The Chasing Graves Trilogy Box Set

by Ben Galley

  I held up a finger. ‘Erm. She’s not exactly… alive.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘After Hirana crashed into the Piercer, when they found nothing but a ghost in place of an emperor, she and Sisine fought. She managed to take my coin. In the commotion, I…’ I bit my lip, tasting mist. ‘I pushed her through a window. Hirana and I fell, and after… well.’

  Nilith had a strange glint in her eyes. ‘You killed my mother-in-law?’

  I was already looking for the nearest door. Knowing where the exits are is half the trick to surviving. ‘I… not intentionally…’

  ‘Well, thank fuck for that.’ Nilith blew a sigh of relief. ‘That woman is sheer evil. The very definition of a royal Arctian. And yet you ran. I’m sure my daughter and the Cult would have been thankful. Why not stay with them? With your coin? Why run and hide?’

  I had no better an answer for that now than I did standing over Hirana’s splattered corpse. It didn’t stop me from trying to make one. ‘It seems it’s what I do. I run. I’ve been running most of my life. I’ve run this far, and so far I haven’t vanished in a puff of air. I can only assume the Cult have my coin, and aren’t finished with me yet.’

  Nilith shook her head, as if she had already galloped ahead of my weak explanations. ‘They want your gift. It’s clear. Their kind always want something,’ she grumbled. ‘Ungh! Why did they have to complicate things?’

  Once more, I was ready to spill the story of the gods, but I held back as I watched Nilith start to pace. Curiosity hooked me. Had I fallen in with just another claimant to the throne? I wondered how far I’d have to run to be free of those.

  ‘What exactly are these ‘things’?’ I asked. ‘What do you plan to do with the emperor?’

  ‘Farazar will be put into the Grand Nyxwell according to the Code, and I will claim the throne.’

  I snorted. ‘And what’s your reason for killing your way to the crown, hmm? You all seem to have one. Spoiled birthright? Jealousy? Vengeance?’

  ‘Change, Mr Basalt. Your story is one of hundreds I’ve heard since living in this godsforsaken city. I seek to change those stories. To bring freedom to your kind. To…’ She bit her lip, and I swear I saw blood. ‘To my kind.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘I like to think I can recognise the difference between a cog in the machine and the hand that turns it, Mr Basalt. You seem to be the former.’

  I wondered if that was some sort of veiled insult.

  ‘I have trusted you this far. I don’t know why I feel I can trust you further, but I shall.’ With that, she began to pull aside the wrappings at her neck and reveal a sight I had never beheld.

  A black and ragged tear in her skin separated bone and flesh from dark, angry vapour. Her faint blue glow joined mine as she tore the rags from her arms. I saw the punctures at her wrist, glowing white like my own stab-wounds. She showed me the edges of where ghost met living, reaching across her bosom and down to her hip.

  ‘You asked what that monster was? The slatherghast did this to me. I was told its poison slowly kills a person by turning them into a ghost. It certainly seems to be true. This has only been a few days. All I feel is cold, and a hollowness spreading through me.’ She pointed to the bite marks in her wrist, her tone low and wistful. I knew that pain, although I envied the graduation of her transition to the grave. She hadn’t tumbled into it, as I had, but was slowly slipping. It was a poor comfort to her, I knew, but a richness I wished I had been gifted. I might have taken that over my haunting, just to spend my last days living in all the ways I would miss as a ghost. The first sips of beer. Grease rolling over fingers. A lucky bedding. Or a cheap one, in my case.

  I didn’t share the same worry she did, and so I scowled. ‘I’m sorry,’ I offered awkwardly. ‘A half-life isn’t so bad, all things considered. Better to have half the loot than none of it, my old master used to say.’ Those optimistic words tasted far too sweet in my pessimistic mouth.

  I got the sense I hadn’t provided the supportive words she might have been seeking. Nilith waved her hand dismissively and wrapped herself back up. ‘All I care about is time, and a clear path to the Grand Nyxwell.’

  ‘And freeing the ghosts,’ I reminded her.

  ‘Abolishing the Code, Mr Basalt. To be exact,’ she corrected me.

  ‘Lofty aspirations, Empress.’

