Reign of the Fallen (Reign of the Fallen #1)(10)
“Strange—it doesn’t smell like anything!” Valoria says, blinking at the lavender.
I tug on her hand, pulling her forward before she can spot the luscious-looking plums and apples hanging from the nearest tree. My injured arm throbs in response.
“Someday I’m going to figure it all out, you know.” Valoria’s eyes are bright and shining as she tucks the lavender stem in her hair. “The science behind our magic.”
I arch my brows. “I don’t think King Wylding would appreciate that kind of talk.”
“But I do. I’ve been studying the correlation between eye color and different forms of magic, like how everyone with blue-eyed Sight sees gateways to the Deadlands and can learn to raise the dead.” Valoria peers thoughtfully through the wooden slats of the bridge beneath our feet as we march over a small stream. “Someday I’m going to unlock the way magic works, and then I’ll be able to explain all sorts of things. Don’t you want to know why the Dead come back with their Sight but not their magic when you raise them?”
I wince, pausing just after the bridge and sheathing my sword. I don’t want to answer any more questions. I just want to think about Nicanor as I remember him in life, uninterrupted, so he can stay real to me. Not like that bloody mess on the ground.
As the princess stops beside me, I take both her hands in mine. “There’s nothing to study, or understand, or explain. It just is. It’s not science. Our Sight is Vaia’s gift to us. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can start enjoying life.”
“But I do enjoy it!” Valoria frowns. “Learning is what makes things fun.”
“Hey, you two, hurry up!” Evander waves us over from beside a neat line of hedges, the garden border. “Look who I found,” Evander says as we approach, the calm in his voice straining.
On the dark horizon is the reassuring blue glow of a gate. The way home. But Evander points down, just on the other side of the hedge.
Following his gaze, I lean over the prickly bushes. The sight that greets me makes me feel sick all over again, remembering the fear in Master Nicanor’s remaining eye. And not just because it’s surely an old pool of Nicanor’s blood staining the ground beyond the hedge.
What chills me to the core is the way King Wylding’s filmy spirit kneels beside the pool, scooping up tacky blood and smearing gobs of it into and around his mouth.
“Keep holding my hand, and grab on to His Majesty with your other one,” I tell Valoria in what I hope is a soothing voice. When she blanches and shakes her head, I give her a nudge with my shoulder. “You’re his connection to the world. No one else can do it. That’s why you’re here.” But she remains frozen in fear. “You only have to hold him until we’re through the gate. Then he’ll wake up where we left him, safe in his shroud.”
“Odessa’s right.” Evander frowns at the bloody grass. “Unless, Highness, you’d rather stay down here with whatever did that . . .”
Valoria groans and shakily climbs over the hedge, holding tight to my hand. The king looks up, unable to utter a sound in his spirit form. Free of his shroud in this world, he’s a translucent version of himself in life, still a great bear of a man with arms built for chopping trees, but no longer darkly tanned and raven-haired like he is in many of the portraits decorating the palace walls. Now his skin and shoulder-length hair are as pale and fine as gossamer. Perhaps some would find him handsome, if he weren’t lapping up blood and sporting the sword wound in his chest from when I killed him earlier.
Disgusting a sight as he is, I’m struck by a sudden rush of appreciation for King Wylding. He may be terrifying sometimes, and hand out threats freely, but most days I’m proud to be his necromancer. He can be as kind as he is harsh. He tries his hardest to prevent things from changing. And he loves Karthia enough to endure so many slayings and raisings, always returning ready to be our guardian. No one knows the hearts and minds of Karthians better than him after all these years, and I doubt anyone loves us as fiercely. Master Nicanor’s death will hit him hard when he learns of it.
Summoning her strength, Valoria finally reaches out a hand.
The king’s red lips form a gentle smile as the princess grabs hold of his wispy arm and pulls him toward the gate.
IV
Midnight has come and gone by the time we sit down for supper at Evander’s house. The leftover rooster pie is mercifully warm, thanks to Baroness Crowther’s servants keeping it on the stove. Someone’s opened most of the downstairs windows, and a cool sea breeze tickles our ankles as we take our seats in the larger of the two dining rooms.
The baroness herself joins us, sliding into her customary spot at one end of the long table. As usual, she avoids looking too long at Baron Crowther’s seat that will be forever empty.
I lift my fork, waiting to see if the baroness will say a prayer, but there’s not much point since Evander’s already tucking in noisily beside me.
“Eat,” the baroness encourages, smiling softly in a way that makes her pale blue eyes crinkle at the corners. She pushes a basket of sliced fig-and-ginger bread toward me like nothing’s changed since I saw her last, like it’s no big deal that she failed to turn up for our title ceremony last week. “You look exhausted, Sparrow.”
When I was younger, I used to think Lyda Crowther should have been born a duke’s daughter, not a lowly miller’s—especially on nights like tonight, when the gems she’s pinned in her light brown hair sparkle like they’re trying to outshine her. But of course, they can’t. She’s that beautiful, at least on the outside. I would’ve said inside once, back when I first became Evander’s partner and she invited me here for every meal, offered me a bed, and fussed over me like a mother. Back when I didn’t understand that she only kept me close because she hoped she could mold me into someone other than the necromancer I was born to be. And perhaps, because she saw how Evander and I shared every confidence, she hoped she could change his mind through changing me.