Authors: Kate Sparkes
I searched the room for weapons, and found nothing save for the wine bottle. I’d keep that in reserve. Other than that I had pillows at my disposal, and books.
Even the small toilet room was useless, save for the clean well water from the pump that I would use to clean my wounds.
I flipped my fingers over the edges of the loose pages of Severn’s notes, then carried them to the desk to look over as I waited for my enemy’s return. Physical weapons weren’t the only way to harm a person. Information could be deadly, if only one knew how to use it.
I fingered the potion bottle in my pocket and practiced flipping the lid open and closed. I would not hesitate again.
45
AREN
R
owan cleared her throat, tearing my attention from the corpses. “Are you going to tell the others what you’re doing here?”
“They’ll know soon enough. It won’t change our plans, other than possibly keeping the living safer.” I’d left Griselda, Qurwin, and Albion to finalize their portion of attack plans. After our previous discussion we were close, but there were still so many details to work out. So many lives at risk, but so little time to put every piece in place.
At least these might help with that,
I thought.
I turned away from the ten corpses standing among the trees, each of them swaying as though moved by a non-existent breeze. A night in the open hadn’t damaged them too badly. They were stronger than the first bodies I’d tried raising, fresher and more willing to respond to me.
Rowan scuffed her boot in the dirt. She’d avoided looking at the bodies since she’d arrived just a few minutes earlier. We’d had our helpers drag them this far, to the woods at the edge of the Despair, where they wouldn’t be disturbed by animals or curious humans. I’d started raising bodies at dawn, and would need to increase my pace if we wanted more by the afternoon.
“When does this all begin?” she asked. “The battle. These bodies moving.”
“As soon as we have everything else organized. The living troops can be mobilized quickly, and Ruby can do her part at a moment’s notice. We’ll send her in first to divert as many troops as we can from the gates.”
“Should she choose to,” Rowan added. She squeezed her eyes closed. “Why do I feel like this is all doomed? Ruby will change her mind, decide that she doesn’t want to help humans. The bodies won’t make it that far, or you won’t get into the palace. Severn will be—” She clamped her lips shut. “Sorry. I don’t usually get like this.”
“I know. I’ve had the same thoughts. It’s as though Kel was our lucky charm. Everything went wrong until we met him, and since he’s been back in my life I’ve gained so much. I think my luck has run out, and...” I ended with a shrug, not wanting to say more.
“Maybe not.” Rowan gestured toward the bodies that still lay on the ground. “I mean, their luck has run out. But not yours.”
I wanted to believe that, but the idea of the gods turning on me had crossed my mind more than once.
Silly superstition.
“Did you ask Morea to wake Ulric?”
“I did.”
“Good. I’m sure he’d hate to think we planned his return without him.”
She frowned. “How will that work? If you finish the challenge and defeat Severn…”
“Then the crown is mine. Nox will fix Ulric, and he’ll take it back from me. We’ll figure out the details when he can consult with the proper authorities.”
If Nox lives,
I added, and closed my mind to thoughts of the alternative.
Rowan sighed. “I always thought kings could make whatever laws they wanted, or change them. I understand why there are limits to power, but it seems like it would be easier sometimes.”
She didn’t sound like she was only talking about Ulric’s situation. I nodded my agreement, having nothing more to add.
I channeled my magic toward the body. Every one of my own muscles clenched painfully as the power flowed through me, and that horrible feeling returned. A taste of decay entered my mouth, seeming to rise from within me, and I spat on the ground to rid myself of it.
I’d asked Morea to work something up that could protect someone from such a thing, should the need arise, and to tell no one I’d asked. She’d given me a horrified look, but said she’d work on it.
She hadn’t delivered anything yet.
The body nearest Rowan’s feet twitched and sat up so quickly that its upper body pitched forward and its head bounced off its knees. Rowan gasped and jumped back. “Sorry! I think it’ll be a while before this seems normal. Or remotely not terrifying.”
I focused on getting the corpse to its feet. The fat man’s intestines spilled out onto the mossy ground and tangled around his legs as he shuffled forward.
“Gods.” Rowan winced, and turned away.
