by Caitlin Seal
“Why would you want to help me? You have to know you’re only risking more trouble for yourself.”
“Well, the more you know, the less likely you are to tip someone else off by accident.”
That was a fair point. Still, his kind words seemed like such fragile things compared with the weight of the secret he held. And she doubted he’d be so keen to help her if he found out who she really was. But maybe if she was careful, she could keep that secret hidden. “Okay,” she said.
“Really? Great. Then come with me.”
“Now?” Naya asked.
“Unless you’re busy.” Corten raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Where are we going?”
Corten smiled. “It’s a surprise. Follow me.” He stood and retreated farther up the roof, leaving room for her to climb out the window.
Naya hesitated a moment longer before her curiosity got the better of her. She pulled herself through the window and crawled out onto the roof. The shop was only two stories, and soon she and Corten were standing on the shallow roof looking out over the city.
“This way,” he said, before jumping the gap to the next building.
Naya’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?”
“Just trust me.”
Trust him? He was insane, and she was even worse for letting him talk her into coming up here. Naya inched toward the edge and glanced down at the street below.
“Are you coming?” Corten’s voice held the faintest note of challenge.
Naya glared at him, then sucked in aether and jumped. The distance wasn’t far, and her body weighed little more than her clothes. But when her shoes hit the shingles of the next roof, she stumbled to one knee. Corten caught her arm before she could slide off.
“Careful,” he said as he helped her to her feet.
Naya was grateful to the dark for hiding her expression. She kept her eyes locked on the roof as she stood. Then she noticed Corten’s feet.
She frowned. “You’re not wearing any shoes.”
“Why would I?” Corten wiggled his toes. “My bones aren’t in my feet. It’s not as though the ground can really hurt me.”
“But it’s…” Naya trailed off. The sailors on her father’s ship often went barefoot. But in cities people wore shoes. That was how the world worked.
“It’s comfortable, and it’s easier to keep my balance this way.”
Naya looked down at her own shoes. They were practical enough, well-fitted with thick soles. But those soles also made it hard to feel the contour of the roof under her feet. She clomped and crunched with each step while Corten made almost no sound at all. Naya’s fingers brushed the edge of her necklace. Humans wore shoes. Humans didn’t go running on roofs in the middle of the night. But she wasn’t really human anymore, was she?
When she looked up she saw Corten watching her, waiting for her to make up her mind. How was it that he seemed ordinary and strange all at the same time? By his face and dress it was easy to imagine him as one of the dozens of sailors who came and went from the ports back home every day. She could close her eyes and see him standing beside her on the Gallant’s prow, or climbing the thousand steps from the Lith Lor docks to the gleaming white city above. But she wasn’t in Talmir, and Corten wasn’t a sailor. He was a ghost, standing barefoot on a rooftop as though it were the most normal thing imaginable. He asked the impossible like it was nothing. Trust me.
Naya looked over his shoulder at the familiar roof of Lucia’s shop. What other option did she have? She could go back, but she knew she’d spend the rest of the night wondering and worrying if he’d change his mind and go to the city guard. And she’d still be no closer to learning what she needed to prove herself to Celia.
Naya untied her shoes. She felt the kiss of the warm shingles against her heels and toes as she set the shoes to the side. She met Corten’s eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. Despite everything, her lips turned up to answer his smile. “Let’s go.”
“This way.” He ran, jumping to the next roof and scrambling over its peak.
Insane, totally and completely insane. But she didn’t give herself time to think about it. She ran. The air tugged at her clothes with each jump. Corten wasn’t sprinting, but his pace would have been suicidal for an ordinary human. Naya soon found herself falling behind despite her efforts. Her nerves wouldn’t let her leap from one roof to the next without slowing to judge the distance across the next gap. But with each jump some of her fear faded. Up here she couldn’t smell the stink of the city. With all the lights below, the stars seemed brighter up above. Freedom welled inside her, and for a moment Naya let it drown out all the worries that had haunted her since she woke in this strange city.
Naya followed Corten’s zigzagging path across the city roofs. When she finally caught up, he was standing on the roof of a large house. She could see the towers of the king’s summer palace not so far ahead, and to her right the dark expanse of the bay. Corten sat down, patting the roof beside him.
“Why here?” Naya asked.
“If we’re going to talk about something as illegal as reaper bindings, I figured we might as well do it somewhere private. And you have to admit the view’s much better here than back at Lucia’s.” His tone was light, but the smile was gone from his face as he looked out across the city’s roofs.
“What about the people inside?” It was a warm night, so it wasn’t impossible to imagine that they’d have their windows open.
“Don’t worry. We’re above an attic. And if anyone inside wakes up, you’ll probably be able to sense them before they hear anything important.”
“Oh, right.” Naya checked the aether and felt only the haze of sleep below her. She supposed she should have been happy about that. No doubt most spies would love to have the trick of sensing when others were nearby. As useful as the skill was, she doubted any Talmiran would be willing to die for it. She sat next to Corten, the exhilaration of leaping across the roofs fast fading. The view up here was beautiful, but she hadn’t come for beauty.
