Wraith King

by Argyle, Amber

  And her own husband. The king their people needed. She thought of her family—Mama, her sisters, her nephew, her half brother. Atara, Tam, Magalia, Alorica. And she knew her decision was made.

  Larkin’s heart hammered in her chest, sweat running down her cheeks as her body fought to live. She licked her dry lips, her voice coming out warbling. “What proof do I have that you’ll keep your word?”

  The wraith’s dark gaze bore into her. “Cut your hand, lay it against Denan’s wound, and you will see.”

  “Larkin,” Tam murmured. “This is a bad idea.”

  It had always been a bad idea. She formed a thin knife and sliced her palm, hissing at the sting. Ignoring Denan’s unnerving gaze, she peeled back the sticky bandage on his side to reveal the stinking wound beneath. She gagged and steadied herself, waiting for the nausea to pass.

  Steeling herself, she rested her open hand against Denan’s wound. Between the folds of her parted skin, a darkness niggled like a maggot nudging for rot. Her magic rebelled, shoving the rot away. And she understood. The wraiths didn’t want her to simply go with them. They wanted to infect her like all the other mulgars.

  “You have to let it inside you,” Ramass crooned. “Let it take hold.”

  “Larkin . . .” Tam warned.

  Ancestors, dying is one thing, but this . . .

  “I can do this,” she snapped at Tam.

  Maybe . . . Maybe there’s a way around it.

  She wove a weir at her forearm—Magalia could remove her hand if needed—and pulled in the dark shadows, so cold they burned as they spread through her hand. Those same shadows receded from Denan, enough that she could see hints of the whites of his eyes again. Like a parasite, tiny claws gained purchase, scrabbling and tearing their way toward her wrist.

  It was agony.

  Until it was done. All of Denan’s blight throbbed in her hand and wrist in the familiar tined lines of the curse. Light, he’d endured this pain for months without complaint. Suddenly dizzy, she clutched her hand to her chest and tried to swallow back the bile climbing her throat.

  Tam shot her a questioning look and knelt on the other side of her husband. “Denan?”

  Denan took a deep breath, as if coming awake. “Water?”

  Tam handed him a waterskin.

  Denan drank deep, and then his eyes met hers. “Larkin.”

  A rush of joy flared in Larkin’s chest. Denan was back. She leaned forward and kissed his forehead, his cheeks. She laughed. She’d done it.

  “Larkin—” Before her name was even fully out of his mouth, his head tipped to the side as he lost consciousness.

  “Denan?” She held her hand under his nose, relieved to feel the reassuring puff of his breath. Tam pried his eyes open. The black was gone.

  “He’s passed out,” Tam said.

  His body had been through too much. “Let him rest.” It was enough that he would be all right. She kissed his mouth for the last time. “We do what we must to protect our people, Denan. You taught me that.”

  Steadying herself, Larkin faced the horde.

  “You see?” Ramass crooned. “I keep my promises.”

  Ancestors, she hated him.

  It was light enough now that she could make out individual faces. And through the shadows infecting her hand, she was now connected to all the shadows—the thousands of souls trapped by the curse. She could cleanse every mulgar. But to do it, she’d have to take their blight into herself.

  What would become of her then?

  She met Tam’s gaze and whispered, “There is a chance I can trap the blight with a weir, but if not . . . will you do for me as you swore to do for Denan?”

  He reeled back. She knew what she was asking him—to kill her before she turned. But he was the only one.

  His gaze shuttered, and he turned away. “Please, Larkin.”

  “Will you?”

  He choked, unable to look at her, and nodded.

  She crossed to the bow of the boat as the four wraiths watched her, their cloaks streaming in the gentle breeze.

  Through the shadows that connected her to the horde, Larkin felt her father’s despair at knowing his parents would rather have him dead than a failure. His impotence at farming and the hungry eyes of his children. The knowledge that he would never, ever be enough. His unending shame at Joy’s death and Caelia’s disappearance.

  All his fault.

