Song of the Dead

by Sarah Glenn Marsh

She blocks one of my blows with such strength that my arm protests. “Noranna. She’s really excited about what Karston can do with them,” she says between rapid breaths. “Of course, it’s no secret that he wishes she’d be excited about him for a different reason.”

  A shiver of amusement races through Sarika’s voice as she adds, “I don’t know why Noranna doesn’t go for him. He’s cute.”

  “He is,” Bryn agrees, breathing harder as I hit her with a flurry of quick attacks. “But it’s complicated.” To my surprise—and hers, judging by her blink—she blocks most of them. After that, she lowers her sword, signaling the need for a break. “They’ve known each other since they were little, apparently. They came here together from the countryside and everything.”

  “Noranna just likes him as a friend, though,” Sarika says, stepping up to take her turn with me. “But maybe her loss will be my gain.” Still giggling, she raises her sword, but her stance is all wrong.

  Motioning with my free hand to correct her, I keep lashing out with my blade, challenging her to block my blows. Talking to the two of them, even while sparring, is almost effortless. And kind of fun. I can see why Valoria likes them so much.

  “What brought you two to Grenwyr City?” I ask as we all take a water break.

  “Family stuff,” Bryn answers, a slight edge to her voice.

  “As in, we both left ours when we heard about Valoria wanting to meet mages with unusual abilities,” Sarika adds, sounding wistful. “I was going to visit my parents soon, but they want me to stay put until the fever dies down.”

  “How about you?” I ask Bryn, passing her a waterskin. “Any plans to visit home?”

  She shakes her head as she lifts her scarf to take a drink, her mouth forming a thin line, and I catch her eye to let her know she doesn’t need to say more. I understand. For some of us, the family we choose seems to stick better than the family we were given.

  Sarika breaks the slight note of tension in the air with a sudden chorus of “King for a Day,” and everyone laughs.

  Even me.

  Jax strides toward us, his stomach muscles rippling with each step in the absence of his shirt, having just finished checking on the other sparring pairs. “I’d ask if you’d like a little one-on-one,” he says, meeting my gaze and grinning slightly beneath his scarf so that his eyes gleam, “but it looks like you have other plans already.”

  He points across the field, to a familiar red-haired figure striding through the long grass.

  I break into a run and meet her halfway.

  Her hair is pinned in a braided crown on top of her head, much like Valoria’s, and instead of her usual fur-lined tunic, she’s wearing what looks like one of my old necromancer’s uniforms for sparring clothes. Lysander lumbers in her wake, flattening the grass wherever he steps.

  There are so many words fighting to leave my lips first that none of them manage to find their way out. I’m so scared for the brilliant girl running to meet me. I’m so sorry for shouting last night instead of trying to help her. I’m so angry—not at her, but at the crystal and whatever false promises it’s made her.

  I start to tell her about getting some of Danial’s orange salve for her burns, but all it takes for her to render me momentarily speechless is a hesitant smile as she lifts a pale pink scarf away from her mouth. I can’t quite bring myself to return the gesture.

  “Training in a new secret spot, I see,” she murmurs, arching her dark brows and letting the scarf fall back into place. “I take it Valoria doesn’t know about this?” Before I can respond, she draws a deep breath and adds, “I’m sorry about last night. You were right to worry. That crystal could drive a person mad, but I got rid of it—threw it in the kitchen rubbish heap on my way here.”

  “You did?” I ask. “I mean—that’s great, Meredy.” It is great. So why don’t I feel like sweeping her off her feet in celebration? “You promise it’s really gone?” I watch her face fall as I say it, hating myself for every word. But I had to ask, to try to silence my nagging doubt.

  “I just said it is. Don’t you trust me, Odessa?” she counters, a frown in her voice.

  “Of course,” I answer, perhaps a little too loudly, trying to drown out the doubt once and for all. I’m still worried about her, but she doesn’t need to know that. Besides, there are other things I need to say. “I’m sorry I compared you to Evander. That was wrong.”

  “And I shouldn’t have said what I did about Firiel.” Meredy bows her head.

