Reign of the Fallen

by Sarah Glenn Marsh

  That means the rogue necromancers created this Shade that’s burning to ash in a blaze before my eyes. They pulled a shroud from one of the Dead so he or she would become a monster and brought it here. Why else would Vane have called it his pet? And they were going to feed Meredy to it, to help it grow stronger. This wasn’t just about killing for money and leaving the victim in the Deadlands. This was bigger.

  Shivering, I watch the Shade burn until all that’s left is its head and a pool of bubbling black goo, wondering if it was someone I knew.

  “Sparrow!” Simeon cries, tearing my attention away from the Shade. He’s crouched beside Meredy, stroking her wine-red hair. “She’s been trying to talk,” he says urgently, “But I can’t understand her. She’s looking at you.”

  As I hurry to her side, a crunching sound draws my gaze to the edge of the trees. Lysander’s cleaning up the remains of the dead male Shade-baiter, and the bear grumbles in deep contentment as he rips off the corpse’s leg and takes a huge bite.

  Somehow, I find the disgusting sound reassuring, but I’m still on edge. I don’t like that Jax isn’t back yet. Kneeling beside Simeon, I urge, “Go look for Jax. We’ll be fine here until you get back.”

  With a glance at the burning Shade, already reduced to cinders, he nods and heads for the trees with his blade in hand.

  Meredy mumbles something I can’t quite make out. I bring my ear closer to her lips.

  “She didn’t want to come,” Meredy whispers. Even now, in her pain and her grief, her eyes are resolutely dry. “I came all this way, and she didn’t want to return with me. At least now I can join her here.”

  I shake my head. “No. You can’t, because Evander wouldn’t want that. Firiel doesn’t want that.” I take her icy hand in mine and squeeze it. A faint scent of vanilla wafts toward me, like I always imagined the Deadlands flowers would smell, or perhaps sweeter. “Hang on just a little longer, Meredy. Lysander needs you. Elibeth needs you. Your mother needs you. You have to hang on.”

  Fumbling with my belt, I finally find the honey and tip the glass vial to her lips. A golden drop stains her mouth, but she doesn’t try to eat it or wipe it off.

  She just stares up at the sky, unmoving. I slap her cold cheek to startle her into taking a shallow breath. “Meredy. I know it’s tempting to give up. Believe me, I know. But for Evander’s sake, I won’t let you.”

  Her shoulders shake as she makes a wheezing sound that might be laughter. “Too little, too late, Sparrow.” More blood trickles down her chin. “If you were going to come all this way for me,” she rasps, “you could’ve just taken my money when I offered it. You would’ve done us both a favor.”

  Dropping her hand, I shift my gaze to Lysander and the bloody mess he’s making of the rogue necromancer. I can’t believe Meredy’s trying to make me feel even more rotten than I already do after I came all this way to save her.

  “I didn’t have to come at all,” I say softly. “And you don’t have to thank me, but how about being glad I’m here?”

  “Why would I be glad?” Meredy’s breaths are becoming more rapid and shallow by the moment, but she’s not as far gone as I thought. If she’s busy arguing, I have this wild hope she won’t suddenly give up and die on me. “You can’t bring Firiel back. She’s made that clear. And you can’t stop me from dying. You’ve been no help at all.”

  “You’re right,” I mutter. Part of me wants to give her a good shake despite the blood trickling out of her. “And without my help, you wasted all your money and got yourself killed for someone who didn’t want to live again, even if it meant a second chance at life with you.”

  Meredy’s next words are almost too soft to hear. It’s only by watching the shape of her lips that I understand. “Go. Please, go away. I didn’t need you before, and I certainly don’t need you now.”

  Heat rushes to my face. “Way to overestimate yourself, sweetheart.”

  I expect another biting remark. But the spark of life is leeching from her eyes, swift as the sun once it touches the horizon. I scoop her into my arms, careful to avoid the deep gash in her side that will be her death wound if we don’t get to a healer soon.

  Swallowing hard, I tear my gaze from the constellations of freckles dusting her cheeks and pray to Vaia yet again. This time, I beg that I won’t have to watch this girl, this echo of Evander, die in my arms.

