Two of the wardens tried to restrain Silas with ropes and chains, but he claimed the chain as a new weapon and strangled them with it before they could get close. His face was bloodied and twisted with rage, and Kate was worried that this was a battle he would not win. Then Da’ru rounded the front of the carriage just a few steps away from her. She had hesitated too long.
“Give me the book,” Da’ru said, as Kate backed toward the edge of the protected circle. “Give it to me!”
Da’ru grabbed hold of Kate’s arm before she could move, and Kate felt the veil’s energy crackle and snap beneath her skin. She sank into Da’ru’s memories, unable to break the link the circle had created between them, and the veil carried her back through time, letting Kate witness firsthand what Da’ru had done.
Her life was filled with blood and anger, torture and death. Kate saw the glass dagger and the faces of those whose lives it had claimed. She saw Edgar as a boy, half-drowned in the testing room water tank as she tested him for signs of the Skill, and then a barred door slamming shut as she locked him in an underground cell. Then she was outside Fume, joining the wardens in their harvests as she hunted the Skilled just as she had tried to hunt Kate. In every town Da’ru left her own trail of death. Informants and whisperers fell to her blade. The Skilled she discovered died within days, and then there was Kalen. . . .
Kate saw Kalen in one of Da’ru’s tower rooms, retreating from her as she raged about Wintercraft, ordering him to find the book and punish those who had stolen it from him. Da’ru had been with him on the night Kate’s parents were taken away, watching from the other side of the street as they were forced into a warden’s cage. She had searched the bookshop herself, desperate to find Wintercraft and unaware of the girl hiding in the cellar beneath her feet.When she could not find it, Kalen was the one to suffer next. A poisoned blade tainted with bloodbane gave him the scar across his face that Kate had seen, along with a dose of the poison large enough to drive him into madness forever.
Kate watched the experiment Da’ru had conducted upon Silas through her own eyes, and she saw the dozens more who had died before him in the museum’s listening circle. She witnessed the moment Da’ru found Wintercraft, reaching down to lift it out of an open grave, and then the years rolled back even further, to a meeting Da’ru had with the Skilled, long before her time with the High Council. The Skilled had offered to help her and protect her as one of their own, but Da’ru had no intention of living her life below ground, hiding from the world. She had turned them away and chosen to experiment upon the veil herself.
Finally, the memories carried Kate to a time when Da’ru was only a few years younger than Kate was now, to the moment she first recognized that she had the Skill. She was in a sunlit room, lifting a dead mouse from the claws of a black cat.When the little creature squirmed back to life within her hands Kate heard Da’ru laugh as if she had found a new toy. The mouse tried to wriggle its way to freedom, but Da’ru threw it back into the cat’s jaws, waiting for it to die so she could revive it again.
Silas may have been a killer, but Da’ru was something worse. Kate could feel something dark inside that woman. She did not care about Albion or anything else. She enjoyed the destruction and uncertainty of endless war. She wanted to damage people. She wanted to see them suffer, using her position on the High Council to wield the ultimate power of life and death.
Kate broke from Da’ru’s memories, not wanting to see any more. It had all happened in an instant. Da’ru had felt nothing, and she twisted Kate’s arm cruelly, dragging her out of the safety of the central circle, deep into the wall of churning mist.
Silas watched the two of them cross into the veil as he ended a warden’s life, then another, and another. He watched the shades move apart to let the two women pass through and then close behind them, swallowing them completely into the darkness of the veil.
With the last man lying dead at his feet, Silas turned to the councilmen, blood smeared across his skin and dripping from his blade. “This is what you all deserve,” he said, his words breaking a little as a handful of damaged ribs cracked suddenly back into place. “You let this happen. This night rests on your heads, not mine.”
Silas fell to his knees, all energy spent, but slowly and steadily his body healed. His wounds sealed themselves, his bones reset and his torn muscles knitted together again. The effort of it exhausted him. Pain clouded his mind and so he did not notice a trickle of strange blood creeping slowly down his injured chest.
The vial of Kate’s blood that he had stolen from the testing room had smashed during the battle, slicing his skin and spreading some of her blood into his own. A thread of warmth raced through Silas’s veins and he slid his hand into his coat, pulling out thin slivers of bloodstained glass. There had been no ritual. Silas had never intended for it to happen and yet he could sense Kate’s energy within him—a distant echo reflected somewhere deep inside. Her blood had been bound to his within the energies of an open listening circle. It connected them. The pulse of Kate’s life reverberated alongside his own, and Silas could feel the potent rush of Kate’s fear as she walked within the veil.
For ten years, echoes of Da’ru’s spirit had crept inside him. She was arrogant, fearless, and malicious. Her influence had stripped away parts of Silas that he had since learned to live without, and he had fought against it every day, holding back the overwhelming force that threatened to engulf his identity fully in the dark. Silas had become used to restraining the worst of Da’ru’s nature deep within himself, but it had been a long time since he had felt true fear. Kate’s spirit did not overwhelm him as Da’ru’s had done for so long; it glowed like a hidden flame within his blood, and the fear he sensed from her was not for herself, but for the foolish uncle she had come to save: the man who was wriggling futilely against his bonds upon the stone table, incapable of doing anything for himself.
