Reign of the Fallen

by Sarah Glenn Marsh

  “You’re right,” I say briskly, hoping to cover the cracks in my voice. “There’s a chance we may never return.” I inhale deeply. There’s always that chance, even without a giant Shade skulking around. “Still, it’s our duty to raise the king, and if we die trying to finish what we started . . .” Shrugging helplessly, I add, “But we can’t ask you to risk your life, Valoria. If you’d like to trade places with a relative, if someone’s willing—”

  “No. I knew the risks when I signed up for this.” The princess reaches for my hand and pulls herself to her feet with my help. Keeping hold of me, she looks toward the cliff’s edge. “Let’s go,” she says, standing taller, her brown eyes hard as stone. Most of the royals would be a blubbering mess by now, but not this one. “We have a job to finish.”

  After a final word to the guards, Evander takes my free hand.

  It’s just a dead body, I tell myself as I force my legs to move. I’m around them all the time. Why should this one be any different? An image of Nicanor’s smiling eyes flashes to mind, giving me the answer: because they aren’t usually necromancers.

  The king’s routine slayings are usually peaceful. We swiftly kill him when he’s showing signs of becoming a Shade, having been in our world too long. Then we fetch his spirit, and soon, he’s able to walk and talk and think as he did in life.

  But Nicanor’s one chance at life is over. It makes my chest ache as I think of the breaths he should be drawing at this very moment. Yet, as Valoria said, we have a job to finish. And right now, doing our job seems a lot easier than trying to understand that the man I sat with on the beach last week is in pieces on the ground.

  Hand in hand, the three of us stride into the glowing blue light, no one looking back at the body. As we near the edge of the cliff, Valoria closes her eyes and sucks in a breath.

  The gate’s chill washes over us, something even the princess can feel. She seems to faint right after making the leap with us, her hand turning limp in mine. Our toes skim the air above the ocean for the briefest moment before we fall onto the hard dirt floor of the tunnel concealed behind the gate.

  “I’ll check her pulse,” I whisper as Evander climbs to his feet and draws his sword.

  As I press my fingers to the princess’s wrist, feeling for a heartbeat, she shudders and pulls back. “I’m all right. That awful potion’s made my head all fuzzy, though.” She absently rubs her nose, perhaps trying to push up the glasses that normally rest there. “Let’s finish this. I have so much work waiting for me back in my chambers, I’ll be up past sunrise at this rate. Lead the way.”

  III

  We march toward the tunnel’s end, wrapped in the kind of silence that takes hold deep in my bones and makes me want to jump at the slightest noise. Shades crave the permanent twilight and shadows of this place, which means Master Nicanor’s killer is surely prowling nearby.

  The tunnel spits us out in a Deadlands forest, its trees tall and ancient, more like the pines in northerly Lorness than the oaks and cypresses found throughout Grenwyr. But when I breathe deeply, there’s none of the clean, crisp scent the trees in our world give off. Walking through the Deadlands is an eerie experience, like I’ve lost half my senses. Between the pale trunks, there are glimpses of distant mountaintops where no sun ever shines. No sun, no wind, no rain. No scents of anything growing here.

  As we crest a rise in the land, I spin around, leading Valoria with me. Turning slowly, I point out the endless confusion of meadows, rivers, and lakes spread out below us that make up this strange landscape.

  “There are no homes,” Valoria murmurs curiously.

  “The spirits don’t need them.”

  “And the air—it’s chilly here.”

  Evander nods patiently. “It’s always like that. Spirits don’t feel cold like we do.” He whips off his cloak and offers it to her. “Take this.”

  Our walk through the forest is just as quiet as the tunnel, and so is the meadow that welcomes us where the trees end. Our footsteps make lonely echoes down the narrow dirt paths that cut through a misty field of marigolds and moonflowers, a field that’s usually teeming with filmy figures. After all, this is where every spirit in the world comes when they leave their bodies. Eventually, after they’ve been here long enough, the spirits move on—to what, not even the oldest and wisest necromancer can say.

