Ward Against Death

by Melanie Card

  “Unless he’s realized killing you is futile.”

  She smiled and adjusted her position to a more comfortable angle. A shadow at the back of his neck caught her attention. At first glance it looked like a goddess-eye brand, but that was impossible. While Ward obviously had an interest in the illegal side of medicine, he was so honest he practically glowed with goodness.

  She shifted again to get a better look. Sure enough, he had the ridges of opalescent flesh seared into an open goddess-eye at the base of his neck, the criminal’s reminder that the Goddess and her servants of the law—the Seers and their officers, the Quayestri—were always watching.

  Ward glanced at her and she realized she’d been quiet for too long, staring at the brand.

  “Yes, killing me is futile with my necromancer at my side. I’m invincible.”

  “Although I’m not sure if it means anything. If your killer isn’t the Master and we do leave Brawenal, would you be safe anywhere in the Union of Principalities?”

  She pressed the edges of the wound together and pushed the needle through. Ward hissed, then resumed his controlled breathing. Did that actually help with the pain? “Not if the killer is my father.”

  “Do you think he is?”

  She paused, needle ready to start another stitch. She knew her father could be a suspect—that thought had never left her mind—but it was more likely he’d heard a rumor about it. He couldn’t kill her. Not her own father. She pushed the needle through with more force than she intended and Ward gasped.

  “Sorry. Anything is possible, I suppose.”

  “Enough of the list.” Ward checked the finished stitches on his bicep. “Any thoughts on whether you want to talk to Grysmore or not?”

  Going into the Collegiate of the Quayestri had little appeal. It was probably why she hadn’t thought about it. “Perhaps he keeps a residence outside the Collegiate?”

  “Possible, but how would we find out?”

  “We could see if he leaves the Collegiate and follow him?” She knew it was a stupid idea the moment she said it, but she was just thinking out loud.

  “I don’t know what Grysmore looks like, do you?”

  “It was just an idea.”

  “I know.”

  She sighed. “If we want to figure out who wanted Nicco dead, Grysmore is our only lead.” She finished the stitches on the back of his arm. “How are you at veiling your thoughts?”

  “My what?”

  “Veiling your thoughts?”

  “As in the ‘only found in fairy tales’ veiling of thoughts?”

  “You raise the dead.”

  “But only for a little while.”

  “Well, we only need to veil our thoughts for a little while.”

  §

  Carlyle paced his over-adorned sitting room and droned on while Karysa imagined how it would feel to run her blade through his chest. She’d killed men larger than him, although not by much given his height and comfortable girth, but she hadn’t killed anyone quite so significant before. Her Master had always kept that privilege to himself. Anticipation bubbled within her at the honor. The double honor at that, to sacrifice the Dominus of Brawenal’s Gentilica for a spell so powerful it defied the Goddess’s call across the veil for generations. And now she was just biding her time, waiting until the Contraluxis to pounce. She’d already cast the essence-seeking spell with Solartti’s saliva and discovered Celia’s little hideout. But she knew if she told Carlyle he’d go after her right away, which increased the chance Celia would find a way to escape before they needed her.

  “I said, what about the boy? Won’t his spell on her be a problem?”

  She turned a hard gaze on Carlyle and watched him shiver. A tremor of pleasure seeped through her. Too bad he didn’t completely understand what she was, that she could kill him with a little blood and a kiss. That it hurt her not to kill him. But there was enough energy in his soul to complete the spell and she needed him unaware of his impending end.

  “The boy is not a concern. He never was. Celia cannot run from her destiny.”

  Carlyle harrumphed. “I don’t care about destiny, I care about the shadow walker. She’s dead, you’re a necromancer—”

  “Innecroestri.”

  “Whatever.”

  She raised an eyebrow and resisted the urge to take his soul. It would be more complicated if she had to find someone else with as much energy to complete the spell.

  Carlyle turned his back to her and looked out the window. “You must have a way of finding her.”

