“So talishte don’t go to the Unseen Realms?”
Vandholt’s apparition nodded. “No. That I can say with certainty. Where they go I can only state as a matter of belief. In that, I agree with Lanyon.”
“If I were turned, would it change the bargain?” Connor asked, his thoughts reeling.
“It would extend your existence, forestall the reckoning,” the Wraith Lord replied. “But it would not change the terms. If you were destroyed as a talishte, you would likely become a wraith for the duration of your service. A bargain with a goddess cannot be unmade.”
“Thank you for saving me,” Connor said finally. “I didn’t want to die.” He met Zaryae’s gaze with what he hoped was a brave face. “As for the rest, it’s a lot to think about. But I guess I’ve got time to figure it out.”
Penhallow left a few minutes later, and the Wraith Lord’s ghost dissipated, leaving Connor and Zaryae alone. Connor no longer felt bold enough to look at Zaryae, and after all he had been through, the question of what this change would mean to her loomed large. There wouldn’t be a discussion at all if they had let me die, he thought. So I guess a slim chance is better than no chance. Still, I’m broken, marred. She could do better.
“This doesn’t change a thing, Bevin,” Zaryae said as if she had read his thoughts.
“It changes me,” Connor said, his voice catching. “How can it not change the way you see me?”
“They told me that you died,” Zaryae said fiercely. “I mourned you. The talishte who saw you fall told me what happened. And if the goddess was listening, then she didn’t just heed the Wraith Lord’s prayer, she heeded mine as well, because I begged her to save you if there was any way at all to bring you back to me,” she continued, gripping his hand tightly. “Even as talishte.”
He turned back to look at her. Zaryae had stopped crying, and he saw the same determination in her eyes that he had glimpsed when they had been in battle together. “How can you say that?” he asked incredulously.
“Because having you be undead and with me would still have been better than losing you,” she replied with certainty. “I’m sorry, Bevin. Maybe I was selfish to want to keep you here. I know that saving you came at a high price. But so did losing you.” She lifted their twined fingers to her lips and kissed them. “I love you, Bevin. That hasn’t changed at all.”
“What a mess.” A week had passed since Connor had awoken, and the damage from the battles was far from being cleaned up. He held hands with Zaryae as they walked together, partly from affection and partly because he had not fully regained his strength.
Solsiden itself was largely undamaged from the fight, except for the courtyard, which bore scars of the violence. Yet in the dungeons below, the sight that unfolded made Connor despair of ever being able to undo the damage of Thrane’s brief hold on power.
The dungeons were packed with badly wounded prisoners, some drained nearly to the brink of death. Most appeared to be barely clinging to life, filthy, emaciated, and delirious.
“What will become of them?” Connor asked Penhallow after he and Zaryae emerged, shaken, from the prison area.
“For now, we’ve kept them glamoured, as a mercy,” Penhallow replied. Even he appeared worn and weary. “We’ll save the ones who can be healed, and the healers will lessen the misery of those who can’t.”
“What of their memories?” Zaryae asked. It was a potent question. Return the survivors to their villages with the memories of their abuse intact, and the horrors were likely to spark retaliation against all talishte, punishing the liberators since those who committed the atrocities were already destroyed. Remove the memories, and the prisoners returned less than whole.
“The healers can blur the worst of the memories,” Penhallow replied. He raised a hand to forestall argument. “I know that it’s a judgment call, a bit of playing god. But if their memories strip them of their reason, where’s the benefit in healing them?”
“Even blurred, there will be evidence about what happened here,” Connor said. “And reprisals.”
Penhallow nodded. “Which is what Kierken and I counseled from the start, when we argued against Thrane and Reese. Talishte cannot rule by force.” He paused. “That’s why we are forming a new Elder Council.”
“But you lost so many of the eldest talishte,” Connor replied. “Who will take their places?”
