by Mary Weber
I lift it to him.
His expression doesn’t show the surprise I expect. Instead he almost seems pleased.
As if he was expecting it.
I stare at him but he just shrugs. “I’ve spent the past two monthsss trying to show you what you can become. You wouldn’t listen.”
“And what am I becoming?” I ask cautiously.
“Perfection.” The way he rolls it out, as if savoring the word on his tongue . . . It evokes that image of him and me standing over Draewulf’s dead body and the entire Hidden Lands together. “At least in body and ability. Because I’m fairly certain your personality’s hopelessss.”
CHAPTER 26
AN HOUR LATER, OUR STOMACHS SATED ON FRUIT and chewy bread, Myles and I slip up the staircase toward the roof. Hissing fills my head even from five corridors away. I try to shake the noise off but it just seeps in, like angry ocean foam spitting at the back of my neck. It makes my skull ache. I shiver. “Don’t they blasted ever stop?”
“Who?”
“Those things with their ghost language.”
He tips his head and gives me a curious sweep with his eye.
“What?”
He clears his expression and peers ahead. “An effective method of communication that’s undetectable to people for the most part.”
“Can you understand them?”
“No, but the fact that my mirages work on them means they understand usss.”
I halt on one of the steps. “If that’s the case, then why not use your ability to stop all of them? You could stop the war! Why the litches are we wasting time sneaking around here when—?”
“As flattering as your confidence is, my abilities do have limitsss. One of them being their lessened impact the more widespread a space they’re used on. Sneaking us up here is easy, but deceiving an entire army is a bit much even for me.” He continues climbing.
I frown. “Why not use it on a few at a time then? Get the wraiths to turn against Draewulf or Isobel, or each other even. What if they’re gathering information or they’re the ones that killed those guards and maid?”
“Oh, I’m quite certain they’re gathering information. And I think any number of people or things could’ve killed those guardsss. But as I’ve told you, some gifts are best left unannounced until they’re needed. Much like yoursss.” He pushes a door open and enters first. It leads us to another stairwell, which, if the cold air is any indication, is close to the roof. How he’s so adept at maneuvering us through the Castle, I can only imagine. How much time did he spend here selling out King Sedric and Faelen?
Another door, this one heavier, thicker, looms from the dim, and when he clicks the handle and shoves the metal open, we’re suddenly outside.
On the roof.
In the middle of a lush garden.
The hissing clobbers my head. It’s a million times louder up here and requires a minute to get my bearings amid the noise. After days of only seeing copper walls, everything looks alive and green in the dim—the white brittle trees and tiny flowers and the trickle of a brook. And the sky. Deep, midnight blue, lit up by freckles of stars winking through the leaves. Was this Eogan’s mother’s garden?
A private oasis in the middle of madness.
I slip my way through the flower bushes and forest and follow the trickling brook, half wary that there’s someone else up here and half enamored at the size of the enchanted space. The creek leads us a good many paces toward a waterfall that is taller than three of me put together.
Myles’s footsteps might be silent on the soft grass, but his whisper sounds loud. “This way.” He leads me through the small forest to the side of the roof nearest the door through which we came. We stop at a low wall that overlooks the main portion of the city, and when I look down on it, the spindle streets are lit up, making the place a giant glowing button.
“Mother of a bolcrane.”
“Hmm. Rather nice at night, isn’t it?”
But I don’t mean the city. I mean what’s caught my eye beyond the city. I point over the great wall encircling the capital to where the incessant hissing is coming from. To the soot hovering in the air in a gray dust cloud over that mass of black, crawling darkness. It’s interspersed with fires flickering in sparks like a thousand separate stars on a tar canvas. They are surrounding the city as far as my eyes can see.
That sickening feeling that invaded my gut when the wraiths entered the War Room earlier tears through me now full force. I stare at the army. No wonder Myles’s ability couldn’t work on the entirety. How can there be that many? The guilt slips up my chest again. Perhaps Rasha and I should’ve killed Draewulf when we had the chance.
