“He appeared in front of me, and I stabbed him in the back, Mel,” I explained slowly, forcing the words out of my tight throat. “I didn’t just get him killed, Mel. I killed him!”
As the meaning of my words sank in, Mel’s eyes grew wide with understanding.
“Oh, Don,” she said.
I was shaking so hard that Mel’s arm trembled in my grasp. Mel tugged me forward, and I collapsed into her embrace.
“We didn’t even burn him,” I moaned, my voice muffled by Mel’s shoulder. “What if—”
What if he became a deadman? Or worse … what if one of those haunts got hold of his body and ripped it to shreds? Would we have to fight pieces of Rath on our way out of this doomed city? Imagining the possibilities made me feel sick all the way to my soul.
“Enough,” Zarra said. Startled, I sat up. Zarra stood with a hand on her hip, glaring down at us. “Rath died. It was terrible, but it happened. He knew that it was going to be dangerous. He knew what he was getting himself into. Now we have to keep moving, or his death was pointless. We don’t have the boot, but that doesn’t mean we’re just going to give up and die here. We can mourn Rath later — after we get out of here.”
My mouth opened, but no words came out.
“You’re right,” Mel said.
“You must leave this place,” said the voice in my head. “Monsters worse than the deadmen await you here.”
“I’m working on it.” I wiped my face with the sleeve of my coat.
“Working on what?” Mel asked.
“I’m talking to—” It hadn’t occurred to me that this voice in my head was unusual. It just was. “Him,” I finished as my eyes found the source of the strange voice. I pointed to the corner of the room, where there lurked a spirit.
He was the only spirit — aside from the haunts — that I had seen all day. The details were hard to make out, as it always was with spirits, but I could tell that he was a stocky man with a beard. His clothes, when they were in focus at all, were richly hued. While the spirit of the princess, Lana, gave off an air of being frantic and filled with regret, this spirit had an altogether different disposition. I sensed that he was kind and tired. And unlike any spirit that I had ever seen before, this spirit could speak.
And I could hear him.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“You released me when you defeated that monster,” the spirit said. There was a slight delay between the movement of his mouth and the words he spoke. I heard his voice so close and clear that he might have been speaking directly into my ear. “My name is — or was — Willian Kevack-Delaren.
“You’re my father,” I said.
Before my eyes stood the spirit of my father. Because of the light streaming in the window, I could only see pieces of him. I could make out his richly dyed clothing, a red cape that draped over one shoulder, and a crown on his sandy-blond head. He was shorter than me, but our builds were similar.
He stepped out of the streaming light, and his face came into sudden focus. I recognized this face, with its kind blue eyes and crooked smile. I remembered it from a memory, when this same man had gently kissed my forehead. He had not aged a day since that night. He even wore the same clothing. His face was lined and care worn. There was already gray in his hair near his temples, despite his relatively young age at the time of his death. It occurred to me that my father had only lived to be a couple winters older than I was now.
My father. Here he was, in as complete a form as I would ever see him. Somehow, he had survived all these winters, trapped by my mother’s magic, uncorrupted, as vibrant as if he had passed away only hours before.
His face split into a grin that glowed like the sun. I could see immediately why my mother had decided to marry this commoner and give him all of her power. He was attractive and sturdy and gave off an air of comforting kindness.
He was almost as handsome as I was. Shorter, though. I must have inherited the height from my mother’s side. I also had her cheekbones. I knew my mother’s bone structure a little too well.
“Izayik,” he said with such warmth in his voice that I felt a knot rising in my throat. “I thought I had lost you forever. But here you are, such a strong and handsome young man. You make this tired old soul proud.”
“Should we be worried about this?” I heard Zarra say behind me. “Highness is talking to a corner.”
“Don?” Mel murmured. I ignored her.
Willian looked about him with sadness. “This beautiful city has fallen to such disrepair. I suppose this only proves the seers right.”
