Rath reached for the handle.
“Wait!” I said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t touch that door,” I said. As I spoke, the seal shimmered into view. Rath stepped quickly away.
“Well, there’s definitely something in there. And whatever it is, it doesn’t want us to come in.”
I had dreamed of this door so often that seeing it in reality was bizarre.
“How are we going to get around it?” Zarra asked.
“Stand back,” I said. I handed my pitchfork to Mel.
“What are you doing?” Rath asked.
I was too focused on remembering my dream to respond.
I stood in front of the doors and traced a circle in the air with three intersecting lines. I clapped my hands together. The mark flashed in silver on my palms and then appeared on the door.
I took a deep, steadying breath and placed my palms against the polished wood of the big doors. Energy buzzed through my hands. I knew I wasn’t in danger because Rath wasn’t intervening, but it was still an uncomfortable sensation. The shimmery blue coating on the doors flashed brightly and then vanished. I pulled my hands away from the door and shook them. They tingled as if I had slept on them too long.
“How did you do that?” Rath asked.
“I dreamed about it,” I said. I brushed off everyone’s confused looks and reached for the door handle. “Ready?” I asked.
We all looked at each other. Mel handed me my pitchfork and prepared a new arrow. Zarra spun her sword in her hand. Rath cracked his knuckles and nodded solemnly.
“Let’s do this,” I said.
The hinges on the heavy double doors seemed to warn us away with creaking lamentations.
Turn back, they moaned.
Everything about this room screamed danger. All along the walls, bodies lay in twisted heaps. It looked as if they had been flung forcibly against the walls by some blast from the center of the room. But there was nothing in the center of the room save the remains of a dilapidated chandelier that had crashed to the floor long ago. I had never seen bodies lay still. I expected them all to sit up at any moment and try to rip me apart. But there was no sign that they had moved in many winters.
Time had not been kind to these lifeless husks. As with the deadmen we had seen earlier, these bodies were mostly skeletal, though some still had their hair. They all appeared to be men from the look of their clothing.
Gingerly, I picked my way around a corpse that sprawled on the floor.
“Oh…” Rath’s voice broke the stillness. He had been the last one to enter the room. He stood staring at the skeleton the rest of us had just stepped over. He fell to his knees.
“Rath?” Alarmed, I hurried to his side.
Rath reached out a trembling hand to touch the body, but quickly lost the nerve and withdrew it. He crushed his fist against his mouth.
The body lay on its face. It wore a fine blue tunic, a red velvet cape, and burgundy britches. A knife protruded from its back. This poor man had been killed from behind by a coward. I felt bad for the poor sap, dying such a dishonorable death.
“Willian,” Rath whispered. He brushed his fingers over the finely embroidered tunic. “Izzy, this is your father’s body.”
The blood drained from my face.
“Don!” Mel called from the other side of the chandelier. “Rath, Don, come here. You need to see this.”
I hesitated, reaching my hand out to help Rath up. He shook his head, refusing my assistance. His brown-gray eyes never left the body. I took one last glance at what had once been my father and stepped around the chandelier to see what Mel and Zarra had found.
In the ring of light provided by Mel’s torch, I saw the only thing that was still erect in the entire room: the throne. It stood resolute against time and violence, carved from heavy wood and reinforced with strong metals.
But what really caught my attention was not the throne itself, but the human form that sat upon it.
A body sat slumped upon the throne, surprisingly well preserved. It was the body of a woman, wearing a simple, but elegant shift in brilliant blue that had not faded with the passing winters. Her long, dark hair was loose, falling over her shoulders and down to her waist. She still had most of her pale skin, though patches of bone showed through, including a large section of her jaw. But she still had her eyelids, and her eyes were closed as if she were dreaming peacefully. Had she had the luck to sleep so soundly through her death?
It wasn’t until I saw the silver circlet she wore on her head that I realized who this woman must have once been:
My mother.
