by Caitlin Seal
“So we’ll just have to make sure they don’t find out,” Naya said.
Lucia sighed. “Yes, we will. I only wish we had more to go by. Valn’s trial and the Congress negotiations should take at least two weeks. But if they conclude before we find what we need, we’ll lose our only excuse for being in Talmir.”
Naya crossed her arms, frustrated. “Valn had to have allies working with him from Talmir.”
“Could you find a way to speak to him again?” Lucia asked cautiously.
“I don’t know,” Naya said. She’d managed to get to Valn in Belavine because she’d had the help of the Council. But here she didn’t know anyone in the palace outside the Ceramoran delegation. And if she was caught sneaking into Valn’s cell here, the punishment would be far more serious than a warning.
“Is there anything else I can do to help prepare the ritual?” Naya asked.
Lucia shook her head. “No, we’ve already done as much as we can without the portal runes. There are a few more steps but…” Lucia trailed off, flexing the fingers of her right hand. “Well, there’s no point in worrying about them until we’re sure we can complete the ritual. With what Francisco said, it sounds like we’re going to have a hard enough time finding the freedom to search for my journals. If Delence means to use us as a distraction, then he’ll be doing everything he can to draw attention to us. That’s going to make it tricky to act discreetly.”
“I know,” Naya said, her frustration turning the words into a groan.
Lucia responded with a yawn. “I don’t think there’s anything more we can do tonight. Let’s discuss this tomorrow. I am desperately looking forward to sleeping in a bed that won’t tip out from under me.”
After Lucia left, Naya glanced up at the elegant clock perched on the writing desk. It was late, but not ridiculously so. Delence might still be awake. She took a moment to compose herself, then slipped out into the hall. The aether on the other side of Delence’s door lacked the soft haze that usually accompanied sleep, so Naya knocked.
Delence opened the door with a scowl. “I told you I don’t want—oh, it’s you. I thought it was that servant again.”
“May I come in? There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Naya said.
“Is it important?” Impatience tinted Delence’s aether. It itched against Naya’s skin like the beginning of a rash.
“It’s about what happened outside the gates,” Naya whispered.
Delence scowled. “You of all people should know what to expect coming here.”
Naya glanced down the hallway. “Can we talk about this in private, please?”
Delence eyed her for a moment before stepping back and letting her into the room. “You don’t seem injured, so what about this incident was so important that it couldn’t wait until morning?” He had shrugged off his jacket and loosened the buttons on his white shirt. Already the surface of his desk was disappearing under neat piles of paper.
“One of the men in that crowd attacked me with a wraith eater,” Naya said, unnerved by Delence’s callous response.
Delence’s expression darkened. He ran two fingers over his mustache. “So they were armed. The Talmiran rune scribes made thousands of those weapons during the war. I’m not surprised a few people around here would still be holding on to them.”
Naya shook her head. “I don’t think it was blind luck that they targeted the carriage Francisco and I were in. And none of the guards made a move to help me until I’d already knocked the knife from that man’s hand. It was like they were waiting to see if he’d succeed.”
“What are you suggesting?” Delence asked.
Naya scowled. She couldn’t believe Delence didn’t see the connection. “I don’t see how any of this could have happened unless some of the soldiers or city guards helped plan the attack. And I don’t like knowing that the only people allowed to carry weapons at this Congress are trying to kill me. If they tried once, they’ll try again.” She could feel her control cracking. Her voice rose, and she couldn’t keep the edge out of her tone. Logically she knew yelling at Delence wouldn’t fix anything. But the cool, casual way he’d taken her news grated against her nerves like sand.
Delence turned away from her and walked to his desk. He uncorked a bottle of amber liquor and poured a generous few fingers into the bottom of an already wet glass. He took a slow sip before answering. “You’re accusing the queen’s guard of having conspired to murder members of a foreign delegation. That’s a very serious claim.”
“You don’t believe me?”
Delence swirled the liquid in his glass. “I believe this little display was meant more to scare us than as an assassination attempt. I expected something like it, though I didn’t think she’d act quite so fast.”
Naya blinked. “You expected this?”
“I assumed we’d be attacked eventually, yes.”
“And you didn’t think to warn me? Why? Did you think my reaction would be more distracting if I didn’t see the attack coming?”
Delence frowned. “I see you and Francisco have been talking. What exactly did he tell you?”
“Only that you have no intentions of actually helping the undead,” Naya said. “I guess I can understand you being willing to risk my life, but what about him? He’s your son.”
Anger flashed in Delence’s dark eyes. “I suggest you watch your tone.”
Naya stepped closer. “My tone? I gave up everything to save you. Corten died rescuing you. When you asked me to come back to Lith Lor, I thought it was because you wanted to help the undead. But you’re just as bad as Valn. You think you can use people however you want, no matter how much you hurt them.” A small voice in the back of her mind whispered that she should back down. In Ceramor, Delence had warned her that he would send her home if she disobeyed him. But that voice was the same one that had told her to trust Valn. It was the same voice that had promised that if she could just be smart enough, good enough, she would earn her father’s trust and love. That voice was fear, and it had made her a pawn too many times before. She was done listening to it.
