Beth Revis
The earth itself radiated light, a golden glow that was warm and inviting.
And powerful.
“What is this?” I muttered, awed by what was before me. The corpses buried here had all been dead for at least a month, some for half a year. Their souls should have long since disappeared, but they were here. Thousands of souls, hidden under only a few feet of earth.
My ghost hand reached blindly for the crystal knife. I wasn’t even sure if it could hold this much pure, raw energy. But I was damn sure going to try. A fraction of this energy had given Nessie back to me for a moment. What if this could buy her months, a year?
I licked my lips, my mouth unintentionally salivating at the power so readily available to me.
Nessie followed me as I walked through the center of the graves, the long mounds extending all the way to the dark forest on the far end. How could this be? I dropped to my knees, inspecting the grave dirt.
The entire field was lit up in gold, veins of light weaving through the dirt, pooling over the mounded trenches. I could feel each body buried in the field as if I were connected to them by a long string. I knew some of them. Carso, Dilada’s brother, far more rotted than she had been. Kava, the girl my sister had a crush on, whose leg had been amputated before she died anyway. People I’d met only once or twice, as I siphoned their pain away in the hospital or the mills. And the ones I didn’t know, I knew now as my power sank into their illuminated bones. Glimpses of their histories, their lives, their wants, their regrets—everything of everyone, seeping into my mind.
But how? I thought. Their souls should have left their bodies.
I dug out a fistful of the rich red clay, and my fingers wrapped around something hard and round. I wiped the dirt away from a rusted iron ring, then laid the circle in my open palm. I shifted it to my shadow hand. Little strings of light formed a net inside the ring.
When Grey and I had boarded the ferry and placed the iron over the graves on Burial Day, I was not a necromancer. I was just a girl, and I was scared—for my life, for my family’s lives. And when Governor Adelaide had distributed the iron rings, a gift from her to the people of her colony, I had thought she was being generous.
Horror caught in my throat, choking me. I scrambled to another mound of dirt, clawing at the earth until I found a second ring. It had been altered by necromancy as well. I flung myself at a third grave, digging out another ring. Each one was like the ancient ring Bunchen had given me—a tiny necromantic net designed to trap the soul in the earth. I gagged, thinking of the tortured people within, imprisoned in their graves.
Governor Adelaide had developed the plague in order to kill as many people as possible, intending to raise them into an army of the undead. But she must have known what I did not—that souls fade over time, evaporating into nothing as they move on into the realm of Death. She could have easily learned of the rings that had sealed the revenants of Bennum Wellebourne after his failed rebellion. But rather than trap the dead in their graves, Adelaide had twisted the rings’ original purpose, using them to ensure that both the life force and the souls of the dead remained in their graves, waiting for the day she could raise an army of her own.
I felt bile rising in my throat as I remembered the sincere prayer I had whispered to Oryous on Burial Day. The way I had pressed an iron ring into the fresh upturned earth. I had been sealing the dead in their graves, trapping them there, torturing them, without even realizing it. How could I have so easily and unwittingly done Governor Adelaide’s bidding?
I stood, renewed determination giving me strength as I gripped the crystal blade in my shadow hand. If I cut out this golden light, absorbing it into my blade, it would free these trapped souls. Their souls would move on, and I could pass the energy on to Nessie.
A momentary panic seized my heart as I remembered how good it felt for the power to flow through me, pooling into my shadow arm. But I knew, no matter how tempting the power was, that I would be the crucible for it, transferring it into the one who needed it most—my sister. And I would be saving the thousands dead here from a fate far worse even than the plague that stole their lives.
My power could save them all.
FIFTY-FOUR
Grey
“NEDRA?” MY VOICE was almost a whisper, and I was certain that, standing in the middle of the graves, she wouldn’t be able to hear me. But I thought for a moment that her twin sister looked my way.
The Emperor gripped my shoulders, spinning me around to face him. “It is as I feared,” he said. “She’s going to raise all of the dead that were laid to rest here.”
I shook my head. “She would never.”
The Emperor’s hold on me tightened. “Quit seeing what you want to see and look at what’s actually happening.” He forced me to turn and look out at the graves again. Nedra’s right hand was buried deep in grave dirt, a look of spasming joy crossing her face.
I didn’t recognize her in that moment. Drunk with power, she looked manic.
The Emperor reached for the reins of his horse. “I—I did not expect it, not like this.”
“What did you think would happen when you brought us here?” I demanded.
He shook his head again. “Not . . . not this.” He looked at the horses. They were tired from a full day of riding—first patrolling the Imperial Gardens, then taking us halfway across the island.
My mind flashed back to the night Nedra used her revenants to attack the castle and free the Emperor. Her undead never tired. They would overtake the horses.
“Let me talk to her,” I said.
The Emperor raised his eyebrow.
“She’s not evil,” I insisted. “Let me talk to her. Perhaps I can—” I didn’t finish the sentence, because I didn’t know how to. I had no idea what I would do. I just knew I needed to try something.