  ‘They are the only aspirations that matter. And now, perhaps they matter even more.’ A glazed look came over her eyes. They were glassy in the dim lantern-light. ‘I don’t trust the Cult any more than my husband, or no doubt his mother, did. I saw their manipulation of Emperor Milizan with my own eyes, before Farazar murdered him. They are a pox on what the dead gods stood for.’

  I cocked my head.

  Nilith went on, working herself up until she was hunched, a bow bending before pressure. ‘They worship a god of chaos, not the true concept of ma’at. Balance, Mr Basalt, in Arctian. Charity? Aid? I highly doubt it. If they’re involved, putting Sisine on the throne is most likely the next step on their ladder.’

  ‘A flood,’ I blurted, seeing whether the word sparked anything in her, testing the gods’ warnings.

  ‘A flood? What flood?’

  I tested her trust some more. ‘Since I came out of the Nyx, I have been… visited.’

  ‘Visited?’

  ‘Visited. By dead things, claiming to be dead gods. There was a dead man called Horush, then a cat called Basht. Then a cow. Haphor. And a shade all green. Oshirim himself.’

  Nilith was cocking her head at me now. I could hear the absurdity of it, and although it felt good to get it off my chest, I could see myself sliding into the same category as the supposedly mad sword.

  Pointy spoke up, deciding to break his silence. ‘He has, Empress. I saw Oshirim with my own eyes.’

  Nilith raised an eyebrow.

  ‘They have repeatedly warned me of the Cult. Say they want to flood Araxes. The Arc. Maybe the whole Reaches. Yet when I was with the Enlightened Sisters, I saw no sign of any such plans. They seemed genuine, devoted to this idea of a new Araxes. To your idea.’

  ‘You trust them?’ Nilith looked at me, shocked.

  ‘I…’ I stammered.

  ‘Caltro, surely not,’ Pointy admonished me.

  ‘It’s not that I trust them. Every opinion is against them, but they speak of freedom and justice just like you do, Nilith. They used me to open the Sanctuary, of that I’m sure, but they have my half-coin and haven’t killed me yet. The dead gods keep saying I need to use this gift to stop them. Begging me, even, and yet I see no malice in the Cult’s plans. Fuck. I thought after getting my freedom existence would be simpler, but I’m even more wrapped up in Araxes’ games than I was before,’ I sighed. ‘In truth, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do now.’

  Nilith reached out to put a hand on my shoulder. It was her left, the dead one, now wrapped in cloth. ‘Me neither. Not day to day, at least, and somehow I’ve scraped through. I just kept moving. I find if a person has enough will, enough determination, a path opens up for them. Who knows? Perhaps the dead gods wanted you to run into me. Do you believe in luck?’

  I shook my head. Luck is a scapegoat for the unfortunate and a trinket for the untalented and noble-born. ‘I make my own.’

  Even as I said it, my thoughts betrayed me. Yet again my half-coin was once again out of my hands. My fight for freedom was far from finished. Maybe the gods did have a path planned out for me, and I was following it unknowingly.

  ‘Luck has seen me through the desert, Caltro. Given me allies when I needed them most.’ Nilith mumbled, green eyes faraway and vacant. ‘I was with someone, a scrutiniser, but she was taken before you arrived. A bargeman. Nomads. A strangebound falcon, too, wherever he is now. And now you, turning up out of the shadows. I’ve learnt not to turn my nose up at company, but suit yourself if you wish to carry on running. Though, I could use the help…’ She took a moment to unclench her jaw.

  I studied her, every tw
itch of her eyes, every shift of her lips. ‘You’re really going to free all the ghosts in the Arc? You’d take that step? You, a royal with a dead emperor penned up and all the wealth of the Reaches in your grasp?’

  I felt the determination in Nilith’s eyes pressing into me as she stepped closer. ‘Every last one. You, the sword. All of you. The Code is a poison and a plague and I can stand no part of it in this city any more. Balance will reign again, Mr Basalt. Neither the Cult nor my daughter will get their hands on the throne. Then this flood of theirs – if such a thing exists – will be no more. You and the gods can rest easy.’

  Those might have been the truest words I had yet heard spoken in Araxes. I paused to think. There was no trace of duplicitousness in her. No squeeze in that hand on my shoulder. No subtle movements of the sword lest I refuse.

  She saw my hesitation. ‘Make your mind up, Caltro Basalt. Stay or go.’

  ‘Will it get me my coin back?’

  Nilith withdrew her hand, and led the way back to the pen. ‘If I pull this off, locksmith, you can forget about your half-coin.’

