In the Ravenous Dark

by A. M. Strickland

  I blink. “The blight can be destroyed?”

  “Just as your guardian is drawing upon you, something—someplace—is causing the living world to wither.”

  Ivrilos gives me a meaningful look.

  “The dark city,” I say.

  “You’ve seen it?” the queen asks, raising a golden brow.

  I suppress a shudder. “I wish I hadn’t. Athanatos has used the pneuma of others—all others, aside from his family—to build it.”

  “We’ve suspected.” Her lip curls in disgust. “Even so, it would fade, deteriorate, like all dead things do. So he bound it…”

  “To the living world,” I finish. “Like a guardian to a ward.”

  The queen nods. “There is a point of contact between the worlds, the source of death and decay in the living realm, and it’s there. In your city. In the palace.”

  “But I thought only death could break a bond like that.”

  “The living realm and the underworld are veritable tapestries of souls—the dark city literally built, piece by piece, as you say, from the dead. So this is not like the bond between a guardian and a ward, straightforward, one point connecting to another.” She gestures at me and Ivrilos. “You’re attached to him wholly, and he to you, so only a final death can separate you. The living world is too strong and vast to be bound fully, and the underworld too disparate. The grip is less sure, less complete. It’s more of a bridge than a chain, with myriad strands that all tie to a precarious point—an anchor point.”

  “It must be in the king’s quarters,” I murmur.

  “That would be my guess,” Ivrilos says.

  The queen shrugs. “Wherever it is, you must find it, and sever the connection. If you fail, both Thanopolis’s sovereignty and your life, such that it is, are forfeit.”

  I bare my teeth more than grin at her. “I’m pretty sure if I fail, I’ll be gone anyway.”

  The queen abruptly turns away from the portal. “Then you may live so long as you are helping us in our efforts to restore balance to the living world. But if you step too far out of line and upset the balance yourself … we will end you.”

  I shrug. “You can try.”

  Alldan glares at me.

  The queen, for her part, ignores me. “Make yourself ready. We’ll not grant you much time before we put our plans back into motion.”

  Nervousness, excitement, and fear all coil inside me, my too-quiet stomach like a basket of waiting snakes. “How long do I have?”

  She glances back at me at the edge of the portal’s frame. “Tonight.”

  Now I have a bellyful of writhing snakes.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Japha says, holding up a hand. “You’re giving her tonight to kill the king? What happens if she succeeds, and yet no one else understands why she had to kill him? They’ll just see an inhuman assassin—sorry, Rovan—backed by a foreign influence. We need to get the word out to key people, to convince them what we’re doing is right, so everything doesn’t devolve into chaos even if Rovan succeeds.”

  “What do you suggest?” the queen asks.

  “I would speak with my father, General Tumarq, on your behalf,” Japha says. “He leads Thanopolis’s army.”

  “What if you regret your new alliance with us and wish to betray our plans to the general?” Alldan asks.

  Japha raises their hands. “I don’t see how I could put you in a worse predicament. You’re already under suspicion for aiding in Kineas’s assassination, and”—they wave around at the courtyard—“you’re all trapped here anyway—you, Delphia, your whole delegation. Unless you wish to flee the city before Rovan makes her move?”

  The queen shakes her head. “That could draw too much attention. Besides, Alldan needs to remain there. Rovan must act now, and Alldan make ready. It’s you I’m less sure of,” she says to Japha.

  “I can help, too,” I say. “I’ll get Japha into the palace, and I’ll … I’ll help seal our alliance another way. Before I kill the king, I need to get Lydea out of there. I’ll bring her over to our side while Japha is doing whatever they’re doing.” I force myself to say it, even though the words taste rancid. “If Thanopolis’s own princess, who will be queen regent and whose son will be heir to the throne, takes her place at your side—on Skyllea’s side, don’t you think that’s worth the risk?”

  “If you”—the queen holds my eyes with her strange white gaze—“bring Princess Lydea, Alldan’s betrothed, out of the palace, you might tip the scales of balance ever more in your favor. Not to mention secure my trust. And you,” she adds to Japha, “if you convince your father not to turn on my son, who will be Lydea’s consort, you will win more than my trust. I will grant you whatever you wish.”

