Grave

by Michelle Sagara

  And because it does, the dead remain, chained to their Queen and growing in number.

  He knows that he has one duty, today. Only one. To distract the Queen of the Dead long enough for Emma and her friends to infiltrate the citadel. Helmi does not speak, but it isn’t necessary; Eric knows who, among the many dead, Emma Hall must find.

  He is not at all certain she will succeed because he is not certain he can hold the Queen’s attention for long enough. He tries to smile. He fails. In this almost unimaginable perfection, he sees nothing of the girl he once thought he loved. He was young then. So was she. Life had not yet become clear enough, real enough, to interrupt the force of their feelings. They saw each other and only each other.

  But they are neither of them young anymore.

  Had he not been graced with a second body for centuries, the touch of the crown would destroy all thought, all concentration. But Eric is accustomed to screaming. He glances at the Queen and sees that she wears a crown that is twin to his; different in details, but not in size, in weight.

  She means to honor him.

  It is hard. It is the hardest thing he has ever done. Dying was easy, in comparison, and he would do it again in an instant if it meant he would be free.

  He lowers his chin, draws his shoulders back, remembers distant, ancient manners. He remembers the weddings of his childhood—noisy, bawdy affairs so far removed from this solemn coronation he cannot think of it as a wedding at all. But he offers Reyna his hand, as he once offered it.

  Her eyes widen. It is the first expression he has seen on her face that stirs memory. She hesitates. Her lips part slightly, their corners in motion.

  For one long moment, he thinks he has done the right thing, and then her eyes narrow, like windows slamming shut in slow motion. There is a ring on his hand. It is not, of course, a ring that she gave him.

  There is no explanation that will suffice if she demands one, but she doesn’t. And that, somehow, is worse.

  THIS CITY, THIS CITADEL, was a prison.

  Emma wasn’t certain if the Queen was the warden or an inmate, and that was an odd thought. Ernest and Chase were as silent and tense as Margaret; Michael’s silence was different. He was afraid, but he wasn’t terrified. He walked beside Chase, scanning the walls, the floors, the ceiling. In some ways, this wasn’t new to him. Michael was used to seeing things in a way that other people didn’t. Sometimes he could explain the difference, and sometimes he couldn’t.

  Today there was no need for explanation.

  Petal had been left behind in the safe rooms. He wasn’t happy about it, but he was skittish and on edge. If Helmi was right, the citadel would be emptying, but the ceilings seemed to echo even the smallest sound. A rottweiler at full bark was not small. Chase had asked Allison to stay with the dog. He pointed out—courageously, Emma felt—that she had neither Emma’s power nor Michael’s unusual vision, she couldn’t fight, and Petal was comfortable with her. Allison refused. No one had asked Amy to remain behind.

  The halls widened; the walls rose; the ceiling once against suggested light and air above the heights of those walls. The residences, historically sized and situated or not, fell away. These halls were the domain of the Queen of the Dead. Not for the Queen small closets and stone cages. No. The Queen’s halls were colorful, if sparsely decorated; everything suggested majesty.

  “Margaret?”

  “Beyond this point, you must exercise caution.”

  Emma didn’t ask how.

  “The doors at the end of the hall—the large ones—lead to the Queen’s suite.”

  “You’ve been in those rooms?”

  “Twice. No one who did not aspire to replace the Queen had any desire—ever—to see what lay beyond those doors.” She hesitated. “The rest of the citadel has been astonishingly empty, which was expected. I am not nearly so certain that the Queen’s suite will be likewise stripped.”

  “You don’t want to enter.”

  “No, dear. I don’t. But if I understand anything that’s happened today, what we seek will be somewhere in those rooms.”

  • • •

  To Emma’s surprise, the doors were actually locked, and the lock was mechanical. They were, Emma thought, real doors. They were wooden, and they were not in the pristine, like-new condition of every other door, rug, or stone the rest of the intimidating halls boasted.

  Chase knelt, lockpicks in hand, and they huddled around him, looking down the hall and holding their breath. The hall remained empty.

  Emma didn’t hear the click that meant the doors were no longer locked; she heard the creak of hinges as Chase pushed one open. It wasn’t a particularly quiet creak. Fear magnified it.

  “Welcome,” Chase said, “to the home of the Queen of the Dead.” As they stared through the open door, he frowned. “Get in. Quickly.”

  Ernest and Margaret had already crossed over the doorjamb. Everyone else followed. Emma almost told Chase to leave the door open. She saw and sensed none of the dead; the halls were no colder than any other hall had been. There was no reason to leave the door open and plenty of reasons to close it. Chase, being sensible, closed it.

  The halls behind these normal doors looked very much like the halls on the other side of it. They were grand, glorious, and almost sterile. Emma wasn’t certain what she’d expected. She knew the Queen had made these rooms in the same way she’d made the citadel. Everything came from her.

  All the same, she’d hoped for something different. She wasn’t certain why. “Margaret? What are we looking for? Do you even know?”

  Margaret nodded. She had drifted toward Ernest and stayed by his side, as if unconsciously seeking either protection or comfort. Emma shook her head. This was Margaret. Margaret Henney. She wasn’t the type to seek either.

