Twice Dead

by Caitlin Seal

  She closed her eyes, feeling the aether like a current around her. The pain in her hand throbbed stronger, and when she opened her eyes the tips of her fingers looked partially transparent. The Necromantic Council was planning an attack on Valn. The suddenness of it made her head spin. She’d succeeded in convincing them of the threat. But the fiery anger she’d felt resonate through the crowd’s shouts scared her. Was this what she’d wanted? Denor’s speech hinted at much more than stopping Valn. How far would they try to push? How far could they push before Talmir decided to send in their army, treaty or no?

  “So is it Blue, or Naya? I’ve heard both and I wasn’t sure,” a female voice said from somewhere nearby.

  Naya looked up. “Sorry?” A young woman stood in front of her. She had a round face framed by thick brown curls and stood with her right fist planted on one generous hip. The stillness in the aether around her marked her as a wraith. Something about the woman seemed familiar, but Naya couldn’t place it.

  Her question had sounded casual, but it left Naya groping for an answer. Who was she really? Blue was the wraith, the one who’d made a place for herself in Ceramor. But she’d never been more than a mask, and telling Corten the truth had shattered her. “Naya’s fine. Do I know you?”

  “Know might be too strong a word, but we have met. Remember? At the Bitter Dregs?”

  Naya shook her head. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “The café. You were there with Lucia.”

  The woman’s familiar features clicked into place. She’d been the one who’d noticed Naya’s accent. Naya winced, remembering how badly she’d handled that mess. “Oh, that café.”

  The woman nodded. “The Bitter Dregs is one of our meeting spots. It’s usually only Council regulars in there, so when I went to talk to you, I figured you were just a new face. Felt a little bad for goading you, after you left.” Her smile widened as though they were sharing a private joke. “Didn’t realize I was chasing off a Talmiran spy.”

  “You didn’t chase me off,” Naya snapped. “I was keeping an eye on Lucia. Once you made her notice me, there wasn’t any point in staying.”

  “My mistake,” the woman said. Naya hoped she would leave it at that, but instead she stepped closer, leaning back against the crate next to Naya. “My name is Iselia, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Naya said without much conviction. Lucia had mentioned that name before she’d dragged Naya out of the café. Iselia had been quick enough to bully her before, and Naya wasn’t sure what the woman wanted from her now. She wondered where Corten was. She’d lost track of him when Alejandra pulled her aside for questioning. She needed to speak to him, needed to know what it meant that he’d spoken for her, and if he still thought she’d done the right thing in coming here.

  “You’ve made quite a ruckus tonight,” Iselia said. “Even the inkers seem ready to fight.”

  “Inkers?” Naya asked, curiosity overcoming some of her wariness.

  Iselia traced a finger around one wrist. “Bodied, inkers, whatever you want to call them. It’s always easier for them to slip back into their old lives, so it’s easier for them to pretend like there aren’t any problems that need fixing. People like us, though…” Iselia paused, holding up one hand. Her eyes turned thoughtful, and after a moment her fingers blurred and flickered. “Even the folks who are used to necromancy tend to get nervous when they find out you’re a wraith. All the propaganda your people spread only makes it worse. Until tonight we haven’t had enough folks willing to take a risk to make any sort of difference. I guess we owe you thanks for that. You finally got them scared enough to act.”

  “But what if it doesn’t work?”

  Iselia shrugged. “Better that we try to fight than to just lie down and let them stomp all over us.” She pushed away from the crate and glanced back at Naya. “Besides, it’s a little late now for second guesses.”

  Naya watched Iselia disappear into the crowd. It had thinned in the last hour or so as people left to begin preparations. Naya stared at the faces around the outer edge of the gathering, wondering what their stories were.

  She watched a pair of young men talk, their hands moving to punctuate their words. One had tattoos binding his soul, the other could have been a wraith, or one of the living. She couldn’t tell from here. Something tugged at her chest, and she realized that despite her fears she wanted to be a part of this. She would never be Ceramoran. But maybe she could still find a place here. They could rescue Lucia, and Naya could apologize for how she’d treated the necromancer. They would stop Valn and her father, and somehow—somehow—they’d find a way to make everything right.

