Reign of the Fallen (Reign of the Fallen #1)(78)
Meredy gives me another worried look, and my face warms as I realize I’ve been staring absently into the distance. Still, the heat in my cheeks feels good compared to the cold breeze that’s numbing every bit of my exposed skin as Lysander bounds up the side of a small mountain, his pace never lagging.
“What’s the price of a beast master’s magic?” I ask her, careful to keep my voice low.
If Meredy’s surprised by the question, she doesn’t show it. “When we exercise any amount of control over our beasts,” she murmurs, “we become like them for a little while. Feral. In possession of only our most basic instincts.”
I think of how different she sounded as she searched her bear’s mind earlier. “You didn’t seem very beastly after you and Lysander did your silent-talking thing.”
“That’s because it was brief. Just a little magic. I wasn’t trying to see through his eyes, or to fully possess him and force his limbs to move.” Meredy’s lips twist in a grim smile. “As you’ve seen, I’m quite capable of controlling my . . . less human urges.”
“Like what?” I ask, trying to distract myself from thoughts of Master Cymbre fighting for her life, from horrible scenarios playing out in my mind like a shadow-puppet play on a wall. “Eating raw fish? Running naked through the Deadlands?”
Meredy doesn’t answer.
It’s hard to tell in the Deadlands’ perpetual dimness, but her cheeks look redder than usual. I wish I could read her mind right now.
Instead, I’m left alone with my thoughts. I should’ve paid more attention to Master Cymbre after Master Nicanor’s death. I was so caught up in trying to get revenge on the giant Shade and in grieving for Evander that I didn’t notice how she must have been grieving, too. Maybe we could have mourned together.
Maybe if she’d thought I was willing to listen, trusted that I wasn’t some potion addict trying to escape the past anymore, she would’ve told me what she was planning tonight. But I’d sided with the healer and insisted she rest. I should have known better.
She’s too much like me to just sit on her hands and wait when something is wrong. She’s doing this to protect me.
Lysander suddenly comes to a halt on a narrow stretch of beach beside a large dark lake, breathing hard. Meredy leans forward, wordlessly talking with him again. He stomps a huge paw and lowers his head.
There in the sand, right beneath Lysander’s nose, are a few fiery red hairs streaked with gray.
I scramble off the bear’s back and drop to my knees, sifting through the chilled sand for any other sign that Cymbre was here. For any reason to hope she’s still alive. Meredy joins me, walking up and down the lake shore so many times I get dizzy watching her.
“Don’t touch the water! Not even with your boot!” I warn her over the lump in my throat as Meredy’s path veers closer to the water’s edge. As she moves farther out of my reach.
There are a few spirits floating farther out in the lake, toward the middle. From shore, they look like mist or fallen clouds as they hover on the water’s surface. They don’t notice us, too busy forgetting who and what they were as the lake strips away their dearest memories. I don’t want that to happen to Meredy, and all it would take is one accidental step into the water to make her forget something about herself.
“We should move on,” I tell Meredy as she strides toward me again. “Can Lysander try to pick up Cymbre’s scent again?”
Meredy shakes her head, her face pale. “The trail ends here.”
I swallow hard as a wave of cold crashes over my head. “Does that mean . . . ?” I can’t finish. I can’t go through this again. Meredy steadies me with a hand on my shoulder, and after a moment, I find my voice again.
“There’s no body. How can we be sure she’s dead if there’s no body?”
“Breathe,” Meredy urges, squeezing my shoulder.
“Where’s her sword, if she’s really dead? She wouldn’t have gone looking for the Shade-baiter if she didn’t have her sword and her—”
“She’s dead, I assure you. She made a nice meal for my hungry Shades,” a harsh voice says, causing us to whirl toward the sound. “As will you both. Very soon.”
XXVI
Even with his tall form hidden beneath a handsome cobalt cloak, his face obscured and his eyes shadowed by a painted silver mask, I’d recognize him anywhere thanks to his gravelly voice. Vane, the powerful rogue necromancer, strides briskly down the shore toward us.
I draw my sword and step in front of Meredy and her grizzly, the necromancer’s words cutting into me like a dagger to the stomach, laying my insides open. Cymbre’s dead. And all her stories, her hopes, her loves, her wisdom have died with her.
Lysander growls, low and menacing.
Several more cloaked figures form a half-circle around us, creeping closer by the moment. If we want to flee, we’ll have to go through them. Or swim out into the lake, which is as good as a death sentence.
Vane holds a broadsword at his side. It’s so much larger than mine, I don’t know that I have a hope of matching him in strength. But I might be quicker. And perhaps smarter, too.
It isn’t until I spot the five Shades waiting in the distance, in the field at the necromancers’ backs, that my heart seizes and I don’t know how we’re going to make it out of here alive. But we have to try.