  “I do.”

  “Then do it.”

  She sighed. “Your daughter is skilled. That’s why we picked her. We need to wait for the right moment.”

  “The right moment?” Carlyle asked, his voice dark.

  She smiled at his implied threat. That at least was exciting. “There is a right moment for everything.” Including his death. She would enjoy watching his life seep from his body.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Ward woke to a dark chamber. He had no idea how long he’d slept and could only assume it was night outside the cavern. After Celia had dabbed away the dried blood from around her uneven stitches, she’d wrapped the wound and left. He must have fallen asleep soon afterward, although only the Goddess knew how.

  He flexed his bicep with a slow bend of his elbow, igniting a burning pain that made his eyes water. It hurt—oh, Goddess, did it hurt—but the bandage remained tight, and there was only the shadow of a small patch of blood near Celia’s first and poorest stitches. She had promise. Good stitches and a well-tied bandage. That was better than most first-year students could manage.

  Sitting up sent a jolt of pain through his arm, and he ground his teeth against it. He should probably look for her and see what she had planned. If he recalled, she wanted to visit Grysmore at the Collegiate of the Quayestri, which was pure insanity.

  No, kissing her was pure insanity. What had he been thinking?

  He hadn’t been. That was the problem. Apparently it was true—men really did do crazy things when they thought they were on their deathbeds. He couldn’t imagine what he would do if he actually was facing the Goddess’s eternal embrace.

  He rubbed his face with his good hand and got out of bed. Maybe she’d forgotten about the kiss. Not likely. She probably thought it his usual foolishness. Which it certainly was. He wasn’t cut out for a life of serious crime. Stealing a few bodies here and there out of cemeteries? Not a problem. Stealing from the Keeper of the Assassins’ Guild and hiding from the Dominus of the Gentilica? Truth be told, he wasn’t very good at simple body-snatching, either. Of the five principalities, three had caught him and he’d barely escaped with his hands intact.

  When this was over he’d stop all criminal activity. Even a minor theft was punishable by cutting off a hand, and his hands seemed so much more important now that the rest of him was in jeopardy.

  He headed down the hall. Celia didn’t strike him as the kind who slept a lot and, sure enough, her room was empty. He decided to look for her in the study and then the common chamber. After that... Well, he’d deal with that once he got there.

  She sat behind her desk, bent over a pile of loose parchment. Her hair was still in a braid but even more wisps had escaped and veiled her face.

  Ward leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms, feeling naked even though he still wore his pants. Not like she’d notice.

  Not Celia.

  “You know,” he said, “if you ever get tired of killing people for a living, I know this physician’s school in Bantianta that would love to have you.”

  She glanced up and brushed her hair from her face with the back of her hand.

  His breath caught in his throat as those blue eyes froze him in place.

  “You should still be in bed.”

  “Yes, doctor.” He shrugged off the moment, stepped into the chamber, and headed for his usual chair.

  She frowned. “Well, in your professional opinion, what wou
ld you say?”

  “Oh, that I most certainly should still be in bed.”

  “So why aren’t you?”

  “Doctors make bad patients. I have to live up to expectations. Besides, shouldn’t you be in bed as well?”

  She rolled her eyes and returned to reading.

  They sat in silence, Ward watching her read and ignore him. He could feel the seconds pass with each measured thump of his heart. And still she didn’t speak. What was so engrossing? Or, more likely, what bothered her about him? What didn’t bother her? She already thought he was incompetent. Why, oh why, had he kissed her?

  How to break the moment? He could ask what her next plan was, but that felt trite, insensitive, even if she wasn’t doing anything to indicate she needed him to be sensitive. What if she never spoke to him again? It was just the two of them for who-knew-how-long. He couldn’t last forever in silence, so he opened his mouth to speak but she beat him to it.

  “I’m not leaving until I find out who killed me.”

  “I didn’t think you would.”

  “Good.” She didn’t even look up.