  This was how the corruption worked. It fed off hurt and anger, trapping them in a vortex of shame. That shame left room for the darkness to take hold. Take over. But she could take all the shadows away. She stretched out her hand to her father, calling to the shadows just as she had the enchantment. Those shadows came to her in a stream of darkness.

  In the moonlight, she watched as the black shifted from her father’s eyes, draining through the tined lines and flowing into dark ribbons of magic. She opened herself to the corruption. Felt it pierce her, cold and calculating. What had been a scrabbling parasite turned into a multilegged millipede. Her fingers turned black as death.

  She bit back a whimper.

  Her father staggered. “Larkin? What— Where am I?” His eyes rolled back, and he fell as if he were a puppet and his strings had been cut. She watched his chest rise and fall. Passed out. Same as Denan. He would be all right.

  “Soon, you will welcome the pain,” Ramass said. “For it will make you strong.”

  Soon, she was going to kill him.

  Her gaze shifted to Talox. The darkness churned inside her, throbbing like the beat of a black heart. How long before it took over and there was nothing left of herself?

  But then, Talox had willingly made the same sacrifice for her. Reluctantly, she opened herself to his shadows. Talox had witnessed his uncle touching his older brother in twisted, disgusting ways. The uncle had caught Talox and threatened to kill him and his brother if he ever told. He had been too terrified to tell his parents. To tell anyone. And so he stood by, knowing it was happening and doing nothing to stop it. Nothing to protect the older brother he adored.

  That brother had killed himself five years later.

  The last of the shadows left Talox. He dropped to the ground. Like her father, his chest rose and fell.

  “Not the hero you’ve always believed him to be, is he?” Ramass asked.

  Hero? Yes. Perfect? No.

  The churning shadows roiled inside her, pushing against the weir, fighting to break free. Most of her hand was black now. Sweat broke out on her brow. She panted against the pain. Every part of Larkin rebelled against taking more shadows—it was poisoning her soul as surely as nightshade would poison her body.

  Eventually, it would kill her.

  “Larkin?” Tam asked.

  “Two hands seem redundant, don’t you think?” she tried to joke.

  He didn’t laugh. Didn’t even crack smile. Which wasn’t fair—he was the one who taught her to make light of the impossible in order to bear it. She turned and drew from Venna before she could change her mind.

  Overwhelming loneliness assaulted her. So wide and so deep it had carved a canyon through Venna. The girl’s mother worked from sunup to sundown for Lord Daydon; there wasn’t time left over for her daughter. Her grandfather was a quiet man. He never really spoke to her. To anyone, really. She longed for them to say they loved her. To hold her tight.

  And then her mother had died, and Venna had taken her place in the manor house. She had watched Larkin and Nesha with a jealous eye. Wished she had a sister to defend her from the village bullies as voraciously as they did each other. Wished desperately for a friend.

  Larkin collapsed, her vision white with pain and her ears ringing.

  “Larkin!” Tam gripped her shoulders.

  The weir had shattered. The blight climbed up to her elbow, the ache sharp as a blade carving all the way to the bone. With one trembling hand, she wove another weir across her upper arm.

  Tam shook his head. “Larkin, that was only three mulgars. You can’t tak
e on the horde.”

  Not and survive. She met his gaze. “I’ll carry that burden, if you’ll carry yours.”

  His whole body sagged under the weight of her charge. But despite it, he nodded. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Tell them I love them. And I’m sorry. Tell him.” She threw a glance to her sleeping husband and then quickly away again. It hurt to know that after this moment he would hate her for trading her life for his.

  Not waiting for Tam’s answer, she stood and threw out her hand, drawing all the shadows to her at once. Like a living, breathing thing, those shadows dove into her hand, shattering her weir as if it had never been. They clawed up her arm, her shoulder. Stabbed into her heart. She tipped back her head to scream, and they tore down her throat. She gagged. Could not breathe. She dropped to her knees and grabbed her neck, choking on the river of darkness that ripped and tore and shredded, razing her from the inside out.

  Choking out the light.

