by Lori M. Lee
I’ve had it all so unbelievably wrong. Ronin’s familiar isn’t anchoring the spirits to the Dead Wood. The Soulless is, along with the same dark magic that created this place—a magic that has continued to distort and corrode until it’s become a poison, a rot seeping into the trees and the spirits. And infecting other spirits as well, including familiars.
I release a slow, tremulous breath. How could Ronin have done this?
Then again, Ronin desecrated an entire troll graveyard to build his manor house. I suppose it’s not so unlikely that he would have preserved the Soulless’s corpse in order to possess the magic that remained in his bones. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but he’s using the Soulless like a human talisman, amplifying his power.
But also corrupting it. Could this be why Ronin is losing control of the Dead Wood?
“Someone has wandered into my web,” says a soft voice.
I stiffen and look over my shoulder. Ronin stands at the other end of the greenhouse. Every muscle in my body tenses as I scan the room for his familiar. But still, there is nothing. Quickly, I climb back down.
Ronin, his gaze steady, lets me. When I’m on the ground, I turn to face him. His shadow stretches slowly around his feet, inky arms extending across the floor until the shape of an enormous spider rests at his back.
I swallow thickly, suddenly remembering “The Tale of the Woodcutter” and Theyen’s theory. Maybe Ronin doesn’t need a familiar because he devoured his Spinner. A sensation like hundreds of insect legs skitters down my spine. I draw my swords.
“You’re supposed to be up north.” Thankfully, my voice doesn’t waver.
He takes a leisurely step forward. The spider’s shadow follows, furred legs moving in time with his. I back away to maintain the space between us, but there’s no way out of this greenhouse except through the door he’s blocking.
“You’re not the only one with friends who can open shadow gates. Although such friends should exercise better caution when using such abilities.”
My lips tighten at the blatant threat. “Don’t you have an ambush to prepare for?”
“Among other plans. I’d meant to introduce you at dinner. When I sent for you, my servants reported you missing and your friend escaping with the prince of Evewyn. I thought it prudent to return here to check on things.” His gaze lifts to the cocoon behind me. “Just in case.”
Anger surges through me. “You’re going to let her kill all those people. Your own guests. Inside the manor, they’ll be powerless.”
“What would you have me do?” he asks, voice soft. “I am weary, Sirscha. Why shouldn’t it all end?”
“Because you’re supposed to keep the peace.”
His eyes unfocus as his gaze turns inward, pensive. “And I will. Once all the kingdoms have been dismantled.”
“So Queen Meilyr is as much your pawn as the rest of us?”
“I’m doing what I must.”
“And that justifies it? Genocide isn’t peace!” My shouted words reverberate through the large space.
“I didn’t take you for an idealist.”
I sneer. “I’m not. I’m just not a monster.”
At last, a reaction. One corner of his mouth quirks upward. “Aren’t you, though? Soulrender.”
I tense. Your powers are a question that must be addressed. Much relies on the answer.
“You suspected from the beginning,” I say. “That’s the real reason why you wanted Theyen to invoke my craft.” Every moment since I arrived at Spinner’s End suddenly sharpens into focus. “Allowing me to go to Vos Gillis—you wanted me to slip up. And Kamryne. You sent him, didn’t you? He killed himself because he knew you’d do the same when you learned he failed.” I point both my swords at him, my voice vibrating with fury. “He’s trapped now in those horrible trees.”
He doesn’t react to my words. “When you free the souls from the Dead Wood, do you even realize what you’re doing? Soulrenders don’t shepherd souls. You weren’t sending those spirits into the afterlife. You were destroying them.”
His quiet words hit me like a punch to my gut. I have to blink away the daze. Could it be true?
“You are a danger to yourself and everyone you touch. Your awakening allowed our plans to come together, but I hoped you’d reveal your true nature so that I could kill you and be done with it.”
I shake my head. I came here with a purpose, and I still mean to finish it. “But you couldn’t. Not without proof. Because every shaman and shadowblessed in Thiy believes I’m a soulguide, and killing me would turn them against you.”