  I wish Jax and Simeon would hurry up. If they’re not back soon, I’m leaving without them. Meredy’s life depends on it.

  I carry her over to Lysander, who’s still grinding the dead necromancer’s bones, and gingerly lay the now-unconscious girl over the bear’s back. Hopefully he’ll be willing to carry both of us to a healer if I ask politely.

  As I grab hold of the bear’s loose chain, Simeon and Jax crash into the clearing, sweaty and winded and covered in scratches.

  “We need to go. Now,” I shout. “What kept you?”

  “The one called Vane. He got away,” Jax pants. “But the woman wasn’t as lucky. She was bleeding badly, so it was easy to pick up her trail.”

  “And is she—?”

  “I killed her.” Simeon’s face is eerily solemn, and I realize this is the first time he’s taken the life of a living person. “The whole way back, we’ve been trying to work out the meaning of what she said before she died.”

  I frown at them. “Which was?”

  Simeon and Jax exchange a glance, and Jax answers, “There will be others.”

  XVIII

  Three vials of calming potion first thing in the morning are all it takes for me to feel comfortably numb about yesterday’s rescue. To stop my hands from shaking, so I look almost normal when I make my way to the palace’s dining hall.

  I haven’t even reached the marble stairs when I bump into Jax and Simeon, both wearing their swords and necromancer’s belts. “What are you two—?”

  “Looking for you,” Simeon chimes in quickly, grinning at his own timing. “We ran into each other after breakfast and decided now’s the time to go looking for the rogue necromancer, Vane. We’ll start in the Ashes, since that’s where Meredy met him. If we wait too much longer, he might leave the city.”

  “If he knows what’s good for him, he’s already gone,” Jax adds, his crystal-blue eyes flashing. There’s a stain on his tunic, something that dried sticky and shiny just beneath his master necromancer’s pin. He rubs it absently.

  “What happened there?” I ask.

  “Your friend Valoria spilled her breakfast on me.” He grins, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen someone jump that much at a simple hello.”

  “And in other news,” Simeon cuts in, his voice rough from lack of sleep, “Danial might be moving back to Oslea thanks to our recent foray into the Deadlands.”

  “What?” I put an arm around his shoulders.

  “After all that’s happened, he thinks it’s too dangerous.” Simeon rolls his eyes, but the gesture does nothing to hide his pain. “I told him about rescuing Evander’s sister, and he told me to leave the Shade-baiter to you and Jax. He said if I don’t, I might lose him for good.”

  Jax spits on the polished tile floor, showing exactly what he thinks of that.

  “I shouldn’t have asked you to come,” I say quickly. “I knew Danial was scared for you. I knew he didn’t want you going to the Deadlands, but—”

  “You did the right thing. I won’t abandon my family, not even for the handsomest face in Karthia.” With a great shuddering breath, he seems to bury his misery deep and return to his usual good-natured self. “So, are we going to stand around discussing our feelings all day, or do you want to go get your sword and join us, sister?”

  “You both realize Vane is probably hiding in the Deadlands somewhere, right?” As I say it, both Jax and Simeon frown slightly, and I relent. “We can check the Ashes first, though. I’ll be quick,” I promise as I spin around and
run back to my room.

  I grab my sword off the desk, and right as I pull it from its scabbard to check it over from yesterday’s fight, someone knocks briskly at the door.

  “Simeon! I said I’d be right back.”

  But the knock comes again.

  Meredy Crowther is in my doorway, wearing Evander’s smile, holding out a bunch of fiery poppies whose bright petals mean consolation. “Thank you,” she says tersely as she steps past me, entering my room again without invitation, “for saving my life.”

  She thrusts the flowers at me, and I take them with my free hand, studying her over the poppies. She looks almost as pale as she did when she was bleeding from the Shade-baiters’ attack, but her wounds are healed and her hair is braided into a neat crown.

  “These are nice,” I mutter, bringing the flowers to my nose. “Really. Thanks.” It took courage to come here after the things we said to each other. I’ll give her that. But I have no idea why she’s still standing here, looking at me expectantly. “So . . . are you staying in Grenwyr City for—?”