So this was it. This was where my mother had perished, and my father, and anyone who could possibly explain to me what had happened in this room seventeen winters ago. And yet, as with the rest of the castle, there wasn’t a single spirit to be found.
I picked my way through the twisting arms of the chandelier, holding my breath. I was afraid that even breathing too loudly would break something and wake the dead that slept all around us.
With timid steps, I approached my mother’s body. She sat completely still as if she was made of stone. Slowly, I reached for the circlet she wore. My fingers had just touched the delicate metal when my mother’s eyes opened. They glowed with a deadly red light.
I screamed.
Mel let an arrow fly. Before it could connect with the reanimated body, the queen opened her mouth and screamed. I was blown backward into Rath’s arms. He had appeared just in time to save me from being skewered by the arms of the broken chandelier.
I untangled myself from the knot of our limbs and twisted onto my bottom. Another arrow shot from Mel’s bow disintegrated before it could reach the queen.
The body of my mother stood up. She was nearly as tall as I was. I took a moment to appreciate the elegance with which she moved. No other deadman could ever be called anything close to elegant. Then again, I had never seen a deadman with glowing red eyes, either. We were dealing with a beast in a completely different league than the average deadman.
The queen gazed at me with those piercing red eyes as she lifted off the ground, hovering in the air like Rath did with the Insurgent’s Armor.
“That,” Rath said, “is Her Highness Queen Aerona Delaren. Izzy, meet your mother.”
The deadman’s head rolled back with a dramatic toss of hair. Her mouth fell open, and she made the strangest sound halfway between a scream and deeply toned music. At the sound of her command, the bodies lining the walls twitched to life. My mother’s body was not just a deadman. She was the flying, red-eyed demon Queen of the Deadmen.
“We’re in trouble,” I said as the room filled with mist.
Mel whipped out her hinged staff and clicked it out to full length, lighting up each end. She whipped it around herself to keep the mist away.
“Zarra,” she yelled, “light the chandelier!”
“This whole place could go up in flames!” Zarra Stepped to avoid the mist as the deadmen lurched closer
“That’s exactly the point!”
“Oh! On it!” Zarra Stepped in rapid circles around the chandelier, lighting every candle she could find. The fire provided a small berth of space free from the thickening mist.
Rath scooted closer to the fire while I did the opposite. Clutching my pitchfork, I barreled into the mist, headed in the direction of the Queen’s glowing eyes.
If she noticed my approach, she did nothing about it. She remained in the air, her limbs spread, her body convulsing as mist poured from her mouth.
I heard Zarra scream behind me.
“The deadmen!” she gasped.
“What’s happening?!” Mel cried.
I spun around, and my mouth dropped open in surprise. The deadman nearest me appeared to be rapidly decaying in reverse. Flesh began to appear on its gaunt bones. Hair sprouted from its head. The creature stumbling toward me looked far too human. And the more alive the deadman appeared, the faster it moved.
> This particular deadman had once been an older man with long, greasy hair and filthy clothes. As he approached, he bent with near-human coordination and swiped a broken spear from the floor.
“What?!” I cried. “No! You don’t get weapons!”
The deadman stabbed the jagged wood in my direction. I swatted the broken spear aside with my pitchfork.
“That’s not fair!” I complained, side-stepping as the frustrated deadman tossed its weapon at me like a javelin. What in the world was happening? How was it possible for a deadman to develop backward — to act so incredibly alive?
Only days ago, I had joked with Zarra that I would never need to fight a deadman in hand-to-hand combat. I was about to eat my words.
My opponent found a chair leg and lunged forward, frothing mist all over me as I held him at bay with my pitchfork. Fortunately, Mel saw my struggle and shot a well-aimed arrow at my assailant. He floundered to the floor, burning up like parchment paper.
“I couldn’t save you, Willian!” Rath shrieked, stumbling away from the body that had once been my father. “I’m sorry!”
“Rath!” I hollered, whacking a deadman aside, “That isn’t Willian! That’s not my father!”
Willian’s body grabbed Rath by the collar of his coat.