  Ancestors, she hadn’t even known how full of light she was until the last of it was snuffed out. And then she couldn’t remember why she’d cared. Shadows spilled out of her pores, twisting and shifting like a dark cloak. Ramass had been right. The shadows still tore and rent, but she welcomed the pain. Because the dark made her powerful. Immortal. What was a little pain in comparison to that?

  She straightened up to find Tam swinging a blade at her, tears streaming down his cheeks. She pulsed, sending him careening through the air. He screamed in despair before landing with a splash.

  The boat pulled hard for shore. Rature had tossed a rope, the hook catching on the gunwales as he pulled her in. The mulgar horde had collapsed—she’d taken all their darkness. But it was nothing to give that darkness back. She lifted her sword—now wreathed in black shadows that would reinfect all of the horde—and prepared to leap onto shore.

  “Wraith!”

  She whipped around as Denan drove Tam’s sword into her guts. Her eyes widened with shock, mouth falling open.

  “What have you done with my wife?”

  The pain would have consumed her, had she not been consumed already. She gripped the sword and dragged it out of herself. “I am your wife.”

  All the color leached from Denan’s haggard face. “No. No. She wouldn’t.”

  Larkin took advantage of his horror, striking his sword from his hands and stepping into his guard. She held her sword to his throat. But before she could reinfect him, Tam surged out of the lake, grabbed her belt, and wrenched her back.

  The boat tipped, dumping all three of them into the water. Through the pain searing her middle, she stroked for the surface. Among all the bodies, she struggled, barely managing to keep her head above water. Denan appeared a moment later. He shook the water from his hair as he whirled. His eyes fixed on her, and he kicked forward, his sword drawn back. She bashed aside the blade with her own, and then he was on top of her.

  They both went under. A gulp of water seared her throat on the way down. Another flair of pain, the point of his sword bright and sharp in her chest. She tried to escape. Tried to writhe free. Another stab to her chest. Searing, burning light. She broke apart.

  The Child and the Monster

  Knowing her name and nothing else, Larkin found herself completely disoriented, shivering, and wet in the forest. She didn’t know who she was or where she was, but she knew she had to move. The night was dangerous—full of tearing and black blood. The fear planted deep in her breast compelled her to slip silently through the woods in search of shelter from whatever hunted her in the dark.

  Between the trees, she caught sight of light softly filtered through the windows of a little cottage on the edge of a field. Safety. She picked up the pace, nearly running now. A tortured cry arose. She stopped cold in her tracks. Before she could decide if the house was safe, a sudden movement made her jump.

  A crouched figure slid along the hedge and stepped straight through Larkin. She cried out and stumbled back. The woman showed no signs of hearing her. Of having felt herself going through her.

  How is this possible?

  The middle-aged woman had curly hair, a fine wool coat, and a fat ring on her delicate hand. Though Larkin couldn’t make out any color, she could tell her eyes were blue simply by their paleness. Somehow, Larkin knew that she was a fine lady.

  Why was she here, watching this house in the dark rain?

  Not for any good purpose.

  Another guttural cry came from the house, and this time, she recognized it. Mama had been a midwife, so Larkin had often heard a woman laboring to bring a child into the world.

  “What is this?” Larkin asked.

  The woman showed no signs of hearing Larkin. A baby’s indignant cries cut through the night. As if this were the signal she’d been waiting for, the lady unhooked a long reed pipe of sacred wood from her belt. It had a wide horn and finger holes all along the length, glints of gems flashing in the moonlight. She played a song that brought an image to Larkin’s mind of a lord with a close-cropped beard, silver running through his dark hair.

  The lady shimmered like moonlight over rippling water. Slowly, she began to change, growing larger, her hair disappearing, her clothes shifting. After a few minutes, she had taken on the appearance of the man Larkin had envisioned. Just as elegant. Just as refined. And as she knew that the woman was a lady, she also knew that she’d donned the visage of her husband, the lord.

  Larkin gaped in shock.

