Gradually, villagers emerge from behind the shells of homes and shops, wide-eyed and deathly pale. Some are spattered with blood, and all look lost. Even the few Dead in their long shrouds are clearly shaken, leaning against their living relatives for support.
“We’ll make room in the castle for them all,” the baroness declares to her guards. Even from a distance, there’s no mistaking the shock in her voice. She clearly had no idea how much destruction Shades could cause, or she’d have spent her time arming her soldiers with liquid fire instead of taking us on a valley tour. The earlier attacks reported to the king must have been like the Shade attacks of years past, monsters picking off livestock and the occasional late-night tavern-goer from the shadows.
We emerge from the carriage to join the survivors, the sounds of someone weeping filling the air. It’s one of the Dead, I realize, as a living man pushes away someone beneath a shroud, then points down the road.
“I’m sorry,” the man says, shaking his head as the shrouded figure clings to his arm. “Don’t you understand?” His voice breaks, and something inside me cracks at the overwhelming sadness of the sound. “You could be the next to turn. One slip of your mask, and . . .”
“You’d become a monster,” someone else calls.
“I never knew the Dead were capable of this,” a dark-haired woman stammers.
“They’re not!” I shout. Almost every head turns my way. Even the man arguing with his shrouded relative falls silent. “The Dead can become Shades, but most never do. We’re careful, and so are they. They wear layers to hide their skin. We’re following the same rules we always have. This was no mere accident on the part of the Dead or their kin, mind. Some madman decided to break our rules, and this”—I make a sweeping gesture—“is the result. It doesn’t mean the Dead should be feared or blamed.”
I say it as much to defend the shrouded figures around me as to prove to the voice in my head that we are better off with the Dead here.
“But this is our fault, in a way,” a woman murmurs, one of the Dead. “Maybe it’s best we leave. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“All the Dead should get out of Elsinor!” someone yells.
I search for the speaker so I can glare at him, but I can’t tell who said it. Not with several echoes of the sentiment passing among the survivors, and even among the baroness’s guards. The farmers and tradesman who make up the heart of Karthia have always looked upon the Dead with respect bordering on awe. They’ve dreamed of saving up enough to have their own loved ones raised. But then, most of them have never seen a Shade before today.
“And what about the king?” another voice demands.
“Maybe,” a young blue-eyed girl says as she hugs her mother’s knee, “the Dead king will turn bad, too.”
“Maybe,” Baroness Abethell agrees softly, her face suddenly looking ten years older, lined with guilt and worry and the same uncertainty that’s plaguing me.
“May he reign eternal!” someone cries, sounding defiant. But no one takes up the familiar refrain.
I hang my head. Partly because I can’t see a point in arguing with people who have just lost everything. Partly because I can’t stand the sight of the Dead trudging away from their ruined village with nowhere to go, not one of them uttering a protest for fear that they might hurt their families if they stay. And partly because a little voice in the back of my mind shares the blue-eyed girl’s worry, and I can’t seem to silence it.
After a while, the weather mages from the next valley arrive, their gray eyes misting over as they draw more rain from the blue sky’s passing clouds. Their movements are like a dancer’s, practiced and elegant, each gesture of their hands wringing a little more water from the wisps of clouds above.
Watching them work reminds me of Kasmira, and I hope she’s somewhere safe. Out at sea, perhaps.
A few of the more isolated buildings have already stopped burning, but others hiss as rainwater splashes their fiery insides.
The guards comb through the cooling rubble, rounding up more survivors.
Even Meredy finds a purpose, calming the frightened horse from the forge and climbing on its back, riding past the border of the village to search for others in need of help.
I join the baroness at the top of a raised platform that looks like a poorly constructed stage, and together we watch a flock of dark figures ascend the nearest mountain.
The Dead are gliding away toward the horizon, and I’m powerless to stop them.
*
“Evander,” I murmur to my quiet room near the top of Abethell Castle, “I can’t sleep.” There’s no hallucination sitting beside me on the bed, not since I’ve given up the potion. But I can’t seem to shake these conversations. I know he’s gone, yet here I am.
“Do you remember the time we snuck into the Deadlands together without Master Cymbre? Chasing after that young Dead baron who’d just become a Shade, because we thought we could change him back with a vial of honey?” I shake my head at the memory. “We were lucky that rock you threw distracted him. Lucky to get out of there with our lives.”
I gaze out the room’s arched windows at a dark valley that should be flickering with light. With life. Where are Elsinor’s exiled Dead now?
“Here’s what I’ve been wondering since the massacre, Van. What if the Dead turn into Shades when we look at them, or when they’ve been in our world too long, because they were never meant to leave the Deadlands at all?” The words make me a traitor to the sapphire pins on my chest, Evander’s and mine both. But now that I’ve said it aloud, I can’t stop myself. “What if I can’t find Vane? What if he loses control of his Shades?”
Or worse. “What if our magic is the weapon that brings Karthia to its knees?”
I can practically hear Evander saying it now, carefully weighing each word. “What I do—what we do—brings hope.”
Nodding along with his voice in my head, I say, “Our magic is love triumphing over death.”
But there’s no denying our magic can be deadly.
All around me, the sobs of several villages’ worth of survivors seep through the floors and echo in the hallways. The survivors are restless in rooms beneath me and around me, and perhaps some of the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach belongs to them, is for them, because I know the ache of loss thanks to Evander.
I hug my knees to my chest and wish all my imagining could conjure the weight of Evander’s arms around me one last time. “I forgive you for being gone,” I whisper. “I just wish I could forgive myself.”
For not saving him. For not saving the people of Elsinor. For allowing Meredy to come here and risk her life, too.
I wipe my soaking face on my sleeve. “She reminds me of you,” I whisper into the dark. “That used to make me miserable. But lately, it’s made me happy. I promise I’ll keep her safe, Van—not that she needs protecting. Honestly, she’s saved me a time or two. I just think you’d like to know someone has her back, since . . . you’re not here anymore.”
I sit straight up on the bed, kicking one of the pillows across the room. Why did it have to be Evander?
It should’ve been me who was decimated by that Shade.
XXIV