Empire of Rust Complete Series

by V. J. Chambers

  I should have let go, he thought.

  He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t. If he’d let go of the spear, the revenants would have taken it, but that was no matter. The revenants weren’t intelligent enough to use weapons or tools. They ran on nothing but instinct. Run. Tear. Kill. Eat.

  But he hadn’t let go of the spear, and then he’d tumbled over the wall, down into the mass of revenants, and he’d felt their teeth in him, seen their unlined faces as they tore into him. They looked so peaceful, so perfect and beautiful. They went about the business of eating human flesh expressionless, because there was truly no humanity left in them. They had been human, but then they had died, and now they were only hollow shells with pretty faces.

  He’d been thinking this as they sunk their teeth into his flesh, not thinking about the screaming behind him from the others on the wall.

  But then strong arms had grabbed onto him and pulled him up out of the horde of revenants.

  And that was the last thing he remembered.

  At least the last thing he’d known clearly.

  It seemed to him that some time had passed since then, but that didn’t make any sense. After being bitten by revenants, he would have turned into one of them in three days—maybe less, because he’d been so badly bitten and injured. He’d lost a lot of blood, and he was pretty sure that accounted for his wooziness.

  But it seemed as if he’d been alive for more than three days. He remembered voices arguing over him. His vision had been blurry, but someone had wanted to take him away, take him… somewhere.

  And then he’d been bouncing along in the back of a cart, the smell of horse sweat in his nostrils, his body racked with pain every place the revenants had bitten him. And still, he hadn’t been able to see. When he opened his eyes, all he’d seen was a milky film—light and shadow, but no real images.

  I should be dead, he thought, opening his eyes again.

  Again, he saw the sky above, obstructed by vines and leaves and foliage. But beyond that, the sky was quite blue and clear. He turned his head slightly to one side. Canvas fabric was hung as a partition. It was draped over a string. He followed the string with his eyes and saw that it was attached to a tree, but that tree was growing out of a crumbled bit of ruins.

  He looked to the other side. There was a wall—old, something built before the Scourge. It wasn’t stone, but that square, smooth stuff they’d used back then… concree, they called it, he thought. It was crumbling and falling down in chunks. Covered in flora, the wilderness growing over it in an attempt to take it back into the earth.

  Where am I? He tried to move, to sit up.

  But he found that he was chained down. He lay on a wooden pallet on the floor, and he was chained to the ruins.

  He licked his lips, raising his head. He tried to speak.

  No noise came through his lips except a voiceless hiss.

  He tried again. He tried to call out, “Hello,” but instead, he only managed a mangled croak.

  Almost immediately, the canvas partition stirred. A man pulled it aside and ducked under.

  The vines shadowed the light, but Darius could see that he was young. He was wearing the fine clothes of a nobleman, a cloak over his tunic.

  The man smiled. “You’re awake.”

  Darius’s nose twitched. He could smell the man, and the man smelled very, very… good. Tasty. He didn’t think he’d ever smelled anything like it in his life. It was like the smell of a great feast at harvest, only richer and closer and more enticing. Without thinking about it, Darius reached for the man. But his chains stopped him, digging into his flesh.

  Darius groaned in frustration. The smell was driving him frantic.

  The man chuckled. “Oh, yes, you’re almost through your transition. We’ll make a necromancer out of you yet.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ezekiel folded his arms over his chest. “Were you with Honor that night?”

  “Me?” said Gabriel. “Of course not. I was never with her.” He winced. “Well, not never. Obviously, sometimes I—”

  “Who was with her?”

  “How should I know?” Gabriel’s voice was a squeak.

  Ezekiel narrowed his eyes. If Gabriel weren’t the emperor’s son, he might really hit him. Haul off and punch him in the face. Well. Maybe not the face. Gabriel had a nice face.

  Gabriel cleared his throat. “Look, Ezekiel, you and I have gotten off to a bad start, and I’m very sorry. I suppose it’s obvious that I wasn’t especially close with your sister. Not for any reason having to do with her, of course. She always seemed like a perfectly lovely girl. The thing is that I’ve just been quite busy, I suppose, and there was never really the time—”

  “She was at court for two years.”