  “So, what now?”

  “These are Allyan Nicco’s notes.” She shuffled the top page to the bottom and started on the next one.

  “What’s bothering you?” he asked, even though he had a good idea what it was. He really shouldn’t have kissed her.

  “Nothing.”

  “I see.”

  She placed her finger on a word and looked up at him. “I’m thinking.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Then, please. Stop bothering me.”

  Ward matched her stare, his brown to her blue. “You got me into this mess. I deserve to be a part of getting us out of it.”

  She tapped the finger holding her spot in the text once... twice... “I just can’t figure anything out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know why I was killed. I don’t know why I had to—why Nicco was killed. I know in my gut they’re related because Nicco’s research”—she tapped the parchment again—“was supposed to be destroyed. Those were the terms of the assignment.”

  Ward leaned back and stared up at the smooth obsidian and witch-stone ceiling. If he’d heard her right, she’d just admitted to assassinating Allyan Nicco. It was the only logical explanation for how she ended up with his work.

  He imagined her sneaking into Nicco’s house, finding the man alone in his study, and killing him. Then picking up those pages to throw them into the fire, but hesitating. He didn’t know what could have captured her attention enough to go against the Master, but something had, and for the last however many years—four?—she had tried to continue Nicco’s research.

  Four years ago? She didn’t look any older than he did. If that were the case, she would have been only sixteen or seventeen when she killed Nicco.

  Ward shivered. He couldn’t imagine taking a life at sixteen. He’d already spent two years at The Olmech School of Health and Philosophy by then. Admittedly, he’d spent most of his youth prior to that studying necromancy, but necromancers never took human life. They studied death and the way people died in an attempt to understand and maintain the balance—or so Grandfather claimed, which Ward was becoming more inclined to believe—but they never actually killed anyone.

  “So, let’s say they’re connected. However you ended up with Nicco’s research...”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “Let’s say someone found out you have his notes.”

  “Isn’t that a bit of a stretch?”

  “It’s better than all of Brawenal City as suspects.” He sat forward. “It would at least be a motive.”

  “Aside from revenge or power?”

  Ward templed his fingers. “Fine. Let’s say you have nothing to do with it. Unless Nicco lived some kind of secret life, the only reason someone would want him dead and his research destroyed is because he discovered something he shouldn’t have.”

  “I already know that.”

  “Bear with me. This poor little necromancer needs to think out loud.” Ward stood, stepped over to the bookcase, and squatted to get a better look at the books. He wasn’t sure where he was going with his train of thought—he was just trying to follow the logic. If there was any logic.

  “Nicco was researching the Ancients...”

  “That’s the thing. I’ve been looking at this for years now and I still can’t see anything. It doesn’t make any sense.” She flipped through the pages, pulled a few out from the middle, and placed them on top of the pile. “His original work was on the wall carvings found in the Holy City of Veknormai. He was”—she scanned the first page—“looking at text and imagery.”

  “That’s awfully vague. What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. Although I don’t think he knew, either.”

  Ward pulled out a book at random. It was bound in brown leather and the edges of the cover were worn down to the thin wood beneath.

  “In his notes he claims he wanted to catalog all imagery and pertaining texts. Which, given the size of Veknormai, was likely intended to be his life’s work.”

  Ward flipped open the cover. The History of Brawenal.

  “But he seems to get sidetracked on a particular wall carving. Are you listening to me?”

  Ward closed the book and put it back. “Yes.”

  “The rest of his notes are on this carving.”

  “So what does he say?”

  Celia rubbed her face with her hands. “I don’t know. It’s as if he goes crazy or something—which could very well be why an assignment was purchased.” She pushed the pages across the desk toward Ward.

  He picked up the pile and sat again in his chair, glancing over sketches of unrecognizable images with notes scrawled all around, written at every angle.

  “Take a look at the sixth or seventh page,” Celia said. “He mentions some kind of map to the Tomb of Souls, and beside that is some kind of list, but I don’t recognize any of the items.”

