“I stayed away for years,” he confessed, “even after I’d made the bow and retrieved the raptor owl feather. I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t want to live the life of a High Elf that was expected of me. I loved life beyond the walls, below the veil. This was all I wanted.” He waved a hand around.
“A hedge maze?” I bumped his shoulder and smiled over at him.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “No. Adventure. Friends. A cause worth fighting for.”
“I hope you don’t think I’m that cause—”
“No,” he said quickly. “I guess what I’m trying to say is … plans change. I was raised to be one thing and found my calling doing something else. And you know what? When I went home finally and confessed to my mother how I felt, do you know what she said?”
“What?”
“She said, ‘That’s nice, dear. As long as you’re happy.’ And then proceeded to feed me until it was time for me to leave again.”
I laughed. “I think I would like your mother.”
“I think you would, too,” he said, his voice quieter than it had been. “Give your brother and sister some credit. Be who you’re meant to be, and they’ll be there for you.”
I was suddenly very aware of how close we were sitting. There were seven other benches, but he’d sat beside me, the whole side of his body pressed against mine. There was a part of me that wanted to bolt to my feet and put as much distance between us as possible, but there was another part of me that wanted to lean into him and let myself fall just a little bit.
I cleared my throat and focused on the fountain. It was at least twice my height, and at the top was the likeness of a man I assumed to be Onen Suun. “Will you be going home soon?”
He shifted, leaning slightly away from me. So, the weird tension I’d felt wasn’t one-sided. “I’m in no rush,” he answered.
“Why not? Don’t you want to see your mother?” If I could, I would already be in Bor’sur. I longed for the day when my father would wrap me in his arms again.
He shrugged. “Elves are not particularly maternal. She has her own life, and I have mine. I have no real reason to go back. All I have is a bunch of land and a big, empty house. I show up every now and then to check on things, but the caretakers are plenty competent. They don’t need me there to keep things running.”
“What about Tsarra?” She was the woman who’d sent me down this path, hiring me to go into the mines to free Arun so he could save her family. Even though she was ultimately to credit for his freedom, he had hardly mentioned her.
“Another one of my causes.” One side of his mouth tilted up into a humorless smile. “I don’t know. Marrying her would be the end, wouldn’t it? I’d be tied down. It would be the only truly selfless thing I’d ever done. I guess I’m just not ready for it.”
“I don’t know. I think going after that dragon was pretty selfless.”
It was the whole reason he’d been on Barepost. Governor Luthair had imprisoned a dragon after the dragon and some of his friends had destroyed one of Luthair’s trading vessels. The dragon’s friends had enlisted Arun to go into Barepost and negotiate the dragon’s freedom. Arun had succeeded—in a sense—winning the dragon’s freedom only at the cost of his own.
This time, his laugh was real, rumbling up from his chest. “I went after that dragon because I would have taken any excuse to get out of Lamruil. Luthair himself could have summoned me and I would have come running.”
“To get out of Lamruil or to get away from Tsarra?” The picture he was painting was becoming a bit clearer, but it didn’t make me like him any less. If anything, it was good to see that his honor had flaws like everyone else’s.
He clapped a hand on my knee, the contact startling. “A little bit of both, I think. They kind of feel like they’re one and the same.” He stood then, releasing me. “We should probably report for dinner.”
I stood, too. “Arun—” I started, reaching out and touching the back of his arm. He turned, eyes searching my face. I didn’t know what I wanted to say, only that I didn’t want this, whatever this was, to end. Not yet. We stood frozen, my hand on his arm, my mouth open to speak words I hadn’t figured out yet.
And that was when the screaming started.
Chapter 4
The screams were coming from the direction of the temple, but I couldn’t see anything except for the tops of leafy green hedges. Then, movement in the sky drew my eye.
“No.” The word came out as a breath, a quiet exhalation of fear.
Large, human-shaped bodies were silhouetted against the sinking sun, wings sprouting from broad backs.
