14
SILVER SOUL
Silas’s crow ruffled its feathers against the cold and looked down from the jagged point of the Winters memorial tower. The outer walls were all that was left of the old structure, and the lower floor was exposed to the sky through a surround of stones that reached high enough to be among the tallest structures in Fume.
With wintry wind and brief flurries of snow swathing the city, that tower was not the most pleasant of places for a bird to be. The crow was not interested in the distant fires or the sounds of human battle. Its attention was fixed solely upon two figures that were approaching the tower, one tall and strong, the other slow and uncertain. The crow’s feathers bristled at the sight of the taller woman, and it lowered its head, remaining still. It knew the girl who was walking behind, but there was something unusual about her.
The taller woman disturbed the veil as she walked, driving back any souls that passed her way. The girl’s energies were very different. The veil around her was usually calm and controlled, attracting the dead rather than repelling them. That night Kate Winters’s energies had much in common with those the crow usually saw around Silas. She was a tightly held bundle of energy just waiting to find a release. Silas often found that release through aggression, violence, and death. Kate’s spirit looked ready to do the very same thing.
The crow cocked its head, uncertain. It had the uneasy feeling that it had followed the wrong girl, but beneath the volatile haze of anger and hate the crow still sensed the human it knew underneath. She was preparing for something. She was closing herself off from everything around her, losing herself within her own thoughts. The crow had seen Silas do the same, but only during his darkest times. There was nothing to do until its master arrived, so the crow settled down to watch and wait.
Kate hung a few steps back from the other woman. She seemed reluctant to approach the tower yet still maintained a determined pace. The crow shifted a little, attracting the girl’s attention when it knew the other woman could not see. Kate glanced upward. The crow had no reason to hide from her, but when she noticed it, her energies changed. Her spirit crept momentarily from the dark place it had sunk into and directed all its concentration toward the crow.
If Kate had been anyone else, the crow would have swooped as far away from those eyes as it could get. This was a girl of great interest to his master, a girl who had saved the crow’s own life more than once, but something had changed inside her. Something dangerous lurked where a peaceful soul had once been. This was no projection from the woman beside her. Kate was creating it all herself. The crow lowered its head again, sinking its beak out of sight.
Silas pushed a fallen stack of wood aside and forced his way out of a hidden passageway into a tumbledown house. Edgar was right behind him, and the two of them stepped out into Fume together, both sensing the same thing at once.
“Fire arrows,” said Edgar, recognizing the smell of black powder. “Burning wood. Lots of it.”
“There.” Silas pointed between the closely packed buildings to a patch of orange sky where sparks leaped up to puncture the perfect black of the clouds.
“Do you think they’ll breach the walls?” asked Edgar.
“They would not have attacked if they were not confident of victory.”
Silas turned away from the ongoing battle, following a quiet instinct that was drawing him in the opposite direction. His crow was afraid. Fear was the most potent emotion to carry through the veil, and it reached Silas as clearly as if the crow had screeched from the rooftops. Silas’s eyes still flickered between the living world and his soul’s prison, but when he concentrated upon his crow, he became aware of two living creatures that existed within both worlds. Dalliah Grey’s soul was trapped in the black, just as his was; that he already knew. But there was another soul close by, sinking more deeply into the darkness surrounding Dalliah with every passing second.
Silas’s palms seared with old pain, and the scar Kate had once healed felt exposed once again. His hands felt blistered, his skin tight and raw, as if it had been slashed with knives. He looked at his scarred palm, expecting to see the old wound open and sore, but nothing had changed. The skin was still intact, and when he pulled away from Kate’s consciousness, the pain faded away.
“Silas?”
Silas had continued walking, but Edgar’s voice came from a few steps behind him, where Edgar had stopped and was staring at something in an alleyway that joined the street where they were walking.
When Silas followed his eyes, he saw that Edgar had good reason to stop. Shades were pouring out of the alleyway. Hundreds of them were moving swiftly across the street between him and Edgar. Some bore the human forms they had taken in life, while most moved like solid shadows, their silvery eyes betraying the secret suffering of their drifting souls. They spread silently between the buildings, each still captured in the half-life, yet visible to the living eye. It was a fast-flowing river of souls. A spiritual stampede.
Edgar would not have minded being close to so many souls if they had just been passing through, but the way their eyes lingered on him a little too long made him feel vulnerable. They were not simply going about their business and moving on. They were watching him. Instead of continuing on toward the center of the city, he caught glimpses of them gathering in the buildings nearby, surrounding him.
Silas had never seen shades behave in that way. Edgar should have been of no interest to them, yet they were close enough to give Silas cause for concern.
“Stay still,” he ordered.
The shades were behaving more like predators than wandering souls. Silas’s presence should have been enough to drive them away, but their attraction to Edgar was greater than any fear they had of him.
“What’s happening?” asked Edgar. “What are they doing?”
The flow of souls settled into a quiet mist, keeping a short distance between themselves and Edgar. Shades gathering together often showed a pack instinct, acting upon the movements of more dominant souls among them. All it would take was one soul to make its move, and the rest would follow.