He releases a soft breath, all the long years of his life condensed into that single sound. “How quickly they forget that Thiy would have fallen without me. It was my power that saved it.”
I try to imagine him as he might have once been—merely a man trying to protect his home. “You devoured your familiar so you could become powerful enough to fight the Soulless.”
“And still, peace couldn’t be found. The kingdoms insisted on their conflicts, their petty grievances, their bids for power.” He shakes his head, and when he speaks again, it isn’t with anger or regret. He sounds resolved. “I did what was necessary, just as I will do so now.”
In a twisted way, I understand him. He sacrificed everything, even his humanity, to bring peace to Thiy, and the kingdoms gave that peace so little regard. But now he means to wipe them all away. This is far from a solution.
“The Soulless is poisoning you. You know that, don’t you? His magic is twisting you the way it twisted him.”
His gaze flicks away, just enough to confirm that he knows very well what the Soulless’s magic is doing to him. But it doesn’t seem to matter. He’s chosen his path. Whatever decency he once possessed has long since been corrupted.
I slowly shift my weight to my injured leg, testing its strength. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should, whether from the medicine or the energy coursing through me.
“How do you plan to control the Dead Wood?”
“I will find a way, as I always have. But if none can be found, then perhaps that is the ending Thiy deserves.” At his back, his spider’s shadow grows impossibly larger. “For what it’s worth, I hoped that you might truly be a soulguide.”
His head jerks to the side as his body stretches and contorts. I back away, horrified as his lower body swells grotesquely. His clothes rip away to reveal the bulbous abdomen of a white Spinner. Six enormous legs erupt from the Spinner’s body, dusted with wiry white hairs. His upper body remains human, the transition between spider and human torso a mottled stretch of armor and skin. He brushes away the remnants of his tunic. Lines crease his forehead as if the transformation pains him.
I edge to my left. His monstrous body moves with me. The greenhouse is large but bare. There is nothing to place between me and the creature Ronin has become.
The whole of his eyes, whites and all, darken to glistening black and then fracture into the unsettling impression of multiple eyes. The roots of his hair bleed into red, the color spreading across his temples like veins. Thick crimson stripes streak the Spinner’s abdomen up through the sides of his human chest.
He towers over me, his Spinner legs lifting him to more than twice my height. Each of his fingers extends into a clawed point, tinted the same dark red as if dipped in paint. Every instinct I possess demands that I flee. I cannot win this fight. How could I ever hope to defeat this?
But I am the only person who knows Ronin’s secret—that he’s using the Soulless as a talisman to amplify and alter his own magic. If I don’t stop him here, if I die, then Ronin will destroy everything and everyone I hold dear. Peace at the cost of utter destruction.
I twirl my swords, an invitation that Ronin doesn’t hesitate to accept. He strikes fast, claws slashing. I deflect with my swords, momentarily surprised when his transformed fingers scrape against my blade like steel.
Diving low, I block the deadly jab of his claws and skid beneath his abdomen. My blades c
ut across his underbelly. He staggers, but his Spinner’s armored skin is too thick. He turns with the agility of a spider a tenth his size, exposing me. His claws rake down my arm, drawing blood, as I roll away and dash for the columns.
The columns are tall and thick. I slide behind one, Ronin on my heels. His legs slam against the floor-to-ceiling windows. What panels remain on this side of the greenhouse shudder dangerously, cracks shooting through the glass. The space between the wall and column is too narrow for his body, but his claws hack at the stone. Dust and debris shower the musty air.
I allow myself a few heartbeats to gather my breath. Then I leap into the open, blades slicing across the claws that protect his vulnerable human torso. My body spins and dips, my feet and swords in constant motion as I dodge his many-legged reach.
Ducking another attack, I return my swords smoothly into their sheaths as I drop into a roll. My hands clutch one of his furred legs. The spider hairs are thick and coarse. My boots slam into his side for more momentum as I flip onto the Spinner’s back.
He whirls violently, nearly throwing me off, but I wrap an arm around his human waist. I reach over my shoulder and slide one sword free, angling the blade to stab his exposed side.