  Naive fool, her father’s voice seemed to whisper in her mind. These people will always be your enemies. Naya ignored it and shouldered her way into the crowd. It took a few minutes to find Jalance standing on the edge of a conversation. “Can I talk to you?” Naya asked.

  “What? Oh, yes.” He rubbed one hand over his face. The skin around his eyes was puffy with fatigue, and he looked less self-assured than he had before. “I suppose we should get going? It seems all the plans are set. I’m sure Antinole and Corten are around here somewhere.”

  Naya grabbed his arm. “I need you to fix my bond before the announcement tomorrow,” she said, dropping her voice so it wouldn’t carry.

  Jalance licked his lips. “I don’t think that’s wise.”

  “I intend to go with them tomorrow. I can’t do that unless you help me. If you can’t do it yourself, then tell me who can.”

  “You’ll be worse off going with someone else. Lucia’s work is complicated. I think I’ve figured out the trick of it, but I can’t make you any guarantees.”

  “Fine. So long as you can get it done by tomorrow.” Given the madness they were all about to sign on to, guarantees seemed a distant luxury.

  Jalance closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If I start the carving tonight, then yes.” In a lower voice he muttered, “It isn’t as though I was likely to get much sleep anyway.”

  After Jalance left to find Antinole and Corten, Naya sought out Alejandra. She found her among a group examining a rough map. When Naya made her a proposal, Alejandra’s companions frowned, a few shaking their heads. Naya met Alejandra’s gaze, ignoring all the rest. After a moment the older women smiled and extended her hand.

  Naya found the others, and they returned to the carriage. They dropped Salavastre off at the inn they’d stopped at before, then continued on to Jalance’s house. They spoke little, and when they reached the garden, Naya descended into the vault while Corten went to help Jalance with the carving.

  Naya waited alone for the rest of the night and into the next day. Her thoughts danced in nervous circles, playing out the attack plan, and what might come after.

  When Corten finally returned, Naya sprang to her feet. “Is it ready?”

  “We finished the carving,” Corten said.

  “Good. What do I need to do?”

  “Jalance has the new bone in his lab. I can take you there, but you know you don’t have to do this, right?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Corten took a hesitant step forward. “You don’t have to go with them. Give us a few more days to check the carvings and make sure we got everything right. You being there tonight won’t change whatever’s going to happen.”

  “You can’t know that,” Naya said.

  “None of us know what’s going to happen. The Council’s never tried anything this direct.”

  “That’s why I have to be there.” Naya moved to step around him, but Corten grabbed her sleeve.

  “Wait,” he said. “Before you go through with this, there’s something I need to say.”

  Naya froze. The faint touch of his fingers on her sleeve seemed to send static dancing up her arm. “What is it?”

  “It’s a
bout what you said before. About how you felt. I’m not…” Corten paused and seemed to steady himself. “There’s still a lot I don’t understand. But I respect what you’re trying to do. So I think I’d like another chance to get to know you.”

  “You do know me.”

  “I knew Blue. But she was just someone Valn made up. I’m still not sure what parts of her were real and what parts were lies you told to get me to trust you.”

  Naya shook her head. Her throat felt tight and dry. “I don’t know either. When I was around you I sometimes felt like Blue was real, and the life I lived before Belavine belonged to someone else. Now I’m scared that everything about me is built on lies—mine or the ones other people fed me. What if there’s nothing good left underneath all that?”

  Corten paused. “I think that whatever else you are, you’re strong. You were brave enough to tell me the truth eventually, and you’re willing to risk your life to help fix things now. That’s something.”

