Grave

by Michelle Sagara

  THE FOUR DIDN’T LEAVE HER.

  They remained, almost circling her, as Nathan’s clothing—the clothing they’d collectively worn—drifted, empty, toward the ground.

  Emma inhaled, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and paused; a golden chain was wrapped around her hand. Looking up to Nathan again, she said, “Margaret says she can appear in front of the rest of the living without holding my hand.”

  “I don’t know how,” he told her.

  She turned to Michael. To Margaret. And to the old woman, who was standing just beyond the four, lips pursed in a frown that was probably etched there.

  “You have my son,” she said.

  Emma could only barely see him. “He’s not bound to me.”

  “No, I can see that. What did he do?”

  Emma shook her head. “If you mean right now, he didn’t do anything. If you mean in the past, or in his life, I think you already know the answer. And if you want to question him, you can probably hear his voice as well as I can. The two of you can talk. Michael.”

  Michael nodded; he was staring at the space that Nathan had occupied minutes before. “Is Nathan gone?”

  “No. He’s here. I have him.” She lifted a hand again. “I need you to stand in front of the door.”

  “The door that you can’t see?”

  She nodded.

  Helmi was staring at the dead that surrounded Emma. She transferred her gaze to Nathan, disembodied once again. Her expression was almost unreadable—always disturbing in a child of her apparent age. “He was dead,” she said, voice as flat as her expression. “He was always dead.”

  Emma nodded.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to find the rest of Scoros.”

  “Emma, you’re talking to yourself again,” Amy said.

  “Yes, sorry.” She held out a hand to Helmi. She had not been willing to do so for Scoros’ mother, but she thought Helmi’s input might be necessary, and thinking often went better in a group.

  Helmi hesitated. “Are you sure?”

  Emma nodded.

  “My sister will come. You took Nathan from her. She’ll know.”

  Emma nodded again; she did not lower her hand.

  “Margaret says it drains your power.”

  “You know your sister better than anyone here except Scoros. I don’t want to have to repeat everything you say—I’ll probably get half of it wrong, which will annoy either you or Amy.”

  “But she’s coming, and you’ll need all the power you can get.”

  “Power alone won’t be enough. I don’t know how to do what she does, and I can’t learn it in half an hour—or however long we have. Our only hope is to think of something that we haven’t thought of yet. Take my hand.”

  Helmi obeyed. Her hand was cold.

  Emma followed Michael to the wall, and Helmi drifted alongside. She was silent. “Scoros tried to kill your sister at the end of his life. He obviously failed.”

  “He was nowhere near as powerful as she was.”

  “No. But he knew her defenses. He didn’t have to use Necromantic power to kill her, after all. He could poison her. He could stab her. I don’t think guns were much in use when he tried—but she’s alive. There are a lot of ways to kill a living person. The Hunters do it, and they don’t use the power of the dead; they don’t have it.”

  “How did he try?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see that part of his life. And before you ask, I’ve seen enough of his life to last several lifetimes; I don’t think I could bear the pain of looking at any more of it.”

  Michael put his hand on the wall at just above waist height. “It’s here.”

  “Is that a door knob? I mean, is that where a door knob is?”

  “It’s locked,” Michael replied, which was yes.

  Emma saw wall. Even in the confines of the Queen’s circle, she’d seen wall. There was nothing like a door where Michael said there was. She wondered if the Queen had learned the art of hiding things from Scoros, or if she’d developed it herself after Scoros’ death. She certainly hadn’t discovered his rooms.

  “Helmi, can you see anything here?”

  “Wall. You’re certain he can?”

  “He found rooms hidden in the citadel that we’re fairly sure your sister has never discovered.”

  “Which rooms?”

  “Scoros’ rooms. That’s where his mother was.”

  “And you figured out how to bind her?”

  “Not deliberately, no. I’m not sure it’s repeatable.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “Can you just—” Emma grimaced. There had been a reason she wanted Helmi in the group. “She was holding my hand—the way you are. Amy said something that annoyed her, and she tried to use me as a conduit to turn Amy into ash. I stopped her.”

  “How?”

  “It’s my power,” Emma replied, placing one of her hands flat against the wall where the door was. “I get to decide how it’s used.”

  “And then you bound her?”

  “And then she was bound, yes. It wasn’t deliberate. I didn’t think that’s what I was doing.”

  Amy coughed. “Is that how binding normally works?” she asked Helmi.

  “I don’t think so,” Helmi replied—more slowly. “I haven’t been bound. I don’t know.”

  “You’ve watched, though.”

  The child nodded. “It—takes longer.” She was frowning. “You said she tried to use your power?”

  “Or me, as a conduit. I knew what was about to happen. It’s happened before.”

  “You let the dead use your power?”

  Emma exhaled. The wall was chilly, but not in the way Helmi’s hand was. “Not on purpose, and I’m not even sure it was my power that was used. A dead four-year-old boy wanted to save his living baby brother. I felt the surge of that intent leave my hands, and a Necromancer died because of it.”

  “That’s not the way it’s supposed to work.”

