I will take him, the dragon answered.
Rol gave her a thumbs-up and trotted off to the saddle, Horace at his heels.
Oriana felt the saddle shift as each man mounted Sarpella. The chaos that had just transpired hadn’t really sunk in yet, and for that she was thankful.
“Sar,” she said, “straight up till I tell you to stop, and then toward my estate.”
“Where are we going?” Rol asked.
Oriana didn’t answer him. Because she couldn’t answer him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Elaya pushed the tip of her blade into the flames. She held it there for a while, eventually pulling it out and sticking it into the snow. She enjoyed the sizzling sound it made.
She’d found it imperative to keep her focus on small things, like the rise and fall of her chest and the sizzle of a quenching blade plunged into snow—otherwise, her thoughts wandered. After tragedy strikes, thoughts must be leashed, or they’ll take you to bad places.
Elaya had been to such places before. Almost a year ago, in fact, when the Twins had crushed her hopes of taking Silderine. She’d wanted to die then. She’d wished for her mercenaries to leave her in the cold, unrelenting snows of the North, allow her bones to freeze and her heart to stop thumping.
She’d had the same wishes when Tig and Adom had hauled her out of Coraen only a day ago. Kaun and Paya were dead, and it was her—
Elaya stuffed the blade back into the flames, as if it were a spit of mutton not yet cooked through. You won’t control me, she told her thoughts. You won’t win.
“Stomach’s turning and spinning all ’round,” Adom said, knees pulled up to his chest. The flames splashed an orange glow on his face that was otherwise hidden under a starless night sky.
“Mine’s yellin’ at me,” Tig said. “Fooker wants food.”
Elaya turned her sword over. She kept silent.
“We can go for a while still before keeling over,” Adom said. “But it’ll be a slow go.”
“Slower every day,” Tig added. “Even if we stumble on back to Avestas, then what? Go back to the old life?”
Elaya removed her blade from the flames and plunged it into the snow. She closed her eyes upon hearing the sizzle. “One day at a time, Tig.”
One day at a time, she told herself. That motto was a radical departure from her usual perspective on life, but look how far that attitude had gotten her.
Someone cleared their throat. Elaya and Adom exchanged glances, realizing the guttural sound came from neither of them, nor did it come from Tig.
“Hi again,” came a boyish voice.
Elaya nearly lost grip on her sword in utter disbelief. She spun around on her butt and stuck her head forward. “Lavery Opsillian. You’re a troublesome boy, do you know that?”
“I’m not a boy,” Lavery said, a smile on his face. He plodded toward the fire, the deep snows nearly swallowing him whole. A man walked at his side, a belt of tools around his waist. “This is my Uncle Haren. He’s the Wraith Walker I told you about.”
Elaya and Adom exchanged glances. Tig scratched his head.
“We saw the fire from Coraen,” Lavery said. “Luckily, my uncle is a lot more experienced at Walking than I am. I would’ve had to trudge down here on foot, and it would have taken me a long time.
“I’m not sure if I could have ever caught up with you. Did you know that you can Walk from one point in the present to another? It’s very useful.”
The whole damn emotional spectrum slammed into Elaya, and she couldn’t determine which feeling ought to really, truly capture her. The growing smile on her face told her it was probably happiness.
“Where’s Paya and Kaun?” Lavery asked.
So much for happiness, Elaya thought. “They’re dead, Lavery.”
His twitching, furrowing brows made for a host of expressions on his face. “I’m very sorry. Was… did—I mean, I don’t know how to say it.” He looked at his feet, biting his lip. “Uncle Haren said you were at Coraen. Did the woman—”
“Yes,” Elaya said. “She killed them, and she almost killed us.”
Haren put a hand on Lavery’s shoulder, urging him onward toward the fire. “What happened to the woman?”
“We ran away,” Adom said.
“Hauled it the fook out of there,” Tig added.
“We were traveling with a Child,” Elaya said, “if that means anything to you.”