  “I shouldn’t have shouted.”

  “I shouldn’t have missed that delicious supper you made,” she sighs. “Elibeth already sent me a raven to say that Nipper delivered it all safely. Thank you so much for looking after my sister even better than I am.”

  I nod, wishing I felt even cautiously hopeful that she was back to her old self. Instead, I have to stop myself from searching her face for signs that she’s distracted, her thoughts still with the crystal. “Anytime.”

  She takes a long, guarded look at me, then gestures to the field where others are still sparring. “Shall we settle our remaining differences with some hand-to-hand combat?”

  I hesitate. If I don’t try to take her at her word and act like things are getting better, will I be giving her a fair chance to show me that they really are?

  Finally, I pull her against me without a word in answer. I’ve never felt a longing this intense, not even with Evander, I realize now—I want to be as close as possible to her, the essence of her, not just her beautiful skin. It’s like my spirit wants to grab hold of hers and never let go, but since that’s impossible, I settle for tugging down our scarves and kissing her in front of all the volunteers.

  Jax wolf-whistles.

  Feeling slightly better than I would have expected upon waking this morning, I point to an open spot in the shorter grass. When we reach it, Meredy faces me and spreads her arms wide. “Ready when you are, Master Necromancer.” She gives me a long look as the words leave her lips, like she’s afraid a bit of teasing might damage our relationship even further. She doesn’t seem to realize that it’s not us I’m worried for—it’s her. And right now, it seems like what she needs is me.

  “Now you’ve done it.” I mock-growl as I charge toward her, tackling her to the ground.

  Just like that, she momentarily banishes every worry to the darkest corners of my mind. As we spar—or what passes for sparring when no one is landing any blows—we both glance up at the sound of Lysander’s roar.

  He leaps out of the grass nearby, colliding in midair with a large dappled cat. Bryn, in her animal form.

  “Think we can spar like that?” Meredy teases as she pins down one of my wrists.

  Using my foot as leverage, I flip her off of me, knocking the wind out of her. That only makes her laugh, once she has the breath. “Oh,” I whisper, pushing down another stab of worry, “I think we can do better.”

  XX

  The Ezorans are getting closer.

  We learn as much on a gray day the following week, when Valoria receives a message from another leader, King Andris, delivered by one of her own mechanical birds. The Ezorans are attacking the king’s home, Bravinia, a land located slightly east of Empress Evaria’s domain of Ocren and north of Lyris. Valoria shows me each place on a moldy old map she found in the Temple of Change, and I don’t need to ask why she looks worried to the point of sickness.

  Unnerved, Valoria assigns several people to assist Noranna in making more metal soldiers. With help, she’s able to complete several new ones each day, and Karston spends his time learning how to command them to do different moves at once.

  I watch him practice once or twice, impressed by the strength of his gift and his focus and dedication to his magic as the soldiers march and fight with deadly precision.

  Each night, whenever we can, we all gather at the palace for supper—me, Meredy, Valoria,
Jax, Simeon, Danial, and Karston, who fits in effortlessly from the first time he decides to eat with us. Like Meredy, he loves animals. Like me, he finds himself drawn to anyone attractive, regardless of gender. Like Jax, he can be surly and withdrawn. Like Simeon, he loves to tell outlandish stories. He could never replace Evander, of course, but our group feels almost whole again. Especially after one of Valoria’s aunts, upon seeing Jax with potatoes in his hair and Karston and me dueling with breadsticks, sharply declares that we have the manners of a pack of wolves and are unfit to dine with our queen.

  “To the wolf pack!” I shout as the noblewoman retreats, raising my glass of mead.

  Grinning, Simeon adds, “We’ll eat your heart out—literally!”

  Jax and Karston chime in with a chorus of howls. Danial, shaking his head at them, lends his voice to the cause a moment later after Simeon elbows him in the ribs.

  Bryn and Sarika, sitting at the opposite end of the table, catch on and join in, too. At last, so does Meredy, followed by Valoria, who raises her wolf-headed cane with a laugh.