  Naya met his eyes and felt some of the tightness in her chest ease. It was something. A place to start. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Corten led her back into the main house, then down to the basement. She hadn’t seen this part of the house before, and at first she was struck by the difference between this workroom and the one in Lucia’s shop. The floor was tiled with smooth black stone. Tools hung on the walls, and Naya saw a few jars of liquids in a neat row on the counter. There were none of the herbs and medicines that Lucia kept. Apparently Jalance’s work didn’t extend to tending the more minor ailments of the living.

  Stranger than the grimness and tidiness of the space was the stillness in the aether. Nowhere in the room could she feel the tug of aether flowing through runes, and she had to stretch her senses to detect even a whiff of the mingled emotions of the city above.

  In the center of the room, the black floor had been chalked with a triple circle of runes. There was a gap in the outermost circle, facing the door. “What’s that?”

  “An isolation binding,” Jalance answered. “Once I complete the outer circle, those runes will dampen energy transference. It’s probably unnecessary. But given the experimental nature of Lucia’s work, I thought some extra caution was in order.”

  Probably. Naya didn’t like the doubt in his tone when he said that word. Probably he’d gotten the runes right and the bone would fit her bond. Probably she wouldn’t explode like a feast-day sparkler. It was far too much uncertainty, but right now probably was all she had time for.

  Jalance turned to retrieve something from the other side of the room.

  “Sure you don’t want to wait?” Corten asked Naya. “If this goes badly, I don’t know if Jalance will be able to sing you back.”

  “I’m sure,” Naya said, surprised to find her voice steady.

  “Here we are,” Jalance said. He carried a narrow silk bundle in both hands. The silk rustled as he pulled it back with a flourish, revealing a carved arm bone. Sharp runes spiraled around the bone. They were bigger than Naya was used to seeing, and they looked strange without the glow of aether behind them. But after a moment she recognized the familiar pattern of Lucia’s design. The bone was beautiful, too beautiful to have come from a corpse. Naya tried to imagine it wrapped in blood and flesh and skin but found she couldn’t.

  “It’s your left humerus. I must say, the carving came out better than I could have hoped.” Jalance gave her a smile that seemed at odds with the nervousness tainting his aether.

  He instructed her to sit down inside the circle, then placed the bone in front of her. Jalance and Corten stood outside the circle, both looking too nervous for Naya’s comfort. “Once I seal the circles, all you will need to do is push a little of your own aether into the new bone,” Jalance said.

  “That’s it?”

  “That will begin the integration process. You’ll experience some disorientation at first, but the important thing is not to fight it. Once you fill the new bone, it should take over for the damaged one in your thumb. The runes on the old bone will fade as your aether rebalances. After that we can extract it safely from your bond. Ready?”

  Naya drew in a deep breath of aether. “Ready.”

  Jalance bent to chalk the final rune. “Oh, I almost forgot. Once the new bone has settled, you’ll want to smear one of the inner runes of that circle to break the isolation binding.”

  Naya nodded and Jalance completed the circle. All at once the world outside vanished. Naya gasped, her voice sounding strangely flat. It was so dark she could barely see the white sheen of the freshly carved bone.

  Had something gone wrong? Naya reached toward the barrier, but it was like trying to force her hand through wet sand. She jerked her fingers back. She searched the floor and spotted the rim of the chalk circle. Focus! The darkness was probably just part of the barrier; she could dispel it by marring the runes. Realizing that took the edge off her fear.

  Naya allowed herself a single calming breath, then reached toward the bone. A gentle hum resonated through her arm as her hand drew close. Then her fingers brushed the surface and the floor lurched beneath her. The runes flared, Naya’s fingers disappeared, and then the sleeve of her shirt collapsed as her arm vanished. Blackness crawled over her vision as her remaining aether rushed into the bone. She wanted to scream but had no mouth, no lungs. Her body pulsed and shifted as it tried to make sense of itself and reshape itself around the new runes.

  Inside the new bone waited all the pain of her first death, the ice that had filled her veins, and the desperate panic. It made her want to push the bone away. It wasn’t hers anymore. It had been too long. She wasn’t that same girl anymore. Whatever had connected her to the bone was gone, and trying to force it back now would only tear her apart.