“I am trying to stop a war,” Delence said, the words falling in the air like heavy stones. “What were you expecting when you came here? That a few clever words on your part would be enough to end decades of hate? It’s more complicated than that. My son understands that.”
“Your son understands that you care less about him than you do your precious trade deals,” Naya said.
Delence tensed. Then he drained the contents of his glass and turned away from her. “It’s late, Miss Garth. I suggest you retire for the night. We’ll all have work to do in the morning.”
Naya thought about trying to push further. But the tight lines of Delence’s shoulders made her somehow warier than if he’d shouted. She turned and stomped out of the room.
Back in the hall, Naya closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. Her anger was draining away, replaced by a queasy sense of unease. Creator, why had she shouted at Delence like that? Corten was her reason for being here, not the Congress. She shouldn’t let herself be bothered by the way Delence treated Francisco, or the way Francisco seemed to accept it willingly. And as much as she hated to admit it, Delence had been right about one thing. How could she really hope to make a difference when Talmir and Ceramor had spent decades hating each other?
What she needed to do was stay focused. Reaching into her pocket, she felt the reassuring crinkle of the torn page containing the key she’d constructed to decrypt her father’s logbook. The pages she’d managed to translate so far hadn’t revealed anything useful, but there were still plenty of entries left.
The only way for Corten to mark time outside the doorway was by the endless flow of souls moving past. He tried to put aside his own fears and watch them with a clinical eye. The first time he’d observed Lucia performing a resurrection, he’d puked before she wa
s even halfway through extracting the bones. He could still remember the glare she’d fixed him with. She’d told him he had to stop looking at the body as though it were a person, because it wasn’t. To a necromancer, especially one who created wraiths, a body was just parts and those parts had to be reforged before they could be used to draw a soul back from death.
Now he looked for details: faces, clothes, age, and marks left by whatever injury or illness had caused the death. Cataloging those mundane details was less horrifying than looking at the door or thinking about the never-ending flood of souls. By focusing on the little things, he could almost make himself forget what he was watching. “You really have no idea how long you’ve been here?” he asked Servala when he found the doorway again tugging at his attention.
“I know it’s been a long time,” Servala said. She sounded tired. “You see Davious over there?” She gestured to the man Corten had first tried to talk to. “He was still sane when I got here. He’s Silmaran, some fancy scholar from the capital. He used to go on and on reciting these terrible poems he said he’d written. I’d always tell him that if I ever went through the doorway, it would be just to get away from his damned poems.” She grimaced. “Course now the only one who really talks to me is the shadow man, and he’s not much of one for actual conversation.”
Corten glanced around at the other souls who lingered by the doorway. “Are all of them insane?”
Servala shrugged. “Most.”
“But not you,” Corten pressed. “Why?”
Servala looked sideways at him. “What makes you think I’m not insane?”
For just a moment, Corten saw something dark lurking behind her single eye. It was like staring down a portal during a resurrection. His skin crawled, but he forced a laugh. “Just a guess. You seem more, I don’t know, focused than the rest of them.”
Servala looked back toward the door. “Why are you asking? You planning to stay a while?”
“Well, I’m not going back out there.” Corten gestured at the darkness over his shoulder. “And I’m not ready to go through the door, not yet. So I guess the answer’s yes, I’m staying a while.”
Servala snorted. “See, I’ve got no idea if that’s good sense, or if you’re already mad.” After a moment she added, “But you’d probably be better off just going through the door. Waiting out here isn’t exactly fun.”
In answer Corten crossed his arms and gave her a level look. “Really? I hadn’t noticed. Everyone else looks like they’re having so much fun. And the shadow man is a real joker. I’d assumed life out here would be one big, long party.”
“Ha ha,” Servala said drily, but Corten saw a smile tug at the edge of her mouth. This one wasn’t the wide, slightly insane grin he’d seen before. It was soft, and sad, and it made her look much older than her features would suggest.
“All right.” Servala heaved a sigh. “Well, I guess if you’re going to be stubborn about it, there are a couple of tricks I know. But if I’m going to help you, you’ve got to do something for me.”
“Like what?” Corten asked.
“I’ll tell you what I know about keeping your head together in this place, and you tell me everything I want to hear about what’s going on out there.” She waved vaguely at the darkness behind them.
“Out there…?” Corten asked, glancing uneasily over his shoulder.
“Out in the living world, yeah. Price of salt, who’s king, what you ate for breakfast—whatever I ask about, you answer, deal?” There was something hungry in her voice, and as she spoke her focus wandered back to the door.
“Deal,” Corten said. Talking cost him nothing. In fact, talking about the living world might even help ground him, keep him from thinking about the tempting whisper of the door’s power.
Servala grinned, then shook Corten’s hand. “Good. First question. Where are you from?”