“Go,” the Emperor said after a moment. “Let us hope that words will be enough.” His hand moved from the reins to the sword at his belt, the one I had always thought was merely decorative. Although in that moment, he did not even look strong enough to pull the blade from the sheath.
I turned immediately, running from the forest out to the graves. “Nedra!” I called. My voice broke her concentration. Her entire body shifted, and her hand relaxed.
Her head whipped around, shock plain on her face even from a distance. I rushed to her. “Ned,” I said again, breathless.
“Grey? What are you doing here?”
I shook my head, my heart and my breath both riotous. “Ned, don’t raise these dead.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know you’re not evil,” I said. “Everyone else on the island, in the whole Empire, thinks that all you want is power. But I know . . .” I hoped I knew. “. . . that you aren’t a monster.”
“Of course I’m not.” She gave me a blank stare.
“So don’t do this.”
Nedra scoffed. “You have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Raising a thousand dead?” I countered.
A cold mask washed over her features. “I may raise the dead, but at least I didn’t kill them.”
Her words sliced into me. I remembered the way the traitors had hung, their necks broken inside the nooses, their hands slowly raising to point at me, their mouths forming an accusation I could not deny. “They would have hung anyway,” I said, angry at the petulant tone I couldn’t keep from my voice. “They broke the law.”
“So do I, Grey,” Nedra said softly. “Would you sign my death orders?”
“No, I—”
My words died in my throat as she cocked an eyebrow at me. “You’re just like all the rest,” she said. “A hypocrite. I remember what you told me, that night. ‘I will not follow you into that darkness.’ And you didn’t. You were in a darkness all of your own making.”
“Nedra, I—”
“Nedra, what are you doing here?” I interrupted.
The question seemed to stop her short. Then she turned away from me. “I’m giving my sister her life back,” she said. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. Now get out of my way.”
I stumbled back. The events of the day whirled in my mind, a chaos I couldn’t sort through. I had woken up in the castle, without a single thought in my head that I would end the day here. I looked behind me, trying to see through the shadows to the Emperor.
Nedra, meanwhile, knelt again, red clay staining her skirt at the knees. Veins popped at her neck. Her hair raised in wisps, as if blown by the wind, but the air was still.
When she opened her eyes, there was nothing but white. The dark, warm brown was gone. Her pupils were gone.
Her humanity was gone.
FIFTY-FIVE
Nedra
I COULD FEEL the thousands of dead beneath the cold dirt. They called to me, sensing my power. They begged to be released from the ground.
I squeezed the red clay in my fist, the raw earth seeping between my fingers. I wasn’t sure I could harness enough power for this. But I was still going to try.
I turned to my sister, reminding myself of what I struggled for.
Behind her was the forest. Movement caught my eye, near the edge of the tree line. I wouldn’t have noticed if the entire Emperor’s Guard was marching toward me, but this—this was different. Clods of earth dropped from my hand as I fell back, gaping at the man who strolled casually over the graves toward us. Grey said something, but it was muffled by the blood pounding in my ears.
Dimly, I was aware that this man was the Emperor. But with the power of the dead beneath the ground rising up inside me, I could better see past the Emperor’s body and into his soul.
So I knew the man drawing closer to me was not the Emperor.
My hand tightened around the hilt of the crystal knife as I stood up. Every time I’d been before Emperor Auguste previously, I had hardly looked at him. When I met him the first time, I’d been focused on defeating Governor Adelaide. At the execution, my attention had been on Grey. But I saw him now. It was the same body, the same outward shell of a man I’d met before.
But the soul . . . the soul wasn’t right. I was used to seeing at least a faint glimmer of gold around people, even around myself. But this . . . this looked like the same light-eating black I saw at the base of my crucible, the black that currently crept over my own heart.
He was in front of me now.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
“It’s the Emperor,” Grey said.
“Who are you?” My voice was choked. Something was very, very wrong.
The man who looked like the Emperor smiled. “You know who I am,” he said.
I stared—using all the power within and without me—at him. The body of the Emperor was not dead. He wasn’t a revenant like Nessie. But the soul did not match the body. The soul was . . . old. So old.
Centuries old.
My breath caught in my throat.
“Nedra?” Grey asked, moving to stand beside me. The Emperor—whoever he was—stood in front of us, an easy smile on his face, like a cat about to pounce on a wounded bird.
“And to think,” the not-Emperor said, “I had been worried before that you wouldn’t be strong enough to become what I needed you to be.”
“What’s going on?” Grey asked.
“The technical term is a lich,” the not-Emperor said.
I gripped the crystal knife. I had seen that rune twice before—once in the Collector’s books and once etched inside this very blade—but I didn’t understand what it meant.
“I made sure all the texts about liches were destroyed.” The not-Emperor tilted his head, thinking. “That was early on, about one hundred and ninety-four years ago. I purged the libraries of any book, scroll, or parchment that even mentioned the word lich.”