  “Maybe the Necromancers do more when they bind than just harness power; maybe they build in limitations.”

  “But—that means the dead could use you. I mean, the dead who have knowledge.” She looked, then, to Margaret Henney, who hadn’t said a word since Helmi’s arrival. The child who was not a child seemed excited now. “You wouldn’t have to learn how to use the power if the dead you’ve bound know how.”

  “Margaret?” Amy asked.

  Emma closed her eyes. She could see the wall. Her own hand vanished, as did Michael. Helmi remained, of course, her eyes a translucent almost-gray that shone, faintly, as if with reflected light.

  “What are you doing?” Helmi demanded.

  “Taking down the wall,” Emma replied.

  “You don’t have time for that.”

  “Then we’ll die,” Emma replied. “Our only hope of survival is Scoros—and some part of Scoros is here. It’s hers—but I don’t intend it to remain that way.”

  Helmi turned, still attached to Emma’s hand. She looked at Scoros’ mother—Emma still hadn’t asked for her name and felt no particular guilt not knowing it. It was unfair, she supposed, but she couldn’t forgive her for her attempt to kill Amy.

  Longland, she reminded herself. She frowned. “Helmi, where is Longland?”

  “I don’t know. He was with the procession until she ordered everyone to leave. Maybe he thinks he can kill the Queen, with Eric’s help.”

  “I don’t know that Eric will help,” Nathan said.

  “No,” Emma said softly, glancing at Nathan, who drifted toward the wall. “I don’t know that he will either. He loved her once.”

  “Then again, so did Scoros,” Helmi pointed out.

  “I don’t think Scoros really stopped.”

  “He tried to
kill her.”

  Emma nodded. “It’s complicated.”

  YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN HAPPY.

  Eric’s eyes are narrowed in confusion; there are lines in his forehead; the shape of his brow has changed. Reyna, who knows every expression that’s ever crossed his face, recognizes this one. He’s worried.

  He’s worried for her.

  He isn’t armed. He has no guns, no knives. He has no iron, no salt. She loves him, yes. But love and trust are not the same. She’s learned that bitter lesson, time and time again. Everyone she loves leaves her or betrays her. Sometimes, both.

  It is not Eric’s voice she hears. She struggles to ignore the words, but they come again.

  You have never been happy.

  But he’s wrong. Scoros is wrong. She has been happy. She was happy with Eric, before the drought and the fear and the murders. She remembers it; how could she not? It was the only time in her life that she had ever been truly happy. She had dreamed of the future, of love extending into forever, of Eric by her side.

  Reyna, child, he wanted to be by your side then.

  He is by her side now. He is here.

  But Longland brought him. Longland and her knights. He did not come here on his own. He did not call her, did not return. He would not even speak to her for centuries, no matter how hard she struggled for even a glimpse of him. Instead, he picked up weapons and whittled away at her Court.

  And it’s true that she sent the troublesome and the difficult after the Hunters first, but not only, and not always.

  “Eric,” she says, voice thick. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  She is afraid that he will pretend he didn’t hear it. Or that he will look away. She is afraid, she realizes, that he will lie.

  She hears Scoros again. She can almost see him, his voice conjures so many tangled memories. You haven’t asked him, Reyna. You have not asked the question aloud.

  “I will unmake you,” she whispers, her fury so intense it swallows volume.

  You have already done that, he says. His voice is gentle. No, that is unfair. We have already done that, you and I. Eric was a child. He attempted to save you because he loved you, and he died.

  You were a child—

  “ENOUGH!”

  The ground shakes; the road undulates beneath their feet. The buildings, the facades of which she had worked on so carefully, ripple; for a moment, the world is liquid.

  Eric catches her when she stumbles. Eric.

  “Reyna.” Her name again. Her name carried by his voice, so close to her ear. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Scoros,” she says.

  Eric’s gaze sweeps the streets. Cobbles and facades have reasserted their existence. Nothing moves—nothing but Eric and Reyna.

  She is angry at Scoros. She intends—after today—that he never have a voice again. She can’t remember why she left him one. She can’t remember why she wanted to be able to hear him. Or why she wanted him to be able to hear her. But . . . that had happened before his death, hadn’t it? That had happened before.

  Before, when Scoros loved her as a father.

  “Why did you come back?” she whispers. She pulls away from Eric before he can answer. She doesn’t want to hear his lies. She is certain they will be lies. She almost removes his tongue, but to do that, she would have to touch him.

  “Do you remember,” he asks her, “the first time we met?”

  It’s not an answer. But it’s not a lie, either. Reyna is tired. She is so tired. She nods, her back turned toward him, her hands clasped behind it. She knows that Eric can’t hurt her. Even if that’s what he wants.

  She believes, in this desolate moment, that it is what he wants.

  “You can make anything,” he tells her. “Why this?”

  Why this city? Why this citadel? “It is safe,” she replies. “It is safe for us.” She glances over her shoulder; he is not looking at her. He is looking at the empty streets. There are no trees here. There is no stream. There are cisterns for water, but no natural sources; there are no rivers. There can’t be.

