Or understanding. I’m not sure which would be worse.
“And now?”
“Now a worse threat is coming.” I force myself to focus on the crisis, on the puzzle pieces that have been clicking into place since the Undercroft. “The corpses in the crypts—they spoke about a king. A gravetide. An entity formed from every soldier buried in the mass graves beneath this city.”
Her face goes paler. The light beneath her ribs pulses faster.
“I heard it too.” Her voice drops to barely a whisper. “During the rite. It spoke through the Venn boy—used him as a door it was pushing open. I could feel it pressing against the Veil, trying to break through.”
“It’s been feeding.”
Her breath catches. “And every time I gave voice to a corpse?—”
“You showed it what it was missing.” A laugh scrapes out of my throat, harsh and humorless. The sound echoes off the burned walls around us. “You demonstrated that the dead could speak, that grief could be heard, that closure was possible. And you made it hungry for what it couldn’t have.”
The silence stretches between us. I can see her working through the implications—the brilliance behind those exhausted eyes, calculating faster than anyone I’ve worked with.
She looks at me then with an expression that isn’t fear or pity or even understanding. It’s worse.
Hope.
“Then how do we stop it?”
THIRTEEN
DROKHAR
The question hangs in the air. I’ve spent my career being the man with answers—the death warden who knew exactly what to do when the dead stirred, when the graves broke open, when the living needed someone to light the fires that kept them safe.
I don’t have an answer for this.
“I don’t know.”
The admission costs more than she’ll ever understand. I’m not used to uncertainty. Not used to facing a problem I can’t solve with fire and blade. For my entire career, the answer has been the same: burn it, destroy it, leave nothing behind that can come back.
I can’t burn an entity made of grief. I can’t silence a king who feeds on silence.
And I can’t burn her.
“But I know we can’t stop it separately.” I close the remaining distance between us. My hand rises before I can stop it, cupping her jaw the way I did before, tilting her face up toward mine. Her skin is cool against my palm, smudged with ash and dried blood, and the contact sends a jolt through the mark that blurs myvision. “Whatever is coming—the Gravetide King, the Council’s response, all of it—we face it as allies or we face it dead.”
Her pulse hammers against my fingers. Her breath has gone shallow, her lips parted, and I can see the moment she stops fighting whatever pull exists between us. Her body sways toward mine, closing the last inches of distance.
Now is not the time. Not when the dead are rising. Not when the wards are failing. Not when the Council will demand her blood the moment we walk through their doors.
Mine.
I force myself to release her jaw. Step back. Put distance between us that feels like tearing flesh from bone.
My hand goes to my belt. To the iron restraints I carry alongside my blade—suppression chains designed to bind practitioners whose magic is too dangerous to leave unchecked. I’ve used them on witches before. Dragged them to the Judgment Pyre with their hands bound, their magic silenced, their fate sealed before they ever stood before the Council.
This time is different.
The mark flares hot enough to make me grit my teeth as my fingers close around the cold metal. A warning. A protest. Every instinct screaming at me not to bind her, not to cage her, not to put iron on skin I’d rather be touching for entirely different reasons.
She sees where my hand has gone. Her shoulders stiffen, but she doesn’t run. Doesn’t try to flee. Watches me with eyes that miss nothing.
“By law, I’m required to bind you for transport to the Council chambers.” I hold up the restraints. Iron bands connected by a short chain, runes carved into every link. They’ll complete what her earlier depletion started—cut off every trace of death magic that clings to her. They’ll make her helpless.