  I feel something scurry over my hand. Several somethings. A shiny black bug drops from the bouquet onto my boot, and I stifle the urge to shout as I stamp on it. But when another bug crawls up my arm, I curse and throw the flowers across the room.

  A stalk of deep purple foxglove, the symbol of insincerity, falls from the middle of the bouquet.

  “Death be damned, these are infested! Where’d you find them? A dung heap?”

  Meredy’s face flushes as she stamps on every bug she spots. “So burn them,” she mutters. “I wouldn’t have come here at all if my mother hadn’t dragged me the whole way and insisted I thank you. If you ask me, you don’t deserve any thanks. I wish you’d left me there to die . . .” She squishes the last bug, then frowns at me.

  For some reason, the sight makes my temples throb.

  Meredy’s pale skin turns mottled gray. Her arms grow long and skeletal. Peeling, decaying flesh bubbles on her cheeks, and her mouth, opening in surprise, is full of sharp teeth.

  I shut my eyes and lean against the wall of my room, willing the hallucination to stop. But when I crack an eye open, Shade Meredy is still standing there, watching me with dark holes for eyes, snarling with her jaw unhinged and her pointy teeth exposed. Looking hungry.

  “Odessa?” Her usually cool voice is tinged with concern despite her vicious appearance. “What’s going on?”

  “M-monster,” I grit out, keeping my eyes shut tight. My whole skull hurts worse than it did the time Simeon and I rolled down a giant hill and he accidentally kicked me in the back of the head.

  “What did you just call me?” Meredy’s too-sharp voice crashes into my aching head.

  “No, I mean—because—” I won’t tell her about the potions. I can’t.

  “You don’t get to judge me for trying to bring Firiel back when I didn’t know she’d refuse to come. How could I have known that, after all the things we promised each other?” A sob escapes her. “I never should have come here!”

  She slams the door behind her, and the moment her rapid footsteps in the hallway fade, I crawl toward the stash of calming potions under my bed. With the bitter liquid trickling down my throat, the pain in my head starts to recede, and I can see the trampled flowers on the floor clearly again.

  I doubt Meredy will ever come back here. And I’m glad. I don’t want anyone to see me like this, especially not her, a girl who’s lost more than I have. Evander wouldn’t recognize me right now, and that alone makes me wish I could stop needing the potion—but I’m even more afraid of what I’ll feel without it.

  I’m afraid of so many things.

  Like a rogue necromancer who can control Shades.

  After what I witnessed when I rescued Meredy, I wonder if Evander’s death or Master Nicanor’s were the random violent acts of a Shade. I wonder if their killer had a master and was following orders. A rogue necromancer guiding the giant Shade and feeding it corpses would explain why it was so much stronger than the usual monsters lurking in the Deadlands.

  “Sparrow?” Simeon’s voice cuts into my thoughts, carrying from the hallway through the closed door. “We just saw Meredy come out of your room, and she looked madder than a wet cat. Is everything all right?”

  I push myself up off the floor and run my fingers through my hair, trying to look more like myself. I don’t need anyone realizing I haven’t stopped taking the calming potions.

  “Everything’s fine,” I lie. “Let’s get this over with.”

  * * *

  The morning after our unsuccessful search in the Ashes, the faint sound of smashing glass draws me from a restless sleep. I open my eyes to a misty autumn morning and gaze around my empty room, where the piles of clothes and my sword are exactly as I left them. I must’ve imagined the noise. After closing my eyes for another moment and realizing sleep won’t return, I wonder whether I’ll need three or four potions to help me out of bed this morning.

  But when I try to push back my blankets, my hands won’t cooperate, and I glance down to see they’re bound in iron. I blink, struggling to make sense of things. The heavy shackles on my wrists look like the ones reserved for the most violent lawbreakers.

  My mind jumps to Vane, the powerful rogue necromancer, but I can’t imagine how he got through the palace guards and figured out which room was mine. And if he wanted to tie me up and hurt me, he wouldn’t have left me cozily tucked in bed.

