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First published in the United States of America by Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2018
Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Glenn Marsh
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EBook ISBN: 9780448494418
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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For my parents,
who always encourage me to follow my dreams.
And for Chris,
who never lets me give up, even when those dreams seem impossibly distant. You’re the best part of my story.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Acknowledgments
I
Today, for the second time in my life, I killed King Wylding. Killing’s the easy part of the job, though. He never even bleeds when a sword runs through him. It’s what comes after that gets messy.
When Evander and I finally stride through the wide palace doors, shouldering the burden of the king’s corpse between us, the sun is a gash on the horizon. It stains the jagged clouds, the palace’s marble walls, and every blade of grass with red as we trudge downhill toward the sea. King Wylding always likes a sea view when we necromancers bring him back to life.
I wonder how much of the rolling waves he can even glimpse through his mask and death shroud, but maybe it’s the sound of the crashing surf or the smell of the salt air he craves. Either way, I don’t question the man. And not just because he’s been ruling Karthia for two whole centuries. I can’t stand the rasp of his voice, dry as the wind rattling bare branches.
“Here we are.” Evander sets the king’s feet down before stretching to his full height. He reminds me of a crow in his fitted black necromancer’s clothes and long dark cloak, which covers his gloriously broad shoulders and the hard lines of muscle in his arms as he makes a sweeping gesture. “The best view in Grenwyr Province, Majesty.” His lips twitch as he catches my eye roll. “What?”
I grin and ease His Majesty’s head onto a bed of grass. Evander knows as well as I do that the king can’t hear us. Not yet. I just hope his spirit hasn’t gone too deep into the Deadlands, the spirits’ world.
I glance back toward the palace on the hill, but the path there is empty. None of the royal residents—living or Dead—have yet emerged. And we can’t raise the king, or anyone else, without one of their kin.
“I don’t remember a Wylding heir ever being late for a raising,” I say. “Even the nervous ones show up on time. Think something’s wrong?”
“I’m not worried.” Evander winks, then scans the overgrown field at our backs. Slipping an arm around my waist, he draws me against his side. “If you’re interested, I know a way to make the wait fly by, my lady—I mean, Master Odessa.”
I cringe and shove him away as irritation flutters in my chest. He’s been relentless with using our titles since we woke up today. “How many times do I have to punch you before you’ll stop calling me ‘Master’?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, a shiver of amusement in his voice. “Forgive me, Sparrow.” He presses a light kiss to my forehead, brushing his fingers over each of the birds tattooed above my elbows.
I meet his eyes. Then his lips. The heat of our kiss is almost enough to make me forget the dead king at our feet, who looks like someone’s lost, forgotten shadow in his dark shroud.
“I’m just proud of you,” he amends against my mouth. “Of us. We might be Grenwyr’s newest necromancers, but we’re definitely the best-looking.” He twines his ivory fingers through my brown ones. I’ve always loved the way they looked together, a tangle of dark and light. I shoot him a look that demands seriousness, and when he speaks again, all traces of merriment have fled. “We’re finally mages, Sparrow. That’s more than most people can say. We should shout it to all of Karthia!”
He’s right, of course. We’ve been training for this since I was a ten-year-old pest, and he, twelve. This job is all I’ve ever wanted—at least, it was all I wanted until two years ago, when Evander and I first kissed at the Festival of the Face of Cloud. If only being with him were as simple as moving between our world and the Deadlands.
“Careful,” I warn, only half joking. “Doesn’t your mother forbid such talk?”
Evander rests a hand on my back and gives me the look he’s perfected over time, the one that always wins me over, where his midnight-blue eyes soften like he’s letting me see inside him. All necromancers have blue eyes, but I’d never seen a hue that dark until I met Evander.
He drops his voice to a whisper, the kind that makes things clench low in my stomach. “Since when do you care about what’s forbidden by anyone?”
“Ha,” I say weakly, remembering a supper just a few nights ago when Evander’s mother spoke of her hopes for her only son to marry above his station. A countess, a duchess, someone with a fortune. But really, I think any girl would do—a baroness, or perhaps even a royal chambermaid—as long as she’s not a necromancer. Unlike the rest of Karthia, I think she’d rather die than allow another necromancer into her family, especially after she’s fought so hard against Evander’s chosen career these past seven years.
If it weren’t for the fact that we need his mother’s blessing for any Karthian priest to marry us, Evander and I would be wearing each other’s rings by now.
Pushing Baroness Crowther to the blackest corners of my mind, I run a hand through Evander’s close-cropped dark hair, making him smile. I won’t let her ruin a moment that she’s not part of. I kiss him breathless, filled with a longing and a recklessness that seem to be growing stronger every time we’re together.
