Despite the overabundance of vegetation, the earth around the tomb had been recently disturbed.
It had taken us nearly two hours of searching to locate poor Millicent, and by the time we unearthed her small, crumbling coffin, the sky had lightened into softer gradients of grays, the hours moving toward dawn. I hoped that some force would prevent Lady Mykaela from wandering out of bed again; it would be far more difficult to explain trespassing at this grave than at King Vanor’s tomb.
“If she lied, I’ll strangle her myself,” Fox grumbled. He did most of the digging, though I did the sweating for the two of us. My brother lowered himself gingerly into the hole he dug, clearing away the splinters of wood and prying off what was left of the coffin lid.
An unknown rune of intricate markings suddenly blazed forth in front of me, shining brightly. There was a strange yapping sound, then a withered hand shot out to grasp Fox by the sleeve. Fox’s blade swung, shining in the dim light, and took the skeletal hand off cleanly at the wrist. “I knew it,” he growled. “She set us up!”
Millicent Tread’s corpse was not the only body rising from the ground. Other gravestones shuddered and broke apart around us, their occupants struggling out of their graves, decayed jaws snapping.
Fox spun in a circle, taking two heads with one clean swipe. Yet even as the skulls dropped to the ground, their bodies lumbered forward. Every arm or leg Fox chopped off became an additional appendage to defend against, and my brother soon traded his blade for its hilt, driving the heavy, blunt end to crush their bones.
I drew Compulsion in the air and was immediately assaulted by a barrage of personalities. None of the corpses were intent on fighting off my control; if anything, they were eager to embrace me, to lay bare all that was left of their minds. The mishmash of thoughts made my head spin.
—my little boy Achmed, to take the time to lay flowers by my grave—
—good-for-nothing husband, always carousing till the break of dawn! Would a visit every so often kill him?—
—my daughter! Have you heard news of her? I’ve been waiting years and years—
The azi’s thoughts crept in amid the chaos. Instinctively, I latched on to it and embraced the familiar magic that flowed freely through our link.
“Return to your graves!” The Compulsion rune flared brighter than I had ever seen it, and the corpses froze. Like marionettes being jerked on invisible strings, they collapsed back into the holes they had clawed out of, moaning piteously all the while. Only after the last disappeared back into its soil did I let go of the azi, sinking down from the effort it had taken me.
Fox was by my side in moments, worried. “Was that the azi?”
I grinned weakly. “It…helped. I just need to catch my breath. As horrifying as the corpses were, they posed no real threat.”
“I inferred as much. I caught the tail end of their thoughts.” He glanced back at Millicent’s grave. “This one seems peaceful again too. But what did that Faceless woman hope to achieve from this if not to attack?”
“She was showing off—one of the many unknown runes her book holds, I think.”
“Why tell her secrets? She’d lose the advantage.”
“I’m not sure what her plan is. But if that book exists, then I’m going to find it. If there’s any means to better control the azi—”
But my brother shook his head. “Absolutely not. You swore you’d get rid of the daeva, remember?”
I hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, I know what I promised.”
“Good, because I’ll be holding you to that.” Fox returned to Millicent’s grave, his every movement laced with caution. He nudged away the rest of the debris with a foot, used the tip of his blade to prod the woman’s remains out of the way, and peered inside.
“So she can speak the truth after all!” he exclaimed, producing a small rectangular package carefully wrapped in twine and waxed paper. “I’m surprised it lasted this long, buried under all this dirt.”
I remembered the churned earth around the grave. “Unless it’s been buried recently.”
Fox frowned. “True. Though the idea that Aenah might have an ally running loose in Kion is worrying.”
He handed the package to me. I removed the twine holding it together.
It was a leather-bound book of some age but in good shape. An upside-down crown was embossed onto the leather, and my heart leaped to my throat. “This is the False Prince’s crest, Fox.”
I turned to a page at random and saw unfamiliar runes. The text was archaic, like the book was written in an era when speech required more formality. “This rune shows you how to control a hundred corpses at once.”
“Isn’t that impossible? Aren’t asha able to control only a dozen at most?”
“Unless you use a seeking stone, and using that will overwhelm you quickly with darkrot if you’re not strong enough.” I winced, remembering my first encounter with one. “I’ll need to see if the magic is as effective as this book claims.”
“No.”
I looked at him. “Fox, I have to. If any of these spells work, we can use them to our advantage. If we can’t tell the asha-ka association about the azi, then we definitely can’t tell them about this. The only people who could manage these spells are Mykaela and me, and she’s in no shape to handle these runes.”
“And once the association discovers your secret, you’re going to be hauled to prison for having this book in your possession—just as you would be for your bond with the daeva.” Fox rubbed the side of his head. “Can you not even share with Polaire or Altaecia?”
I hesitated. I remembered Polaire’s intimation that I was not relevant to the decisions the association makes, even when they involve me. “No,” I decided. “Polaire’s too close to the elder asha. I…seriously don’t know how Althy would react to this.”
Fox scowled. “Fine—for now. But you cannot experiment without me around.” And then, for the first time, he grudgingly addressed the shadow that had quietly been eavesdropping in my head. And the same goes for you too. Do you hear me, you overgrown snake?
That was so typically Fox that I had to smile, and the azi rumbled cheerfully in my head in response.
? ? ?
At Fox’s insistence, we started with the simplest of the book’s spells—Scrying. Its rune resembled a distorted tree branch climbing upward, limbs twisted and splayed. To commit it to memory required practice. Like all spells, I was to trace the rune, to let my will bleed into its shape, and then direct it into another’s mind and wrap the rune around its presence.
“This is not secretly an Exploding rune or something that will send a thousand dead people climbing in through the window, right?”
“At this point, I know as much about this as you do, Fox.” I took a deep breath. “Let’s do this. We can spend all day arguing until we’re blue in the face, but that won’t change anything.”
Fox’s hand strayed to the hilt of his sword, as if swinging a blade at a spell would make all the difference. “One decaying head popping up from anywhere and I’m sending it back to whatever hell it crawled out from.”
I studied the rune again, committing as much of it to memory as I was able. As I drew it in the air, I let my mind settle on its form until it felt as solid as I was, and then I guided it toward Fox. We already shared a bond, but finding another volunteer was not an option at this point.
I felt a spurt of dizziness, which quickly abated. I stared at Fox but had the oddest sensation of staring back at myself.
I squeezed my eyes shut and watched myself close my eyes at the same time.
“Fox, turn around.”
My perspective swiveled. I disappeared from view, replaced by the small dresser in my room and the small chair beside it.
“Is something wrong, Tea?” My bond with Fox was even stronger now, his worry and concern felt like they were my own. In the past, I could always sense his emotions without necessarily feeling them myself. Now I was experiencing the world through him.