Reign of the Fallen

by Sarah Glenn Marsh

  The cottage is unlocked when I arrive. Sun streams in from the many windows, yet the air turns cold as I spot them: a bouquet of wildflowers on Cymbre’s dining table. Hot-pink rhododendrons. Tiny white clusters of dogsbane. And even a few of those rare bright-red blossoms, star glories.

  My pulse quickens at the sight. “Where did those come from?” I demand, unable to rip my gaze from them just yet. If they were growing over any of the graves outside, we’re in trouble. Flowers only bloom over graves when the spirits have a message to send to our world. Part of a retired necromancer’s duty as grave-minder is to watch for flowers, then send a raven to the right person when there’s a message. “Where?” I ask again, breathless.

  “They were all over. On too many graves to name,” my friend Jax says from beside the hearth, as if coming out of a daze. “Simeon and I saved a few and burned the rest.”

  My hand instinctively creeps toward my sword. Not even the cottage seems safe now, knowing what the flowers on the table mean: Danger. Deception. Death.

  “Master Cymbre was called away this morning, apparently,” Simeon adds from the back of the cottage, striding to the hearth with four steaming mugs of tea clutched in his hands. “Jax and I got a raven last night, telling us to be here at noon. But when we came in, we found a note pinned under her kettle and flowers growing all over the graves—so at least she got the warning, too.” He nods to a scrap of parchment on a nearby table.

  I skim the note, hardly taking in a word, crinkling it in my fist as my gaze shifts from the flowers to my friends beside the hearth.

  “You’re late, Sparrow.” Jax leans back on his elbows, gazing up at me with his crystal-blue eyes and not even a shadow of his normal grin. He’s warming his bare feet near the flames, his sword balanced on his lap as he stretches across Master Cymbre’s woven carpet. Dressed in his necromancer’s tight black shirt and trousers, his muscles bulging, he looks completely out of place in the dainty white stone cottage. “We were getting worried. If you didn’t show up soon, I’d have started looking for people to kill.”

  I shiver. Knowing Jax, he’s not kidding.

  Sitting rigidly beside him, Evander accepts a mug of tea from Simeon with a murmured thanks. The sound of his voice, though it’s strained, settles around me like an embrace.

  “What kept you?” Evander asks, his words careful. He stares into the dwindling fire, a crease between his brows.

  “Just getting something from Kasmira.” Hoping to ease the tension between us, I plop down in the narrow space between Jax and Evander, making a place for myself by forcing them to move or have their legs squished, like I’ve been doing for years. Jax’s familiar grumble and Evander’s familiar light touch on my back help the horrible events of last night seem farther away, like a bad dream, as I crunch down on a few of my ill-gotten goods. “Though even coffee beans aren’t exactly helping—”

  “But you always say there’s nothing coffee can’t cure,” Simeon says in slight alarm, handing me a mug and peering into my face, scrutinizing. “Who are you, and what have you done with my sister?”

  He tries to hide his pain behind a ghost of a smile, but I recognize the hollowness in his voice and eyes. Where Jax is foul-mouthed and surly, Simeon is always quick to crack a joke or smile.

  “That’s what I used to think, too. But after last night, I’m not so sure.” I yank on a lock of his sandy blond hair, one of the many telltale signs we’re not really brother and sister. But after being raised together in Death’s convent from the time we were toddlers, we’re as good as family. “How are you holding up? I’m worried about you . . .”

  “Me?” Simeon takes a seat on Jax’s other side, cradling his own tea between his palms. “Whatever for?” The sparkle I’m so used to seeing in his baby-blue eyes has faded, and a knot forms in my chest as he adds softly, “I’m still here.”

  Evander blows steam off the top of his mug, gazing deep within it, and says nothing. Jax gulps his scalding tea without hesitation. His thoughts are surely with Master Nicanor, who was like a father to him, trying to understand the extent of his loss.