  But rejecting the bone would be as good as giving up, on Lucia, on Corten, on everyone Valn and her father intended to hurt. If she did that, she would be letting them win.

  Naya pulled, trying to draw her body back together. She visualized herself as she had been, and how the bones would fit back into that form to make her whole. For an eternity it felt like it wasn’t working. Then slowly the balance shifted. She sensed something that might have been fingers, then an arm, legs, her head—her body condensed into parts. Her eyes opened, and she again saw the circle, and darkness beyond.

  Naya blinked. Had it worked? The pain in her hand had lessened to a dull ache. She tried to suck in aether but came up with only a tiny trickle. She must have already drawn all the energy on this side of the barrier when she’d touched the new bone. The hunger for aether grew inside her, clawing at her.

  She still had enough presence of mind to reach for the clothes that had fallen away when she’d been sucked into the new bone. She dressed quickly, then used the edge of her skirt to brush away some of the chalk circle. The air felt strangely thick, but after a couple of tries the barrier vanished. Naya gasped in aether, reveling in the way her vision focused and her exhaustion faded.

  She only half heard Jalance’s shout of success. Corten hurried toward her, his expression a mix of excitement and concern. “Are you all right? Did it work?”

  Naya stood, flexing her fingers and toes. “I think so.”

  Jalance’s eyes shone eagerly as he ushered her out of the circle. But his expression darkened after he sat her down and checked her bones with the reader.

  “What is it?” Naya asked. When she looked at Corten, a cold lump settled in the pit of her stomach. “What?”

  Jalance examined the runes again, then tossed his reader onto the table. “Creator mar that woman,” he muttered. “Something’s gone wrong.”

  “So it didn’t work?” Naya asked, not bothering to keep the frustration out of her voice.

  “Not exactly,” Jalance said. “The bone activated. It’s in the right place. But there’s some sort of dissonance between it and the bones Lucia carved. Instead of draining, th
e damaged bone is sucking aether from the new one, far more than it should need even if it were functioning properly.”

  Naya clenched her hands into fists to fight the sudden shake in her fingers. “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anything quite like this. But with the energy flowing that way, we can’t safely remove the old bone. It could be it will still settle out on its own. But as things stand now the binding is unstable. Depending on what’s causing the instability, the runes might respond erratically. They could flicker and cause more fading, or the uneven aether flow might cause the binding to overload and snap.”

  “Can you fix it?” Naya asked.

  “Possibly, given time to analyze the problem.”

  Time they didn’t have. They had less than two hours before she was supposed to meet the others at the palace. “What’s the worst thing that can happen if we don’t fix it?”

  “If your bond snaps, you could explode,” Corten said, his dry tone making the words sound all the more absurd.

  “Explode?” Naya raised her eyebrows and glanced at Jalance.

  “Unlikely, but not impossible,” Jalance admitted. “The crack doesn’t seem to have widened at least. But as I said, I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  Naya flexed her hand. “I don’t feel like I’m going to explode.” The ache hadn’t left her hand, but the fresh aether had soothed it to a tolerable level.

  “Still,” Corten said, “maybe it would be better if you stayed here.”

  “No.” Naya drew in more aether. “You said it’s possible the old bone will still settle out on its own?” she asked Jalance.

  “Possible, but I agree with Corten. You’ll be safest waiting here.”

  “No,” Naya repeated. “I’m the only reaper the Council has. I won’t hide while other people risk their lives to stop Valn. I’m going to the palace.”

  King Allence’s summer palace was located on a wide street just a few blocks from the Talmiran Embassy. Naya had walked past it more than a dozen times but had never been beyond the high stone walls. Now the gates stood open, allowing people to trickle in toward the hall where Valn would make his announcement. Naya clutched at the front of her skirt as she joined the small crowd waiting to pass through the gates. There were fewer people here than she’d expected. Were others afraid to come? Or did they still not understand the threat lurking behind Valn’s investigation? Naya slowed until she fell into step just behind a woman in a yellow silk gown and a man in a brown suit.