  “This way,” I whisper. My voice slithers through the silver leaves of the gnarled old trees that form a canopy over us at the edge of the marigold field. On the other side of this grove, there’s usually a sprawling garden with overgrown trees, glossy plum-colored flowers, and lilies as big as my head. It’s a place King Wylding’s spirit frequents, along with many others, a place where elderflower wine bubbles from marble fountains and no one ever weeps.

  Those finished with life crave it less over time. And the spirits who linger here longest, the ones whose memories have faded to a single point of laughter, or a pretty face whose name they can’t remember, hardly ever come to the gardens like King Wylding does. Instead, they wade in the rivers or bathe in the lakes, letting the flowing water strip them of every last bit of themselves as they wait for whatever’s next to claim them.

  “Fascinating,” Valoria breathes as we pass a statue of a man holding a bar of gold. Her earlier tears of shock have dried, leaving faint trails down her cheeks. “How do you suppose the spirits build things? Can they touch?”

  Turning my head slightly, I roll my eyes at the question. Only Evander notices.

  “Of course, Highness,” he says, lifting a branch so we can walk beneath it. “This is their realm, not ours. They have power here, like we do in the living world.”

  As I walk past Evander into a swirl of mist as thick as cream, I brush my fingertips over his and mouth a silent thank you. The princess hasn’t stopped talking since we got here, and my patience for questions evaporated right around the time Master Nicanor died at our feet.

  No matter how many times I repeat it over in my mind, I can’t seem to grasp its completeness. Master Nicanor is dead. I press a hand to my writhing stomach, still sickened by the memory of the corpse.

  The princess clears her throat. “Speaking of powerful things . . . what are the chances we’ll run into that Shade?”

  “I don’t know, but I’d like to cut off its ugly head.” Evander’s voice is jagged, like he’s swallowed too much grief. He pauses with his back against an enormous tree, one hand on his sword, the other clutching the vial of human blood he sprinkles along our path to try to draw the king’s spirit near.

  “Lucky for us, the Deadlands are vast. We probably won’t see a thing,” I grit out in a tone that doesn’t invite more questions. I hate how each word is magnified in the immense emptiness of the grove. The Shade that killed Master Nicanor must have scared any nearby spirits into some deeper part of the Deadlands where we don’t often travel. I’ve never walked this long down here without seeing a soul, and I don’t like it one bit.

  As if sensing my thoughts, Valoria shivers against me.

  “It has to be a really nasty Shade to have gotten the better of Nicanor,” Evander says after a while, putting away his vial of blood to scrub a hand over his shadowed jaw.

  I wonder if he’s also thinking of what happened to his father, Baron Crowther, and wish I could wrap him in my arms.

  “What gives Shades their strength?” the princess whispers as we push through the deepest shadows of the grove.

  I rub my aching temples. I wish there was some way of telling time here, but the permanently twilit sky gives away nothing, so I can’t say whether the soothing potion Valoria drank is starting to wear off.

  “For that matter,” she adds thoughtfully, “what do they look like?”

  “If you’ve never seen a Shade, you’re lucky. I’m not going to describe one for you.” I frown as Valoria shoots me an affronted look.

  The Shades that hau
nt the Deadlands dislike sunlight and usually keep to the darkest shadows, occasionally finding a spirit to devour. They’re rarely bold enough to attack a necromancer. Still, they’re a big part of the reason why we always work in pairs. And why we kill any Dead—like King Wylding—at the first signs that they’ve been in their old bodies for too long: increased aggression, snarling at their families, and generally acting strange. Lucky for the Dead, the transformation from person to monster is much slower when they’re shrouded, giving us necromancers time to intervene with a mercy killing and another raising. Once someone’s turned into a Shade, there’s no reversing it.

  A soft humming fills the misty grove, drawing my attention back to the princess.

  Valoria clutches a pendant around her neck, a wooden token etched with swirling lines that make the rough shape of a face. “Dear Vaia, show us mercy and grant us safe passage,” she mutters under her breath. “Help us find the king, and guide us safely home.”