“Ceramor,” Corten said.
Servala nodded. “Figured that much. Mostly it’s Ceramorans who come here expecting some necromancer will rescue them from death.”
“Are you Ceramoran?” Corten asked.
Servala raised her eyebrows. “Do I look Ceramoran?”
“No, but you speak the language, so I thought maybe…”
Servala laughed. “I’m not speaking Ceramoran. I’m speaking Shalesh.”
Corten stared at her, wondering if this was a sign of the madness she’d mentioned. “Shalesh, what…wait, isn’t that an old name for the Banian tongue?”
“It’s not. Shalesh is the true language, spoken on Sures, the true home of the people,” Servala said sharply. She looked away from Corten and glared at the door. “Least that was how it was before the islands unified and everybody started speaking that mouthful-of-seaweed dialect and calling themselves Banians.”
“Okay,” Corten said slowly. “But then how can I understand you? I don’t speak Shalesh.” He’d never met anyone who did. It had been more than a hundred years since the three warring tribes of the Banen Islands had unified under a single council of rulers.
Servala waved the comment away, seeming to shed her anger with the gesture. “Talking here isn’t the same as it is out there.” She paused. “This place isn’t like the real world. I’m talking to you, but what you’re hearing isn’t really my words, it’s the meaning behind them.”
“Huh,” Corten said. “I guess that makes sense. It’s sort of like how wraiths shape their bodies.”
Servala shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that. But everything here works the same. It’s all more about the meaning of things rather than just their shapes.”
Corten wrinkled his brow, concentrating on her words. For a moment the sounds seemed to twist in the air, becoming strange in his ears. He could still understand her, but the words were all wrong. It made his head pound, and he quickly gave up the effort. Corten rubbed his temples. “Okay. So what’s this trick of yours? How do you stay sane out here?”
“Well, like I was saying, this place is all about meanings. It isn’t solid like things are out there, and it looks a little different to everybody. Take Davious. Back when he was still talking, he said he saw this place as a library with shelves that went on forever.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Corten said.
“Sure, on the surface. But he also said that all the books were blank and every time he tried to pull one out, the shelves would wobble like they were about to topple down on him.”
“Oh.” Corten winced, thinking about the unstable footing and grassy fields that had haunted him on his long walk through death. Just thinking about it seemed to summon the spectral voice of the wind and the tickle of grass against his legs. “What do you see?” Corten asked.
Servala’s expression darkened. “An ocean. Getting to the door was like swimming through a storm. The whole way here, I kept thinking that if I could just get over the next wave, I’d find a rope in the water and be able to haul my way back up onto my ship. Except there never was any rope, and when I finally felt land under my feet, all I found was the door.”
“So is that how you died? Drowning?” Corten asked.
Servala smirked. “Awful personal question, seeing as how we just met.”
Corten felt his cheeks heat up. “Sorry. You’re right, that was rude.” In Ceramor most undead didn’t like talking about how they had died. Who wanted to remember something like that?
“Eh, it’s all right. And no, I didn’t drown. Back in the real world, there was a rope. I caught it and managed to climb aboard. Course it took two days for us to sail out of the storm and no matter how many blankets my mates wrapped me in, I couldn’t seem to get warm. Fever, I guess. I never made it back to port.”
“I’m sorry,” Corten said.
“It was a long time ago. Anyway, you were asking about how I survive here. Answer’s simple, really. I found my rope.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I’m saying. This place, however you see it, it’s something that makes you feel unstable, uncertain. It wears you down and makes you want to rest. That makes the door seem awful appealing, and if you don’t go through it, eventually there isn’t enough left for you to be you. Once I figured that out, I started thinking. Back when I was living, I sailed aboard the Crier Gull. She was my refuge on the waves. I thought maybe if I had her here, I could survive even these waves, at least until I decide to go through the door on my own terms.”
Corten realized what she was saying and smiled. “So you made her, didn’t you?”
Servala answered his smile. “That I did.”
“Can you show me?”
Servala’s smile fell a fraction. “I can try. But I’ll warn you fair, it might not work. I tried explaining all this to Davious and a couple of others before, but none of them could wrap their heads around it.”
“Won’t know until we try,” Corten said.
Servala nodded. “Follow me.” She led Corten a few steps away from the door to a spot where its light began to fade into the uncertain gray of the darkness beyond. Corten shivered, feeling the ground shift under his feet and the wind pick up again against his face. Whatever power existed in this place, it didn’t want him to leave the light of the door now that he was here.
Servala gestured out into the dark. “Do you see her?”
Corten squinted, willing himself to see a ship instead of just twisting shadows. But as the seconds ticked by, his stomach sank. He shook his head. “I don’t.”
Servala chewed her lip. “Give me your hand,” she said after a moment, extending her own toward him.
Corten hesitated, then took the offered hand. Servala’s skin felt cool against his, and her palm was rough with calluses that probably came from her days sailing.