The glass dagger still sat inside the chest of Silas’s first kill. He struggled to his feet and limped toward it, unsheathing it from the man’s ribs while Artemis fought against his ropes.
“Where is she?” Artemis asked despairingly. “Where is Kate?”
Silas left him bound and turned away, carrying a blade in each hand. “Stay here, bookseller,” he said. “It will be over soon.”
The shades gathered around Kate as Da’ru pushed her into the veil. They were screeching and screaming, their voices filling the half-life with desperate words.
“. . . free us! . . .”
“. . . help us! . . .”
“. . . release us! . . .”
The shades moved gently around Kate, but when Da’ru stepped among them, everything changed. The air filled with a low hiss. The shades’ hatred spread like fire, and Kate knew that Da’ru’s connection with the circle was all that was protecting her from their wrath.
“I did not believe what Silas told me about you at first,” said Da’ru, forcing Kate deeper into the mist with strength Kate would not have guessed she had. “Now I can see that he did not tell me everything. I had heard about the Walkers, of course, but I never imagined that I would meet one outside the pages of Wintercraft.”
Da’ru looked at the shades in wonder, mesmerized by the presence of so many pressing closely against her skin. She closed her eyes, absorbing the experience of being able to step physically into the veil for the very first time, and her fingernails scratched deeply into Kate’s skin. Kate realized that she was holding on to her far too tightly. Da’ru was afraid of something.
As a Walker, Kate was able to step into the veil without danger, but Da’ru did not possess the level of ability to allow her to walk safely on her own. She needed Kate beside her. Without a physical link to a Walker, she risked endangering her spirit if she stayed within that mist for too long.
The shades swirled anxiously around them. Kate’s hair whipped up in the current made by their frenzied movements, and she looked through the mist toward the frightened crowd. Every one of those people was in
danger, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do to help them. The circle belonged to Da’ru. Kate could not close it. Da’ru was its master and she was completely in control.
“Forget them,” said Da’ru, following her gaze. “Those people do not see the world the way we do, Kate. They never truly believed in the veil. The Night of Souls is just a joke to them, another excuse for a mindless celebration. They have never once dared to try and understand it. Now they can see the truth for themselves.”
Kate glanced back at the central circle. She could see Silas standing at the very edge, but he wasn’t doing anything. He was just standing there, watching her. Da’ru’s hand went up suddenly to Kate’s throat, and Kate could feel her own energy draining down into the circle as Da’ru channeled it out of her, weakening her. Soon it was hard to move . . . hard to breathe.
“Listen to me,” demanded Da’ru. “Your life belongs to me now. Those people are going to die, and when they do, you will use my blood and bind every one of their souls to me. The council is watching. It is time for me to claim my place in history, and you are going to do exactly as I say.”
Da’ru saw her looking over to Silas, and she smiled darkly. “Silas is not your ally, Kate. Men like him have no need for allies. You have witnessed the terror he can create and the respect he commands. With an army of people like Silas by my side, Albion will no longer need to hide in the dark. We shall conquer our enemies, make every one of them suffer, and then we shall crush them one by one. You will help me do this, Kate. Together we will make this country live again.”
Kate’s eyes felt heavy and the screams of the dead spun deafeningly around her. She could see Da’ru’s madness in her face, and struggling to take one last full breath, Kate spoke as firmly as she could. “I won’t do anything for you,” she said. “Albion doesn’t need more soldiers or more war. It needs to be protected from people like you.”
Da’ru’s face darkened and she threw Kate to the ground.
Kate’s head struck stone and pain exploded behind her eyes. Then, like a match being struck inside her mind, her instincts took over. The mist of the half-life lifted as her eyes were suddenly able to filter it out and she saw something within it that Da’ru had not seen: the current of death moving swiftly toward them, like a silvery reflection flickering through the air.
“You have two paths ahead of you,” said Da’ru, standing over Kate, oblivious to the danger so close by. “You will join me. Or you will join them.”
The shades screamed again. Something moved behind Da’ru, and a pair of solid, living arms wrapped firmly around her neck.
“Get away from her!”
Edgar had left the safety of the inner circle and was pulling on Da’ru as hard as he could, trying to drag her away from Kate. He knew about the dangers of the veil, but he was there anyway, refusing to let Kate fight alone. The shades circled above him as Da’ru grabbed his hand and twisted him away. Then she forced him to the ground and bent over him, drawing a slim silver blade from her sleeve and pressing it against his neck.
“That is the last time you will disturb me, boy,” she said.
The current of death was closing in. It was just a few inches away from Kate when she gathered the very last of her weakening strength and grabbed hold of Da’ru’s dress, pulling her from Edgar long enough for him to roll out of her reach and back into the safety of the inner circle. She dragged as hard as she could until Da’ru turned to face her, and she managed to catch hold of her wrist instead.
“What are you doing?” cried Da’ru, but it was too late.