  She’s praying, I realize, to the brown-eyed Face of Change. The only one of Vaia the Five-Faced God’s faces whose temples have been abandoned for over two hundred years, since King Wylding was first raised from the dead and outlawed the worship of Change.

  “No music,” Evander says gently, turning back to us. “Apologies, Highness, but the sound might attract more than just the king. Many spirits miss being able to laugh and sing. Get too many of them hungry at once, and we’ll have to fight them off with our swords like a pack of wild dogs.”

  As we emerge from the silver tree grove and approach the edge of the massive garden, something stirs in the shadows at the corner of my vision. I whirl around, staring hard at the spot. My heart thuds dully in my ears, and though Valoria says my name in a faraway voice, I’m too focused to answer.

  At first, all I can see is blackness between the trees that looks thick enough to swim in. Then I glance lower, and I spot it. The outline of a rotting arm or leg, a piece of mottled gray flesh stretching toward me through the darkness, changing the shape of the mists.

  The sight squeezes all the air out of my chest.

  “Odessa?” Evander grabs my shoulder. The spark of his touch breaks the spell the grisly sight cast on me, and I suck in a breath. “What is it?”

  I blink, and it’s gone.

  Shades always move faster than humans, but the speed with which this one disappeared makes me feel like bolting for the nearest gate. Only my legs have turned to jelly, and there’s no way I can go anywhere just now.

  Meeting Evander’s worried gaze, I shake my head. It isn’t until Valoria’s back is turned that I mouth, “Shade. It’s gone now.” The blood drains from Evander’s face, and he meets my eyes as we exchange a wordless agreement: There’s no point unsettling Valoria any further by mentioning this.

  Still, Evander guards our backs with his blade. Just in case the Shade decides to return.

  Valoria tugs on my hand, drawing my gaze to the garden. It’s empty. No spirits stand around the giant marble fountain at its center, though the elderflower wine splashes merrily over the stone as always. My heart sinks at the sight.

  Maybe all the spirits are gone because the giant Shade devoured them—the king included. But it’s such a terrible thought, I can’t bring myself to voice it.

  “I thought you said he’d be here,” the princess whispers. Her tone isn’t accusing, but she shrinks against me.

  “Maybe we need to spill more blood,” Evander ventures, taking a few steps into the silent garden. “Fresher blood, so they can smell it from farther away.” He holds up his left arm and lays the sharp edge of his sword against his pale skin.

  Valoria sucks in a breath as I cry, “Don’t!”

  Evander lowers his blade at the sound of my protest, having made only a shallow cut along his forearm.

  I can’t stand to see a living thing in pain, least of all Evander. The nuns who raised me said I’d been that way since birth. Trying to put the wings back on a trampled butterfly. Tending the weakest plants in their garden. That’s what made me so well suited for walking in the Deadlands, they said. My love of life.

  “I’ll do it,” I say quickly, raising my arm and my sword. “Valoria, take my vial of honey. If you start feeling dizzy, eat as much as you need.”

  “Odessa, don’t you dare!” Evander growls as I grit my teeth and pull the blade across my skin. One quick slice, and I’m bleeding on the ferns and the big white lilies.

  Normally the sight wouldn’t bother me, but today it makes me think of Master Nicanor’s ribbons of flesh. I fight to keep breathing steadily as Evander rushes to my side, covering the wound with a scrap of his torn shirt.

  “That’s more than enough,” he says sharply, probably thinking we’ll attract that giant Shade with the mess I’m making. To my relief, the blood leaking from the shallow cut on his arm is already clotting.

  “Just trying to help,” I gasp out as my knees buckle. I must’ve lost a bit too much blood. Valoria steadies me. I glance back over my shoulder and offer her a weak smile as Evander finishes tying my bandage. “You’re stronger than you look.”

  Valoria’s lips twitch. “I know.”