“Where did he get them all?” I whisper.
Myles doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. Something niggles in my memory, suggesting I already know. The voice of that terrified soldier who’d had too much to drink at the common house I visited with Colin and Breck. “Draewulf’s plagues turned men unearthly. Into monsters.”
“Did you know about them when you came here years ago?” I can taste the bitterness in my tone.
“Only through rumorsss. The difference between Bron and Faelen’s views on it at the time was that Bron actually knew Draewulf still existed. After Eogan’sss father and Draewulf had a falling out, it was thought he’d gone into hiding and let Lady Isobel take leadership over their dying land. Now, it seemsss, we know why they were dying.”
“He was using them for experiments.” I shudder and recall Eogan telling Colin and me as much a few weeks ago. “He made his own monsters.”
I let the horror of that settle into my bones, and with it comes a deep, soul-wrenching sorrow. “Why now?”
Myles frowns.
“Why is he doing this now? Why’d he come to Faelen at all when he could’ve just taken Bron with this army at any time?”
He shrugs. “Maybe he needed something from Faelen. Or someone,” he adds, staring at me meaningfully. Then turns away. “Or maybe he simply needed more men to turn into wraith soldiersss.”
“So he took some of our Faelen army for this? That doesn’t make sense. Why not just take them from Bron?”
“You forget Bron’s forces were incredibly powerful until you demolished half of them. I’m surprised Draewulf hasn’t thanked you for that yet. And as far as his beasts . . .”
Something in his tone drags my gaze up to his face.
What I see there makes my stomach turn. He actually looks like he admires them.
“Considering he couldn’t force allegiance on a large scale, and he couldn’t reproduce naturally, beyond bequeathing the world with Lady Isobel, of course . . . Really it’s an ingenious idea when you think about it.”
My gut twists. “You’re despicable.”
I turn toward the forest only to pause as something hatches in my mind. Something he said. Something I’ve never thought of before. I frown and flip around. “How is Isobel his daughter? He’s a wolf and she’s human.”
He waves a hand. “He wasn’t always a wolf. Nor is he always, seeing as he does in fact have his own body. Rumor is, up until ten or so years ago, he could still switch into his own human form. And believe it or not, despicable men can and frequently do tend to marry.” His smile appears, but I swear there’s a hint of sadness underneath. “Never to normal women, mind you.”
I study him. Study that sadness.
Until he covers it up with a smooth smirk. “The story goesss Draewulf was smitten and tried to change his ways for a Mortisfaire who bore him Isobel. But like all men who have vision for the bigger things in life, he couldn’t be swayed from his purpose. He returned to his wolf form and pursued it.”
“And what was his purpose?”
“Ah, that’s the silver question, isn’t it? With the new developmentsss . . .” He waves a hand at the surrounding army. “I think we can safely assume it’s still of the world-dominion sort. How he plansss to do that though is what I suggest we figure out before it’s too late
.”
Before it’s too late.
“You mean how he plans to use us to make that happen.” I stare out at the crawling mass. “Do you think he’s going to make us all . . . like them?”
“Hulls, let’s hope not. Those rags . . .” He adjusts his limp cravat at his neck. “Ssso unbecoming.”
“Can’t you stop any of it? I mean, no offense, but if your abilities are only good enough to sneak around the Castle, I’m beginning to doubt their usefulness.”
“My ability will be used effectively when the time isss needed,” he snaps.
“What are you holding out for?”
“Nothing. I simply see no sense in wasting it. Nor should you. Now here.” He puts his hand on my arm and shuts his eyes. The next second they flutter open and he stares at me as if I’ve turned into a bolcrane. “Can you feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“The energy you’re drawing. From them.” He flicks a hand toward the black crawling mass and murmurs, and the next second he’s forcing an image. From the ground rises a wraith from the Dark Army. Rags seeped in a putrid-smelling oily substance drag as he walks toward me. His hands are made of bolcrane claws and his face is that of a dead man’s. “Take him down,” Myles whispers.