Penhallow gave a bitter chuckle. “Since I am now, by attrition, one of the oldest surviving talishte, I will be one of the new Elders. Kierken will return, of course. Dolan has agreed as well, meaning that the Knights of Esthrane will have a voice, as they should have had all along. Carlisle, Dalton, and Jarett survived the battle with the rogue Elders and have agreed to resume their responsibilities. Perhaps, in time, we will add others, but it’s enough for now. We will be fewer than the old council, but talishte are fewer as well.” He shook his head. “Thrane and Reese, with their grab for power, managed to do what King Merrill and his ancestors could not—cut the number of talishte nearly by half.”
“Will you rebuild your broods?” Zaryae asked. Connor’s thoughts went immediately to the wretches in the cells below.
“Not from the prisoners,” Penhallow replied decisively. “That’s for certain. But yes, over time, cautiously and carefully, we will gather new fledges to our broods. It’s a necessity for us to survive, as you have seen. Some threats cannot be met by mortal servants alone.” Chief among those threats, Connor knew, was the danger posed by other talishte as well as mortal vengeance.
“What about Tormod Solveig?” Connor had nearly forgotten Solveig’s presence, until he glimpsed the black-clad necromancer in the torch-lit courtyard. Solveig’s back was turned to them, but a blue-white glow surrounded him, and Connor’s magic as a medium told him that Solveig was in the midst of hundreds of ghosts.
“He calls it ‘sifting the dead,’” Penhallow replied. “Once Tormod regained his strength after the battle, and after he interrupted the attacks on you while you recovered, he set about dealing with the ghosts Thrane and Reese left behind.” He grimaced. “As you can imagine, the number is substantial.”
“What can he do for them?” Connor asked. Despite the horror of the ghosts’ attack, Connor was curious about Tormod’s necromancy and how their magic differed.
“For those who want to move on, Tormod can ease their passage to the Sea of Souls,” Penhallow replied. “And for those who want to remain, Tormod says he can help them be ‘unstuck’ from this place so that they can go home, or at least go elsewhere.”
“Thrane wanted to kill Tormod because of his necromancy,” Connor said quietly. “Will the new Elders try to hurt him? After all, he helped us win,” Connor added defensively.
Penhallow shook his head. “Kierken and I have already made Tormod’s safety a condition of admission to the council,” he replied. “So long as he doesn’t use his magic against lawful talishte, we won’t harm him.”
A talishte guard appeared in a blur of motion beside Penhallow. “My lord,” the guard said, “There’s a mob heading for the gates. Mortals, with weapons. What are your orders?”
“Hold the gates, but avoid killing anyone if you can,” Penhallow answered. “There’s been enough death.”
The guard bowed in acknowledgment. “As you wish, m’lord.”
Zaryae turned to Penhallow. “It serves no purpose to allow the mob to destroy you and your talishte, when you saved them.”
“I don’t intend to let them destroy us,” Penhallow said, sounding wearier than Connor could recall. “But they’ll just come back with a bigger mob if we drive them away with force.” He gave a wan, bitter smile. “Trust me on this, Bevin. I’ve seen it too many times before.”
“I believe I can help.” Tormod Solveig had joined them while Penhallow was speaking. “If you can turn them away without starting another battle, it would be a step toward putting all this behind us,” Penhallow said. “Do what you can.”
Penhallow went to see to the situati
on at the wall, in an effort to make sure his orders were carried out. Connor and Zaryae climbed the tower, where they could see and hear what was happening below.
A mob of at least a hundred angry men gathered outside the battered gates to Solsiden. They carried scythes, hoes, staves, and torches, raising their weapons threateningly and shouting for the gates to be opened and their captured loved ones to be returned to them.
“We have destroyed Lord Reese and Lord Thrane,” Tormod Solveig said, standing in the center of the wall walkway. “Lord Pollard is also dead. Their troops have been routed. They will not trouble your villages anymore.”
“We want our people back!” shouted a man at the front of the crowd. The others yelled their support.
“Our healers are with the captives now,” Tormod answered them. “We will return them to you when they are able to travel.”
“Liar!” the leader of the mob shouted. “The biters won’t let them go. Death to biters!” The crowd took up the chant.