The ur’gels had found us.
Had found me, if Beru was right and they were looking for the Suun heir. Or who they thought was the Suun heir.
Another scream shook Arun and me from our stupor.
“Go,” Arun said, but he didn’t have to tell me. I was already running, kicking up dirt and leaves as I threw myself down the nearest path.
And ran headlong into a dead end. “Damn it.”
“This way.” Arun grabbed my hand and tugged me back, taking a turn to the left I had bypassed.
Increased shouts were rising from the temple, and all I could imagine were the girls in their orange robes being scooped up like rabbits by a raptor owl. I hoped Xalph and Grissall, wherever they were, had taken cover.
Arun and I ran through what felt like endless twists and turns, the temple growing gradually closer. We reached another dead end and were turning around when Arun stopped, grabbing me by my shoulders and turning me to face whatever it was he saw. An ur’gel was almost directly overhead, and in his arms he carried … a body. Human or elf, I couldn’t be sure, but it draped from its arms, limbs twitching.
Were the ur’gels taking prisoners? Hostages? Trophies? Had this body come from the temple or was it someone from the nearby town Lunla had mentioned? Had the ur’gels already wreaked their havoc there?
To my horror, the ur’gel dropped its cargo. The body crashed into the hedge not far from us, crushing leaves and branches before rolling to the ground, facedown.
“Onen save us,” Arun said, more to himself than to me.
The body was slender and draped in a black robe. Long, black hair fell across her back.
“Is she …?”
“I don't know.”
She wasn't moving. I crept forward and nudged her with the toe of my boot. No response. I knelt and rolled her over.
The woman—the corpse?—lunged at me, fingers outstretched and teeth snapping. I caught her at arm’s length, my hands going around her neck and pressing her to the ground.
Her face was more a skull than an actual face. A thin layer of skin stretched over sharp bones. Lips peeled back to reveal two rows of yellow teeth. Worst of all, though, were her eyes. Gaping black holes stared back at me. She'd been a human woman once, but she was something else now, somewhere between dead and alive.
I was stunned, frozen with my hands around her neck. Her hands reached for me, claw-like fingernails scraping the skin of my arms. It was Arun who lifted me off her. Without my weight holding her down, she crawled forward, her movements jerky and unnatural as she grasped for Arun’s legs. She made a low hissing noise and he scrambled back, knocking into me, sending us both sprawling.
The corpse wrapped a hand around my ankle and I kicked, my boot connecting with her jaw. It should have knocked her off, but she didn't even react. Instead, she continued her slow, steady progress up my leg.
My fingers fumbled for my ax, clumsy and trembling. I'd faced warriors twice my size, monsters with more teeth and stingers than I could count. But I had always known what I was facing, and I had always known how to win.
Arun was there then, standing over her and lifting her off by her shoulders. He didn't have any weapons, just his bare hands. She twisted, driving him back with her snapping jaw. I stood, finally drawing my ax, and swung. The blade sliced through the skull easier than it should have. Finally, the bod
y fell to the ground leaving a stunned, blood-splattered Arun looking at me.
“What was that?” He wiped at his face with his sleeve, staining the white fabric red.
“I don't—I—” I thought I was going to be sick. Blood pooled at my feet, matting in her black hair. Her mouth and eyes still gaped open. The world narrowed to just me and her, the edges of my vision going black.
“I didn't know how—she wouldn't stop—”
Arun took my shoulders in his hands and shook them gently. I looked up at him and the roiling in my gut calmed at the sight of his dark brown eyes.
“We have to go,” he said. “If this is what they're facing at the temple, they need us.”
With that, the rest of the world came rushing back. The smell of the dead girl, the screams from the temple, the howling and grunting of the ur’gels as they flew overhead. It was chaos. I was supposed to be good in chaos. I was good in chaos. I just had to remember that.
I led the way this time, and Arun followed without comment. Keeping my wits about me made it easier to find our way out.