“Seers said bad things about you, too?” I was excited to find any sort of common ground between myself and this man, who was apparently my real father. “Did anyone ever try to strangle you? That would be a scary coincidence.”
Willian looked amused. He shook his head and peered again out the window, almost disappearing entirely in the light. “The seers said my rule would destroy this kingdom. That the dead would rise from their graves and chase the life from this city.” He sighed like a man with the whole weight of the world on his shoulders. “I hate to see that they were right.”
If the seers were right about my father, what did that say about me?
“You didn’t destroy this kingdom,” I said.
“Well, I’m glad he doesn’t blame the corner,” said Zarra.
“Hush, Zarra. There must be a spirit there.”
“Oh, goody. Another dead person.”
“Zarra.”
I folded my arms and faced my father. “Aerona destroyed this kingdom,” I said. “She’s the one who brought the deadmen, not you.”
Willian’s eyes narrowed.
“Do not speak about your mother that way,” he said in a low, warning tone.
I scowled. “I’ll speak about the Queen of Death however I please.” I was tired and bitter. I wanted to blame Aerona for Rath’s death, even though I knew it was my fault. I wanted to have someone to blame for all that was wrong with this world. And Aerona, my mother, with the voices in her head and the Rise of the Deadmen and the way her body had just tried to kill me, seemed like the ideal candidate for my anger and frustration.
“You don’t understand,” Willian said.
“No, I don’t. I don’t understand why you defend her. She sat in her tower plotting everyone’s deaths and left you to run the kingdom to the ground.”
“Ouch,” Zarra said.
“Then she died and brought the deadmen to life. What exactly was so special about her?”
“Aerona was a hero,” Willian said. “Do you have any idea what this world was like before Aerona? There is still much to be done here, Izayik, but your mother is not the villain. She was a martyr. She sacrificed her life and her sanity to make this world a better place.”
“This is a better place?” I gestured around me at the crumbling building left in an empty husk of a city, at the lack of Rath and the deadmen’s mist flowing thick in the streets. “If this is an improvement, I would sure hate to know what the world was like before the deadmen.”
I had hardly finished speaking when Willian reached for me. He touched my arm. The words died in my throat as the contact drew me into his memories.
“Willian, I can’t do it.” Aerona clung to my tunic, her eyes moist with tears.
I covered her hands with my own — the one that wasn’t encased in the Insurgent’s Gauntlet that would burn her skin. Her hands were cold and trembled beneath my touch.
“Aerona.” I spoke to her like I would speak to a startled horse, my tone gentle and even. “This isn’t Kam.” I wanted to believe it just as badly as she did.
She shuddered. Her eyes flared, and I saw the terror hiding deep inside. I hated all of this. I hated how she wasted away. I hated the fear that lived inside her. I hated that we needed her to do this terrible thing.
“It’s parts of Kam,” Aerona rasped. “Who’s to say it didn’t take part of his spirit, too? I can’t live with that.”
&
nbsp; In my dreams, there lived a fantasy that I could save her from this. I dreamed that I could run away with her, far away, and we could be happy and free. But how could I do such a thing when it would mean letting others suffer and die at the hands of these vicious monsters? Aerona would call me a coward.
“Aerona! We can’t hold it much longer!” Shyronn grunted through gritted teeth. The three of them — Banash, Roth-Scheen, and Shyronn — surrounded the beast, pinning it to the ground with the power of their various pieces of the Insurgent’s armor. But they were quickly growing tired, as the creature thrashed beneath them. Even Banash was without her usual vacant smile. They all avoided looking at the haunt. We had faced several of these beasts before, but none had ever been quite as awful as this one.
This haunt had Kam.
I should have been with the others, using the gauntlet to help them pin the monster. But it was more important that I was available for Aerona. Without her, this would all be for nothing. We could hack this patchwork body to shreds, but the haunt would just escape into the shadows and build another one. Only Aerona could contain the haunt and put an end to its killing.
“Don’t make me do this,” Aerona looked wild with fear. Her hand sought my jaw, pleading.