  She walks entirely out of the portal’s frame, not even waiting for our response. Delphia shoots me an agonized look and says, “Please go get her.”

  I will. I’ll do whatever I can to free Lydea from those who would use her.

  Even if it means betraying Skyllea’s trust.

  30

  The night air feels warm and alive against my skin as I slip through the shadows of the palace’s outer courtyards. The perfume of garden flowers rises thick about me, and cold dew coats my feet through my sandals. My tunic is black, hooded in the Skyllean fashion, but not too long to tangle up my legs. My limbs are twined in black cloth to cover my too-pale skin. I have two half-moon blades strapped to my hips, courtesy of the Skyllean armory.

  I feel so unbelievably free for the first time since my arrival at the palace that the smallest, most selfish part of me just wants to leave this all behind. Prowl through endless night—go where I want to go, see what I want to see, and be what I want to be, with Ivrilos at my side. Dodging the guard patrols, opening a door in the outer garden walls for Japha, using air and shadow to cloak us while my eyes picked out every detail in the darkness—it was all so easy. I could vanish into the night.

  But I can’t leave Lydea trapped in the palace. I can’t leave Japha by themself, at the mercy of either Thanopolis or Skyllea. And I can’t leave a revenant king ruling over the only city I’ve ever known.

  Still, I can’t help but wonder what storm I’m about to unleash on Thanopolis. It needs it like a cleansing rain, but I still feel like everything is moving so fast. And Lydea …

  How will this storm hit her?

  Blessedly, the night air is mostly calm as I begin my climb. Scaling the outer spiral of the palace is death defying, but I have no problem with that. And it’s even easier for me when I whisper a few words that come to mind. Handholds sink into the stone when I reach for them, almost as if I’m scooping them out with my fingers.

  I still almost fall when Ivrilos appears in the air next to me, startling me. One would think I would be used to that by now.

  “That is really weird,” I mutter, a breeze tossing my hair. “You look more like a ghost than ever when you just float.”

  “You should see yourself,” he says with a grin, and then tucks my hair behind my ear, midair. I’m still not used to his touch, either; I find it more startling than all the impossible flying and climbing.

  It doesn’t take me long to find the outer wall of Lydea’s quarters, many stories above the distant gardens below. I know the view and the shape of her windows well. I peer in through the glass but see only dim candlelight through a crack in the curtains.

  I use sigils to widen the wood around the metal latches so they don’t hold properly anymore. I figure it’s the quietest way in. Thank the goddess the hinges are well oiled—the window swings silently open. I part the curtain with a fingertip, and see the sprawling, bedlike couch of her sitting room, silver and white as a cloud, empty save for the blue and black pillows strewn across it. I slip my legs over the sill.

  Sigils grip my ankle in invisible fingers and drag me the rest of the way inside. I could break their hold—I see them so clearly now, and they’re not as strong as me—but I don’t.

  My hip and elbow thwack loudly as they hit th
e floor in rapid succession. I feel pain, but it’s different. Like it’s a memory, or as if my flesh is nearly numb.

  “Ow,” I say, mostly out of habit, as more sigils pin my shoulders flat to the ground.

  Lydea stands over me, staring, open mouthed. She looks every bit as beautiful as I remember her. Her black hair falls in a long braid over her shoulder, a few pieces sticking out in disarray, and her midnight blue robe is sheer enough to make my eyes trip over her. Her red lips and bloodline look as vivid as if a painter just limned them on her pale skin. I don’t have any clue how I look to her in my black tunic and bound limbs, with my hair wind tousled. But I know I probably look different from how she remembers me.

  “Rovan,” she chokes, a hand going to her mouth. “I thought…” She can’t finish, because her eyes are flooding with tears. I’ve never seen her cry before.

  “That I did something stupid?” I say with a nervous laugh. “Well, I did.”

  “How … I thought you were dead! That’s what they told me.” I take a breath to respond, but too quickly she follows up with, “Did you kill my brother?”

  I hesitate. I didn’t kill him, but I didn’t exactly not.