“It’s a deadman!” I said, “He’ll kill you!”
A deadman grabbed my ankle.
“That’s not Willian, Rath!” My words seemed to be having no effect. Rath was too overcome with emotion to respond.
I tried to shake the deadman off. It clung harder. I kicked the deadman in the face.
Zarra Stepped between the old king and Rath, jabbing her torch into Willian’s chest. Willian screamed in agony, and Rath covered his ears with his hands. Tears streamed down his face, smearing his makeup.
The Deadman Queen dove from the air. She grasped Zarra by the throat and lifted her into the air with inhuman strength. Zarra struggled, kicking and writhing as she tried to free herself. The too-large Insurgent’s Boot fell off of her foot and clattered to the floor. Mel tried to dive for it, but another deadman seized her and dragged her to the ground.
“Zarra!” I yelled.
The Deadman Queen was too high off the floor for me to reach. I ran beneath her and stabbed my pitchfork into the air as high as I could. The Deadman Queen shrieked and dropped Zarra. I broke her fall with my free arm, grunting as she almost ripped it out of its socket. With the other hand, I yanked on the pitchfork. It was tangled up in the Deadman Queen’s skirts. As I pulled the pitchfork to the ground, she came crashing down with it.
I felt Zarra tremble in my arms. She had dropped her torch when the Deadman Queen grabbed her. Now she had nothing to keep the mist away from her. Her eyes rolled in terror as the mist took effect.
“Zarra, stay with me.”
The Deadman Queen wrestled away from the end of my pitchfork and floated upright. Crushing Zarra against my chest, I held the pitchfork between us and the reanimated body that had once been my mother.
Pitchforks were not meant to be used with one hand. I really, really hoped the Deadman Queen didn’t know that.
Her head rolled on her shoulders. She opened her mouth and screamed. I was thrown off my feet. The pitchfork clattered to the ground.
I used both hands to cradle Zarra’s head as we toppled to the floor. Zarra gasped and squirmed, her glazed eyes seeing all sorts of imagined horrors her mind told her she was experiencing. There wasn’t much I could do for her, especially unarmed, so I left her on the ground and ran for the pitchfork.
The Deadman Queen saw me and flew for me, her red eyes slicing through the mist. I grasped the pitchfork and jerked it in her direction.
I met resistance as the tines of my pitchfork pierced flesh. But it was not the Deadman Queen’s body I had just impaled. My life had been in peril, and Rath had appeared between us. Now he hovered in the air with my pitchfork embedded in his back.
I had just stabbed Rath.
“No!” I gasped in horror.
Time progressed in slow motion. Rath fell forward, the weight of his body pulling him off the pitchfork that I still gripped by the handle. He landed on his face on the floor. In this surreal expanse of time, I even had a moment to realize that Rath would die the same way my father had: stabbed in the back by a coward.
Time returned to its normal flow, and the Deadman Queen collided with me. Somehow, I had the forethought to lift my bloody pitchfork between us. She impaled herself on the end with enough force that I was knocked to the ground.
The pitchfork held her in the air above me, but she continued to claw at my face and shoulders with wretchedly long nails. I was reminded of a game I had played with my younger siblings on winter mornings when it was too cold for any of us to venture outside. I would lie on my back and lift them into the air, balancing them on their tummies on top of my feet while they pretended to fly. This situation was a little like that, except instead of making sweet chirping noises and holding their arms aloft, this rotting, possessed body was spitting on me and trying to claw my eyes out while I choked on her long, musty hair. Instead of laughing with contented joy, I was screaming in high-pitched horror.
Maybe they really didn’t have that much in common.
Desperately, I reached a hand up to hold the screaming Queen’s face away. I felt a pulse of energy as my fingers curled around the intricate twisted metal of the circlet she wore. It was a familiar energy, one that didn’t burn.
“The circlet is the key,” Banash had once said in a dream.
With a grunt, I ripped the circlet from her head. The Deadman Queen shrieked and went limp. As my mother died a second time, sys flowed from her body into mine, making the hairs on my arms stand on end and stealing my breath away. What was left of my mother dragged me into her memories.