“How far do you think Lucia went with the changes in my bond?” Naya asked.
Corten was silent for a moment. “I’m not sure. We could try some things out, if that’s what you want. But we’d have to be careful. There’s still a lot we don’t know about how soul bindings work.”
“What do you mean? I thought Ceramorans have been performing resurrections for decades.”
“We know how to resurrect people, but a lot of that knowledge comes from ancient texts. We can follow the instructions, but we don’t know why they work.”
Naya’s eyebrows rose, but Corten didn’t look like he was joking. “That’s terrifying.”
“I think the mystery was what drew me to necromancy in the first place.” Corten looked down at his hands. His shoulders hunched and Naya wondered if he was again thinking of what he’d lost. “Anyway,” Corten continued, “some of the changes in the reaper bindings make them dangerous to use. The runes a necromancer carves act like a sort of tool set that allows the wraith’s soul to draw aether and re-create their body. The reaper binding was an attempt to expand that tool set, figure out how to let a soul do more with the energy it can access. The problem is that there’s this dissonance that builds up.”
Corten paused and apparently saw the confusion in Naya’s expression. “Sorry, I’m probably not explaining this very well. Take the way I look.” He gestured at his face. “This is me. I don’t have to think about looking this way any more than I would have had to think about how to wiggle my toes back when I had a body. But if I want to change something…”
Naya drew in a sharp breath as Corten’s hair flickered from black to pale brown, then back again. “Holding on to a little change like that is sort of like carrying a rock in my fist,” Corten continued. “It’s not much work, but I have to pay attention or I might drop it. The kind of things the reapers could do
would be more like trying to lift a boulder. Go too fast or lift too much and you’re liable to crack your bones.”
“And that’s bad?” Naya asked.
“Very.”
Naya wrapped her arms around her chest. Did she even want to know what changes Lucia might have made to her? Talmirans had fought and died to keep this sort of power out of the world. But what if she could use it to help defend the treaty?
What if. What if. The questions multiplied, making her head ache. She met Corten’s eyes. “Let’s start with something small. How did you make your hair change like that?”
Corten shook his head. “That isn’t small. Feature shifting isn’t something every wraith can do, and even those who can are careful how they use it.”
“Why? I thought all wraiths were resurrected with the same bonds. Shouldn’t they all be able to do the same things?”
“In theory, sure. But just because someone is born with two hands doesn’t mean they’ll become a master artisan. Remember what I said about a wraith’s bond being a set of tools? Well, having the tools and having the skill to use them are two different things. We know that the way a wraith looks is tied to their will.”
“I’ve already read about that,” Naya cut in. “Wraiths are supposed to be able to exert their will to change the way they look. But I’ve tried that and it never works.”
“Let me guess: Lucia had you read Sellencio?”
Naya nodded. “I think she only gave it to me because she thought I wouldn’t get anywhere with it.”
“Sellencio’s explanations aren’t wrong, but face shifting is about a lot more than just conscious will. How you look now is less tied to the physical body you lost, and more to how you see yourself. Your perceptions determine the body you shape intuitively for yourself. In order to change that, you have to be able to let go of the idea that your body is unchangeable. You have to be able to look in a mirror and expect something different.”
Naya stared out at the horizon, where the ocean seemed to swallow the stars. Could she let go of what she’d looked like before? She tried to imagine looking in the mirror and seeing a face she didn’t recognize staring back. She turned back to Corten, examining his face. “You can change more than your hair?”
Corten nodded. “I can, but it takes a lot of effort. It’s not something I like to do.”
“So this is what you looked like when you died?”
“More or less.” Corten rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s been more than a year now, so I guess I look a bit older.”
“You guess?”
“Most wraiths age, unless they’re trying not to. But I don’t know if how I look now is how I would have looked if I’d kept my body, or just how I think I should have looked.”
Naya wrinkled her nose as she tried to sort that one out. How could someone even know what they’d look like as they got older?
Corten smiled. “See what I mean? This is why I said it’s not a small thing. In order to change your face, you have to start thinking about yourself in a completely different way.”
Naya gave up on trying to imagine an older version of herself. “Still, I want to learn it.”
“So you can run away from Lucia?”
Naya shook her head. “I told you before. I’m not running. Can you teach me or not?”
Silence fell between them, then Corten sighed. “All right. Let’s start with thinning. It takes some of the same mind-set as feature shifting, but most wraiths find it easier. Here, watch.” Corten lifted one hand, and after a moment his fingers faded to a wispy, transparent blue.
A shock of instinctive fear raced down Naya’s back. She pushed it away. “I remember something like that happening just after I woke.”
“That’s common. When a soul is first called back, it can take time for it to adjust to the rune binding.” Corten brushed the edge of a shingle and his fingertips seemed to sink into it.
Naya pressed her own hand against the roof. It felt rough, and undeniably solid. “How did you do that?”
“I reminded myself that my hand wasn’t made of flesh and bone anymore.”
“That’s it?”
“Essentially.”