Something yanks my arm back. I can’t move. I twist around to find my hand and sword hilt snagged in a stream of web. More webbing shoots from his spinneret, coating my whole arm. I draw my other sword, hacking at the thick, sticky mass, but there’s too much.
His human body rotates, his spine twisting in a way that should snap it in two. Red claws clamp around my leg and rip me off his back. Layers of webbing trap both my arms and swords as he hefts me up before him. One clawed hand wraps around my throat.
Each fragment of his many eyes stares back at me, unblinking. I struggle against his hold, even as his claws bite into the skin beneath my jaw. Each small movement works my blades against the webbing.
“If only you’d been a soulguide instead.” The regret in his voice makes my skin burn with anger.
“So you could use me? What does it matter, anyway? You’d still kill everyone.”
He hauls me close. I gasp as his face hovers a breath from mine, his snarling mouth stretching with crowded, too-large fangs. “You’ve seen more death than others twice your age, and still, you know so little of sacrifice.”
I struggle harder, moving more easily as my swords saw away at the webbing. Suddenly, the Soulless’s dark power slithers around me, as if to replace my loosening bonds. It hooks into my skin, probing for weaknesses.
Ronin’s mouth gapes open, impossibly wide. His jaws unhinge and his lips tear in a way no human mouth ever should. His enormous fangs unfurl.
That dark magic scratches at my ribs, demanding to be allowed in. I fear that power, wicked temptation wrapped in venom and thorns. But in this moment, I fear Ronin more.
I seize the Soulless’s power. Instantly, magic rages through me, igniting my craft like a breath against kindling. Liquid fire burns in my veins, imbuing me with blazing, scorching magic that’s almost too much for me to contain.
And then I see it—Ronin’s souls. There are two, one human form and the other Spinner, both transposed against the abomination he has become. I don’t need my hands to grip his souls tight. I need only to will it.
He goes rigid. His mouth slowly closes, fangs sinking back into the depths of his jaw. His magic heaves against mine. It takes all my concentration to hold him immobile.
The black drains from his eyes. Suddenly, his face is human again, brimming with an emotion so intense, so bleak, I hesitate. “You don’t understand what you’re doing. Only my power can keep Thiy safe.”
“Thiy doesn’t need you anymore, not once the Dead Wood is destroyed.”
With an inhuman snarl, he wrenches free of my magic. His mouth snaps wide, fangs flashing.
My arms rip from my slackened restraints. I bury both swords hilt deep beneath his ribs.
He rears back, eyes wide with surprise. His claws drop me. I jerk my swords free as I fall. I land on my feet and shuffle back. Ronin stumbles. His legs fold. His huge body sinks to the dusty floor of the greenhouse. His eyes find mine, the knowledge of his death creeping into his face.
“Soulrender,” he whispers. Then he slumps forward, and his legs go still.
I stab both of my blades into the stone and sink to my knees, panting and aching. My thigh feels like it’s been set aflame, and I’ve bled through the bandages. I’ll deal with it later. Weariness drags at my limbs, bone deep. But I draw a deep breath and force myself to stand.
The Soulless’s magic continues to course through me, leaving an acrid scent in my nostrils. Even in death, he is more powerful than I am. It’s hard to imagine how he must have been in life, a shaman so formidable it required an abomination like Ronin to stop him. Ronin must have been a great man once to make such a sacrifice for Thiy. But all the years of using the Soulless’s perverse magic corrupted him.
I won’t make that mistake. I’m going to end this, here and now.
Beneath the slick of the Soulless’s magic, I can sense that even without Ronin, he remains connected to the Dead Wood. It’s his magic that first trapped the souls here, after all. A clear venom was leaking from that puncture wound in his neck. That must be how Ronin kept him so well preserved.
With a beam of wood from the debris in the foyer and one of the lit lanterns, I manage to create a makeshift torch. Then I touch the flaming beam to the base of the spiderweb. The moss smolders, and the webbing instantly shrivels. The dust catches fire, spreading quickly along the thick strands. Smoke plumes upward, stinging my eyes.