  “Two very busy years that flew by like the wind.”

  Ezekiel sucked in air through his nose, frustrated.

  Gabriel looked down at the table where he’d found the candelabra. He straightened the corner of the tablecloth.

  “Sir?” said Mark the servant.

  Both Ezekiel and Gabriel turned to look at him. They’d forgotten he was there.

  “Will that be all?” asked the servant boy.

  “Yes, yes,” said Gabriel. “Absolutely. You may go. Immediately.”

  The boy bobbed his head and backed out of the room, carrying the candelabra with him.

  “Of course,” said Gabriel in a quiet voice, once the servant had left, “it was horrible that Honor should come to such an unfortunate accident. And I realize how painful it must be for you. I have sisters of my own, and if I were to lose them, I would be… devastated.”

  Ezekiel cocked his head to one side, surveying the other man. Gabriel seemed contrite now, but Ezekiel couldn’t be sure it wasn’t an act. He hadn’t seemed the least bit concerned with Honor earlier. And while he was giving some kind of excuse for that now, he would also want to appease Ezekiel. If Gabriel had harmed Honor in some way, he wouldn’t want suspicion cast his way. Ezekiel was half-tempted to blurt out accusations, see how Gabriel reacted. But it was no light thing to accuse the emperor’s son of murder, so he kept it to himself.

  “The way I’ve behaved thus far,” Gabriel continued, “is positively inexcusable. I beg your forgiveness, sir.”

  Ezekiel lifted his chin, unsure of how to answer.

  “Please,” said Gabriel, a smile tugging at his lips. “I’m really not very good at being serious, and I know that’s not helping things.” He winced again. “No, no, that’s the complete worst thing to say in this situation, isn’t it? Because, of course, death is serious. It’s the most serious thing in the whole world. Nothing’s as serious as death. And if I can’t be serious about death, well, then, what’s wrong with me?” He sighed. “I suppose you have every right to hate me. I don’t blame you at all. And you don’t have to forgive me. Still, I’ve treated you terribly, so you’ll have to let me help you.”

  In spite of himself, Ezekiel found himself just a tiny bit charmed. It was Gabriel’s boyish smile, he thought. When the emperor’s son was smiling, he had a devilishly appealing look to him.

  That’s unreasonable, Ezekiel thought. You were just thinking that he’d killed Honor.

  Maybe his father and the others were right when they said that faggots like him had been robbed of their ability to think clearly and morally. If one smile from a pretty man’s face could turn his head so quickly—

  But he wasn’t going to allow his head to be turned. He could not help his base desires, it was true, but he didn’t have to dwell on them. He could brush them aside and move on. Hadn’t he promised his father that he would never act on his lusts again?

  “How would you help me?” Ezekiel’s voice was hoarse, and he cursed himself for it. It bespoke the turmoil going on inside him, and he wanted to keep it all hidden.

  “Well, you said you wanted the body, right?” said Gabriel.

  “That’s why I’m here,” said Ezekiel. His father wanted him to bring back Honor’s bo
dy. If he did so, then he would prove himself as a man—not simply an abomination and a disgrace. If he could do this properly, his father might start to forgive him. Maybe someday, even accept him.

  “All right, then. Let’s find the body,” said Gabriel. “It’s the least I can do after everything.” He smiled at Ezekiel.

  Ezekiel found himself smiling back. He couldn’t help it. Gabriel’s smile was infectious.

  But then Ezekiel realized his gaze was lingering too long. He was staring at Gabriel’s face for longer than was proper or right. He wrenched his gaze away.

  Gabriel cleared his throat. “Oh, sorry about that.”

  “What?” said Ezekiel.

  Gabriel winced again. “Nothing. Follow me.” He turned away and began striding across the floor towards the door.

  Ezekiel did as he asked and went after him.

  Gabriel led him through the hallways of the emperor’s mansion and to a set of stairs. They began to descend level after level.