Naya glared at her hand. She tried to drag up the memory of what her fingers had looked like when they’d slipped through the blanket. Her chest tightened. Monster. It had been one thing to agree to Celia’s demands. But if what Corten said was right, then the only way she’d learn to change her body was by embracing this new form. She wasn’t sure which was more frightening: the prospect of failing and being tossed aside by Valn and Celia, or what she might become if she succeeded.
Corten brushed the back of her hand, then carefully lifted her stiff fingers. His touch was warm and sure and it sent a shiver through her. He pressed his palm lightly against hers so the tips of their fingers just barely touched. Naya froze, trapped by the touch, torn between the urge to pull away and the desire to lace her fingers through his.
“Relax,” Corten said. His hand turned transparent again. The pressure of his fingers against hers lessened until all she felt was a faint warmth, like the glow of a hearth in a cool room. Naya tried to let the rest of her body relax, but it was hard to focus on anything beyond that faint touch. It should have made her afraid. Naya met Corten’s eyes, and the warmth against her palm seemed to flare hotter.
He doesn’t even know your real name. Guilt settled over her like a rain-soaked cloak. Corten wasn’t a monster, no matter what the Talmiran keepers taught. But what was she? Was she callous enough to use him, even knowing he would hate her if he ever found out who she really was? Not callous, practical. Valn is trying to keep the peace. Would Corten be any better off if Talmir and Ceramor went to war? No, he wouldn’t. Just because he might not agree with her methods didn’t mean she wasn’t doing the right thing.
Naya imagined her will hardening like a crystal. Peace was more important than any trade deal she could have hoped to negotiate while sailing with her father. If war came, then thousands of others would die like she had. She wouldn’t stand by and let that happen. She would become whatever she must to preserve the peace.
She focused on her hand. Not flesh and bone. Something more, something stronger. Her skin shimmered. At first she thought it only a trick of the starlight. Then slowly her hand faded until she could see Corten smiling through it.
“Again.” Celia’s voice snapped like a whip, the sound reverberating off the stone walls of the basement.
Naya drew in more aether. If she’d had a body, she suspected it would have been drenched in sweat. As it was, the bones in her hand ached dully. She tightened her grip on the training knife.
Celia didn’t look the least bit tired as she moved to attack again. In her right hand the spy wielded a thin club like the ones carried by the city guard. In her left she held manacles made of thick salma wood. The wood was near black, with knots and whorls of dark gray running through it. It was polished smooth, but somehow the surface seemed to suck the light in rather than reflect it.
Naya braced herself, trying to watch both the manacles and the club at the same time. Celia swung at Naya’s head with the club. Naya ducked the blow and felt the rush of wind from the near miss. She tried to slip inside the older woman’s guard, stabbing with the knife.
Celia stepped back, causing Naya to lose her balance as she stabbed at empty air. Celia raised the club as though to swing again at Naya’s head. Naya saw the opening and turned her stumble into a lunge, slashing at Celia’s chest. But at the last instant Celia turned the blow, striking at Naya’s knife hand. The club slammed into her wrist, sending ripples of force through her whole body.
Naya concentrated on the point of impact. She imagined her arm not as flesh but as raw energy. Her wrist turned transparent and the club swung through it like a cool breeze. Naya’s triumphant grin froze in place when she heard her knife clatter t
o the floor—having fallen through her now incorporeal fingers.
She hesitated, torn between retrieving the knife or moving back out of Celia’s range. The moment of indecision proved damning. Celia shifted forward and locked the manacles around Naya’s left wrist.
Freezing pain shot up Naya’s arm, and her fingers went rigid. She hissed through her teeth, trying to pull her wrist free. She thinned the flesh of her arm, but no matter how hard she tugged, her arm remained bound in the manacle. Somehow, the salma wood blocked aether, locking her in place. Or at least that was the explanation Celia had given. The cuffs felt nothing like the rune plates Corten used for protection near the furnaces, and Naya had come to dread their icy touch.
Celia frowned as she unclipped the restraint. “Better, but you still think too much. If someone corners you during a job, you must be ready to defend yourself. King Allence can’t afford to equip all his guards with salma wood, but most will have at least some training in how to fight your kind. You have to stop moving like your body is made of flesh and blood. What does it matter to you if I hit your head? Your bones are in your hand. That is what you should be protecting.” Celia pointed the club at Naya’s left hand for emphasis.
Naya scowled, rubbing her wrist until the cold faded. “I know. I’m trying.” Celia’s other lessons had come easily. In the weeks since her resurrection, Naya had mastered the hand signs and codes used by the Talmiran spies. She’d learned to follow without being seen, and a dozen other small tricks besides. But when sparring, it didn’t seem to matter how hard she tried. She was always too slow.
“That’s enough for tonight, I think,” Celia said.
“I can keep going.”
“No.” Celia waved one hand dismissively. “I want you fresh for tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow?”
Celia nodded. “I have a job for you.”
Excitement danced down Naya’s spine like a shiver. “What is it?”
Celia walked to the crate containing their supplies and extracted a paper-wrapped bundle. She tossed the package. Naya caught it and unwrapped one corner, finding a set of dark clothes. “Meet me tomorrow night after first bell at the usual spot. Wear that. I will give you the rest of the details then.”