Coughing, I shield my face and toss the flaming chunk of wood into the growing blaze. Then, with one last look up at the Soulless’s cocoon, now indistinct through the haze of heat, I turn and flee.
TWENTY-FIVE
I make my way out as silently as I entered.
The greenhouse is so far removed from the occupied sections of the castle that I’m not worried the fire will spread beyond control. It’ll be some time before the blaze is even noticed, but I’d better be quick either way. Every injury I’ve acquired in the last day makes itself known as I pick my way through the gardens. Most of the sky is still dark, but the sun will rise within hours. The crust of the eastern horizon has already brightened from black to dusky blue.
Questions plague me as I scale the walls and climb over sloping roofs, making my way up to Theyen’s room, where I hope he’s returned. Where is Kendara? Did the Nuvali and Kazan leaders listen to Prince Meilek? What will happen once word spreads that Ronin is missing?
And Saengo. Without the Soulless holding the spirits to the Dead Wood, will she be able to heal? The flickering light of Saengo’s candle still burns, so I know she’s alive. But she grows weaker with every passing hour.
I wasn’t sure what would happen once Ronin’s power was gone, but I expected to feel something. And yet the trees beyond the white drape surrounding Spinner’s End don’t seem any different. Maybe magic as powerful as the Soulless’s needs time to fade.
Within minutes, my fingers grasp the ledge of Theyen’s sitting-room window. It’s much too narrow for me to fit through, but I peek inside. A lantern on the mantel illuminates the room with a soft yellow glow. Theyen sits with one hand cupped over his forehead and the other wrinkling the hem of his sleeve. He’s trying to read.
“Theyen,” I whisper.
He starts and then rushes over to the window. “How in the—are all Evewynians as suicidal as you are?”
I roll my eyes. “Were you able to warn your clansmen?”
“Yes. They were preparing to leave when I returned for you.”
“Good. I’m ready when you are. The quicker the better.”
He rubs his temple. “This friendship business is a lot more troublesome than I was led to believe.”
“Theyen—”
“Yes, yes. I’ll meet you out front. Get down before you fall and break your neck.”
I
reach the courtyard mere seconds before Theyen bursts out the doors, a sword strapped to his waist. His feet pause on the stairs when he gets a full look at me.
“Why do you look like you were wrestling a Spinner?”
“I sort of was,” I mumble. “Ronin was back there.”
Smoke has begun to rise from the rear of the castle grounds, but against the night and with most of the soldiers and staff still abed, no one seems to have noticed yet.
For long seconds, Theyen stares at me, terrible realization growing behind his eyes. When he speaks, there’s an icy tremor in his voice I’ve never heard before. “Did you kill him?”
“I had no choice.”
A muscle ticks in his cheek as he clenches and unclenches his jaw. He descends the stairs, but his steps are slow, deliberate. Predatory.
I square my shoulders. “Theyen. He was going to—”
“I told you not to do anything foolish. You killed the Spider King? Have you lost your mind?”
“He meant to kill everyone,” I say evenly. “I had to stop him.”
“Ronin was the only person standing in the way of the Empire and Kazahyn going to war. He’s kept the peace for longer than most anyone in Thiy can remember. But you,” he says, sneering. “You think you know better? Less than a month ago, you didn’t even know you were a shaman.”
I rub my thumb over my knuckles, trying not to let Theyen’s insults hurt me. “He wanted the kingdoms to go to war. He’s been conspiring to destroy Thiy, starting with helping Queen Meilyr massacre everyone in the north. She’ll reach the camps by dawn, if she isn’t there already, and you want to stand here throwing accusations when you don’t even know half of the things I’ve learned?”
“Don’t you get it?” he hisses. “It doesn’t matter. If House Yalaeng invades Kazahyn, the clans will have no choice but to retaliate. The Fireborn Queens won’t be able to claim neutrality, especially if it’s discovered I had a hand in helping you kill Ronin.”
My arm shakes from my restraint. I want very much to punch the sense into him, but that would only make things worse. “You’re not hearing me. Ronin was going to betray everyone. He was going to let Queen Meilyr kill all of his guests in his manor house today, including you since you had plans to be there.”
