Song of the Dead

by Sarah Glenn Marsh

  XV

  There are so many reasons why this is a bad idea. For starters, I don’t have the usual necromancer’s tools with me. My blade is back on the training grounds, and the small knives hidden in sheaths on my ankles won’t do much against Shades. My vials of milk, blood, and honey, if someone hasn’t thrown them out by now, are rotting in a closet somewhere within the palace, probably in my old room.

  We won’t need the milk or blood on this trip—it’s the honey I’m worried about. I trust myself and my connection to this world to always guide me back, but Karston might be more easily led astray, tempted to remain in the Deadlands forever. I don’t feel good about taking someone so inexperienced there while we’re defenseless, but time isn’t on our side.

  At least we’ve got Nipper. The dragon eagerly claws the damp, fragrant earth of the tunnel after our precarious climb up the balcony and our huge leap through the gate, nearly pulling me off my feet in her apparent haste to get to the Deadlands. Not that she needs to. For me, the Deadlands have a pull all their own, calling to my blood and moving my feet forward even when my mind is reluctant.

  I didn’t think I’d be back here this soon, if ever. Especially not with a fledgling necromancer beside me, goggling at everything. And especially not when I don’t feel ready to face Hadrien’s spirit yet.

  Who knows what trouble he’s causing in the spirit world?

  “Remember, stay close,” I whisper to Karston for at least the tenth time since we jumped through the gate. It’s a testament to our newly flourishing friendship that he hasn’t started rolling his eyes at me yet. “Don’t touch anything. For that matter, don’t even look at any one thing for too long. Don’t try to talk to the spirits, either.”

  Instead of frowning, Karston nods like he’s committing my words to memory.

  My shoulders relax a little as the tunnel slopes downward and the twilit glow at the end grows brighter. We’re nearly there. The tunnel’s dirt floor gives way to springy grass underfoot, and above, a rich lavender sky flecked with stars. Straight ahead, I spot a familiar garden, where elderflower wine pours from a grand marble fountain and huge flowers bloom, though they give off none of the sweet fragrance one would expect.

  “How does it feel, losing half your senses?” I joke, keeping my voice pitched low. It’s impossible to know who might be listening down here, though I don’t see any spirits flitting between the maze of hedgerows as I scan them for signs of Jax.

  “Cold,” Karston says, giving me a hesitant smile and rubbing his bare arms. His deerskin vest was fine for practice, as was the old, thin shirt I borrowed from Simeon, but we’d be much more comfortable here if we had cloaks. “And everything looks so . . . pale. Washed out,” he whispers. “I miss home already.”

  By the keen way he keeps turning his head to study everything from the distant mountains to the silver-white trees lining the path as we approach the garden, he’s not really serious about that last part.

  Still, it makes me wonder. “Where was home for you? Before the school, of course.”

  “My parents’ dairy farm in Ethria Province.” So that’s where his slight accent comes from. Not wanting to pry, I lapse into silence as we walk, until he breaks it by adding, “I mostly miss the cows. And my mom’s apricot-and-ginger custard. And our cat—she used to terrorize the barn. And this cute guy who helped with the milking sometimes. And all the cute girls who showed up when we hosted cheese tastings . . .”

  “Sounds like a life a lot of people would kill for,” I murmur, sneaking a glance at him as a muscle in his jaw tightens. “Myself included. Why leave it behind?”

  He pauses on the path, turning to me. “Because my parents made being different a terrible thing. Because losing one family was worth the chance to gain a new one where I actually belong.” Softer, he says, “I guess I’m still different—everyone at the school is. But we celebrate that, instead of trying to hide it.”

  I nod, satisfied with his answer, and we resume our hasty walk.

  “What was it like for you, growing up?” he asks me a short while later, sounding slightly out of breath. I guess it’s a fair question, seeing as I pried into his life. “You started your necromancer’s training when you were really young, right?”

  “Right. On my tenth birthday, to be exact. I’ll never forget the day my mentor, Master Cymbre, showed up at the convent with this scrawny boy in tow. He needed a haircut so badly, I couldn’t see his eyes, and he liked lizards, so I called him Evander Salamander for a whole year until he found a live one and put it on my head . . .”