“I won’t,” I said. I had never been able to make Aerona do anything, even if it was in her best interest.
“Hurry!” Roth-Scheen had just been kicked in the face. He stemmed the flow of a bloody nose with his arm while his other hand held the haunt pinned against the ground. He was beginning to sway, light headed from the effort it took to hold the thing down.
“But if you don’t take it,” I said, “then it will get away. And it will take Kam with it. And the next time it kills, the last thing its victim will see is Kam.”
Aerona sobbed.
“I will be right here with you, Aerona.” I hated that haunt. I hated all haunts. I hated the gift that enabled Aerona to take them. I even hated Kam for dying this way, for making Aerona face him like this.
“If it changes me, please don’t … please don’t leave me alone.” Aerona was terrified of being alone. Usually it was Banash she clung to in her moments of fear. But lately, more and more, it was me.
“I will never leave you, Aerona,” I said. “I promise.”
Aerona wound her arms around my neck and kissed me on the lips. I heard Mayla gasp in surprise. The haunt almost got away from the others as they slackened their grips in alarm. I saw all of this because my eyes were wide open in shock.
It occurred to me that the king would probably kill me for such an inappropriate gesture with his daughter. And then I decided it was certainly worth being killed over. Then I realized that if I didn’t manage to get things back on track, the haunt would kill us all. And then the moment was past, and I was still standing uselessly like a fool as Aerona gathered her courage and approached the beast.
Roth-Scheen moved aside to give her space. The haunt was a bizarre collection of pieces. One arm muscular and brown as stone, the other a dainty pale lady’s. None of its fingers matched, but its head was all one piece.
All Kam.
It was Kam’s voice, layered with three or four others, that pleaded with Aerona as she knelt before it.
“Let me free!” it screamed. “Let me live!”
Aerona’s hands trembled as she reached forward.
The haunt tried to kick her, but I rushed forward and pinned its leg with the gauntlet. It screamed in agony as I crushed its bones in my haste. The strength of the gauntlet was hard to gauge sometimes. It made me clumsy.
Aerona glanced at me, blinking tears out of her eyes. She was trying to avoid looking at Kam’s face, twisted in pain and desperation.
“I’m right here.” I wanted to touch her, to give her something to hold on to, but she had warned us before to give her space when she was transferring. She didn’t want to accidentally transfer the haunt into one of us instead, so my words would have to be enough.
She nodded, placed her hands on the haunt’s heaving chest, and closed her eyes.
The energy vibrated into her hands and up her arms. When the energy hit her heart, her eyes flew open. She gazed forward, unseeing. The haunt writhed, screamed, and then fell silent and still.
Aerona swooned. I scooped her up to save her from falling onto the remains of the haunt. She shivered as I held her. I worked my hand out of the gauntlet so I could wrap both of my arms around her. I held her and rocked her as the others dragged the haunt body away. Mayla hovered anxiously over us.
When Aerona at last opened her eyes, they were blank and hard as slate. It was as if something had gone inside her and sucked all the fear away, leaving nothing behind.
I heard my father’s voice as I drifted slowly back to reality.
“That,” he said, “is what your mother and I were up against. Shyronn, Roth-Scheen, Banash, Kam, Mayla, Aerona, and myself — we were the members of the King’s Order. Our task was to hunt and destroy the haunts, no matter the cost. Some of us lost our lives and our limbs, but your mother — dear Aerona — she paid the greatest price. She lost her mind.”
It wasn’t long before the deadmen found us. I had only just recovered from the vision of my father’s memories when Zarra noticed them crowding into the shop below.
We broke the staircase so they couldn’t reach us. Fortunately, their old brittle arms weren’t strong enough for climbing. Their mist filled the bottom floor, occasionally drifting up into our hiding place. We fanned it away as best we could. When it grew too thick, I pinned the women down so they wouldn’t hurt themselves as they thrashed helplessly.
And I did my best to ignore the deadmen’s voices.
“Help … us …” they chanted. “Take us … home.”