  The lady slipped her flute in her pocket and stepped past the hedge into the tiny cottage. An astonishingly beautiful girl lay on the only bed. In her arms, she held a baby with milk-white skin and a shock of dark hair. Between her legs, a midwife waited for the afterbirth.

  “He’s not who you think he is,” Larkin cried in warning.

  But the girl only beamed at the false lord. “You came!” She held up the baby. “Look, our son, just like I said.”

  The girl’s joy vanished as the lord glowered at her. She drew her baby close, a confused look on her face. Larkin tried to flare her blade, but it was as if her magic didn’t exist. The lady drew a sword from inside the fold of her cloak. Larkin tried to shove her, but she went through her.

  The midwife jumped to her feet, only to receive the flat of the blade to the side of her head. She went down without a sound, a knot already forming, and lay unconscious. The only testament that she lived was the rise and fall of her chest.

  The girl scrambled back in her bed, her teeth bared, her eyes knowing. “You’re not him.”

  Even as she said it, the illusion faded away, leaving the lady, her chin tipped at a haughty angle. “Die knowing he’ll soon join you.”

  “Please,” the girl begged.

  The lady shifted her weight, and Larkin placed herself between the lady and the girl. “Don’t!”

  The lady lunged, sword sinking into the girl’s neck. A hack with the length of the blade, and the baby died instantly. Blood gushing, the mother gasped for breath that wouldn’t come. She held her dead child tight, her gaze accusing the lady, who waited calmly until the girl’s eyes went wide, unseeing.

  Larkin dropped to her knees, her head in her hands, hair pulled tight. “Light, what have you done? Oh, light!”

  The lady looked down at the unconscious midwife, gaze assessing. When her chest continued to rise and fall, the lady gave a tight nod of approval and left the cottage. Larkin didn’t want to follow her, but it was as if her body was tethered, and she had no choice.

  Larkin felt her soul trying to leave her body—a feeling as natural as an exhale. But something . . . held her. Bound her. Refused to let her go. She came to, crumpled on her side. She gasped for breath, desperate for air. All around her was black, but with each breath, the darkness dissipated, and she steadied. A gray world came into focus.

  The midwife had lived just long enough to give a damning testimony. Larkin had been surrounded by a mob screaming for the lord’s death, been with them as they found him. Hung him. All the while, the lady wat
ched. Pretending concern. Pretending devastation. What she really felt was superiority. Righteousness. Vengeance.

  A predator who’d convinced her prey she was one of them.

  But Larkin knew. Light, she knew.

  She would find that monster. She would kill her. Slowly.

  But first, she had to figure out where she was. Who she was beyond just a name. The color came back to her vision, allowing her to see farther away. This was not the forest around the cottage.

  Where was she?

  She turned slowly. She was in a bowl-shaped depression surrounded by enormous branches that stretched high overhead. Glittering black branches. Beneath her was white moss. To her right was a font on a dais, the wicked thorns shimmering in the soft morning light. To one side of it was a small building made of rough-cut lumber, weathered gray.

  A sacred tree. But not one of light and color and a sense of something infinite and wise. This was all sucking darkness and murder and never-ending hate.

  How had she come to be here? She searched her memories . . . water and blood and pain. She shied away from those memories—she’d had enough of helplessness and suffering.

  Beneath the tree’s bark, shadowy claws scrabbled at her, as if trying to break free. She shoved away, landing on a patch of damp white moss, her back fetching up against the gritty bark.

  She panted, trying to catch her breath, trying to orient herself. Next to her, a flower gleamed a bright, pale green, its petals breathing in and out delicately. Even as she watched, a moth landed on those petals, which instantly snapped shut. It was no flower at all, but the jaws of some strange lizard that blinked at her with discordant eyes, the moth caught in its mouth.

  Larkin gave a cry of alarm and darted to her feet.

  “Hello, Larkin.”

  She whipped around. A man warily approached. He had bright copper curls, thick freckles, gray eyes, and a trim build. He wore strange, simple clothes that fit loose around his broad shoulders. He was young, handsome, and familiar in a way that raised her hackles.