  For a moment, as we sit together in a deep silence broken only by the occasional pop and hiss of the dwindling fire, I wish I could stay in this cottage with my friends forever. We’ve never received a warning from the Deadlands before, and I have no idea if it means we’re up against more than a Shade, or if we can handle it. We’re not exactly seasoned warriors. We’re just three orphans, and one baron’s son who grew up without a father. The king’s ideal necromancers, with no loved ones to distract us in the Deadlands, trying to keep each other sane both in and out of the spirits’ realm.

  Jax spills his tea and spits a curse, breaking the silence. Simeon leaps up to help contain the mess.

  While they’re busy, Evander and I exchange a look. He catches my fingers in his.

  Squeezing his hand, I silently let him know I don’t want to fight anymore. “Where did Cymbre go, anyway?” I ask, her note still clutched in my hand. I could hardly read a word of it—the characters swam together on the page in my shock over the flowers.

  “Duchess Bevan needed her help, so she went to Oslea Province,” Jax grunts, wringing tea out of his tight shirt. “Seems the duke’s been missing from their manor in Dyrn City for three days. Went for an afternoon stroll and never came home. If the duchess is lucky, the bastard wound up falling in a frozen lake.”

  Simeon shakes his head.

  “What?” Jax mutters when no one agrees with him. “Have you met him? He beats his wife. Maybe a few days under the ice will help him rearrange his priorities.”

  “I don’t see what Master Cymbre will be able to do, anyway. She’s not a bloodhound.” Evander frowns into his tea. “People seem to think that just because we raise the dead, we can solve all their problems when the Dead don’t act exactly the way they want.”

  Everyone nods. It’s not the first time we’ve complained about this.

  “So what are we supposed to do about Master Nicanor’s funeral? Delay it until she returns?” I wonder aloud. “And hunting down the Shade that—?”

  “Sparrow. We have more to worry about than just some Shade.” Simeon runs a hand through his shaggy hair. The circles under his eyes are dark as the bruises we used to give each other at sword practice.

  Even Jax looks ill, almost like he did last winter after beating the black fever. “We went to Master Nicanor’s cottage early this morning, to find something nice to bury him in.” His voice is taut as he fights to keep it from wavering. “The place was wrecked. Papers everywhere. A smashed plate of supper on the floor. Scratch marks on the doorframe.”

  I shiver again. “Could it have been a vandal? A farmer’s son?” I have to ask, even if it’s unlikely. After all, Master Nicanor had just started tending the massive graveyard outside Grenwyr City, the one used by merchants and wealthy farmers. “A couple of boys messing around, looking for spare coins when they saw Master Nicanor had gone out for the evening?”

  “Nice try, sister.” Simeon leans forward. “But I don’t think so. I can’t think of anything that would cause Master Nicanor to go into the Deadlands alone. I think he was taken against his will.”

  “Exactly. Think about it: Who would he have needed to raise so badly that it couldn’t have waited until Cymbre could come with him?” Jax demands. “Why wouldn’t he have just asked us to raise the person for him?”

  “Okay. Let’s assume someone forced him to go to the Deadlands against his will.” Evander’s eyes are narrowed in thought. “Why did he come out alone, then? What happened to the person who took him there? Everyone knows Shades will devour anything in sight, so . . .” At the look on Simeon’s face, he loses the thread of his words.

  “You don’t have to watch what you say around us. We know what the Shade did to Master Nicanor.” Simeon grimaces, and I reach behind Jax to pat his shoulder. “We were in our
rooms at the palace when they brought him up. We saw the—ah—”

  “Mangled body,” Jax finishes for him, unflinching. An outsider probably wouldn’t guess he’s in pain, but the way he’s quietly grinding his teeth tells me he’s just managed to channel it into quiet fury. “So I say we hunt this damned Shade. Today.”

  Between the flowers on Cymbre’s table and the glimpse I had of a giant Shade in the Deadlands grove, I’m not sure we should go anywhere right now. “Does anyone have a plan, then? One that doesn’t involve us all dying?”

  Evander looks up, his gaze unreadable. “Me,” he says simply. “I’ll cut it to pieces, and then you all will burn it.”

  No one’s better with a sword than Evander. There’s no denying it.

  “We both saw it. The monster that killed Nicanor.” I describe what I saw in the shadows, how quickly it moved. “It won’t stand a chance against four of us, though.”