  I thumbed my chin. The decision seemed far too easy, almost as if it had already been made for me. Once again, I considered luck and fate, and the weaving of its complex threads.

  A person can live all their life seeing a tapestry woven behind them. See themselves as the product of chance meetings, steered by nothing but the frantic flutter of a butterfly’s wings. I had always refused the notion. Believing such things took the reins from my hands. It was like trusting bolting horses to lead your wagon in the right direction. No, I preferred to steer, and trust to my own choices, even if I chose the wrong direction. I’d had little choice of late, and so I made my decision right there and then, and steered.

  I followed Nilith, heading for the pen. Once again, my finger poked the air. ‘Don’t suppose this means I get my sword back, does it?’

  ‘No.’

  Bare and glowing feet whispered across the white, glasslike marble. Crimson cloth and shade-light stained it a deep purple. The chambers were so quiet that even their ghostly movements seemed loud.

  Creaking doors led to vacant chambers, all opulent and pointless. Studies with blank scrolls on their shelves. Bedrooms themed by colour; here a violently yellow room, there a blue room with fish painted around the walls. Dressing rooms that bore tables laden with jewellery. Lounges with furniture of oryx horn, ivory, and a plethora of silk cushions. And all of them empty.

  The Enlightened Sisters continued their search.

  Not a squeak had been heard from Sisine in hours. Not since she had stormed from the ruined Sanctuary in the aftermath of the battle. Her last words had been a challenge to the Church to find her mother. To prove their worth, as it were. It struck an uneasy truce between them and the Royal Guard. For the first time in two decades, brothers and sisters walked freely through the Cloudpiercer.

  ‘Majesty?’ called Liria, her voice echoing through the honeycomb chambers of marble.

  A wheeze.

  Both sisters heard it, surging towards another bedroom. Another door led on from that, hanging ever so slightly ajar. Liria placed her hand upon its edge and pushed.

  A bloody scene appeared before them. The bedroom was doused in it. Where it hadn’t been left to pool, it was drawn across the pristine floor in great arcs. Crimson hand prints showed here and there, like the grotesque painting of an infant. The sisters’ eyes followed them from the marble to the snowy linen sheets of a great bed. They had been dragged to the floor and were now a patchwork of dirty and clean. Chestnut feathers were strewn across that pile, and at the centre of their explosion lay two bodies. One was a falcon, blood-soaked and with its neck twisted at a horrific angle. The other was a princess.

  Sisine lay crooked, almost horizontal, with her head propped up by a bundle of cloth clamped to her bloody neck. It had been white once, Liria imagined, but now it was as red as her own robes. Stretching out from the cloth’s corners, raw, wet gashes stretched across Sisine’s throat. Her bottom lip had been torn in two, and her nose carved down the middle. One eye had been completely gouged out, and not cleanly. Rake-marks of talons crisscrossed her bloody socket like a scribe’s mistake. The skin that had gone untouched had a hint of grey in its Arctian tan.

  Sisine’s other eye glared at the sisters. She drew a breath, and it rasped through her throat. She tried to speak but some of her letters had been stolen from her. Blood sprang afresh from her split lip.

  ‘My mother,’ came the ragged hiss, barely audible.

  Liria knelt at the empress-in-waiting’s side. She did not touch her; she merely looked. ‘We have all available bodies and souls looking for her. If Empress Nilith has made it to the city, we will find her.’

  ‘I will be empress.’ Something caught in her windpipe, and she dribbled more blood. ‘I will be empress.’

  Liria looked to her sister, who wore a sorrowful face. ‘May I, Your Majesty?’ she asked, and after some more glaring, Sisine’s hand peeled away from the rags.

  ‘Fucking cursed bird.’ Sisine tried feebly to lash out at the falcon’s limp corpse, but instead her fingers flopped on the sheets, scoring three red marks.

  Liria peeled the rag away, making the princess hiss. Beneath it, she saw how much skin and flesh the talons had torn away. No wonder she lay in a pool of her own blood.

  ‘All this deception will be over shortly, Your Majesty,’ Liria whispered, leaning closer. ‘No more games.’

  Sisine closed her eye, gurgling something.

  Liria nodded, dabbing her neck and jaw where the blood still seeped. ‘Araxes will have its new empress, we promise you that.’ She tended her lip now, and as Sisine croaked in pain, Liria put a comforting hand behind her head.