  “Death be damned.” Evander draws his sword again, a motion as fluid and natural as breathing. The few times I’ve seen someone best Evander in a sword fight, it was because he was too sick to know which end was the pointy one. “Looks like we’ll be taking the long way home tonight,” he grumbles, gazing at something behind us.

  A hot prickle of fear stings the back of my neck as I whirl around, remembering the glimpse of rotten gray flesh in the shadows of the grove.

  But the tightness in my chest dissolves. There’s nothing in the darkness. In fact, there aren’t any shadows at all. Instead, the silvery trees have been quietly replaced by a field of marigolds, just like the ones we crossed to get to the garden.

  “How does an entire grove disappear like that?” Valoria asks.

  “That’s how it is here.” I shrug. “Things are always changing. Moving themselves when you least expect it, just like the gates that let us in.”

  “It’s why you’re lucky to be here with the Sparrow.” Evander shoots me an admiring glance. “Why we’re lucky,” he amends.

  Already, a slight tug around my navel tells me that despite appearances, the gate isn’t so far away anymore. Since the grove shifted off to some other part of the Deadlands, more of the landscape has moved, too, and we’re suddenly much closer to an exit.

  “There’s a gate at the back of the garden now,” I say, looking out across its wide expanse. There are dozens of fountains, bridges, and pathways to walk before we reach the new gate. “But we have to find the king first.”

  “In that case, ladies . . .” Evander puts on a smile, but it wavers. “Fancy a nighttime stroll through this beautiful garden?”

  We wind our way slowly past the fountain, pacing ourselves so Evander and I can gaze around tall statues and flowers in search of the king. The marble fountain and even some of the plants give off a muted glow that serves as our only source of light, and it’s a good thing, as no man-made lantern works down here.

  “King Wylding,” I call softly, pointlessly. “Majesty?”

  I don’t say it, not wanting to alarm Valoria, but I’ve never spilled that much of my own blood and not had at least a dozen spirits come out to fight over who gets to lap it up.

  “This is beyond incredible.” Valoria plucks a stem of purple flowers and brings it to her nose—lavender, the symbol of serenity. The language of flowers is the same in this world as in ours, the only way the spirits can communicate with the living from here.

  “Strange—it doesn’t smell like anything!” Valoria says, blinking at the lavender.

  I tug on her hand, pulling her forward before she can spot the luscious-looking plums and apples hanging from the nearest tree. My injured arm throbs in response.

 
“Someday I’m going to figure it all out, you know.” Valoria’s eyes are bright and shining as she tucks the lavender stem in her hair. “The science behind our magic.”

  I arch my brows. “I don’t think King Wylding would appreciate that kind of talk.”

  “But I do. I’ve been studying the correlation between eye color and different forms of magic, like how everyone with blue-eyed Sight sees gateways to the Deadlands and can learn to raise the dead.” Valoria peers thoughtfully through the wooden slats of the bridge beneath our feet as we march over a small stream. “Someday I’m going to unlock the way magic works, and then I’ll be able to explain all sorts of things. Don’t you want to know why the Dead come back with their Sight but not their magic when you raise them?”

  I wince, pausing just after the bridge and sheathing my sword. I don’t want to answer any more questions. I just want to think about Nicanor as I remember him in life, uninterrupted, so he can stay real to me. Not like that bloody mess on the ground.

  As the princess stops beside me, I take both her hands in mine. “There’s nothing to study, or understand, or explain. It just is. It’s not science. Our Sight is Vaia’s gift to us. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can start enjoying life.”

  “But I do enjoy it!” Valoria frowns. “Learning is what makes things fun.”

  “Hey, you two, hurry up!” Evander waves us over from beside a neat line of hedges, the garden border. “Look who I found,” Evander says as we approach, the calm in his voice straining.

  On the dark horizon is the reassuring blue glow of a gate. The way home. But Evander points down, just on the other side of the hedge.

  Following his gaze, I lean over the prickly bushes. The sight that greets me makes me feel sick all over again, remembering the fear in Master Nicanor’s remaining eye. And not just because it’s surely an old pool of Nicanor’s blood staining the ground beyond the hedge.