Connor stared down at the angry mob in horror. “I don’t want to have done all this, just to burn because of a crowd gone mad,” he said. But he knew that he lacked the strength to fight. Just climbing the stairs to the tower had winded him.
The mob surged toward the gates, pounding against the heavy wood-and-iron doors, but their makeshift weapons had little effect against walls meant to withstand a siege. Yet while the mob outside might not be able to break into Solsiden, if their numbers grew and they camped around the outskirts, they could cut off supplies and make peaceable rebuilding impossible.
“Give us our people back,” the leader shouted. “Or we will be avenged.”
“You can’t win,” Tormod replied. “These talishte are not your enemy. They destroyed the ones who harmed your people. Give us a truce, and we will return your people to you.”
“Don’t believe him! He’s working for the biters!” Again the crowd rushed the gates, hammering against them in a vain attempt to get inside.
Connor knew the attack could be easily repulsed by Penhallow’s troops, and that even mortals could have turned back the assault with archers and boiling water poured through the murder holes.
“They can’t win,” Connor said to Zaryae. “And if we use force against them, it’s all the harder to ever make peace so that the allied talishte aren’t in danger.”
“Look!” Zaryae said, pointing. Ghostly shapes began to take form outside the castle walls, between the gate and the attackers. The mob gasped and fell back, weapons ready, expecting a trick. Instead, more glowing ghosts manifested, appearing nearly solid.
“These are your dead,” Tormod shouted down to the crowd. “We have destroyed their murderers. I can return their spirits to you, to stay among you or move on as they see fit. We will return the living to you in a few days. But there must be a truce. No good can come of more fighting. The enemy who harmed your people is dead.”
The ghosts moved forward, one by one, toward the crowd. Some of the mob reacted with sobs or cries of anguish as a loved one was recognized and a death confirmed. Others responded with shouts and curses, striking at the revenants with staves and scythes as if to prove they were a deception. A few took trembling steps toward the apparitions, to assure themselves that they were indeed the ghosts of their loved ones.
“No truce!” the man at the fore shouted, and a few in the mob behind him took up the cry. The appearance of the ghosts seemed to have shaken the others, since some of the mob stepped back from the edges of the group, while others murmured among themselves. “Death to biters!” The mob rushed forward again, only to find that they could not pass the line of ethereal protectors.
“Your dead do not desire more bloodshed,” Tormod shouted. From where Connor and Zaryae stood, Connor could see the toll the magic was taking. Tormod was sweating despite the cool night, his face flushed with the effort of will, his whole body trembling with the outpouring of power.
“The ghosts may want to hold off the mob, but Tormod can’t feed them the power to do it forever,” Zaryae murmured, holding tight to Connor’s arm.
The sound of hoofbeats made Connor worry that the villagers at the gates were about to get reinforcements. “Penhallow might not have a choice about needing to defend the manor,” Connor said. “Not if the villagers bring enough of a crowd against us.” He waited nervously as the riders drew closer, and realized he was holding his breath as the newcomers appeared at the edges of the torchlight.
“Stand down!”
The voice came not from Tormod Solveig but from behind the mob. Men on horseback rode into the circle of light cast by the torches. Blaine McFadden emerged at the head of a group of soldiers who more than matched the size of the mob.
“There will be no reprisals,” Blaine ordered. “We will help your villages rebuild and help you bury your dead. My soldiers will keep the peace. The men who harmed you have been destroyed. I have no desire for more fighting, but if you will not stand down, you will bear the consequences.”
For a moment, Connor feared that the hotheaded leader might charge, despite the fact that his mob was obviously at a serious disadvantage against a well-armored and heavily armed contingent of soldiers. The more practical-minded among the crowd began to disperse, disappearing into the darkness. Then with a muttered curse, the leader threw down his stave, and the others lowered their weapons.
“Go home,” Blaine shouted as the soldiers parted ranks to line both sides of the road leading from the manor. “The war is over. It’s time to rebuild.”