  “Can you lead us there?” Emma asked softly.

  “Can you lead us there today?” Amy demanded. Her arms were folded; she was no happier to be here than Margaret.

  Margaret began to walk, the motion of legs and feet unnecessary but deliberate. “At the end of this hall is another suite of rooms. They are living quarters. When the Queen sleeps, it is there. Two rooms, meant to entertain more intimate friends, are behind those doors as well. I am not certain they are ever used.

  “Down the hall to the right—and it is not a short hall—there is a library. I am not certain that the library has ever been used. The Necromancers knew of it; they knew that it contained books or journals that were not available anywhere else in the citadel. They assumed that the Queen’s power resided in the knowledge therein.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “The Queen learned to read late in life. Reading was neither required nor taught in her childhood. It was neither required nor taught when she began to gather her people. Most didn’t read. The early Necromancers didn’t either. It was only later that it became essential, as school and schooling spread. You all read, I assume.”

  Emma nodded.

  “I’m not certain the Queen ever derived comfort—or knowledge—from the written word.”

  “Do you think we’re looking for something in the library, if we’re looking for forbidden knowledge?”

  “No.”

  “What’s down the left hall?”

  “The resurrection room.”

  • • •

  Nathan had been here.

  Nathan had walked these halls.

  Nathan had—if Helmi hadn’t lied—been given a body.

  Emma closed her eyes and inhaled the cool air. She opened her eyes. Everyone was watching her; no one had moved. She wanted to tell them that she wasn’t leader material; Amy filled, and had always filled, that role, although sometimes the Emery mafia referred to her as the dictator. But even Amy was waiting on Emma. She wasn’t waiting patiently, but no friend of Amy’s expected patience.

  Yet the expec
tation, the waiting, was a kind of support. Emma knew where they had to go. Margaret’s expression, Margaret’s tense silence, Margaret’s almost obvious dread would have made that clear in any circumstance.

  No one spoke as they approached the doors.

  When Emma reached them, they rolled open.

  THE SKY IS CLEAR.

  This is the day Reyna has dreamed of for so long now she only barely remembers the first time she made the wish. She can’t remember the details; she is certain that details existed, in the long-ago village in which her life almost ended.

  What did she dream of, then?

  She frowns. Eric’s arm is beneath her hand; it is stiff and cold. He walks by her side, but he stares straight ahead. He is wearing a ring on his hand. He is wearing a ring that she did not give him. Today, of all days. She wants to tell him to take it off. She wants him to understand how painful it is to see it there. She has crowned him. She has opened the heart of her citadel to him—as she always intended. He has never really listened to her. He has never understood what she was trying to build.

  Oh, in the past he had questions.

  She answered them. For some reason he refused to accept those answers, twisting them into ugly things instead. He has always been better with words than Reyna.

  Her hand tightens as they approached the gates. She remembers the stream and the tree against which she used to lean. She remembers the warmth of the sunlight; the shadows warm in a different way. She remembers, then, that her mother was alive. Her sister. She wanted to marry Eric.

  She wanted to live in that village.

  It was a small village. It was small, primitive, and ultimately savage.

  What she has built for Eric—for the two of them—is so much better. There is knowledge here. There is safety here. They could love each other without fear of censure. Without fear of death.

  But . . . for some inexplicable reason, she misses the trees.

  She almost stumbles and casts a glare over her shoulder—but her train, her skirts, are perfectly placed. The stones beneath her feet are flat and smooth; there are no roots, no pebbles, nothing on which to trip.

  This is not the dress she would have worn had she married Eric when her family was still alive. This is not the day she would have had. It’s better. Surely it’s better? This is something that Reyna has built for herself, with her own power.

  But she remembers Eric’s smile. Or perhaps the way his smile made her feel. She hasn’t felt that way about anything in a long time. Not since Eric. Not since those days in the village when she fell in love and was loved.

  She remembers sneaking out of her room when it was only barely dawn. She remembers the excitement, the giddiness, and the fear of her mother’s anger, should she be caught. She remembers running all the way to the tree—but stopping a hundred yards away, because she didn’t want to look pathetic to Eric.

  But Eric was always there first. She would try to approach quietly, so as not to disturb him. She liked to look at his face, his expression, the half-closed eyes with their fan of lashes. He never seemed to be looking at something; he was alone with his thoughts. She liked that expression, but she loved best when he lifted his chin to look at her. No matter how quietly she walked, no matter which direction she approached him from, she could never surprise him.

  She remembers the first time he held her hand.

  The first time he hugged her.

  The first time he kissed her.

  So many firsts, to lead to this one. She almost lost him. Her most vivid memory of Eric—no matter how hard she tries to displace it—is his prone, bleeding body, his eyelids fluttering convulsively, blood spilling, without warning, from his mouth. He had no words for her. He had no words for anyone.

  She had spent all her life interacting with the dead. She had cleaned and tended corpses in some villages. She had never, until that moment, come face to face with death. The dead, yes. She understood how they died; she understood why they were trapped, clinging to an isolated semblance of the lives they’d lived. But she had not seen them die. She had not experienced death itself.