  There’s only one thing I know for certain right now: I’ve got to get to the hallway and call for help before whoever did this returns.

  Heart tapping out a mad beat, I stagger from my bed with the sheets wrapped around my ankles and trip as I reach the edge of my tether—I’m chained to my own bedpost. I try to catch myself, but I’m not quick enough. I land hard on my back, knocking the breath out of me. Still, whatever bruises I’ve just given myself don’t sting nearly as badly as the sight beneath my bed.

  All my calming potions are gone. The once-sticky floorboards where they sat are clean and dry, as though the potions were never there at all.

  My scream of frustration doesn’t feel as good as I hoped it might.

  “Oh good,” says a cool, slightly bored voice I never thought I’d hear again. My door creaks open, and the voice grows louder. “You’re awake. How’s your head today?”

  As Meredy sweeps into the room, my face burns. I struggle to push myself up from the floor, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of towering over me while I’m sprawled on my back, helpless as a fish out of water.

  “What is this? Some kind of revenge?” I growl, holding up my shackled hands. The chain binding me to the bed rattles as I push myself to my feet and glare at Meredy. “You realize I can still hurt you with my hands chained, right?”

  Her lips twitch, but she quickly forces her face into its usual smooth mask. “I don’t see why you’d want to, when I’m here to help you. Besides, your hands aren’t bound for my protection.” Meredy takes a deep breath. “Your potions are gone, and you’ll be tied up and locked in this room for the next seven days, with the exception of necessities.” She pauses, her eyes searching my stunned face. “That’s how long the healers say it takes for the potion to leave your blood entirely and stop the cravings.”

  “Do you . . . do you have any idea how much those tonics cost?” I’m so furious, I can barely form words. “Or how much I need them?”

  I may not want to kill her, but I would like to slap her. Really, really hard.

  “Look, you know what Evander meant to me. So you should understand better than anyone why I need this one thing.” I edge as close to Meredy as my blasted tether allows. “Without the potion, I’ll be—”

  “Alive and miserable,” Meredy finishes. A flash of triumph lights her eyes. “Like me. I realized it when I got home yesterday. There’s no better way to repay what you did tha
n by giving you exactly what you gave me. Life, when I wanted to die. Did you know that if you were to keep taking that potion, it would eventually kill you?”

  I press my lips together, a trickle of cold snaking down my back. I didn’t know that, but even if she’s telling the truth, it’s none of her business. “If you really wanted to die,” I mutter out of spite, “you wouldn’t be here talking to me.”

  To my satisfaction, her lips open, but no sound comes out. She gives a terse nod.

  “I could say the same of you,” she murmurs at last, her voice crisp as winter’s first frost. “You’re drinking far too much of that potion for someone who plainly isn’t ready to give up on life, no matter what wretched things it’s forced on you lately.”

  My voice, unlike hers, crackles with heat. “Why do you care, anyway?”

  Meredy’s face reveals nothing, even when it’s so close her nose is almost touching mine. “Misery loves company. And Evander would turn over in his grave if I let you keep destroying yourself.”

  “How did you even know about the potions?”

  She glances away, toward the window. “Your friend is really worried about you. And after your bizarre episode yesterday, I was curious.” She shrugs. “Wondering about you beats dwelling on my own problems.”

  Valoria.

  “I’ll pay you.” I hate the whine in my voice, but a feeling like hundreds of tiny insects crawling around in my stomach means it’s past time for my next fix. “You can have anything of mine you want. My uniforms. My party gowns. My sword. My sapphire pin. Just bring my potions back.”

  “Not a chance.” Meredy perches on the bed, leaving the path to the door wide open.

  But there’s no point even trying to sprint to freedom. I can’t drag the whole bed with me. As I glare at the open door, Valoria breezes into the room, looking completely unsurprised by my livid stare.

  “Good morning!” she says cheerfully, pushing her glasses up her nose and kicking the door shut. Turning back, she offers me a hesitant smile I don’t return. “How are you feeling? It’s a good thing your potion makes you sleep so soundly, or I’d never have gotten those shackles on without you knowing. Are they too tight? I designed them with your comfort in mind . . .”