Cowed by the reinforcements, the mob broke up, but from the muttering and surly looks it was clear that many were unconvinced. Only when the last of the villagers was gone did Blaine ride up toward the gates, waiting for the big doors to open.
By the time Connor and Zaryae made it to the bottom of the tower stairs, Blaine and his troops were inside the walls, and the gate was shut once more. Penhallow and Tormod came out to greet him, and Blaine swung down from his horse. “Trouble with the villagers?” he asked with a jerk of his head toward the walls.
“I can’t blame them for being angry, after what Pollard and Thrane did to their people,” Penhallow acknowledged. “But the damage can’t be undone.”
“I feared worse,” Blaine replied as his men dismounted and saw to their horses, unloading the supplies they had brought. “I intended to be here sooner, but several times along the way from Castle Reach, we saw groups of mortals attacking crypts and cairns during the daylight, and had to stop to run them off.” He shook his head. “No telling whether or not there were talishte in the crypts, but the intent was clear.”
Blaine turned to Connor and Zaryae and managed a tired smile. “It’s good to see both of you alive and well,” he said.
Connor slipped an arm around Zaryae’s shoulders, and she leaned into him. “We’re all right—now,” he replied.
“Thank you,” Penhallow said. Blaine fell in step between Penhallow and Tormod as they walked back into Solsiden, with Connor and Zaryae behind them. He led them into a small, sparsely appointed salon. On their way, Penhallow spoke to one of his talishte guards, who went to find food and drink for their guest.
“We brought provisions,” Blaine went on. “Not a lot, but all we could bring with us given the situation. I thought that fresh supplies would be a help.”
“The pantry was pretty empty,” Zaryae admitted. “Thank you.” Thrane had obviously worried more about feeding his talishte brood than he had their mortal captives or servants.
When they had settled into chairs, Blaine recounted the final battle with Nagok, as well as his last fight with Pollard. “Niklas and Bayard should have the situation well in hand,” he said, “especially with the extra help from Rinka and Verner.”
“I’m relieved to hear Rinka is well,” Tormod replied. “And I’m certain she will want to know that, remarkably, I have survived without her at my elbow.” His tired grin softened the words, and Connor guessed that Rinka Solveig’s protective streak sometime
s proved a bit much for her brother, well-intentioned as it might be.
“What of the twins?” Zaryae asked. “Are they all right?”
Blaine nodded. “The last I saw them, they were putting a fright into Nagok’s troops, riding with the Plainsmen,” he added with a chuckle. “I think their new assignment suits them.”
Two talishte guards brought a tray of hot tea, bread, and some cheese and sausage, as well as a flagon of deer blood for Penhallow. Penhallow sipped from his goblet in silence for a few moments as the others ate. “Geir told me much of what you reported,” he said finally, “though it’s always interesting to hear another view of a battle. So Nagok is vanquished?”
Blaine nodded. “And the rogue Elders? There was no trace of the one you called Aubergine among Nagok’s talishte, at least, not that we saw.”
“He was with Thrane,” Connor replied. “Dolan recognized him. Aubergine is dead.”
“All of the rogue Elders were destroyed,” Penhallow added. “Several were Thrane’s get, so they died when he died. The Elgin Spike retained its power.”
“What happens to the Spike now?” Blaine asked. “Will you use it to make sure the talishte control their broods now that the war is over?”
Penhallow hesitated, and Connor knew that the question touched on a delicate subject. “We are reinstating a new Elder Council of the most powerful among us who are committed to living peaceably among mortals.” He gave a knowing smile. “The Spike will be returned to Edgeland in a new hiding place. Nidhud is willing to serve as its guardian, at least for a while.” He raised an eyebrow. “Of course, there is no need to broadcast among talishte that the Spike is once again ‘lost,’” he added.
Blaine chuckled at the implication. “Let them wonder?” he said, drinking his tea and savoring its warmth. “As good a tactic as any, I guess. And one that supports your authority among your own people while minimizing the threat that the Spike might be misused.”
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