Haren lifted his chin sagely. “It does. I assume he’s the reason you’re still here today?”
Adom nodded. “Sounds about right.”
“Sadly, I imagine he expired,” Haren said. “That woman is… quite powerful. Well, I too am sorry for the death of your friends, but we cannot linger here. Lavery, say what you intended, and then we must leave.”
Lavery lumbered through the snow, climbing the smooth hump Elaya and Tig and Adom had made camp on. Standing before them, he brushed himself off and took a deep breath. “I want you to come with me.”
“Unless yer goin’ to the burnin’ pits o’ hell,” Tig said, “I’m comin’.”
Lavery smiled. “I’m going to Valios. My mom left me a gift there. It can change”—he paused, glanced at Haren behind him—“well, I think it can change the world. Save it, I mean.”
“Is this about those giants and demons?”
Lavery’s eyes widened. “You know about them, then?”
“Valterik—”
“The Child,” Elaya interrupted, “told us about them.”
Tig spat a ball of phlegm into the fire. “He says those big trembles we were feelin’, they came from the feet of giants. But funny enough, we ain’t feelin’ ’em anymore. Not since this mornin’. There was a huge tremor, nearly knocked us three off our feet, then a whole bunch of nothin’.”
“Interesting,” Haren said.
Lavery chewed his lip. “Will you come, Elaya?”
Elaya side-eyed Adom. “Better than staying here?”
“I’d say,” Adom remarked.
Elaya smiled weakly at Lavery. “There’s your answer, Lavery Opsillian.”
THE WALK to Valios brought about lots of questions from Tig and Adom. Lavery smiled as he followed Haren through the city. Their amazement and wonder of manipulating time was a welcome distraction to the death that surrounded Lavery.
“Imagine this, Tig,” Adom said, sidestepping a rat picking at the remains of a skull, “we could Walk from one brothel to another and not even leave our beds! That’s efficiency.”
“That’s why you two would make for terrible Wraith Walkers,” Elaya said.
“Bah, you’ve got to have yer fun,” Tig said. “Otherwise, what’s livin’?”
Lavery cringed as bones crunched beneath his feet. How disrespectful of me, he thought. He needed to watch where he stepped.
While Tig and Adom prattled and Elaya silently took in the sights of a burning, smoldering Valios, Lavery tried to envision what his mother could have left him that was so important.
Saving the world would be a big undertaking. How could a single gift possibly achieve that? He didn’t doubt Haren, exactly, but it seemed very far-fetched. I wonder if my mother exaggerated. He didn’t know her, after all. She could have been a woman who often embellished.
Lavery soon reached the keep. The twin doors to the throne room had been obliterated, leaving behind only splinters that edged the doorway. Inside, pillars were scored and carpets stained with old, blackened blood. Tables were shattered. The throne stood as the lone survivor, unmarked and unscathed.
“Only you know where your quarters are,” Haren said, stepping aside. “Lead the way.”
Lavery walked through a few doorways and hallways, eventually coming to a grand staircase, its banister busted and balusters fractured. As he climbed each step, he wondered who had eventually become king of Valios. Was it Maren O’Keefe? He shuddered to think that.
He glanced at a corpse hanging over the banister, then shook his head and continued on.
At the topmost floor of the keep, where the king and his immediate family quartered themselves, Lavery stopped beneath an arched doorway. He touched the stone molding fondly. Hundreds of memories poured in, making him long for the days that likely weren’t as good as he recalled, but probably—well, certainly—weren’t as terrible as the present times were.
He looked over his shoulder, at Haren and Elaya and Tig and Adom. “This is it. These are—were—my quarters. There used to be a door here.”
“That seems to be a theme in this place,” Adom said.
Lavery frowned. “It was a lot nicer before.” He faced his room once more, took a step forward and paused there, taking in the disrepair. His coffers were overturned, bedposts broken in half and scattered about. His sheets were strewn across the floors, and windows were shattered.
“How will I ever find anything in here? I’m not sure where to even start looking.”