  This is the most at home I’ve felt since we returned from Sarral. Though for how long, I don’t know. Not when the Ezorans are inching ever closer to Karthia and, despite what Devran promised, there’s no end to the protests in sight. Valoria still isn’t sure he’ll accept her invitation to an air balloon ride tomorrow at sunset.

  Reports of the black fever continue to arrive every morning by raven, though Meredy’s sister, Elibeth, like Kasmira, seems to be making a tenuous recovery. We wrap ourselves in scarves and gloves to bring food and other supplies to them both, as well as other fever-afflicted families, helping Jax with his meal delivery routes. That is, when we’re not training the volunteers or helping Simeon and Danial with wedding preparations.

  We’re needed so often lately, in so many places, that I only get one chance to sift through the kitchen rubbish heap for the crystal Meredy claims to have thrown away. I don’t find it. I help heal her hands with Danial’s orange salve and don’t notice any new burns. Still, a cruel voice in the back of my mind won’t stop wondering if she’s lying to me whenever she has an errand to run.

  Valoria’s searches for the crystal prove equally pointless—not that she has much time to look, either. Carts of supplies intended for the sick, particularly those carrying the new, stronger cough potion Valoria invented herself, keep being waylaid on their route or completely overturned. Guards attempting to clear the streets of bodies find themselves surrounded by people who won’t let them do their job until they put on the older, less secure masks that King Wylding had them wear during fever seasons past. The culprits? Devran’s rebels. They may not be able to burn anything else on the palace lawn during the quarantine, but they’re still giving Valoria plenty of headaches as she tries to care for them. They pass around their own version of a coughing potion, an older, less effective one, and seem to believe they’re actually helping the sick more than Valoria could.

  Thoughts of the dangers we face from inside and out trouble me every night, but I’m so exhausted that I somehow manage to fall asleep almost the moment my head hits the pillow.

  “Dessa.” Meredy’s voice drifts through the blackness of my dreamless sleep. “Do you hear that?” She gently shakes my shoulder.

  Now alert, I realize what’s bothering her before I even open my eyes to the darkened bedroom. The mysterious wailing is back, the sound I heard the night of our argument.

  “It’s giving me a headache!” Meredy whispers sharply. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ve heard it once before,” I murmur. “When we . . . you know . . .”

  She crinkles her nose, reluctant as I am to mention our fight. “I must’ve been pretty out of it not to notice,” she says at last—the closest she’s come to mentioning the crystal in days. I try to take her hand, but she hesitates, as she usually does now when we’re not wearing gloves. She thinks I don’t trust her, that I check her palms for burns when she’s sleeping.

  She’s not wrong.

  “You’re a girl of many talents,” I joke, but only half-heartedly, trying to stay focused on the eerie sound. It’s almost like when someone wets their finger and runs it along the rim of a wine glass. But it can’t be that, because it has a distinct and varied melody despite its ear-bleeding qualities.

  “Well, it’s definitely not human,” Meredy says after a while, rubbing her temples. The noise hurts my head, too. “What could it be, though? One of Valoria’s inventions?”

  I shake my head. Valoria would have noticed and silenced it by now. Plus, it sounds too close to be issuing all the way from her tower.

  “What about some sort of bird?” she suggests next. “A peacock being strangled?”

  “Maybe,” I mutter, not quite convinced.

  Meredy leans against me and yawns. “Maybe it’s Jax, rehearsing in secret so he can serenade Valoria,” she suggests, making us both laugh.

  From down the hall comes a crash, a curse, and the sound of hurried footsteps.

  I exchange a look with Meredy, then leap out of bed and pull on my cloak and slippers as Meredy does the same.

  Sword in hand, I lead the way down the hall, tiptoeing past the kitchen.

  “Sparrow!” someone hisses. “Over here!”

  I turn to find Jax standing in the kitchen doorway, his dark hair messy from sleep, though his eyes are bright and alert. He motions Meredy and me forward, into the kitchen itself, where he’s lit a candle. Ten of Noranna’s metal soldiers stand in various positions around the room. There’s one with its hands on a large stove and another posed as though peering into a pantry. Shivering, I notice that one of them has its hands placed on either side of a knife block where the butcher keeps some of his smaller tools. The soldier nearest us is in a heap on the floor, making me think this is the one that made the crash we heard.