When we emerged into the yard, it was worse than I’d imagined. Erik and Estrid were fighting back-to-back, surrounded by dozens of walking corpses in black cloaks, all of them with those same gaping eye sockets. I watched as one of them fell on a girl in orange robes who had been foolishly fleeing across the grounds. Before I could move to help her, Stiarna was there, ripping the corpse away from the girl and separating its head from its body with her powerful beak. The corpse grew still and Stiarna dove back into the fray.
There was a shout from behind us in the maze. We turned at the same time and watched an ur’gel rise from the hedges with a girl in its clutches. This wasn’t a placid corpse, though. This girl was fighting for all she was worth, kicking and hitting the ur’gel who was struggling to get very far off the ground.
“It’s Grissall,” I said. They hadn’t made it out of the maze after all.
The ur’gel rose a few feet in the air and that was when I understood why it was struggling. Attached to Grissall’s legs was Xalph, his arms wrapped tight around her ankles. Both of them were screaming, but there was no way I would make it there in time.
But I didn’t have to. Arun raised the bow he wore strapped across his back and nocked an arrow. Together, we watched the ur’gel gain more height, but it wasn’t a smooth flight. It dipped and wove as it fought against Grissall and Xalph.
“Hurry,” I urged him, “before it gets too high.”
“I can’t get a clean shot,” Arun murmured. He held the string of the bow tight, drawn against the corner of his mouth.
“Just take it.”
He did, releasing the arrow just as the ur’gel opened its leathery wings wide to catch a current. The arrow hit the monster in the throat. It dropped Grissall. She and Xalph plummeted into the hedges, but the ur’gel still struggled to stay aloft. Arun nocked another arrow and let it fly, hitting it in the chest and sending it spiraling down into the bushes.
“Go help them.” I put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back toward the maze. “I’m going to help my brother and sister.”
Arun didn’t argue. He kept his bow ready as he disappeared around the first corner, shouting for Xalph.
I dove into the battle in the yard, my ax in one hand and my sword in the other. My left shoulder was sore, but it wasn’t unbearable. I hoped Erik was hanging in there in spite of the pain in his burned arm.
The fighters were mostly the walking corpses. It seemed the ur’gels had simply dropped their weapons and fled, probably hoping to come back later and reap the rewards once the dirty work was done. I fell into a rhythm—a sideways swing of my ax across one’s temple, a downward slice of my sword to behead the one behind it. I cut my way through the attackers until I reached Erik and Estrid.
“Frida!” Estrid yelled as she drove both of her swords up into the chins of two walking corpses. “Where have you been?”
“Doesn’t matter.” I reached past her and pushed the blade of my sword into the forehead of a corpse-man who had been coming up just behind her. It fell, knocking back another one beside it. “I’m here now.”
Erik grunted as he dispatched two more corpses. “Where’s your elf?”
“He’s getting Grissall and Xalph in the maze.” There was a corpse on the ground. I planted my foot on its chest. Its fingers clawed at my boot but when I put my sword through its head, it grew still.
“What do you mean, ‘your elf’?” Estrid asked, turning her head to look at Erik even as she fought off one of the attackers.
Erik laughed. “Do you mean you haven’t noticed?” He spun, knocking aside three corpses at once.
“What are you talking about?” I jerked my sword out of a corpse’s eye and turned, driving it through another one’s chest. It stumbled back but didn’t fall. Instead, it ripped the sword out of my grip and looked up at me. It opened its mouth and hissed, lunging forward.
An arrow through its temple sent it toppling sideways.
I looked up to see Arun standing on a bench, felling one corpse after another with arrows. Xalph and Grissall were beside him, knives at the ready in case any got too close. When he saw me looking, he raised his chin in acknowledgement and winked.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Erik answered.
I ignored him. Mainly because I didn’t know how to respond.
Estrid was watching me, though, possibly waiting for a denial.
“Watch out,” I told her.