  Ezekiel kept pace behind the emperor’s son, but he didn’t walk next to him. It was easier this way, because he wasn’t looking Gabriel in the face. Ezekiel didn’t like the effect the other man had on him.

  It had always been like this for Ezekiel. From the time he was quite young, he’d felt that something about him was simply different than it was for others. At first, he hadn’t fought his attractions, thinking them innocent. Even if he knew he wasn’t the same as others, he hadn’t seen the harm in what he felt. He had to be told that what he was feeling was evil in order to understand.

  But now he knew it, and he could see why his curse was so insidious. It was a threat to the natural way that God had put people on earth. He even learned that faggotry had been prevalent before the Scourge, and that it was one of the things to bring down civilization. He heard often in worship meetings that the Scourge would be lifted from the people if they lived a pious and simple life. They must obey God, follow his commandments, never question, never complain. And someday, they would again live in a world without fences, without revenants waiting for them in the darkness, ready to scratch and bite and kill. Ezekiel wanted that world. He wanted to obey God. He simply couldn’t understand why it was so difficult for him.

  Eventually, they reached the bottom of the steps. They were on the bottom level of the mansion, underground. It was made of stone, but water weeped amongst the cracks in the floor, and Ezekiel could smell the salt of the ocean.

  The court of the empire was centered here in Sarrasarra, near the sea and the white sand beaches. The water level could rise easily here, and Ezekiel could see that this bottom level had flooded more than once.

  Gabriel gestured. “That’s the dungeons on that side.” He pointed straight ahead. “But we want the moratorium, which is where the corpses are prepared.”

  Ezekiel nodded.

  Gabriel started forward, then paused. “Was it insensitive for me to say ‘corpse’?”

  “Let’s just find Honor’s body,” said Ezekiel.

  “Right,” said Gabriel.

  Ezekiel didn’t think they were going to have much luck in the moratorium. From the message that his father had received, he assumed that Honor’s body had been buried already. He’d been expecting to demand that her remains be dug up. But now Ezekiel was wondering about burial in this sandy, wet soil. If water could enter this lower level in the mansion, what would it do to a buried corpse? Still, he followed Gabriel into the moratorium.

  A man looked up to see them enter. He was wearing a long black cloak and stood inside a narrow room with stone openings on either side. All the openings were large enough for a body. The man recognized Gabriel. “Sir,” he said. “What brings you here?”

  “I’m looking for the body of Honor, my intended,” said Gabriel.

  “Or knowledge of where she was laid to rest,” said Ezekiel.

  The man shook his head. “Wish I could be of service. I never saw her body.”

  Gabriel’s eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean? Of course you did. You must have.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “But you handle all the bodies in the mansion, from emperors to prisoners, don’t you?”

  “Usually, yes,” said the man. “But not the lady Honor. I assumed her remains had been sent back to her family.”

  “No,” said Ezekiel. “They were not.”

  “Hmm,” said the man. “How odd.”

  “You never saw her body at all? Even to prepare it for removal to her family?” said Gabriel.

  Ezekiel spoke up. “Her family didn’t receive—”

  Gabriel silenced him with a hand and a shake of the head. He looked expectantly at the man.

  “Never,” said the man. “Never saw the body at all. Probably a mercy. I heard she was quite… damaged in the fall.”

  Ezekiel flinched.

  Gabriel glared at the man. “This is her brother. Have some respect.”

  The man bowed his head.

  Gabriel clasped his hands together and narrowed his eyes, thinking. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he muttered.

  He’s right. It doesn’t, Ezekiel thought. Someone should have prepared Honor’s body. If no one had, then it could only mean—

  “Is there anyone else that deals with the bodies of the dead?” said Gabriel.

  The man shook his head. “No, sir. I have other workers who assist me, of course, but if a body were here, I would know about it.”

  Honor’s body was lost. No wonder the emperor hadn’t sent it back to her family. He’d misplaced it somehow. Ezekiel’s nostrils flared. How the devil did someone manage to misplace a body?