Grey shifted beside me. I thought he wanted to take my hand, but I pulled away, reaching for my crucible instead. The not-Emperor took a step closer to me. The crystal blade was in my shadow hand. I still did not understand, exactly, what a lich was, but I knew that I did not want whoever—whatever—this man was to get any closer.
With the crystal blade, I was strong enough to touch his corrupt soul. When I had commanded Governor Adelaide’s soul to stop, she had been still as a statue while I drove the sword into her heart.
This man was not Governor Adelaide.
His soul fought back.
FIFTY-SIX
Nedra
THE WORLD AROUND me melted into nothing.
This man’s soul didn’t just touch mine—it overwhelmed it. His soul moved like mercury, oozing more than glowing. It touched my skin, then sank past it, into my flesh, into me.
I felt him—everywhere.
It was a violation beyond any I could imagine. I could not move. There was nowhere to run. I could not escape him.
He was inside me.
My mind screamed and screamed. I tipped my head back, my throat still gagging, my stomach churning, trying to vomit him out, but this was not something I could control.
I was no longer something I could control.
My right hand rose. I did not will the movement. He did. I felt his thoughts—not in words, but the intention. I tried to jerk my face away, but I couldn’t so much as flinch as he raised my hand, stroked my cheek.
I felt his amusement inside me. His laughter.
I felt him settle into me, growing comfortable and at ease with this violation. With me as nothing but a vehicle. I felt his satisfaction. His pleasure.
Like a cat with a bowl of cream, my mother would have said.
I felt him reach out at that, my memory of my mother.
No! my mind screamed. I could not control my body, but my memory, my heart, they still belonged to me.
He pried deeper. I felt him there, looking through my soul, sorting out my feelings. Knowing me in a way I did not even know myself.
Mine, mine, mine, I thought. I felt warm tears trailing down my cheeks, leaving cold streaks behind. Mine.
I pushed back—hard. And it was then I realized that when he forced my mind to open, he left his mind vulnerable to me. I felt his memories. It was more than images. Traces of scent, feelings, sounds and whispers half-heard. It was not like being told what a moment felt like, or seeing a painting of a scene. It was as if he was giving me his memories, depositing them into my own brain. It was as if I had lived the life he showed me.
And it was then that I finally knew him.
“Bennum Wellebourne.”
The name escaped my lips before he realized how deep into his own soul I’d pushed. He pulled back so abruptly that for a moment, my body felt bereft. I crashed to my knees, not registering the pain as I fell prone among the disturbed graves. Grey cried out and swooped to help me stand.
“Ned?” he whispered, his hands warm and firm on my trembling arm as I staggered up.
“It’s him,” I struggled to say. “It’s Wellebourne.”
Grey’s eyes darted from me to the man before us, the man we’d both thought was Emperor Auguste.
I had barely skimmed his black soul, but the memories lived in my head as if I had experienced his life as well. Born in Miraband, sent by Emperor Aurellious to help settle the new colony on Lunar Island. I hoped and feared during the voyage, then had different hopes and stronger fears as the land proved difficult to conquer. I felt myself fall in love with Wellebourne’s wife. I married her, and I built a home, and we lived together.
And I felt the oppression of the Empire, and the desire—unquenchable as a house fire—for freedom. As my colony, my people suffered under terrible weather and sickness
, as they died from lack of support from the Empire that had sent them, my desperation grew. I studied—not to be a necromancer, but to save my—his—people. I felt the echoing laughter, because the reason he became who he became was so similar to my own.
The desperation. The power.
The hunger.
I felt it all. I lived it all. And without being told, I knew. I understood. I even agreed with all Bennum Wellebourne had done.
I felt the bone saw and the blood splatter as I took my wife’s hand to form my first crucible. I raised the dead. I rebelled against the Empire.
And I lost.
“When you were finally defeated,” I said, twisting the last word like a knife, because I knew it would hurt him like one, “you sawed off your own hand.”
“What?” Grey asked, confusion dripping from his voice.
The Emperor—Bennum Wellebourne—smiled. “It worked rather well,” he said. “Centuries of protection.”
I didn’t take my eyes off Wellebourne as I filled Grey in. “Wellebourne was caught, and put in the iron prison at the castle.”
“Ironic, that,” Wellebourne said idly, “getting trapped there again, in this body.”
I ignored him. “Wellebourne sawed off his own hand. Everyone assumed he was trying to make another crucible, using his hand as the base. But that’s not what he made.”
“What did he make?” Grey asked.
“A reliquary,” Wellebourne answered. “It’s when a necromancer takes a piece of his soul and hides it in an object.”
“As long as the object isn’t broken,” I add, “the necromancer can’t die.”
I thought of all the shattered gems and cracked metal I’d seen on the Collector’s shelf. The necromancers who’d made those reliquaries had given their souls precious, showy homes. But there was genius behind Wellebourne’s reliquary.
It was protected there, safe. A crucible cage was hard to destroy; a crucible almost impossible. Destroying Governor Adelaide’s crucible had taken all my strength, turned my hair white, and left me weak and trembling, and that crucible had been cracked and old and almost lost to time anyway.