Remembering a conversation he had shared with Dalliah Grey during his time upon the Continent, Silas stepped toward them. Dalliah had spoken of a connection between Kate and Edgar that transcended the living world and crossed into the next. If Kate’s soul was suffering, it would send tremors of energy throughout the already highly charged city. Her anguish would be magnified and spread to every soul for miles around. To save itself, Kate’s spirit would seek out the one person who had kept it grounded in the past, Edgar. That made him a danger: to Kate and to himself.
Kate’s spiritual connection with Edgar was confusing the shades. Hundreds of souls were being drawn to that place, and the proximity of the half-life was bolstering their energy, giving them strength. If they overwhelmed Edgar in their desperation to find release, his soul did not have a chance.
“These souls cannot reach Kate,” said Silas. “They believe you are the next best thing.”
“Me? But I’m not even Skilled! What do they want?”
“You are close to Kate. She has used you to anchor her spirit to the living world more than once. She may be trying to do the same thing again.”
“What?” Edgar struggled to keep the fear from his voice. “She’s never done that. I can’t feel anything.”
“Only because you are used to it,” said Silas. “Think of yourself as a living listening circle. Circles are used to create and stabilize tears in the veil. Kate may not have done it consciously, but the same thing is happening inside you. She is channeling her own energy toward you.”
“That . . . doesn’t sound good.”
“Kate’s connection to you may be the only thing that is keeping her sane,” said Silas. “You are descended from a Skilled bloodline with no natural ability of your own. Your blood has always been ready to accept the energies of the veil, but you have never known how to make the connection. Kate has torn the veil too deeply
this time. She has done something new.”
“So do I have to stand here until she is finished?” asked Edgar. “I don’t think these people want me to go anywhere.”
“Most shades are confused by their time in the veil. They do not see the living world the way you do. To their eyes, you are a potential doorway into death.”
“I’m not, though, am I?”
“That will not matter very soon.”
Silas stepped through the crowd of souls as if they were not there. Only those he threatened to contact directly moved out of his way. The rest were transfixed upon Edgar, who remained standing in the very center of them all.
Silas looked up. Churning swaths of gray were descending quickly across the rooftops, smothering everything in a fog of souls.
Edgar did not dare move more than his eyes. “I’m not in a listening circle,” he said, recognizing the danger he was in. “I’m not protected, am I?” His palms began to sweat with nerves. “What should I do?”
“You must break the link with Kate.”
“I can’t feel any link! Even if there is one, you said it was helping her.”
“If you do not break the link, those souls will do it for you. Forget about her. Focus upon a memory from your past, before you had ever heard Kate’s name. Think of anything except her.”
“I can’t do that.”
“If you do not listen to me, you will die,” said Silas. “The city is awakening, and the shades do not yet know their own strength. Normally, they would have no effect, but things have changed. If they move, they will overwhelm you and drive your soul from your skin. I have seen it happen during the council’s experiments into the half-life. It is no way to die.”
“Shades can’t harm people,” said Edgar. “The Skilled always said that.”
“The Skilled also killed their own people to drain energy from their blood,” said Silas. “Are they the kind of people you want to trust?”
Two shades moved closer to Edgar, testing the air between them and drawing the others a few steps toward him. Silas stood beside him like a wolf guarding a kill, but the dominant souls stood their ground.
“Edgar,” he said, “break the link.”
“What will happen to Kate if I do?”
“Far less than what will happen to you if you do not.”
One shade broke away from the rest and darted through the air, heading straight toward Edgar. It moved lightning fast, but Silas saw it coming and pulled Edgar out of its path, forcing it to collide with him instead. The moment the shade made contact, Silas’s consciousness plunged straight into the heart of the veil, dragging the shade down with him.
Darkness swamped completely over Silas. The shade twisted around him like a frightened snake, and he saw the city as it appeared to the shade’s eyes. Walls became shadows, windows became shimmering shapes, and the souls of every being—living and dead—appeared as specks of silver light within the black. The city had become a galaxy, and the spirits were its stars. They were all around him, spreading out to the distant walls and filling the ground beneath his feet. Thousands upon thousands of Albion lives, abandoned and forgotten in a place living eyes could not see.
Beside him, Edgar’s energy was duller than most. Silas could see tiny trails of light leading away from the boy, toward a bright distant soul that was growing dimmer by the moment. He looked down at his own hands and saw them as they were in life, except that his fingertips were touched by the same silver light. His veins shimmered with it.
The energy spread through the air and wrapped around Edgar like tiny silver chains, encircling his body and reaching all the way up to his neck, but with Silas the connection lived inside him, carried within his blood. Kate Winters’s soul echoed within him, sharing the void his own soul had left behind. It acted as a reminder of Kate’s presence, connecting him to her when she was in spiritual distress, but Kate’s link with Edgar was very different. Her soul had latched onto his life energy, and it was draining him.