  Without thought, she shifts the position of her hand on Eric’s arm. Instead, she reaches for his hand; it is so cold and so stiff when she touches it—

  But he wasn’t cold and stiff that day. She stumbles again, but this time when she does, Eric’s hand tightens, his arm tightens, he offers Reyna support. It is silent. She wants to be grateful.

  But he does not look at her. He doesn’t meet her eyes. She has waited so long for the moment when he lifts his chin and meets her eyes and smiles. At this moment, on the day she dreamed of, almost everything is perfect.

  But there are no trees. And Eric does not smile.

  THE FIRST THING EMMA NOTICED when she opened the doors was the shape of the resurrection room. It was circular. It appeared to be open to the sky, given the quality of the light, but there was a dome above them. Windows in the shape of petals let in the startling clarity of blue sky. The ladders used to reach Andrew Copis wouldn’t have helped them reach the sky here—the ceiling was that far away.

  Emma’s gaze fell from the impossible heights to the ground.

  In the center of the room, in the heart of it, carved into the largest single slab of stone Emma had ever seen, was a circle composed of symbols. It reminded Emma of the gold thread on the faded and worn carpet in the hidden rooms. She wished, for a moment, she’d thought to bring that carpet with her.

  “I think—I think this is like the carpet. I think this is a circle.”

  “It is,” a familiar voice said. The old woman she’d found at the center of that carpet stood to Emma’s left. Emma glanced at her face; it was puckered in something too intense to be a frown. “It is the Queen’s circle.”

  “You were alive when she carved it?”

  “No. No, by then I was dead. Tell me, Emma Hall, do you see anything unusual about this circle?”

  Its existence, for one. Emma kept the words behind closed lips as she stared at the runes. She’d seen their like only once. They didn’t look familiar. But where gold, in the hidden room, had glittered and caught light the way metal does, these runes were different: they had a light of their own.

  It was a dull, glowing colorless light that she wanted to call gray. Even as she thought it, she froze, because if the shape of the runes wasn’t familiar, the light they shed was. It was the color of the eyes of the dead.

  • • •

  “Margaret—can you see—”

  “I see the circle,” Margaret said. Emma glanced back at her; she stood beside Ernest—and Michael—against the far wall.

  “Do you see anything unusual about it?”

  The older woman, however, was the one who answered. “The dead are there. And you know it, girl. You can see them.” Her tone was ice, but beneath that chill, there was fire; Emma could feel the heat of it, the pain of it.

  “The circles,” Emma said, her mouth too dry, “were meant to protect the living?”

  “They were meant to allow the living to safely find the lost.” Her tone implied that Emma should know this, because she’d already been told it once.

  “But it’s—”

  “Yes, girl. Like everything else in the citadel, it’s made of the dead.” The woman’s voice was lower, harsher.

  Emma reached out with one shaking hand. She touched the nearest rune as if she expected it to burn. It didn’t. She exhaled the breath she was holding. It felt like stone. But the floors in the empty townhouse had felt like floors until she had really touched them. Until she’d reached out and tried to pull them apart.

  “Yes,” the old woman said. “You could unmake this circle. You could unmake the citadel in exactly the same way, if you survived long enough to do it. And you won’t—but it’s possible. Say you succeed. How well can you fly?”

  • • •<
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  No one spoke. Michael stayed by the wall. But while everyone else was looking at the circle by which Emma crouched, Michael was staring ahead, a familiar frown puckering his forehead and narrowing his lips.

  Emma rose. We didn’t come here to see this circle, she told herself. She wasn’t certain if this was cowardice. She didn’t want to see a floor composed of clutching, frantic arms. She turned to Margaret, who was standing as far from the circle as the wall allowed. Margaret, prim, decisive, and unflinching, looked . . . afraid.

  Fear made her look younger. And far more fragile.

  Emma didn’t want fragile, here. She had enough of her own to deal with. But fragile was better than broken. They’d come to the Queen’s resurrection room for a reason. “Margaret.”

  Margaret met her eyes and nodded, staring just past Emma’s shoulder at something that wasn’t there. Or wasn’t there now. “I see . . . nothing . . . out of the ordinary.” The unspoken for the Queen of the Dead underscored her quiet words.

  That was not what Emma wanted to hear, but Margaret wasn’t the only person in the room who was focused on something she couldn’t see. She turned. “Michael?”

  He nodded; he didn’t look at her. He appeared to be looking at a section of wall nestled between two ornate, standing shelves.

  “What are you looking at? I can only see wall.”

  “A statue,” he said, his voice very quiet. It was the wrong kind of quiet. He was stiff with tension, with concentration, and with apprehension. Apprehension was normal for Michael; it happened when he ran into something that made no sense to him.

  “I don’t think anyone else can see it.” From Michael’s expression, this was a comfort to everyone else. But it left Michael stranded. “It—I think it’s supposed to be a man. A dead man.”

  She didn’t want to ask him how he knew this. She didn’t want to ask him anything else. She almost stepped in front of him to block his view, but he was taller than she was. He hadn’t always been. And he wasn’t a child. What he needed from her—what he’d probably always needed—was consistency and honesty.