Haren kicked aside debris. Quills from torn pillows fluttered as he went past. “I’d reckon we should start by counting stone.”
“What?” Lavery said.
“The,” Adom added. He gestured for Tig to hurry up. The big man threw his hands up, confused. With exaggerated movements of his lips, Adom spelled H-E-L.
“Hells!” Tig shouted.
Adom grinned and looked to Elaya, who rolled her eyes.
“The boys want to know what the hells that means,” Elaya said.
Adom shook his head in disappointment. “You’re no fun. You’re a funless woman. Devoid of excitement. You’re like a… like a—”
“A rock!” Tig spat.
“Sure, like a rock. Good job, Tig.”
Haren ignored them. He walked to the back corner of the room, putting a finger against a wall made of equally spaced stones the shape of fat rectangles. Smooth mortar joints held them in place.
Haren moved his finger down the wall, counting under his breath. He came to the seventh stone and stopped. The mortar there had been sloppily applied. It was thick and looked to be weeping from inside the wall.
He took the chisel and hammer from his belt, placing the chisel against the mortar. He struck a blow with the hammer, and another, continuing as bits of mortar spat into his face and clinked off the wooden floorboards.
He got half a finger’s length through the hardened paste and paused. He pocketed the hammer and chisel, exchanging them for a pair of nippers. He fit the nippers inside the small hole he’d chiseled, made a few faces and swore.
“I see you, and I feel you. Come to Papa Haren. Come on, easy does it, you son of a—ah, there we are.” He carefully extracted his nippers from the wall and turned to face Lavery. “Hold out your hand.”
A silver chain dropped into Lavery’s palm. Attached to the chain like a charm was a clear vial the size of his thumb, its opening corked, keeping the contents secure. “What’s in here?” Lavery asked, rolling the vial in his fingers.
“A letter,” Haren said. “Go ahead, open it.”
Lavery hesitated, looking to Haren for reassurance. His uncle nodded. He uncorked the vial with his thumbnail.
“Here,” Haren said, “use these.” He gave the nippers to Lavery, who used them to remove the letter. It was folded over many times, in the shape of a compacted square.
Lavery unfolded it, flattening it with a fist against the wall. “To my,” he began, then stopped. He read the rest silently.
To my dear son,
Lavery, if you are reading this letter, know that I love you. You may despise me, and I will not blame you for feeling that way. I wish I was there to have reared you. I wish I was there to have seen your first smile, to be the hand you’d hold at night.
I cannot bear to tell you of the wickedness I have wrought, but I dare ask you to renew this world that has been plagued by my misdeeds. Only you, my son, can do so.
I leave this world with many things still to say, but I will utter the greatest of them all as you will read the words.
You are my only child, Lavery. And I love you.
Lavery read over the letter again, chewing his nail. His eyes welled and, with a gaped mouth, he looked at his uncle. “I… don’t understand. Why me?”
Haren pulled his belt up. “You’re the only one who can, Lavery.”
Lavery let the letter fall from his grasp. It dipped and it dove, sliding beneath a splintered bedpost. “How is that possible? I’m not special.”
“You’re the only one she trusted.”
“But you, you’re—”
Haren stepped close to his nephew, cupping his shoulders. “Listen, Lavery. Listen very closely. Your mother discovered a mutation very late into her studies, when the Children had already plotted against her, against each other. The mutation allowed access to the realm of death.”
“Necromancy,” Lavery blurted.
“Necromancy,” Haren parroted. “She had to study it on the run; Lusilia had gathered a dozen Children to hunt her. Your mother found that a soul is not the remnant of an individual, but rather the very foundation for life itself.”
Lavery rubbed his forehead. He silently repeated what his uncle had said, attempting to follow along. “What happens when we die, then?”
“Your mother theorized we are simply a part of this world, and when we die… that’s it. Time runs out. There is no great beyond. The soul that formed us is free to forge life once more.”
Elaya lifted a finger and said, “How does it forge life if it’s floating around in the realm of death?”