  When she flinches, I say, “No, I—”

  She shakes her head, but before she can speak, Graecus, Lydea’s guardian, appears over her shoulder. He sees me—and sees me seeing him, and his eyes widen. But then his gaze whips up to Ivrilos, who appears right in front of him.

  “Graecus,” Ivrilos says. “I’ll give you one chance to—”

  But the shade draws his sword and lets out a shout.

  The outer doors to Lydea’s chambers burst open, and Marklos comes striding through. “I know I felt something, and Klytios just said … What’s this?” And then he sees me, and the words die on his lips.

  I can’t help it; I wave at him from the ground.

  He throws his hand out, sketching, and Lydea’s rug blows apart to twine around me like ropes. But I simply pick apart his sigils, like plucking at a thread in a tapestry and unraveling it all. The pieces of rug fall limply to the floor.

  I whip my legs in the air and catapult to my feet, something I was never able to do while alive.

  Lydea stares back and forth between us. Graecus and Marklos—and, invisible to her, Klytios and Ivrilos—ready themselves.

  Three against three. If Lydea sides with us. If she doesn’t hate me most of all.

  “Graecus first,” I say to Ivrilos. If only so Lydea’s guardian can never hurt her again. So she’ll be free after this, with any luck. I taught her the sigils to shield against him, but she doesn’t have anyone here to help add that pinch of death to her blood magic.

  I do it now, sketching out the shield for her.

  “Choke on that,” I say with a smirk for Graecus. And then, to Lydea, “Us against them?”

  She only has a split second to make a decision, and thank the goddess she makes the right one. With the force of her sigils, a small table, shaped and stained like a red poppy blossom, lifts off the ground and smashes into Marklos, just as Graecus and Klytios charge Ivrilos.

  The shades can’t easily fight me until they materialize. I’ve made it impossible for Graecus to do so by shielding him from his source of energy, and Klytios knows that if he does so he’s dooming Marklos, who is the only one capable of fighting me and Lydea otherwise.

  But Marklos is definitely capable. He hasn’t made a career of training royals for nothing.

  He deflects the table with more sigils, sending it right into my face as the shades become a blur of clashing darkness around us. I split the table in half while Marklos redirects the shredded rug to twine around Lydea. At least he has a handicap: He can’t truly hurt Lydea, whom he’s sworn to protect. While he takes that small but critical amount of time to be careful with his sigils, I open up the stones under him, sinking his feet into the floor.

  His eyes widen at my death magic. “You—” To his credit, he doesn’t give himself much time to wonder before he snuffs all the fire in the room, plunging us into darkness.

  He doesn’t know I can see in the dark. And yet that’s nearly not enough to save me as he sends a splintered leg of the table flying into my chest.

  Thank the goddess I see it coming and twist just enough that he misses my heart. As it is, I feel a horrible dull pressure in my shoulder. It could be worse, never mind that there’s a giant spike of wood sticking out of me.

  Lydea, having fought free of her bonds, waves the lights back on. Her ragged cry at the sight of my injury hurts me more than anything Marklos has done. She raises her hand with a scream. Another jagged piece of wood rips free from the couch—and flies right into Marklos’s chest.

  I don’t hesitate. Gritting my teeth, I rip the wooden table leg out of my shoulder. I can already feel the wound closing up, but I need blood, fast. Marklos’s is gushing down the front of his chiton. Dizzily, I stumble toward him, falling to my knees where he’s sunk in the stone floor.

  “I watched your father bleed to death,” he burbles, blood at his lips. “By my own hand.”

  I already knew that, but it reminds me not to feel the slightest bit bad about what’s coming.

  “I’ll be glad to do the same to you,” he wheezes. Hilariously, he still thinks he has the upper hand.

  “No,” I say, feeling the pressure against my gums. “After you.”

  My fingers find the stake in his chest and jerk it out. Marklos gives a strangled cough as I press my mouth to his wound. Vaguely, somewhere, I hear Lydea gasp. Maybe gag.

  I also hear a fading cry. Someone dying a final death, though I’m not sure who. I guess it’s Graecus, Lydea’s guardian.