“He can’t feel anything.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to be here if it bothers you,” I said, barely holding back the frustration that threatened to make me lash out at her. She wasn’t the cause of it, but the irrational temptation was terrible. “I don’t like it either, but at least you can leave. I don’t have much of a choice. We need more troops, and more fearsome ones. And if these can save lives by taking the brunt of the attack…” I sent the body to stand with the others, and made them all turn away. I couldn’t bear to have their blank, unseeing eyes on me. The nausea became almost unbearable, and I turned away to take a few deep breaths. The illness passed, but I still felt heavy and weak. Worse, I felt hopeless. “This can’t work.”
Rowan didn’t answer.
I crouched on the forest floor among bodies laid out like a child’s broken dolls. “It’s too late. Has been since the beginning. If I had gone to find my father sooner, we might have got him back before time ran out.” A dull ache filled my chest as I watched the animated corpses. “No good can come of this. Phelun was right, and the mer elders, and father. What I’m doing here, it’s wrong. It’s killing me. It’s...”
“It’s brilliant.” Rowan walked to the edge of the woods, just a few paces away. Beyond that, the trees became stunted, then infrequent, and then quickly disappeared. A barren wasteland spread out from there, and beyond it lay the city. When she returned to me, tears streamed down her cheeks, but she forced a smile. “This feeling isn’t you. It’s not me, either. It’s the Despair, isn’t it? I don’t think I understood it when you explained it before, but I feel it. It would be so easy to lie down and slip away, to let the world fade. Become lost in a fog of dreams, or whatever comes after. To not care anymore. Because none of it matters. There’s no hope.”
“You do understand.”
She looked at the bodies then back toward the Despair. “I feel what you’re feeling, yes. But the situation’s no more hopeless than it was when you came up with this idea, and what we’re feeling is no more real than a nightmare. We’re going to wake up from this.”
I tried to feel some difference between my true thoughts and what the Despair might be making me feel, but the connection was seamless. “It seems real, doesn’t it?”
She nodded. “There’s no hope here. Maybe none in your heart right now. But it exists, even if you don’t feel it. I remember it. Do you?”
“I suppose.” I remembered that I had felt hope before, that I’d believed things worth fighting for. I just couldn’t summon it now.
“You have to keep going.” She crouched next to me and took my hand. “We have to. Then we’ll get away from this horrible place.”
“What if I can’t? I feel death entering my body with each one I raise. That’s not the Despair talking. It’s an objective fact, and the same problem as we had when there weren’t enough bodies at all. If I can’t raise them, they’re useless.”
“We’ll figure it out.” She glared at the Despair and raised her voice as though it could hear her. “We’ll see this through, whatever it takes.”
The feeling of hopelessness retreated slightly. “Good enough,” I said quietly, and got to my feet. “Let’s say this is possible, then. We should go see whether it’s necessary.”
I commanded the bodies to remain standing, and hoped they’d obey even after I left them. I took Rowan by the hand and pulled her up, and we walked uphill toward camp. Not hand-in-hand, but still together.
The woman who stood guarding the camp nodded as we passed by, and asked no questions. No one else stopped us as we made our way toward my tent, though Griselda gave us a questioning glance and ducked into Albion’s. Behind that, next to Ulric’s lodgings, Ruby raised her head to watch us pass.
My mind cleared as we put time and distance between us and the Despair, though its essence clung to my skin like sweat after a bad dream. By the time we reached camp, I felt able to sort things out. Still, the situation looked dire. I turned toward Morea’s tent and knocked at the wooden pole.
She answered, and a look of concerned caution came over her. “I have something for you,” she said.
“Thank all of the gods and the Goddess herself,” I said.
Morea narrowed her eyes. “I can’t guarantee this will help that problem of yours that you didn’t seem to want to talk about. I’ve had no time to test it.” She rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead and gave me a pained look. “I’m not a healer like your sister is. I mean, I can do it when the need arises, and competently enough. But my strength lies elsewhere, in darker things. Still, I think I’ve made this work. I’m good with poisons, and I’m good with shielding from them. So here.” She handed me a glass bottle filled with a dark green liquid. “It should lessen the effects, if magic were somehow poisoning you. I mixed the potion in a dragon scale for added potency, but that will only matter if it’s the right solution.” Her lips disappeared in a tight line. “I don’t know what’s happening to you, exactly, which makes it hard to know how to help.”