  As we make haste toward the garden, I find myself telling Karston things I don’t often share, because I’m not often asked about them. It’s nice, talking to someone who seems genuinely interested in hearing it all, who can offer an outsider’s perspective.

  At last, we reach the garden’s edge, where I call softly, “Jax?” But my mind is elsewhere, turning over things I haven’t thought about in years, like whether my parents were forced to give me up or couldn’t wait to hand me off to the nuns at Death’s convent. Still, whatever their reason, I don’t think I much care. I’m happy with the family I was given: Master Cymbre, Evander, Simeon, and Jax.

  Nipper suddenly makes a sound not unlike Lysander’s battle roar—a deep, booming noise straight from her chest that rattles on its way up her throat. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her make a noise other than playful little growls and yips.

  She lunges forward, tugging the lead so hard it feels like she’s going to rip my shoulder out of its socket.

  I grab the lead with both hands, wrapping the leather cord around my forearms and digging my heels into the ground. “What’s gotten into you?” I gasp as she pulls me forward, off my feet and toward the garden’s central courtyard.

  She drags me over a bridge, past shiny fruit trees bearing apples and plums all year round, past a pale statue I’ve never seen before. The knees of my trousers are ripped, the skin undoubtedly scraped given how badly it’s stinging, and my elbows aren’t faring any better.

  At least I haven’t seen any sign of Hadrien yet.

  “Karston!” I hiss, not wanting to yell and potentially attract any Shades in the area. “Are you still with me?”

  Twisting as much as I can while being thrown around like a sack of flour, I search for Karston, hoping to find him running in our wake.

  I don’t see him anywhere. Shit.

  “Bad dragon!” I splutter as Nipper finally stops dragging me. “Very bad! I thought we were friends, Nip.”

  Apparently she’s reached the destination she was seeking with so much urgency: the big fountain. She slithers up the steep marble side and flicks her forked tongue into the bubbling stream of dark wine.

  If she were human, tasting anything down here would trap her in this world forever. But as she keeps lapping, seemingly unchanged, I suppose our rules don’t apply to her.

  “You’re the worst, you know that?” I groan as I push myself to my feet, wiping the biggest chunks of dirt and grass from my cuts. My heart thuds against my ribs with the speed of a jackrabbit as I call again, “Karston? Jax?” and get no answer.

  What if Karston is lost? Surely he already knows that the Deadlands are constantly shifting, moving mountains from here to there in the span of a heartbeat. I’ll just have to trust that he knows his best chances of being rescued are to stay put until I can find him—unless, of course, he spots a gate and rescues himself.

  Hoping Nipper isn’t about to go anywhere now that she has what she wants, I untangle her lead from my hands and take a few steps away from the fountain, peering through gaps in the trees and flowering bushes that surround this small courtyard area.

  A flash of something white near the fruit trees catches my eye. Hoping it’s a spirit who saw which way Karston went—any spirit other than Hadrien—I hurry over to investigate.

  My heart sinks.
It’s only the statue Nipper dragged me past earlier, the one I didn’t recognize despite having visited this garden hundreds of times before. It’s a stately rendering of a woman gathering fruit and flowers in a basket. The detailing around her face and gown is exquisitely real, like nothing I’ve seen before.

  The strangest part isn’t the fine craftsmanship, though—it’s how the entire statue is as transparent as an actual spirit. Usually sculptures around here are carved from solid marble, as spirits can touch and create things in their world.

  I reach out to poke the statue’s shoulder. It’s like touching the surface of an icy lake, though I’m met with no resistance. My finger goes right through the woman’s shoulder and comes out through her upper back.

  That’s when I realize what this is: not a statue at all, but a spirit that’s been rendered motionless somehow.

  I don’t know who did this. I’d love to blame Hadrien, but it has to be some sort of magic, and mages lose their powers when they die. Whatever awful thing he’s up to these days, it isn’t this.