  Marklos gives an agonized scream that has nothing to do with me. His body arches, wrenching away from me. Then Klytios, fully materialized with Marklos’s “help,” is swinging a sword for my neck. I tuck and roll as he swings for me again. I move even faster now with Marklos’s life force coursing through me, but Klytios is also keener after draining Marklos’s pneuma. Nobody has said what will happen if I’m struck with a blade made out of shadow, or if my head is no longer attached to my shoulders.

  I come to my feet, drawing my half-moon blades, to find Ivrilos by my side. He gives me a flashing glance, his eyes so dark they’re like ink.

  I’m eager to fight together with Ivrilos, to see what we can truly do—but then Marklos’s guardian suddenly goes up in flames. His face twists into a hideous scream that’s quickly lost in the blaze. It’s so bright I flinch, throwing up my forearm to shield my eyes. When the inferno burns out, there’s nothing where he stood but flakes of ash on the scorched stone.

  Lydea stands behind a dissipating curtain of smoke, her arm still raised. She’s breathing hard, chest heaving, and her dark eyes are wild.

  The room is a wreck. The cloudlike couch that she, Japha, and I often frequented is a smoking ruin. The poppy-blossom tables are splintered, scattered around like petals. Marklos lies staring blankly at the ceiling, his chest its own kind of ruin, his legs still submerged in stone. Lydea’s mouth works. I think she might scream again, or maybe vomit. I realize she’s probably never killed anyone before.

  “You are not your family,” I say, before I can think of anything else. “This was all me. And even if you helped a little, you’re not them.”

  That seems to snap her back to herself. Her gaze locks onto me. She asks, her voice nearly a whisper, “Are you okay?”

  She can’t see Ivrilos, standing next to me with his own blades drawn. She doesn’t know anything—about the king, about Skyllea, about my … reawakening … or about my feelings for Ivrilos.

  He steps away, giving us space. “I, um, I’ll go make sure there’s nothing left of Klytios down below.” He vanishes.

  “Well?” Lydea demands, some of the usual command coming back into her tone.

  I glance down at my shoulder, where my wound is healed over completely, my pale skin and bloodline perfectly intact. “You might say I’m okay.”

/>   “Or I might not?” She still doesn’t drop her hand. “What’s happened to you?”

  I grimace. “It’s a long story.”

  “Then can you at least wipe your mouth first?”

  “What? Oh.” I realize what’s covering it. It’s a simple matter to use sigils to clear the blood away. “Of course. I know it must look—”

  Before I can finish, her mouth is on mine, and she’s kissing me. Her arms come tight around me, heedless of my blades. I drop them in an effort not to cut her, and they clatter loudly on the stone floor.

  I raise my hands, trying to speak around her lips. “Lydea, wait—”

  “Shut up and let me enjoy this before I inevitably want to kill you.”

  “Lydea,” I say through her kisses. “There’s a body on the floor.”

  “I don’t care and neither does he.”

  “I’m a revenant. I’m not really alive, either.”

  “You feel alive,” she says as her lips trail down my neck. Her hand gives my ass a squeeze as if verifying.

  I nearly laugh, but what I say next dries up any humor completely. “The king is a revenant, too. He’s not your father. He’s Athanatos’s son—Ivrilos’s brother, Kadreus.”

  “Mmm” is all she says as her lips drop lower.

  I grab her chin and force her to meet my eyes. “I’m serious. I need to kill him, or else Skyllea will attack Thanopolis with the full force of their army.”

  Her eyes darken at that. “Does that mean I can call off my engagement?”

  A laugh bursts out of me. She smiles in response.

  “Your eyes are amazing. So red,” she says, and then she’s kissing me again.

  This time, I kiss her back. Ferociously. When she lets out a little yelp, I remember I have to be careful of my strength. I try to pull away from her, but she seizes me. Doesn’t let go.

  “I thought I lost you,” she murmurs into my hair.

  “I almost lost you. Lydea, I promise I’ll never ask anything of you that I’m not willing to do, ever again. I’m so sorry I was selfish. After this, I’ll help you go wherever you want, gain whatever you want, even if I have to fight my way through everyone who stands against you.”