  Ward flipped through the pages until he came to one divided in half with a jagged line. On the left were notes about a map and a tomb, and on the right script in what looked like Ulstaas, one of the oldest written languages, but he didn’t recognize some of the characters. Below that was a broken translation with three words underlined: tasseseris, ibria, and mortical. It seemed much shorter than the original, and Ward suspected it was incomplete. He recognized all three underlined words, and it didn’t surprise him that Celia didn’t. They were herbs used only by necromancers, and they were very rare. In all the time he’d studied with his grandfather, Ward had never witnessed their use or seen the plants. They were dangerous, even for a necromancer. His only introduction had been from a book he’d sneaked from Grandfather’s library.

  “Those three words are herbs.”

  “Do you know what they do?” Celia asked.

  “Something about the soul, but all I can remember is they’re dangerous.”

  Ward turned back to the page. Below the translation, Nicco had written a list of speculations: healing, strength, long life, astral projection, reading thoughts, magic. They were all things the Ancients were rumored to do. Astral projection was circled. Ward supposed if the body and soul were separated, as in death or a reverse wake, and something was done to prevent the soul from returning to the body or crossing through the veil once it had lost its connection with its corporeal form, astral projection could be possible. Certainly, generations after the Ancients had died, man had developed many of the skills listed. The Brothers of Light could control the energy that radiated from all things, and the Inquisitor division of the Quayestri could project people’s memories and sense emotions.

  “There are also more notes on that tomb and something called the Nectar of Veknormai. It’s the page with the joined circles on it.”

  Ward thumbed through the pages to the uneven sketch of four circles overlapping in the center.

  “I’m not sure what it is
. According to the books I’ve read, Veknormai translates to ‘the dead.’ Hence, the Holy City of the Dead.”

  “Which would make sense, given that Veknormai is a cemetery.” What he wouldn’t give to examine a body from that cemetery. He chuckled, and Celia glared at him. “Sorry. Nectar of the dead just seems odd. It’s nothing I’ve ever heard about. Although this list could be what he’s referring to.”

  “I suppose.” She sighed. “I just don’t know why they aren’t together in his notes.”

  Ward flipped to the three pages in between. There were more odd sketches that looked like stick people and a few more of those joined circles. Around these pictures were more of the Ancients’ strange language and a few phrases in Brawenal’s modern script.

  Does ‘shadow walker’ mean Dark Son?

  What are the ‘first blossoms’ and the ‘Nectar of Veknormai’?

  “Shadow walker means Dark Son?”

  “It looks like a title for the Dark Son. But I haven’t found anything about it in any of my books.”

  “I suppose it’s proof that the Ancients made reference to the Goddess and Her two Sons. That by itself is an outstanding achievement.”

  Celia nodded. “I agree. There’s been speculation, but no proof the Ancients worshiped the Goddess.”

  “Do you think that would be enough to kill someone?”

  “I’m not a member of the academic world.”

  Ward set the pages on the desk. “Then we should probably go talk to one.”

  “Grysmore?”

  “Just the person I was thinking of.”

  “But I had already planned on talking to Grysmore,” Celia said with a slight smile. “You can’t just announce the idea as if it had suddenly occurred to you.”

  “Of course not.”

  “If we’re going to the Collegiate of the Quayestri, then there are a few things we should work on first,” she said.

  “Like this veiling-of-one’s-thoughts thing?”

  She gave him a wicked grin. It reminded Ward of her expression in the records room, when the arrows were flying past their heads.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Ward rubbed his face, leaned back in the obsidian chair in Celia’s study, and stretched his legs out. His arm hurt, and now his head hurt as well. The concept of veiling his thoughts wasn’t as difficult as he’d first imagined. There was no magic, no spell, no meditation—well, maybe it was a meditation. Keep your thoughts focused on your goal, or something mundane, or both. Still, he had no idea how successfully he’d learned the skill.