The only thing preventing Silas from losing his connection to the living world and falling completely into the black was the shade that he had carried there with him. It was pulling back toward the upper levels of the veil through sheer will, fleeing from the terrors screeching in the dark. Silas resisted the pull. He knew what it was like to stare into the black for the first time. Kate’s soul was on the very brink of that place. If there was any chance her spirit could be saved, Silas had to try.
Moving through the lowest levels of the veil was like moving through a nightmare where everything was familiar yet horrifically altered. Silas’s mind forced what he could sense into the most logical explanation it could create. It gave the formless solid form, and emptiness became a cage that seared against the soul. In that place nightmares were given a voice, and the living world became a doubted memory. It stripped away everything that made people who they were. Kate did not belong there.
Silas’s consciousness carried him through the altered streets, witnessing every horror that had filled them throughout history. He saw cobbles stained with blood that flowed like tar and dripped globules upward into the air like raindrops on a windowpane. It felt as if the streets were moving past him while he remained still, anchored by the terrified shade, until the jagged shape of a tower stood before him. The tower’s presence pierced through every level of the veil. Its stones looked alive. The veil twisted them into a writhing wall of souls before Silas’s eyes, like bees swarming around a hive.
Silas tried to clear his mind and see the truth, but the shade’s fear was seeping into the veil, coloring everything beyond the reach of reason. Silas could see Kate and Dalliah at the base of the tower: one soul shining strongly, the other barely there, shrouded in a gathering of black. And at the very top of the tower, he saw the spirit of his crow, perched loyally upon a building that looked as if its stones could devour anything that came too close. He could not let Kate step inside that building. No matter the cost, she had to be stopped.
Silas stopped resisting the desperate pull of the shade and allowed his consciousness to travel back through the upper levels of the veil. Memories flared and surged through his mind until the shade fled and Silas’s mind retreated from the veil, returning to the living world.
When he saw through his own eyes again, the street looked as it should have been, except for the persistent gathering of shades still standing around him. Silas’s fingers were still embedded in Edgar’s shoulder from when he had pulled him aside, and frost retreated from his skin as he released his grip.
Edgar was pale with fear and relief. “They haven’t moved,” he said. “Whatever you did, I think it stopped them.”
“I have done nothing,” said Silas. “The connection between you and Kate is real, and it is strong. I doubt you could break it. You cannot stay here.”
Edgar was about to speak when the entire street jolted violently. Windows shattered, roofs collapsed inward, and cracks began to thread across the ground. The shades reacted with fear, screaming and plunging in toward Edgar. Silas tried to protect him, but it was no use. The souls struck both of them, surging into their bodies like ink into water.
Whatever Edgar had expected, he was not prepared for the reality of what happened. His body fell immediately into shock as his soul was overwhelmed. Voices and memories exploded in his mind, louder and stronger until all he could hear were the cries of the dead. He tried to move, but his body would not answer him. He tried to shout, but no sound came out.
His dormant blood ran thick with the energies of invading souls, and he fell to the ground, smothered by lifetimes of torment and agony. His body could not bear it, and his soul tried to tear away, freeing itself from the onslaught, but in the midst of the madness Edgar felt the link between himself and Kate powerfully for the first time, and he refused to let go. He stared blankly at the sky, suffering in silence as the souls plunged into him again and again.
Silas was still standing, his body heavy with the burden of writhing s
ouls. He took two slow steps away from Edgar. The third was slightly easier, and the farther he walked, the less the souls were interested in him. All they wanted was the boy.
Silas’s entire body felt bruised. His muscles burned with every step. He looked to the rooftops, where the tip of the living tower was just within sight. One thought sent his crow gliding down from the stones, away from the dangers of that place, and the white feathers streaking its chest glimmered as it answered its master’s call.
The crow settled on a nearby rooftop, flicking its black tail and calling out aggressively to the nearby shades. Silas pointed toward Edgar. “Watch the boy,” he commanded.
He turned away from the bird and ran through the streets without looking back. There was nothing he could do for Edgar there. Kate had condemned him. She could have broken the link the moment she sensed Edgar’s pain. Instead she was allowing him to suffer. He had been too slow. He had allowed Dalliah to take Kate too far into the darkness.
The veil trembled around him as he moved, anger seeping from him like oil, dripping terror into the air. He found an empty warden patrol house and broke down the door just before another tremor rattled through the earth. He crossed the room and headed straight for the weapons cache hidden beneath the floor. The rusted lock cracked under his heel, and he dragged out two items, a crossbow and a hip quiver containing a single bolt.
He slung the crossbow over his shoulder and left the patrol house, his eyes set with the focus of a soldier. He paid no attention to the endless stream of souls flowing past him along the street. He ignored the echoes of Edgar’s voice carrying through the veil as the boy’s soul struggled to hold on to life. One bolt would be enough. One bolt would finish it all.
15
THE LIVING TOWER
Kate stood outside her family’s memorial tower and immediately felt as if she had returned home. The stones welcomed her. The arched doorway was narrow and thin, three times the height of an ordinary door, and when she looked up, her sight shifted between the broken shard that stood there in her time and the grand, beautiful edifice that it had once been.
Winterveil Page 15