  Not yet lowering my blade, I whisper, “What in Death’s name is going on?”

  Jax points to the soldier on the floor and, as I expected, whispers, “I tripped over this bastard on my way to get a snack. All the training’s been making me extra hungry. Who put these in here?”

  He looks ready to hit someone, while I’d like nothing more than to run out of the room.

  “Karston could’ve done it,” I say slowly, thinking aloud. “But only if he’s awake, right? I’ve never heard of anyone using their magic in their sleep, and it is awfully late.”

  “It could be someone’s idea of a joke,” Jax suggests. “I can name five people who would find this entertaining and have the strength to move these things without any magic. Of course, none of them live at the palace, so . . .” He frowns at the soldiers again. “All I know is, when we find whoever did this, I’m going to have a chat with them that they’ll find absolutely hilarious. At least, I will.”

  I shake my head at him as he makes a fist and slaps his other hand against it.

  “Well, we should go find Karston, anyway,” Meredy says thoughtfully. “Even if he had nothing to do with this, he can move the soldiers back to their proper place a lot faster than the three of us.”

  As we linger in the doorway, talking in low voices about who within the palace would have the strength and sense of humor to pull off this prank, Jax moves deeper into the kitchen. The soldiers creak as he moves one behind another, bending them both over the stove in a back-to-front position that leaves no room for questions as to what they’re up to.

  “Jax?” Meredy asks warily. “What in the world are you doing?”

  “Making them look less creepy,” he grumbles, arranging three more figures in a curious position I wouldn’t have imagined.

  I shake my head. I don’t think anything could make the soldiers look less eerie, short of covering up their eye holes. “Come on.” I take Meredy’s hand, pulling her away from the door, and Jax follows a moment later. “Let’s go see Karston.”

/>   We hurry toward his room, leaving a scene worthy of The Baroness’s Secret Heartache in our wake.

  Despite Jax banging on his door, it takes Karston a long moment to get up and undo the lock. His violet eyes are half-closed, as if sleep hasn’t quite shaken its hold on him. He clearly hasn’t been sleepwalking tonight, or using his magic.

  As I hastily explain what happened, confusion and surprise twist Karston’s smooth, even features. “What? Someone moved our soldiers? They’re pretty heavy . . . that would’ve taken someone the better part of the evening, carrying them without magic. Why bother?”

  “To scare one of the cooks, or someone else who frequents the kitchens, I expect,” Jax growls.

  “And they wound up scaring you instead,” Karston says, catching on. He looks slightly more awake with each passing moment. “I can see how they wouldn’t be fun to run into in the dark. Are you all right?”

  Jax frowns hard, leaning in toward Karston until they’re close enough to kiss. “I don’t get scared. Of anything. Ever. And don’t you forget it.”

  “Sure.” Karston’s lips twitch as he fights to keep from smiling. “Understood.”

  My shoulders shake a little with the effort of not laughing outwardly at the pair of them. “Listen, Karston, would you mind coming with us to the kitchens and moving the soldiers back where they belong? You’d be saving us a lot of time.”

  “Of course,” he agrees, pulling on his boots.

  “Thank you. And, Karston—you’re doing an amazing job with them,” I say, giving him what I hope is an encouraging smile. “Seeing as you’ve been working so hard, you should really take tomorrow off. Valoria won’t mind. We have somewhere to be with her anyway, and she’ll need all her focus on making sure our little adventure goes well—in fact, you should join us. If you dare.”

  Meredy meets my gaze and grins. Unlike me, she’s not dreading the ride in the air balloon. The twisted girl I adore so much is actually looking forward to it.

  And judging by the grin Karston gives Meredy as she describes what we’re planning to do, she’s not the only one excited about hovering Vaia only knows how high off the ground in a flimsy basket, possibly accompanied by a man who rebels against change.