Her eyes widened as the current of death washed over Kate and then came straight for Da’ru, spreading through her body and rippling against her face. Kate took one last look at Edgar as the warm touch of death spread into her, making her body feel light, safe, and free. Then she closed her eyes and, with one final breath, she let the current take her.
Chapter 21
Death
Kate felt warm and peaceful. Time stretched and sounds faded into silence as her thoughts traveled deep into the veil, slowly leaving her life behind. She could feel the gentle emptiness of the current spreading around her, but there was no pain, no struggle, no thought beyond the certainty that what was happening was right. The current could have carried her forever and she would have been completely at peace.
But there, in the midst of it all, something distracted her.
Da’ru was beside her, battling against death, fighting against it with all her strength, so desperate was she to return to life. Kate tried to forget her and let her mind become empty once again, but then something happened that she did not expect. Something moved close by: a dark shape surrounded by an empty void of black. Death drew back from it as it forced its way into the flow, and Silas stepped into the current, as immovable as a rock in the face of a storm.
“Silas!” Da’ru reached out when she saw him. “Help me, Silas!”
Silas looked at the glass locket hanging from her neck, its surface stained with his dead crow’s drying blood. “After everything you have done,” he said. “You still think I would help you?”
“You have no choice!”
“Yes,” said Silas. “I do.” He grabbed the locket and snapped the chain from around Da’ru’s neck.
“No!” she cried. “Stop!”
Something moved beside Kate. A shade, darker than the rest, crept past her and started wrapping itself around Da’ru, holding her like a spider binding a fly.
“Life is too good to waste on you,” said Silas. “Your life is over and death is a pleasure you will never know.”
Da’ru struggled to free herself as the shade clung tight, gaining clearer form whenever it moved close to Silas. For one brief moment, Kate was sure she saw gray eyes within its darkness and then she knew what she was looking at. Silas’s broken spirit—the part of him that had been left behind within the half-life—had joined them in the current.
“Silas!” Da’ru cried, her voice echoing out across the city square. “You cannot do this! You are bound to me, Silas!”
“The ways of death are familiar to me now,” said Silas. “Because of you, I can never know the peace of it. You betrayed me, as you have betrayed hundreds more.”
He held the locket in his scarred hand. The fire in his palm had burned away, but the old mark left by Da’ru’s blade was still deep and dark.
“Twelve years ago, you made a mistake,” he said. “You made an enemy of me, and now you will feel the emptiness I have known for yourself. Your soul will scream and no one will hear you. It is over, Da’ru. I will make the half-life your prison for as long as I live. And as you said: immortality lasts a long, long time.”
The shade smothered Da’ru like an oily web, capturing her spirit and dragging it out into the empty void of the half-life. Silas watched Da’ru’s body release its final breath, and the shade pulled her spirit down through the stony ground, into a deep level of the veil that the circle could not reach.
The last few members of the crowd who had dared to stay in their seats now fled with the rest, pushing themselves up against the outer divide, desperate to escape before they faced the same fate, and Kate felt her connection to her own body start to weaken and break. The sudden feeling of separation took her by surprise. Her spirit caught upon the gentle flow of the current and her body fell to the ground, detached, empty, and still.
Silas saw Kate fall and he crouched down beside her, brushing a strand of hair from her half-closed eyes. It looked as if all life had left her, but he knew better. Da’ru was gone, yet the circle was still active. Kate’s spirit was not lost yet.
Silas lifted Kate up in his arms. Every step was a struggle and with every inch he gained, death willed him more powerfully to turn back. Its promise of peace overwhelmed his thoughts and smothered his senses, but still he walked forward, knowing better than to listen to something that could never be his. Da’ru was right. No matter how much he longed for it, death did not want him.
>
With one last immense effort, Silas broke out of the current and into the half-life, carrying Kate’s body through the veil and hesitating on the edge of the central circle just long enough to hear Da’ru’s screams echo distantly upon the air. For twelve years he had longed to hear that sound, to finally be able to repay her for what she had done to him. He had always known it would be worth it. He had been right.
Silas closed his eyes, allowing the call of death to tempt him one last time, then he opened his hand and let Da’ru’s glass locket fall to the ground. The little sphere fell slowly, as if all those years of waiting had been crushed into those last few moments and, with the quietest of tiny sounds, it smashed.
A patch of blood stained the ground among the broken shards and a thin trail of white rose out of it, twisting and splitting into many separate threads, snaking up to link with some of the shades around Silas before each thread snapped and faded away. His may have been the only spirit Da’ru had bound into a cursed life, but it was not the only one who had been denied the path into death. Whatever bond that blood had created between Da’ru and them, it was broken now.
Shouts of surprise spread around the crowd as the candles in their hands illuminated one by one. Each one had been carried there to remember a life that had been lost, and the spirits who had lived those lives drew closer to those who were remembering them, relighting the flames and showing them that there was no reason to be afraid.
Many in the crowd stopped trying to run and reached out to the spirits of their ancestors, to lost parents, children, and friends. The current of death continued its journey through the half-life, shining with inner light as the freed souls drifted peacefully into it, completing their journeys at last. And for a short time the Night of Souls was what it was always meant to be: a time of peace, remembrance, and joy.
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