I inhale, and to my surprise, he’s right. I am drawing energy. Out here in the night air and span of atmosphere, it’s as if my body remembers how to do this. How to come alive with power. Just like with my old Elemental abilities, my reactions and control are the same, even if what’s feeding this surge feels colder. Stickier. Darker.
I lift my hand and it flattens, the bones not so bent as I press it against the wraith’s chest, and it’s so real I feel his clammy skin and taste his defiling breath as he lunges for me. I duck and shove my palm harder against him, and abruptly I can sense the energy drain inside him, fueling the hunger inside me. His eyes go blank and his body falls, dissipating into a gray fog.
CHAPTER 27
MYLES AND I HAVE RUN THROUGH THE SCENARIO twice when, just as the last of it fades, the hissing filling the night air spikes louder and I swear I hear actual voices. Myles must hear them too because he tugs my sleeve and steps away from the low metal wall and into a shadow thrown by the white trees. It takes a minute before I locate the voices as coming from the far side of the roof. The speakers don’t seem to be moving this way.
My body tingles with the energy in the air, the energy I’ve been drawing on. I glance at Myles and promptly mutter a curse at him when he whispers up a new façade for both of us, which turns me into a short, balding Bron soldier. I spin on my heel and creep into the forest toward them.
As we draw closer, the gurgling water muffles the voices, but from what I can tell, three speakers are arguing on the other side of the waterfall. Slipping next to the noisy brook and then round the giant rock outcrop, I wedge behind a thick spurt of trees. Sinking my feet into the grass, I peer through the branches.
My lungs arrest.
Draewulf, Isobel, and a wraith.
Myles’s slimy hand finds my shoulder and squeezes, whether in reminder to be silent or because he’s a nervous bolcrane baby I’m not sure, but I shake him off and, sliding out a knife, hunch down to watch the three carrying on about something.
“Why not crush the Bron soldiers?” Isobel’s voice rings out. “We can take full control instead of this farce of working with them!”
“Because, my shortsighted daughter,” Draewulf snarls, “we don’t expend resources for the sake of a control we already have.” His hood is thrown back, revealing jagged hair smeared back in a distinctly unlike-Eogan style. He looks at her with a twisted expression that is at once hateful and weary. The effect only makes him loom more dangerous, like it’s requiring effort not to snap.
“Yes, and morphing that many would require more energy than either you or I should spare at the moment. But if we’re still in Bron when the Assembly realizes this is a coup—”
“They already know it’s a coup and they will believe what they need to in order to stay alive. Just like draining an animal’s blood—do it too fast and you’ll waste the experience. Drain them slow and you’ll get the rush of seeing them whimper and succumb, my dear.”
His tone is so cold my spine ripples.
He turns to the wraith. “How much longer until your underlings are ready?”
“The ones assembled to keep hold of this city are near ready. The rest come with us to Tulla.” The tall dead thing slurs his gravelly words into the breeze, which carries them low and whips them around. “The timing now depends on you, m’lord. And whether your vessel is prepared?”
“She performed as I said she would. We’ll know soon if it took in the way I require. If not, I’ll ensure she returns for more. Either way, it won’t be long.”
“And in the meantime?” Lady Isobel glares at her father. “Are you ready? Because you look like hulls, and I’ll not have us embark before I know you’ve managed control over your host.”
“He grows weaker as we speak,” the wraith interjects, flourishing a long, bone finger through the air at Eogan. A hint of mist follows it before the ghostly thing inhales and pulls the fog toward its hooded face.
I can just make out the shriveled skin and skeletal cheekbones beneath eyes that are glowing a faint yellow. Before I know it the spider serum in my veins has lurched and begun vibrating with that low thirst.
Draewulf shifts and the starlight catches the scowl in his eye. “If your Mortisfaire powers worked the way—”
“It’s not my fault something’s changed his Medien ability.” It’s Isobel’s turn to snarl. “He’s never been able to block me before, and I assure you I will finish it. Perhaps it’s time I pay a visit to—”
“Out of the question,” Draewulf’s voice barks.