A faint noise jolts us apart.
There’s no telling how long we’ve been standing here entwined, except that the sky is pure lavender now—but t
hen, time always seems fluid when we’re together like this, as strange and unpredictable as the way hours pass in the Deadlands.
“Stop, Van,” I murmur, forcing the word out as cold grips me from head to toe. High on the palace ramparts, a black-shrouded figure turns to face us. My face warms, banishing some of the cold. “They’re finally here.”
Evander’s cheek presses against mine, scratching me with the stubble on his jaw. “Another day, another raising.” He keeps his voice low as he watches the distant figures.
Another shadow flits onto the ramparts, then another. I count perhaps twenty masked and shrouded nobles, all impossible to tell apart by height alone. Dead princes and princesses, deceased dukes and their wives, and of course, Her Majesty. All brought back by necromancers so that those who know Karthia best can continue to run it the way they always have, each one wearing a dark shroud for the protection of living and Dead alike. If a living person were to see even a sliver of a Dead one’s flesh, the Dead person would become a Shade—a monster notoriously difficult to kill.
“Wonder who’s making the sacrifice this time,” Evander mutters, shaking me from my thoughts. “Remember Prince Myk?”
I wrinkle my nose, tearing my gaze away from the Dead royals to look at him. “The one who started crying before we’d even reached the gate?”
Evander’s roguish grin returns. “Indeed. You’d think that for all the time they spend around the Dead, the Wylding descendants would be a little . . .”
“Braver?” I supply, narrowing my eyes at the palace’s wrought-iron gates. They slowly swing open to reveal a girl almost as tall as me, dressed in flowing red silk. A golden diadem set with a single teardrop-shaped opal rests at the peak of her forehead, flashing in the low light, marking her status as one of the king’s living heirs. As she strides toward us, the wind lifts her long blond hair behind her like a banner.
“I hope you’ve got a handkerchief ready,” I whisper to Evander. But as the princess glides nearer and I meet her brown eyes, bright with determination, I doubt we’ll be reliving the crying prince incident today.
“You must forgive my lateness,” she gushes as she reaches us. Even when standing still, she has an air of constant motion that makes me dizzy. “I was working. I’m afraid I lost track of the time.”
Evander and I exchange a look. Since when do any of the palace’s living occupants apologize for anything? For that matter, when do any of them work? All they do is sit around eating fancy cheeses and planning parties and art festivals. Maybe that’s what royalty calls “work,” though.
Up close, the ashen pallor of her skin and the smudges beneath her eyes are unmissable. Twin red lines on her cheeks suggest she wears glasses, but she seems to have forgotten them in her rush to meet us. Stranger still, she’s paler than Evander, and that’s saying something. Either she’s sick, or she doesn’t spend much time outside.
“It’s no trouble at all, Highness,” Evander assures her, smiling politely. With a glance at the shadowy figures watching from the palace walls in the distance, he gives the princess a deep bow. “I’m—”
“Evander Crowther. And this is your partner, Odessa of Grenwyr,” the princess chimes in, smiling as though pleased with herself. “I’ve heard all about you from my brother.”
“We’ll be helping you raise the king tonight,” Evander continues, sounding slightly amused. “Or rather, you’ll be helping us.”
The princess nods in answer, watching me with a keen gaze as I roll up my sleeves. She’s probably waiting for me to greet her properly, too.
I make a much quicker version of Evander’s bow, mostly because I can get away with it. Everyone expects fine manners from Baron Crowther’s only son, but from an orphan dumped in a convent’s garden, they’re usually amazed I don’t eat with my hands.
“Remind me of your name,” I say as I straighten. I’ve seen the princess around, of course, but she makes herself scarce enough that we’ve never been properly introduced. She’s the oldest living princess at the palace, one of two, and while it’s on the tip of my tongue—Vala? Vandra?—I can’t dredge it up just now.
She rubs her temples, gazing out over the water like she didn’t hear me. “Oh!” she says at last, turning back to us and blinking. “I’m Princess Valoria Juline Wylding. It’s an honor to meet you, both of you.”
I steal a quick look at Evander, who seems to be thinking along the same lines as I am: We shouldn’t take this dreamy-eyed girl to the perilous Deadlands.
“Highness?” Evander clears his throat. “Are you sure you’re feeling up to this? I could run to the palace and fetch someone to take your place. It’d be no trouble. You look—”
“Dead on your feet,” I finish for him, grinning at Princess Valoria while Evander groans at my joke. “Here.” I fish a few of my beloved coffee beans from my pocket and offer them to her. “Eat these. They should wake you up.”