  She can make water of the dead, of course, but it has never seemed desirable. Today she wishes she had tried. That’s what she should have done. She should have created the world in the image of those early days.

  Neither she nor Eric could have met in a city like this; Reyna’s kin wouldn’t have been allowed to walk these streets if they’d existed in her time. Reyna and her kin wouldn’t have been allowed to stand as audience to such a wedding, such a procession.

  No. The only celebration they could join involved their deaths—and the audience was jubilant at the ugliness, their own cruel triumph.

  Why had she made this place?

  Why had she thought that this is what Eric would want?

  She shakes her head; she recognizes the thought, and it is not hers. She has hated no one in her life as much as she hates Scoros in this moment.

  She wanted to make the world safe for love. Her love and Eric’s. She would have been happy, before the villagers had come so many centuries ago, to live anywhere with Eric. Anywhere. A hut. A wagon. Why should it matter, then, whether she has created a forest, a stream? Why is a palace worse than that?

  Why does he not see her? Why does he not see only her?

  Why, Scoros asks, do you not see yourself?

  She ignores the old man. She cannot believe she has ever been happy to hear his voice. It is heavy with age and judgment. She thought of him, once, as a father—but now, she hears only her mother. The ground shifts beneath her feet, echoing her ancient anger.

  She might destroy him, even now—but that would destroy the citadel. She has made each careful choice, has chosen each action, so that she might survive; she has no intention of committing suicide here. She opens her mouth to tell him as much—to shout it, to rage—but before the words leave her, something else does.

  Nathan.

  Nathan is no longer bound to her. Longland, she owns. She has lost none of the dead she’s bound—none except Nathan. The streets are empty of everyone except Eric. Her knights have vanished, obeying her commands as if they were of the dead, and not sovereign over them.

  If one of them has dared—

  Eyes narrowing, she forgets Scoros, forgets weddings, forgets triumph. It is not as Reyna that she looks at Eric, but as the Queen of the Dead. It isn’t even Eric’s name that leaves her lips.

  Emma.

  THIS WALL WAS NOT LIKE the floors of the townhouse. Emma could hear nothing in it, no matter how intently she listened. She could feel the chill permeate her palm, but all of the walls in the palace were cold. She had no idea how to unmake this one—it might actually be stone.

  But no—it couldn’t be. She could still see the wall when she closed her eyes. This, like the floors of the townhouse, was made of the dead. Everything in the room was.

  “You have done well, Emma Hall,” a familiar voice said. “You have done well. Better than I expected when we first met.”

  Emma didn’t turn to look at the magar.

  “You will not find what you require—not this way. There are two things you must do first.”

  Emma lowered her palm. She had not released Helmi and was therefore forced to offer the magar her right hand.

  The old woman shook her head. “I understand what you are asking for. I could do what you desire; it is possible. But this is your fight. It is not mine—I am dead.”

  “That didn’t stop Scoros’ mother.”

  The magar nodded. “She and I have much in common; we might have been cut from the same tree. But even so, we were carved in different shapes, for different purposes. What she attempted, I will not attempt. You are alive. My child is alive.”

  “What must I do?”

  “Draw a circle, Emma Hall.”

  “She doesn’t have time t
o draw a circle!” Helmi shouted.

  “No,” her mother agreed. “Hush, Helmi. Hush. Emma understands.”

  • • •

  For a long moment, the magar was wrong. She felt Helmi’s frustration and fear as if they were her own—because they were. But she turned toward the Queen’s circle, looked at the curved, precise runes that comprised the anchors of its circumference, and understood.

  The floor was not stone.

  The circle was permanent only until the dead that served as building blocks were finally free. Her hand tightened around Helmi’s. In fifteen minutes, she wouldn’t be able to control her grip, her hand would be so numb.

  But Helmi looked up at her, seeing the question Emma didn’t quite ask, and she nodded. “I know how to draw a circle,” she told Emma, radiating, for a moment, the proud confidence of a girl who has suddenly learned that her knowledge is both superior and necessary. As if she were a child in anything more than appearance.

  “I don’t,” Emma told her, as she approached the Queen’s circle—a circle she had used in ignorance, assuming it would provide safety.

  “No, I guess you wouldn’t. Everyone who could teach you is dead.” She looked over her shoulder at her mother, but the magar didn’t move.

  “Was your mother always like this?” Emma asked, lowering her voice.

  “Like what?”

  “I just—I feel like she’s testing us.”

  “Oh. She is. Everything was always a test with my mother. The only person she didn’t test was Reyna, and look how that turned out. She wasn’t always like this, though. Sometimes she was worse.” The grin she turned on Emma was bright and ageless. She started to move faster, toward the circle’s edge, dragging Emma with her, although that was technically impossible.

  They stopped when they reached the circle’s edge. “Can you even cross this?” Emma asked.

  “Yes and no. It’s like the rest of the physical world—it doesn’t exist for me if I don’t want it to. I can walk over the circle. I can sink through the floor.”

  “Then how is it different at all?”

  “I can’t harm you.”

  “You kind of can’t harm me now.”