  Gabriel took Ezekiel by the arm. “Come on. Obviously, he doesn’t know anything.”

  Ezekiel was startled by the other man’s touch. He pulled away immediately. It was best not to court temptation.

  Gabriel winced again. “I didn’t mean…” He gazed sidelong at the man working in the moratorium. “Let’s just walk.” He pointed. “Back up the steps.”

  Ezekiel hesitated for a moment, but he didn’t see any reason not to leave. Gabriel was right. They’d gotten all the information from this man that they were going to get. Ezekiel started up the steps. The emperor’s son followed after him.

  They rounded a corner and started up another set of steps.

  Gabriel’s voice at his back. “Maybe she’s not dead at all.”

  Ezekiel stopped short.

  Gabriel collided with him, and the two of them both recoiled as if they’d been burned.

  “Sorry,” said Ezekiel.

  “No, no. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…” Gabriel wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  Enough of that. Ezekiel was sick of feeling this way. Why in all of God’s creation couldn’t the other man be ugly? If he were, everything would be that much easier. Ezekiel shook his head. “What do you mean, ‘not dead’?”

  “Think about it,” said Gabriel. “I don’t know anyone who’s seen her body. I never saw it. That man never saw it. How do we have any proof she’s dead at all?”

  Ezekiel’s heart leapt. If Honor were alive, then this tragedy would not have befallen his family at all. And if he were the one to tell his father that his sister was actually alive—

  But wait.

  Why would Gabriel be spinning this theory? Until just a while ago, Ezekiel had thought it was possible that the emperor’s son was responsible for his intended’s death. If that really were the case, then why would he say that Honor could be alive? It didn’t seem to make sense, because if he had murdered the girl, then he would only be giving Ezekiel false hope, and what could he possibly gain by that?

  Gabriel moved around Ezekiel on the steps. “Come with me,” he said and began to ascend the stairs.

  Ezekiel started up behind him, but his brain was still churning. Did this mean that Gabriel wasn’t involved in Honor’s death?

  He hoped so. He realized that he didn’t want to have a reason to hate Gabriel. He didn’t want that at all. />
  But none of it made sense. Honor was dead.

  Someone must have seen her fall from that balcony. Otherwise, how could…

  Had someone simply made up the story? Who would do that? And if Honor were still alive, then where was she?

  Every question he asked seemed to lead to more questions.

  Gabriel led him up the stairs and through the mansion. With every step, Ezekiel only felt more confused. Was his sister alive? Was she dead, but her body misplaced? Was Gabriel somehow responsible for this?

  Finally, Gabriel stopped in a hallway off the receiving room, where Ezekiel had waited earlier. The hallway had a high ceiling, and there was a balcony above, exposing the upper floor. A stairwell wound down, bridging the two floors.

  Gabriel gestured upwards. “It happened here. Her quarters were in that upper wing.”

  Ezekiel swallowed. He looked down at the polished floor, which looked pristine. No stains. No indication. He imagined Honor’s body, broken and bloody—her long auburn curls splayed out—

  He took a step backward, averting his eyes.

  Gabriel noticed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” He took a deep breath. “Look, what if it didn’t happen? What if it’s all just a story? What if she was unhappy, and she decided to fake her death so that she could run away?”

  “Did she seem unhappy?”

  Gabriel looked down at his feet. “You know, I don’t… I really didn’t pay much attention.”

  Ezekiel was suddenly beginning to feel quite emotional. Tears pricked his eyes. He hadn’t given a lot of thought to Honor’s situation here at court. He’d been so consumed with his own issues—hiding his proclivities, feeling guilty about them, struggling against them, giving in anyway. But now he wondered what it must have been like for her, sent away from her family to live in this cold mansion, the man she was intended to marry ignoring her. She must have been unhappy, mustn’t she? He drew in a breath, and he was trembling.

  Gabriel dragged his hands over his face. “I’ve done the wrong thing.”

  Ezekiel was quiet. He could only think of his unhappy sister. Maybe she’d thrown herself off the balcony. Maybe it hadn’t been an accident.