  I hope I sound more confident than I feel.

  “If we can catch it, that is,” Evander whispers.

  Simeon leaps to his feet and starts pacing. “I don’t think any of us should go into the Deadlands until Master Cymbre’s back. Killing the Shade won’t explain why Master Nicanor’s cottage was torn up. Maybe Cymbre can help us get answers.”

  “There’s so much about this I don’t like,” Evander agrees. “And Cymbre said to wait in her note. She’ll be back tomorrow, in time for the Festival of the Face of Cloud.”

  Jax catches my eye and shrugs, his powerful shoulders bunching. “I still say we kill it now. If we wait for the Festival of Cloud, what’s to keep us from waiting for the Festival of Moon three days later?”

  I almost grin. He’s right, there’s a festival in Karthia at least once a week, and not just for Vaia’s five faces. The king observes all the festivals started before his reign, celebrations honoring everything from the sea to marriages to red fruits. With the Dead walking among us, reminding us of our mortality—and their very presence meaning a Shade could attack at any time—it’s no wonder we need an excuse to throw a raucous party every few days. The Festival of Olive and Tomato is actually my favorite, but Vaia’s festivals are always grandest.

  “Cymbre might be mad for a bit, but she’ll thank us when she calms down,” Jax insists, drawing me back to the present. “This monster murdered her partner, my mentor, damn it!” After a moment of quiet, he asks more calmly, “What do you think, Sparrow?”

  “I . . .” Three pairs of blue eyes watch me as I stall, thinking furiously. Like Jax, I think slaying and burning the monster will ease a little of everyone’s pain—that is, if it doesn’t kill us first. But Evander and Simeon have a point: There’s more to what’s happening than just a Shade, and Cymbre will help us figure it out. “I say we wait for Cymbre. That way we can attend the festival.” I force a grin. “One last chance to eat, drink, and generally make fools of ourselves, just in case we don’t all make it back from Shade-hunting alive.”

  As the others talk among themselves, my gaze returns again to the flowers. The Dead don’t often send warnings from their world, which means something is seriously wrong. Danger, I understand: The Deadlands aren’t exactly safe at the moment. The message of death, of course, is obvious. But deception? That worries me most of all.

  VII

  The palace courtyards swarm with bodies tonight, both living and Dead. King Wylding’s most beloved citizens are all here for the Festival of Cloud—painters and sculptors, poets and musicians—competing for attention as they show off their autumn-themed creations in the center courtyard where I stand with Evander. My heart changes rhythm to match the drums, harps, and tambourines that sound from all directions as I loop my arm through Evander’s.

  “Help me look for Master Cymbre!” I shout over the music and chatter. All of Noble Park seems to be here, along with the ever-growing Wylding family, the city’s wealthiest merchants, and almost every mage from Grenwyr Province.

  Evander puts his lips to my ear. “I would, if I could keep my eyes off you.”

  We’re supposed to dress in our finest for festival days, which means no comfortable black uniforms. And for me, that means letting Lyda’s maids pin up my wavy hair into the most popular style of the past two hundred years, and stuff me into a pretty crimson dress with flowing skirts that make it impossible to wear my sword and belt. My lips are dabbed with rouge, which I always like, though I refused the crumbly brown powder they wanted to pat on my nose and cheeks.

  Evander’s words should make me feel better, but they don’t. Nothing has been able to ease the constant feeling of dread that’s hounded me ever since I saw Master Nicanor die. Since the flowers from the graveyard spelled out a warning.

  Just a few feet in front of us, two obviously drunk Wylding nobles, Valoria’s cousins, throw fistfuls of cake at each other’s faces. Noble girls gathered around them giggle shrilly, seeming desperate to laugh off their nerves in the wake of Master Nicanor’s death. And it’s not just them. Everyone seems determined to get as drunk and happy as possible until they forget their sorrow over the necromancer forever ripped from their midst.

  A roaring sound and a burst of light to my left draw my gaze. The Sisters of Cloud have started the first of many bonfires, and children gather round with fistfuls of color-changing powder, all waiting their turn to make a little magic for the Face of Cloud.

