She reached out and almost caught hold of him, their fingertips touched briefly, then he slipped away. She watched as he picked up speed. The current grew stronger, pulling him away, rushing him forward, stealing him from her.
Ahead the light was closer, brighter, and in it, she thought she saw figures moving. “Alric, you have to try and slow down, you’re moving too fast, I can’t get—I can’t grab you. Alric, you’re speeding up! Alric, reach out to me! Alric! Alric!”
She dove forward but her brother rushed away, washing toward the light at a speed she could not match. She watched as he grew smaller and smaller until he was lost in the brilliance of the light.
“No! No!” she cried, staring forward, blinded by the whiteness.
“Arista.” She heard a voice call—not Alric’s, but familiar. “Arista. Your brother is here with us now. It’s okay.”
“Daddy?”
“Yes, dear, it’s me. I’m sorry I have no hairbrush to give you at this meeting, but there is so much more, so much more than a hairbrush waiting. Come join us.”
“I—I shouldn’t,” she told him, although she was not certain why.
The light did not hurt to look at, but it made it impossible to see more than vague shapes, all blurred and hazy, as if they moved on the far side of a frosted glass.
“It’s all right, honey,” her father said. “And it’s not just us waiting. You have other friends here, others who love you.”
“My burns are gone,” Hilfred told her. “Come see.”
She saw their wispy outlines before her; they were growing clearer and more defined. The current was no longer fighting against her and she was starting to pick up speed. She needed to stop, she needed to go back, there was something that—
“Arista my love.” This was a voice she had not heard for a long, long time and her heart leapt at the sound.
“Mother?”
“Come to me, honey, come home. I’m waiting for you.”
There was music playing, soft and gentle. The light was growing all around her such that the dark of the void was fading. She let herself go, let herself drift on the current that carried her forward faster and faster.
“Arista,” another voice called. This one was faint and distant, coming from somewhere behind her.
She could almost make out the faces in the light. There were so many and they were smiling with outstretched arms.
“Arista, come back.” The voice was not in the light; it was calling to her from the darkness. “Arista, don’t leave!”
It came as a cry, a desperate plea, and she knew the voice.
“Arista, please, please don’t leave. Please come back. Let him go and come back!”
It was Hadrian.
“Arista,” her mother called, “come home.”
“Home,” Arista said, and as she said it, she stopped. “Home,” she repeated, and felt a pulling in her stomach as the light diminished.
“I’ll be waiting for you always.” She heard her mother’s voice as it drifted away.
“Good luck,” Alric called, his voice almost too faint to hear.
She felt herself flying backward, then—
Her eyes snapped open.
Arista lay on the stone, gasping and struggling to breathe. She inhaled long and hard but still could not manage to get enough air. The world was whirling above her, dark except for a faint purple glow. In this dim haze, she saw Hadrian crouched over her and felt him squeezing her hands. His own were shaking. Suddenly his strained look was replaced with a burst of joy.
“She’s okay! See! She’s looking around!” Mauvin shouted.
“Can you hear me?” Hadrian asked.
She tried but could not speak. All she could manage was a slight nod and her eye caught sight of Alric.
“He’s gone,” Hadrian told her sadly.
Again she managed a shallow nod.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Hadrian asked.
“Very… tired,” she whispered as her eyes closed, and she fell asleep.
As both Arista and Gaunt slept, Hadrian worked on Mauvin. The count’s side was drenched in blood. A stab wound cut through the meat of his arm behind the upper bone. He had been holding it shut with his hand without complaint such that Hadrian had not noticed until Mauvin staggered.
Together, Hadrian and Magnus, with Myron holding the lantern, sewed Mauvin’s wound. Hadrian was forced to push muscle back in as he stitched, yet Mauvin made no cry and soon passed out. When they finished, Hadrian wrapped his arm. It was a good, clean job and they had stopped the bleeding. Mauvin would be fine even if his left arm would never be as strong as it once had been. Hadrian checked Gaunt’s leg and changed that bandage as well. Then, in the utter silence of the tombs, in the dim light of the lantern, they all slept.
When he woke, Hadrian felt every bruise, cut, scratch, and strained muscle. A lantern burned beside him, and with its light, he found his water skin. They all lay together in the narrow corridor, flopped haphazardly in dirt and blood like a pile of dead after a battle. He took a small sip to clear his mouth and noticed Royce was not with them.
He lifted the lantern and glanced at the pile of rubble where the stairs had once been. The way was blocked by several tons of stone.
“Well, I’m guessing you didn’t go that way,” he whispered to himself.
Turning, he noticed the corridor bent sharply to the left. Along the walls, he discerned faint, ghostly images etched in the polished stone like burnished details on glass. The images told a story. At the start of the hall was a strange scene: a group of men traveling to a great gathering in a forest where a ruler sat upon a throne that appeared to be part of a tree, yet none of the men had heads. In each instance, they were scraped away. In the next scene, the king of the tree throne fought one of the men in single combat—again no heads.
Hadrian raised the lantern and wiped the dust with his hands, looking closer at the images of the men fighting. He let his fingertips trace the weapons in their hands, strange twisted poles with multiple blades. He had never seen their like before and yet he knew them. He could imagine their weight, how his hands would grasp, and how to scoop the lower blade in order to make the upper two slice the air. His father had taught him to use this weapon, the polearm for which he had no name.
In the next scene, the king was victorious and all bowed to him save one. He stood aside with the rest of the men who had traveled together in the first scene, and in his arms, he held the body of the fallen combatant. Still no heads—each one carefully scratched out. On the ground lay bits of chipped stone and white dust.
Hadrian found Royce at the end of the hall before a closed and formidable-looking stone door.
“Locked?” Hadrian asked.
Royce nodded as his hands played over the door’s surface.
“How long you been here?”
The thief shrugged. “A few hours.”
“No keyhole?”
“Locked from the inside.”
“Inside? That’s creepy. Since when do dead men lock themselves into their own graves?”