“That realm,” Haren said, “is a hatchery of sorts. Lavery’s mother found that if you let loose a soul on this world, it creates. It renews. It will help form mountains and rivers, trees and flowers. There are, however, souls that create plagues. Disease. I believe they are necessary; you cannot have life without death.”
“I wish you could,” Lavery said. “If souls create all those things, then how does a necromancer… I mean, I saw one before. A necromancer. Dead things followed him.”
“I know only that a soul can be dominated,” Haren said. “I assume through this that a necromancer can will the soul to enliven whatever he pleases.”
Lavery sighed, frustrated. “How is all of this supposed to help me save the world?”
Haren took his nephew by his hands. “Lavery, your mother never expected you to save this world from the Children. From colossi. From demons.”
“Then wh—”
Haren shushed him. “She wanted you to renew it after the battles were waged. After the lands were pitted and fractured and broken, and the sky was filled with ash and the sun forever black.”
“I’m not a necromancer,” Lavery said. “Am I? Do I just… do I not know it?”
“Your mother administered the mutation to only a handful of people—her closest friends. It—” Haren pursed his lips, shook his head. “It changed them. They became heartless. Callous. Cold and uncaring. She didn’t want that for you.”
Lavery ground his teeth, annoyed. Was he not being clear enough? He’d have to be blunt. “Then how am I supposed to do anything?”
Haren held his nephew’s eyes for a long while. “You’ll have to find a necromancer to help you. He must bring the souls from their realm to this world, setting them free rather than binding and lording over them as necromancers are wont to do.”
Lavery threw up his arms. “Where am I going to find a necromancer?”
“Only one remains in this world, I’m afraid.”
Lavery’s eyes got big and wet. He backed up. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No… I can’t—he would never help me, anyway.”
“You’ll find,” Haren said, “that anyone will help you. We all have wants and needs, and for the deepest and most desirous of them, we’re willing to trade most anything. Do you understand?”
Lavery’s tired, heavy head slumped. Chin against his chest, he closed his eyes. He understood. He simply wished there was another way.
Maybe there was.
“You can do it, can’t y
ou?” he asked of his uncle. “You can go and find the necromancer and—”
Haren shook his head. “I cannot stay here with you,” he said with a sorrowful smile. “Lusilia knows I remain in this world. She has hunted me for as long as she has hunted your mother. She’s come close to capturing me on several occasions. She has eyes out there, everywhere.”
“Surely she’ll hunt me too,” Lavery said.
“No. She thinks you’re in an Obviator. No one will be looking for you, Lavery. For all intents and purposes, you do not exist in the minds of the Children.”
Lavery felt untrimmed nails raking gently down his arm. He turned to look at Elaya, who smiled at him warmly.
“I will help you, Lavery Opsillian. It seems my calling is to tempt Death, not wander adventurously as a mercenary. I might as well accept it.”
“And you know I’ll tag along,” Adom said.
“If those fookers are goin’,” said Tig, “then I am too.”
“You have good friends,” Haren said. “I hope you’ll also have good luck.”
Lavery nodded. “What if I don’t find the necromancer? What if he doesn’t help me?”
“Hope, Lavery, is the greatest of all things. Don’t ever let it abandon you.”
Hope, he thought. He could do that. He could have hope.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Gynoth awoke in blackness. The back of his head ached, and his flesh burned. He sat there for a long time, staring hopelessly into the void. When he wished to stand, he could not. Wrought iron clasped his ankles, and a heavy chain was looped around his waist, leashed to an immovable object behind him.
He attempted to retreat into the realm of death, but could not. He now understood what purpose these caves and caverns that imprisoned the gods had served. They crippled sorcery in some way. Gynoth was no necromancer here, nor could he call himself a man.
He was a slave, bound and shackled. Would he remain here for eternity? That prospect, dreadful as it was, brought him more joy than recounting the battle against the colossi.
Reign of Gods (Sorcery and Sin Book 2) Page 37