  “Karston,” I call softly again, hurrying away from the frozen spirit. I want to find Jax and get out of here. We can come back and check on the spirit another time, when Jax actually has his wits about him and I’ve got my blade.

  My blade.

  Without it, Nipper is my only real protection here. But when I run back to the fountain, there’s no sign of her.

  “Great!” I yell, dashing a hand through the fountain and spraying elderflower wine everywhere. “This is just great! Can anything else possibly go wrong?” I splash my hands in the wine again. “Everything . . .” I splash more wine onto the pale cobblestones at my feet, staining them crimson. “Sucks . . .” Again. “So much right now.” And again.

  “Sparrow?”

  I draw a breath and turn toward the thin, distant sound. I think it came from the north end of the garden. Bounding past the fountain, I start down the narrow wooden path over another stream and call out, “Jax? Is that you?”

  “Over here!” he answers, though it sounds like he’s shouting to me from across a wide lake. I’ve got a ways to go.

  As I run, I search both sides of the path for Karston with no luck. At least the cold air soothes the scrapes on my knees. They’re numb by the time I spot Jax sitting in a floating gazebo in the middle of a small pond.

  “What are you doing here?” Jax frowns, sitting up straighter. Nipper, that traitorous little beast, is curled innocently around his ankles.

  Fish dart away from my feet as I leap across large, flat stones to the gazebo’s entrance, cursing Jax and the dragon all the while.

  Finally inside the gazebo, I grab Nipper’s lead and wrap it around my wrist. “No more running off,” I say sharply, dropping onto the bench beside a still-hungover-looking Jax. “But . . .” Something inside me softens as the dragon stares up at me with big eyes more luminous than the starry sky, and I pat her head. “Thanks for finding Jax for me.”

  I glare at the stubborn necromancer in question. “Well? Let’s go.”

  There’s no time to waste. We still have to find Karston, and the longer he’s out there, the more he’s at risk of touching something, tasting something, or becoming Shade bait. And now that I’ve heard his whole life story, some ridiculous part of my brain has decided that whether he’s my partner or not, whatever happens to him is my responsibility.

  Jax pushes his unruly hair off his forehead, and his frown deepens. He makes no move to leave the gazebo. “I figured you were here when I saw your weird new pet, but—” He leans closer, gazing into my face with eyes like oceans, like whole unknowable worlds that still take my breath away. “Why? Were you looking for me?”

  It takes me a moment to find my voice. “Of course, you idiot.”

  Shaking his head, Jax growls, “I’m not an idiot. I’m honestly amazed you’d bother. Since when do you care where I go or what I do?”

  Anger flares in the pit of my stomach, spreading through me like wildfire. “Since the day I met you, Jax of Lorness!”

  His eyes narrow, though they don’t leave mine. “You mean, since you got back from Death only knows where and decided it was convenient for you to care again? Like it was convenient for you to be in my bed one day and gone the next?”

  “I needed to go away for a while. That doesn’t mean I ever stopped caring about you. I’m pretty sure I could vanish from the world completely and my caring for you would still be here. That’s how strong it is.” I grip his wrists, my nails digging in perhaps a bit too hard, as he winces. “This isn’t like you. You know I’d die for you. If that isn’t caring . . . You’ve never questioned . . .” My voice trails away as I stop myself from bringing up the night we almost became more than friends.

  Jax tilts his head at that. My racing heart fills the silence for several long moments, until he breaks it.

  “Someone left me without a goodbye a long time ago, and they never came back,” he says. It costs him something to hold my gaze, lines of pain cutting across his face as he continues, “My dad walked out on me when I was two. He was all I had, and he just left me on my own. I guess he thought I could fend for myself, even though I could barely say my name.” He laughs, bitter as the favorite tea of the nuns who raised us. “I nearly starved to death before someone found me. A trapper, who kept me for a year before giving me to the Convent of Death.” He rubs a hand over his left shoulder, where a tattoo of a wolf is currently hidden by his dark shirt. “He’s the one who taught me to appreciate wolves. Only thing I remember about him. That, and he didn’t hit me.”