At first, I was overwhelmed by the number of voices in my mother’s head. It took me longer than usual to get my bearings. But finally, I found the pulsing regularity of the thoughts that belonged to the body I was currently residing in.
I lay in bed staring up at the bed curtains. I pretended to sleep, but I never did. The Voices never let me.
Lady Danala was a dear to think she was waking me. She took the time to knock politely on my door.
They didn’t want me to speak. The Voices crowded my throat and filled my mind with terrible things. They whispered threats to me, but I ignored them.
“Come in.” I hardly recognized my own voice any longer. It was raspy and frail. I had to fight just for the strength to eat and drink against Their will. And always, They were there, whispering in the back of my mind, demanding the world of me.
Lady Danala’s eyes were wild when she opened my door. I tried to ask what had happened, but They wouldn’t let me. I simply stared and hoped that Lady Danala would stop trembling enough to speak over the sounds of Their voices.
“My Queen Aerona—” Lady Danala began, then faltered. “Queen,” she said again, “the turncoats have invaded the palace. They demand an audience with you.”
No. I did not want to talk to them. I wanted to warn them to leave me alone, or The Voices would come for them and eat their souls in a single vicious bite. Did these rebels not know the battle they were demanding?
“My answer…” I said, astonished again at the sound of my own voice. They fed on the sudden emotion and ate it until it was gone. “My answer is no.”
“Still no?” A new voice asked. A stranger appeared behind Danala, flashing his blade at me before holding it against the poor woman’s throat. I could hardly hear over the sound of The Voices crying for blood. “Your Highness, I expected so much more of you,” the stranger said. I detested his arrogance, the stink of alcohol and urine that poured from him, and the way he looked at me with eyes that tried to consume me whole.
Too late. I was already consumed by a force far more powerful than some filthy stranger’s lust.
“Whatever it is you want,” I said, “you must speak to my husband.”
<
br /> The Voices giggled.
“Not a chance, Queenie,” the man said. “We want to hear from you, not your puppet.”
Puppet. This man had no idea what that word truly meant.
The man taunted me. “Your husband is in our possession. I suggest you come and claim him. Or are you too good for that common filth you married?”
My heart raged with emotions that were quickly devoured. Somehow, I found the strength to stand. “Take me to him,” I said.
The man laughed and shoved Lady Danala out of the way. She came to me, reeking of perfume, and grasped my hands. I saw that she would die that day, and The Voices cheered. Shuddering, I pulled my hands from hers. She was speaking to me, but I couldn’t hear her above Their excitement. The stranger wrapped his arm around me with a familiarity that appalled.
“I knew you would see it my way,” he said, and I knew from the brief contact of his cheek against mine that he would die that day as well.
“Do not touch me,” I said. He laughed boisterously and placed a wet kiss on my cheek. I saw that I would be the one to kill him and felt a moment of satisfaction. The fear that accompanied it was devoured too briefly to really count.
Others joined us. They wore rags stitched hastily together into shapeless covers, and their faces were smeared with ashes. They each held a shiny weapon in their hands that I knew had been taken from my guards. They seemed to delight in the anonymity of their sameness. So much the same. Even their deaths would be the same. I saw this with every groping touch and leering kiss. I saw that I would kill every one of them. The Voices rejoiced at the thought of the bloodshed.
The rebels led me down the corridor, laughing and mocking when I tripped on the stairs. They let me fall. I hit my head, but The Voices would not allow me the pleasure of blacking out. They fed on my pain and brief awareness until it was gone, and I was left once again in the void of ever-knowing.
As we entered the throne room, I hesitated on the threshold. I grabbed the doorframe, forcing the man behind me to stop. Quickly, I traced a symbol on the wood of the doorframe, a circle and three lines, just as Banash had taught me. If anything should happen to me in this room, at least the Voices would be concealed for a time.
Fatal Heir Page 16