“Don’t touch them!” Evander says sharply as the princess reaches out a hand. She hesitates, and Evander blinks at me in disbelief. “I mean, she could be allergic,” he says, a telltale flush creeping up his neck as he tries to avoid the princess’s questioning glance. “What were you thinking?”
“I’m thinking anyone who’s going into the Deadlands for the first time needs their wits about them,” I say firmly. But Evander’s just worried the princess will tell her however-many-times-great-grandfather the king that I offered her illegally imported goods. Evander’s trying to protect me, because he must not see what I do in Princess Valoria’s keen eyes.
Curiosity.
“What are they?” Princess Valoria closes her pale hand over the coffee beans, surprising me with callused fingers that scrape my skin as she pulls away. She brings the beans to her nose and inhales. “They don’t smell poisonous.” For the first time, she smiles. “I’ll try anything to help me stay awake while I finish my project.”
“Project?” I kneel beside the king’s shrouded body and tie back my wavy dark brown hair, ready to get to work—and not the party-planning kind.
Evander relaxes his shoulders, seeming to realize that the princess isn’t about to run screaming to her kin over my dirty little coffee habit.
“An invention. I’ve been tinkering with it all summer. I’m so close to finishing that I’ve not been sleeping much. I’m hoping . . .” Princess Valoria pauses, popping a coffee bean into her mouth and crunching it. She makes a face at the bitterness. “I’m hoping Eldest Grandfather comes back to us in good spirits. I thought if I went to the Deadlands to fetch him this time, he might be grateful enough to let me share this one with the people of Karthia.”
Evander glances up midway through crouching beside me to help prepare the king’s body and almost topples onto the dead man. He falls to the side at the last moment, knocking the king’s left arm askew. “You’re an inventor?” he growls, brushing off bits of grass. “I never thought I’d see one in the flesh. I mean, I heard a story about a man who invented a new recipe for a duke once. It didn’t end well, though . . .”
As we learn from birth, the slightest change from the old ways is forbidden in Karthia. No leaving the country. No new recipes, no new forms of art, no new fashions, and especially no inventions. “Progress,” the king always says when he gives his twice-yearly public address, “is a slow-acting poison that will ensure Karthia’s eventual death.”
Princess Valoria’s expression is defiant. “He’s not happy about it.” She points to the king, but doesn’t look at him. “But so long as I hide everything in my room and don’t show anyone, he doesn’t complain about it anymore. Not much, anyway.” She glances away, toward the sea again. “I spend most of my time alone, working.”
Now I know why I’ve never seen her at parties. Pity. I have the feeling her stubborn streak matches mine. We could have fun together.
“I thought you might understand,” she adds, nodding to the contra
band coffee beans tucked in my pocket, “as you don’t seem to mind bending rules.”
“You could say that.” I break the stare, fiddling with the double-sapphire pin on my tunic. The pin is a gift given to every mage when they become a master, the gems representing our blue eyes that mark us as necromancers. Mine is still new enough that it feels oddly heavy at times. “Now let’s get this over with so you can return to your inventing, Highness.”
I pull up the hem of my long shirt and study the three glass vials on my necromancer’s belt. Milk. Honey. Blood. All three are full, two of them waiting to be called upon once we’ve traveled through one of the Deadlands’ constantly roaming gates.
But first, as always, comes the milk.
It gives strength to dead flesh, making it easier for a spirit to slip back into its shell. As I pour my vial of milk over the king’s body, the princess’s hushed voice rings in my ear. “He hates waking up all damp and sticky.”
“Well, then it’s a bad day to be him,” I mutter, stashing away the empty vial.
“What’s the honey for?” Princess Valoria’s coffee breath washes over me as she peers over my shoulder to study my belt.
I arch a brow at her. Most of the royal family members know all about raising the dead, especially since we necromancers live among them, and because so many of them are Dead themselves. But Valoria clearly keeps to herself more than most.
“The honey’s for us. So we aren’t tempted to eat anything in the Deadlands. Do that, and you’ll be trapped there forever.” Seeing the next question forming on her lips, I hurry to add, “The blood is for His Majesty’s spirit, when we find him. The spirits all crave it. It reminds them of the life they had and makes it easier to guide them back to their bodies.”
Beside me, Evander works quietly to make sure the king is completely covered by his shroud. One small slip once he wakes, one roaming pair of living eyes, and we’d have a Shade on our hands. And I really don’t feel like fighting a monster tonight. There are enough of them lurking in the Deadlands without adding one more.
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