  She whispered gently in her ear. ‘Though it will not be you.’

  The rag clamped over Sisine’s mouth. Feeble hands clawed at her, dragging back her hood. Liria pressed harder, pinching the nose. One eye fixed her with a fierce, wide stare throughout the struggle. At last, when that struggle finally waned, all the air had gone from her; the eye rolled up into her skull, and Liria let the body fall limp to the sheets.

  ‘How bold of you, Enlightened Sisters,’ croaked a voice, small and muffled. Liria and Yaridin stood tall, staring down at the falcon. With a series of cracking noises, his head turned back to its normal angle. ‘How bold indeed.’

  The Enlightened Sisters shared a look.

  Chapter 21

  The Grand Nyxwell

  What a sight the Grand Nyxwell is, Melia! Oh, how it gleams! Oh, how its river runs fast and strong, like no other fountain of Nyxwater in the Reaches. It bleeds magnificence, exudes power, and not to mention royalty! You can almost feel the souls of every emperor and empress that has passed through here. Oh, if only the queues weren’t so detestable.

  From a letter found on a dead tourist

  The bright day passed us by as though somebody had spun the sun’s wheel far too vigorously at dawn. Dare to yawn, or drift into a daydream, and an hour would shoot by. The streets had found their pace again, and it was a brisk one. Everybody hurried, keen to make up for lost days of cowering. Where uneasy silence had reigned for far too long, the citizens seemed to be making an effort to balance it out. My ears shook with the noise of heavy carriages, hooves, crowing merchants, and all sorts of curses and threats one used when negotiating the busiest of streets. Even parrots squawked raucously from the edges of awnings and pennant poles.

  The roiling crowds were a hiding place of sorts. Our rags blended effortlessly with the kaleidoscope of fabrics and colours that filled the thoroughfares. Having a horse gave us some right of way without drawing too much attention. Anoish was not alone in the press of bodies and ghosts. Carriage-teams rattled down the centre of the streets. Stick-legged insects tapped their way ponderously through the crowds.

  Before dawn had even risen, Araxes’ furnaces had flared like Scatter Isle volcanoes. Smoke belched into the sky from the High and Low Docks,
filling the air with a film of filth. I half-heartedly rubbed my thumb across the sky, like trying to smear soot from a window. Nothing changed.

  Armour and blades were everywhere we looked. Whether they were guards of rich folk, street-guards, or Cult and royal soldiers, we did our best to avoid them. Sticking to the thickest threads of crowd. Pulling rags over faces. Even haggling with a few merchants whenever gazers became too curious. These were our tactics.

  The hunt was clearly not over. I knew edginess when I saw it. In the guards I could practically feel it washing over my vapours. Their eyes moved too quickly. They spoke behind their hands. Every now and again a shriek would come as women or shades were plucked from the crowds and shaken down. We bowed our heads, and took different streets.

  The miles fell away beneath our feet agonisingly slowly. While the sun raced overhead, it took us half an afternoon to cross two districts. Here and there I saw places I had already run past in my spiralling, nonsensical fleeing from the Cloudpiercer. Re-treading old ground is not comforting. I find it’s usually because you’ve forgotten or regret something. Or previously failed. I didn’t bother to decide which I was.

  In our efforts to evade the hungry eyes, we found new places, too. Nilith was preoccupied with staying upright, but I spent the walk gazing up at the city. High-roads stretched between spires, sometimes at violent angles. Some were so old they were beginning to bow. I heard laughter, and on a corner saw two tiny ghosts frolicking behind a pen of dour-faced guards. I caught glimpses of them between spear-shafts and chainmail. They wore frocks of yellow, throwing about a beetle made of fur and stuffing. Older shades stood behind them, deep in conversation. Important and hushed conversation, that was for sure. What made me sick were the white lines in the ghost girls’ forearms, where they had been bled before they’d seen their tenth birthday. Nilith was right: the Code was a poison.

  I had to admire this determination of hers. The ghast’s bite was beginning to rob her sleep. A handful of hours, maybe more, she had tossed and turned on the cot while Pointy and I traded stories of what had happened since his impromptu exit from the Vengeance. He hadn’t shared in my elation at Hirana’s death, even calling it murder. He hadn’t judged, but he had grown silent since.