The deadmen were hunting me, but I didn’t know why. I hesitated to share my discovery with Zarra and Mel. They already thought I was crazy for talking to Willian. They might consider me a lost cause if I told them the deadmen were speaking, too.
We were all exhausted. There was no food in the abandoned apartment, and we had only a half barrel of tepid water to drink. If we didn’t find a way out of here soon, we would soon join the deadmen by way of starvation.
Mel spent most of her energy ripping cloth and braiding it, hoping we could use the makeshift rope to climb out the window. We couldn’t even try to shoot the deadmen out of fear that the old wooden building would catch fire before we could escape.
Mel and Zarra spent a lot of time talking to each other as they explored the meager contents of the apartment. While they bonded, I spent my time pacing, humming under my breath to drown out the voices coming from beneath us. And whenever possible, I spoke to my father.
That was the one good thing that came out of our cursed trip into the Old Capital. My father proved to be a priceless well of knowledge. He told me about my mother, how they met, and the adventures they went on together. He talked about Rath with such warmth in his voice that it brought tears to my eyes.
He disappeared for long periods of time, especially when the mist was thickest. But just as I approached the end of my wits and the deadmen’s whisper-like voices became overwhelming, Willian reappeared in the shadows.
“I cannot linger for long,” my father explained. “There is too much temptation here.”
“Temptation for what?” I asked.
Zarra and Mel were both asleep, curled up in musty old blankets. The deadmen below us had quieted their racket to the occasional plea for my intervention. I wondered if deadmen slept. Did they dream?
“Spirits are not meant to wander this world,” Willian said. “We long to move on, but cannot.”
“Why?” I asked.
Willian hugged himself. “I don’t know. We are waiting, all of us, but we don’t know what it is we are waiting for.” He rubbed his forehead. “We cannot move forward, and we cannot go back, but we try. We are drawn to the living; we want to be whole again, but it is no use. Even if we are fortunate enough to reclaim our own bodi
es, the tie that bound us to the world of the living has been severed. Possessing a body, but unable to live again, we are driven mad. That is what makes a deadman.”
“A deadman is a soul trapped in a rotting body.”
Willian nodded. “There are so many of us that cannot move on. When a body is available, it is quickly claimed. If I linger in one place too long, I am drawn to the bodies.”
“To our bodies?” I asked, alarmed.
“Not to yours.” He scratched his beard, distracted. “You are too alive. There are other bodies waiting to be commanded. Great beasts buried beneath the city. Their bones speak to me.”
He vanished before I could respond.
Morning dawned with a deceptively cheery light. The brightness gave me a headache. But even as exhausted and hungry as I was, I could not sleep.
“Don,” Mel crawled over to me, “you haven’t slept a wink, have you?” She dug into the pockets of my coat and pulled out one of the biscuits Mum had given me before I left home nearly a moon phase ago. It was hard as a rock, but it was food. She used her knife to break it into three pieces. She set one aside for Zarra and handed me another.
It felt like sand and tasted like old flour, but we nibbled with relief. Zarra, who was usually such a light sleeper, lay still. Anxiously, I checked for breath. She was still alive.
“She has a bruise on the side of her head,” Mel said. “I think she sleeps so soundly to heal.” She was quiet a moment. “And to escape,” she added. Mel did that blinking thing she always did when she wanted to forget.
I sat down beside Mel and leaned my head against the wall. Together, we watched the sun rise above the rooftops of the buildings surrounding us. We were two filthy, exhausted, terrified people trapped in a city full of deadmen. But we were together, and for a moment, that was enough.
“Mel?”
“Yeah?”
“I did it. I killed a deadman.”
This wasn’t how I wanted this to happen. I had always imagined that my deadman slaying would be an act of heroism. I would gloriously rescue an orphan or something, and then Mel would fall into my arms, and we would marry on the spot. But here, now, I felt no pride. I only felt hollow, like a rotting tree with only the bark left, so fragile not even the bugs would live inside.
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