She ducked, and I drove the butt of my ax into the face of a corpse behind her. It crushed the nose in and cracked the eye sockets, but it kept coming. Estrid swung her sword, slicing clean through the neck. The body hit the ground, head rolling away.
Across the courtyard, there was another shout, this one loud enough to be heard over the din. I shoved my way out of the crush of bodies surrounding me and my siblings and saw Lunla on the temple steps, struggling with a corpse. She had her hands around its throat, but it was snapping and clawing at her. She was barely hanging on.
Arun and I began running for her at the same time, but I was surrounded by fallen bodies. I was clambering over them, tripping over splayed limbs and trying not to step on any faces. Arun reached the priest first, but he didn’t have a weapon viable for close combat, only his bow. He swung it at the corpse’s head. It turned and Lunla shoved it away, hitting Arun. He tripped down the last step and fell, the creature on top of him. I was nearly there when it sunk its teeth into his shoulder. Arun screamed, and I swung my ax at its head, the force of the blow knocking the corpse to the side. I brought my sword down with my other hand into its neck, and finally, it stopped moving.
It was only then, as the head rolled to a stop, the crushed face pointed to the sky, that I realized it had grown quiet. Stiarna jumped up onto a retaining wall nearby and began to lick her front feet, her face and beak covered in blood. Erik and Estrid rushed over, Xalph and Grissall close behind them.
I dropped to my knees beside Arun. “Are you okay?”
He grunted. His face twisted with pain.
I tore the shirt away from his shoulder and examined the wound. The teeth had broken the skin, and the wound was already red and inflamed.
“Here.” Lunla appeared beside me. Her hands shook as she put them on Arun’s arm. “Let me.”
I moved aside to let her look.
“What was that?” Xalph asked.
No one answered, because no one knew. We were surrounded by destroyed, mutilated bodies. Bodies that, though they hadn’t been alive, had been trying to kill us. Bodies that had been carried here and dropped on us by ur’gels, servants of Dag’draath, if legends were to be believed. Their blood soaked into the grass and spread across the stone paths.
Girls in orange robes walked among them, quiet with shock. I watched one kneel at the head of one of the bodies. After a few seconds, she fell back and scrambled away.
“This one’s alive!”
I didn’t
have the energy left to hurry over, so I left it to Erik. He stepped over the circle of bodies at the base of the temple steps and stood over the one the girl had indicated. He studied the body for longer than I thought necessary, and then, to all our surprise, knelt and took its hand in his.
“What is it?” Estrid called to him.
He stood and turned back to us. “It’s Savarah,” he said, his eyebrows knit together in confusion. “She’s alive.”
Chapter 5
I left Arun’s side and crossed the yard to where Erik was. The girl on the ground wore the same black cloak as the corpses. Her hood was thrown back, revealing a halo of golden curls. Her eyes were closed, but I recognized her round cheeks and full lips.
Savarah was the companion to Tsarra Trisfina, the elf who had hired me to get Arun Phina out of the mines. We’d lost her back on the climb to the plateau and assumed she’d fallen and died. Had she been taken instead? Had her body been stolen by the ur’gels and turned into one of their weapons.
But Erik, and the girl, had said she was alive. I knelt, putting a hand on Savarah’s wrist. The pulse there was strong.
“Savarah?” I said, gently shaking her.
The girl’s eyes snapped open.
I gasped, jerking back.
“Frida?” Her voice was hoarse and low, her eyes wide with surprise.
“Savarah, what are you doing here?” I asked.
Erik didn’t wait for an answer. He all but pushed me aside to get to her, putting his arm beneath her shoulders and lifting her to her feet. She looked around, taking in the sight of the bodies and the temple that towered over them.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“One of the temples of light, still on Bruhier.” Erik kept his arms around her, holding her up as she surveyed her surroundings.
I didn’t like this. It felt wrong. She felt wrong. I was about to tell Erik as much when there was a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see Lunla there, her usually stoic face twisted with worry.
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