  I wrap my arms around him and say nothing, stunned. I don’t think there’s anything I can say. There aren’t words to shield him from the world, and the damage my friends and I had long suspected—but never knew about for sure—has already been done. I’ve always wondered about his past, but he never offered any details even when I gently prodded. Even when his best friend, Evander, asked him about his family over a stolen bottle of the king’s prized whiskey, he said nothing. I hold Jax as close as I can, honored that he trusts me with this now and trying to form a barrier between him and his troubles, if only for a little while.

  After a moment, his breathing slows.

  “I’m sorry I repeated your father’s mistake,” I murmur. “I had no way of knowing.”

  “I understand.” He kisses the top of my head. “I’ve never told anyone that stuff before, but I’m glad I shared it with you.” He swallows. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, too.” Gesturing to the pond around us, he says, “My coming here isn’t what you think. I’ve been looking for Hadrien. I haven’t seen any sign of that bastard since you left, and I don’t trust his absence. He’s got to be up to something. The drinking is for strength,” he adds sheepishly. “It makes coming down here after—after Evander—less painful.”

  “Jax, there are too many other, real threats to face right now. Look at what happened to Valoria’s leg! We need you focused on those, not chasing phantoms.” I take a deep breath, bracing for the protest that’s sure to follow what I’m about to say. “Whatever this thing is—this vendetta against Hadrien—you’ve got to let it go.”

  “Do I?” Jax snarls. “You haven’t been here. But I have. I’ve seen how much Hadrien hurt Valoria, and the pain goes so much deeper than her scars.”

  I wince, once again reminded that I was away when Valoria needed me most. “Even so, after what happened to Evander and Master Nicanor, don’t you think you could have asked someone to come here with you?” I press, still worried about him. “Maybe, you know, Simeon? Your partner? Or Karston? Or me?”

  Jax shakes his head, dismissing the idea. “Si’s busy with his students. He actually likes teaching. You saw how I get along with Karston. And now that you’re back, you’ve got Meredy. I don’t want you risking your happiness just to come here with me.”

  “And what about your happiness?”
I demand. “Enough with the hero act, Jax! You’re suddenly the only one who should be sacrificing himself so that Hadrien doesn’t put us all in danger again?”

  He doesn’t seem to have an answer for that. “I’ve been careful, sober or not,” he insists. “I’m always watching for Shades when I come here.” He smiles grimly. “I haven’t seen any, but I’ve got Valoria with me just in case.”

  I stare at him, utterly bewildered, as our friend is nowhere in sight. “You—what?”

  Jax shakes his head, grinning slightly, and motions to the sword at his feet.

  “Ohhh,” I murmur as comprehension dawns. “You named your sword after a girl?”

  “A really brave, really confusing girl.”

  Unable to fight my rising curiosity, I ask, “Does she know?” If so, I’ll be hurt. I assume Valoria would tell me right away if she knew Jax’s feelings toward her had changed.

  “No. Didn’t think it was important. It’s just a name.” Jax shrugs, completely missing the point, then touches the two smaller blades strapped to his forearms. “But since you’re so interested in my blades, you might like to know I named all my knives Sparrow One, Two, Three, and Four. I wish Karston hadn’t used my favorite one to—”

  “We have to find him!” I gasp, a thrill of panic racing up my spine, spreading gooseflesh across all my limbs. I can’t believe I got distracted. I meant what I said when I told Karston that hanging around me could get him killed, but I don’t know how I’d live with myself if it happens this soon. He was just starting to grow on me.

  Jax swears as he jumps to his feet and grabs his sword. “You brought him with you? What were you thinking?”

  “I was following the ancient rules of necromancy,” I snap as we leave the gazebo. Not giving Jax time to form a retort, I start describing everything from where I saw Karston last to the spirit frozen in place.

  We rush across the pond and fly down the path that brought me here, Jax in the lead, both calling Karston’s name all the while. Just as we reach a narrow part of the trail where rosebushes taller than Jax press in close on both sides, a crouching figure bursts through the thorny shrubs hardly more than a stone’s throw ahead.