  With a flash, the column of flames stretching toward the sky turns blue. Another child steps forward. Another flash. The fire changes to a brilliant poppy red. Flash. Plum-colored fire pops and sizzles as onlookers cheer.

  Kasmira would love this. She’s likely dancing around a bonfire at one of the parties in the city below with her crew and the rest of Grenwyr’s citizens, toasting the king’s eternal reign, but it seems a shame that Karthia’s best weather mage wasn’t invited to the grandest celebration.

  “Odessa! Evander!”

  We turn toward the voice, which seems to be coming from somewhere near the banquet tables. That’s where most of the Dead gather, piling their plates high with roasted fish and cold cuts of spiced wild boar imported all the way from Lorness, steaming mounds of whipped potatoes, and blackened mushrooms.

  In their shrouds, it would be nearly impossible to tell the Dead man cracking jokes beside the punch bowl from the one taking almost half the potatoes, if not for the ornate pins of copper or silver that denote their titles and often even show their family crests. The Dead women sometimes wear pins, too, though many prefer to paint their masks and don the most exquisite baubles they wore in life. There’s a duchess I call Lady Emerald because she adorns her shroud with nothing but the biggest, shiniest emerald choker necklace I’ve ever seen—I still haven’t learned her real name.

  As two ancient Dead marchionesses glide away with their plates, no doubt to eat in seclusion where they can lift their masks, Princess Valoria appears and waves us over. She must have been the one calling our names.

  The crowd parts to let us pass, some offering greetings, others bowing or waving.

  “I see you’ve found your glasses,” Evander says when we reach the princess, making her grin. “They look nice on you, Highness.”

  The delicate gold spectacles reflect the light of the bonfires as Valoria adjusts them behind her ears. They look even more polished than the opal-and-silver circlet in her hair. “I was hoping you’d be here.” She meets my eyes for a brief moment before dropping her gaze, then tucks a few wisps of her blond hair back into her braided crown. “I mean, and I didn’t have anything better to do.”

  I stare at her, more uncomfortable now than I was when I first squeezed myself into my party dress. Everyone in Grenwyr knows me, or knows of me, but I don’t have many friends outside our circle of necromancers. Aside from Kasmira, of course.

  “I finished it!” the princess adds in a whisper. “My latest you-know-what!” That explains the smudge of dirt on her cheek, and the black
stain on the sleeve of her stunning red-and-gold beaded gown.

  “Maybe you can show us the you-know-what later, when there aren’t any Dead around,” I venture cautiously, earning a smile from her. “How have you been holding up since we saw you last?”

  “The grape vines outside my room wilted the night we got back from the Deadlands. When I saw it the next morning, I knew it had to be death’s blight.” Valoria frowns. “My mother planted those vines. She’s so disappointed. See? That’s my room, just there.”

  She points to a distant domed spire, and I narrow my eyes to see it clearly. Though the Dead can’t reproduce, the palace gets bigger every year, with more wings added constantly to house all the Wylding relatives and their children, and their children’s children. When they aren’t planning parties or painting scenery to keep busy, the living Wyldings are quite fond of making babies. There’s a picture of the original palace hanging in the grand entryway, and it’s definitely swelled with time and demand for more space.

  “You have your own tower.” I grin at the princess. “Not bad. How’d you get so much space to yourself? Did you have to fight a hundred of your cousins for it?”

  “Being the second living heir in line to the throne helps,” Valoria murmurs, her face burning. “Not that it matters, but my parents both died in the yearly black fever outbreak when I was young. My mother was raised. My father chose not to be.” She shrugs, but her eyes glisten. “Anyway, Eldest Grandfather will rule as long as I’m alive. So I don’t have to worry about what a headache I’d have from wearing a heavy crown all the time. Besides, Hadrien would inherit before I did, as he’s the oldest of the five living heirs.”

  “Oldest and best looking,” a smooth male voice says from behind me.

  Dislike flashes in Evander’s eyes, and his lip curls, leaving no doubt as to who’s just put a hand on my waist.