“I appreciate the effort,” I said. “Thank you.”
Rowan watched the exchange, and looked more hopeful than I felt.
We entered my tent. I longed to collapse into my bed. Never before had I felt so drained, so ill and horrid, after using magic. But I couldn’t rest. Not yet. I sampled Morea’s potion. It certainly tasted like it came from a poisoner.
Griselda and Albion arrived a moment later, followed by Ulric. My father shuffled slowly, but appeared to have recovered some of his strength. His magic was rebuilding him, now that he was resting and not trying to direct it. Perhaps my request to have him kept asleep had done more good than I’d anticipated. He gave me a sharp look.
“I’m back,” he said. “Albion will tell you.”
My grandfather nodded. “He’s as unpleasant as I’ve ever found him to be, but competent.” There was no hostility in his voice, and the glare that Ulric shot him in response was not entirely unfriendly. It seemed that Albion had been choosing his words and his moves carefully enough to not make the old king feel threatened, or Ulric’s mind had cleared enough that he now recognized an ally when he saw one.
“You’re asking me to step aside?” I asked. “Relinquish command to you?”
Ulric looked at me, his gaze clear and steady. “For now,” he said, low and quiet. “Once we get to the palace, Severn will be your business.” The lines on his forehead deepened. “It’s business I should have taken care of long ago, but I’m not capable now. Are you ready?”
I didn’t look at Rowan. I didn’t want to see what she might think of all of this. “Ready enough. We can’t wait any longer. Not if Severn has troops returning. But command of this group is yours, if you’re willing to move forward.” I thought of all of the people in camp, of the bodies in the forest whose deaths I was at least partially responsible for. This was why I had never wanted the throne. Too many hard choices, too many scenarios where no one could truly win.
Griselda stepped forward and pulled a rolled-up sheet of parchment from the bag she carried. “Ulric has helped finalize our plan. It will cost us, but we’re looking at ways to minimize losses.” She unrolled a map of the city, marked in a combination of her handwriting and Ulric’s. “The goal is distraction, not destruction. Your father doesn’t want to see more of his people killed than necessary, formerly loyal soldiers included, but we’ll do what we must.”
Ulric grunted.
Griselda smiled faintly. “We agree with you that diverting troops from the palace is your best bet for getting to Severn. The dragon has agreed to help, and seems quite enthusiastic. She’ll attack the homes of the wealthy and the nobility in the east end of the city, here.” She tapped the map.
Ulric smiled. “I suspect Severn has been working hard to earn their favor, and they’ll demand no less than his finest soldiers and Sorcerers to contain the problem. As long as she’s in first, he’ll have no excuse for denying them.”
“That’s not great news for Ruby,” Rowan said softly.
A snort rang through the tent from outside, and a claw dented the canvas beside Rowan, gently dragging downward. “It’s what I want, human girl. A glorious end, remember?”
Rowan sighed.
“Once they’re diverted,” Griselda continued, “we’ll make our move on the front gate. We don’t have nearly enough troops to take the city, but it might be enough to draw their attention and leave Severn exposed, or as close to it as he’ll ever come.”
“Could you add more?” Rowan asked. “At least, the appearance of them?”
“No,” Griselda said. “That’s the next part of this plan. I won’t be with you. I’ll have gone into the city, carried by Ruby. Hopefully no one will take too much notice of me in the commotion she’ll cause, and I’ll open the main gates to let everyone in.”
“You know how difficult that will be?” I asked. Opening the gates was no simple operation. It involved a series of levers and complex mechanical operations only performed by those trained to do it.
Griselda nodded. “I had an acquaintance when I was living in Luid. A soldier who frequently manned the front gate overnight.”
Rowan bit back a smile.
Griselda caught it, and returned it. “I spent many an evening in the little gate-house inside the wall. I can get the main gates open for you. I’ve seen it done enough times. Once our people get into the city, they can begin the work of announcing Ulric’s return, and hopefully subduing the soldiers. The hope is that most of the rest of the city’s residents will stay safely indoors.”