Give the Dark My Love(88)

“I’ve never seen symptoms like this,” I replied. Although I spoke right in front of her, it was as if Governor Adelaide was in a world of her own, not even registering the sound of my voice. The only movement she had was in her fingers, as she rolled a small iron bead in her hand. While all the news sheets reported that she had contracted the Wasting Death, she didn’t have blackened appendages or amputations, no green film in the eyes. This was . . . different.

Master Ostrum motioned for me. “Greggori,” he said. “Come with me.”

We crossed the throne room, heading toward a door on the other side. “Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Staff has been systematically reduced. Plague took many, soon after the governor fell ill. The others . . . were fired,” he said, as if that wasn’t the right term for it.

“But the governor is too ill to—”

“By the Emperor.”

I drew up short. Master Ostrum paused, impatient. “Try to keep up, Greggori,” he said, exasperated. “And forget what you’ve read in the news sheets.” He paused. “I assume your father has kept you abreast of the current political situation.”

“We rarely talk,” I said immediately, but while that was true, I did have some understanding of the unrest in the government.

“The citizens of Lunar Island want freedom. That’s what your father’s group wanted.”

I was reminded of how Master Ostrum had been close to Lord Anton before his death. “But not you?” I asked.

“Oh, I wanted freedom, too. Our island deserves to be its own nation, out from under the thumb of the Emperor. What I didn’t know—what none of us knew—was that it was Governor Adelaide’s plan as well.”

I stopped short.

Master Ostrum nodded, a knowing smirk on his face. “Oh yes. She kept her true intentions well hidden, but Governor Adelaide knew how to play the political game. She intended to find a way to break from the Empire peacefully. Her plan would have worked, too . . .”

“But then she got sick?” I guessed.

Master Ostrum’s bark of laughter was bitter. “No. Then the Emperor found out.”





FIFTY-NINE


    Nedra



Death was coming to my island.

I could feel it, the way my grandmother used to feel a storm approaching. The rain made her bones heavy and her joints creak, but the closer Death came to me, the more alive I felt. It buzzed through my blood, electrifying my body.

I consciously pushed my shoulders down and lifted my chin, lengthening my neck and straightening my spine. I could feel their eyes on me, watching as I glided down the hallway. I was always aware of where my revenants were. That was something the necromancy books hadn’t told me—when you raise the dead, you become connected to them body and soul. I felt them, each one of my subjects, as if there were an invisible string tethering us.

From throughout the building, they gathered closer to me, pulled to Death just as I was.

Head up. Eyes straight ahead. Do not hesitate.

Do not let them see your fear.

It was animalistic, the way they tilted their faces to me as I drew closer, the silent acceptance as they bent to my will and followed behind me. Most of the time, they could pretend they were alive again—that normalcy had returned. But not when I was around. I called out to the darkest part of their souls. I merely whispered, and their bodies were under my control.

I pushed open the hospital doors and stepped into the crisp night air. A crescent moon curved over the river, sending ripples of its arch dancing across the water. My gaze drifted to the city, sparkling beyond. From here, it looked beautiful.

When everyone in the city dies of the plague, I wondered idly, will I want to bring them all back?

Not everyone was worth saving.

The still air was disturbed by the sound of a wooden oar smacking against the water. I glanced down and saw a ferry. The skipper looked grim even from here, his eyes casting back to Blackdocks. But four adult passengers huddled on the boat, and they looked eager, scanning the edges of my island, looking up at my hospital.

By the time my revenants and I arrived at the bottom of the stone steps, the flat-bottomed boat was already pulling away, the skipper slapping the water noisily in his haste to leave. These people would have had to offer the skipper a lot of money to convince him to take them here. The people from the boat stepped forward, their faces slack with fear as they saw me and my revenants. I wasn’t sure who they feared more.

One man dressed like a mill worker bent down, touching the mound on the dock. As I drew closer, I saw that he was holding the still hand of a dead child, covered by a knit blanket.

The man nearest him had clothing stained with oil, his fingers black with soot. A mechanic, I thought, or maybe a cleaner in the factories.

“We were told you could help,” he said. He didn’t look down at the body. When I didn’t reply, he added, “To give us back our little girl.”

“And our son,” the other couple said, the man holding the child out to me.

Children. I closed my eyes, swallowing down the lump in my throat.

“It was the plague,” the mill worker said. “It happened so fast. We saw the black in her fingers, and we thought there was a chance . . . but then her eyes paled, and we did what we could, we tried, we never left her side, we both lost our jobs, but it was too late.”