“May I remind you that with your own energy being spent maintaining your hold, you are—”
“We knew this would be the most critical. Even now I can sense it breaking,” he growls. “Prepare your guards. Leave me to focus. And you . . .” He glares at the wraith. “Alert me as soon as the army is fully in place.”
“Yes, m’lord,” the wraith breathes.
Isobel purses her mouth and glares. Until Draewulf turns his back on her. She flips around, then heads toward the rock waterfall with the wraith following and disappears opposite our hiding spot.
Draewulf watches them stride away until there’s the distinct sound of a door shutting somewhere. I swear his shoulders sag the slightest bit before he turns and spreads his hands toward the black masses in the distance. He becomes still.
Too still.
After one, two, five minutes my calves are aching and begging to change position. I’m just wondering how softly I can shift when he’s muttering loud enough for me to hear even if his words are incoherent.
Soon they’re so inharmonious and complex, it’s giving the effect of multiple voices. Beside me, Myles rocks forward enough that I can feel the tension rolling off him as Eogan-who-is-Draewulf lifts his robed arms to hold up an object out in front of him, as if performing a type of ritual.
Oh litches.
Myles’s hand is poking my shoulder, compressing hard. Apparently he’s caught on too and worried I might move. He should be.
Draewulf’s fingers are clasped around a large leather pouch, which looks very much like the bag the neighbor of owner number seven used for spells. I asked her about it once, and she told me she kept it full of enchanted bones. I never asked whose bones or what kind of enchantment, but the one time she tried to use them to rid me of my Elemental curse . . .
It didn’t go well.
I summon every nerve of strength I own to keep me rooted to this spot as Draewulf’s voice grows louder. He puts a hand in his robe pocket, pulls out a fistful of powder to sprinkle over the bag, then dumps the pouch’s contents onto the ground. There’s a clatter and a spark and then it looks like the whole thing catches fire. The smoke from it rises straight, eerily stiff, as it funnels up
to the sky. The muttering stops as he watches it. After a moment, he steps into the thick smoke spire and inhales once, deeply.
The faint sound of a leaf being crushed underfoot is my first indication that I’ve moved. I bump into Myles who’s frozen except for his fingers curling into my skin, keeping me still and from giving us away.
“Use your mirage.”
I feel him shake his head just as Draewulf’s gaze darts over.
“He’s weakened. Use your mirage, Myles. I’m going to use my ability.”
An elongated pause. Then, “My power doesn’t work against Eogan’s block,” Myles admits in my ear.
It doesn’t? I glance back at him and almost laugh. So that’s why he hates Eogan so much.
There’s a low snarl, and I turn back in time to catch Draewulf looking over again. Searching our direction with those greenrimmed black eyes.
There’s no way he could’ve heard us, yet he steps out of the bone-incense spire and his eyes are seeking, glowering, and then they’re riveted on me.
Myles fumbles against my foot, and when I slip a hand back to make him stay still, the oaf isn’t there. What the—? Bleeding fool.
I’m just rising from my haunches when Draewulf growls and, faster than possible, bursts through the low branches. He stops in front of me, inches away, looking furious but also haggard. Beyond haggard. He looks ill.
He studies me, then suddenly smiles and tweaks his head to the side. His expression removes any question in my mind whether he can see through Myles’s mirage. “Little impotent girls shouldn’t eavesdrop.” He lifts a hand. “Unless they want their mouths sewn shut.” He scrapes Eogan’s short nails against my neck.
I utter a cry at the sting and aim my knee for his stomach at the same moment my hand lunges with my knife. He steps aside and swipes it away onto the grass, as if he can’t be bothered with such silliness, before reaching for my chin.
I shove both hands against his chest and attempt to pull nonexistent lightning from the sky. Instead I’m met with darkness. From inside him.
