The witch. She was here, kneeling in this spot, close enough that her scent lingered even after hours of grief-magic saturating the air.
I file the scent away. I’ll know it again if I encounter it.
Varn appears in the doorway, her blade drawn, her posture ready for violence. “You’ve been in there fifteen minutes.”
“It’s done.” I sheathe my blade and move toward her. “The corpse collapsed. Whatever was animating it is gone.”
“Gone where?”
I don’t answer. I don’t have an answer.
Varn falls into step beside me as I walk back through the crypts. She doesn’t press. She knows when to give me space,when to let silence do the work of conversation. Ten years of working beside me has taught her the rhythms of my moods.
“The witch.” I keep my voice level. “Find her.”
“We have a description. Dark hair, pale skin, young. The Crypt-Keepers said she’s been working the crypts for months, maybe years. Discreet. Never caused trouble before.” Varn pauses. “They called her Aradya.”
Aradya.
A name to go with the floral scent. A name for the woman who opened a door that should have stayed closed.
“She’ll have gone to ground by now. The Undercroft, probably. That’s where they hide when the Council comes calling.” I keep my voice level, professional. The voice of a death warden doing his duty. “Post guards at the known entrances. Don’t try to go in after her—the tunnels are a maze, and the witches know them better than we do.”
“And you?”
“I’ll find her myself.”
Varn’s steps slow. I can feel her stare on the back of my neck, sharp and questioning.
“Drokhar.” Her voice drops. “What did it say to you? The corpse?”
I stop. Turn to face her. The candlelight catches the scars on her face, the silver threads in her dark hair, the years of service written in the lines around her mouth.
If the dead remember—if they’re capable of holding grudges, of coordinating, of using mourning magic as a channel?—
Everything we’ve built is at risk.
“Find the witch.” I turn away, heading for the crypt entrance. “Before this gets worse.”
The streets are emptier now. The fog has thickened, rolling between buildings in gray waves that muffle sound and obscure vision. I move through it with the confidence of a man whoknows these paths by heart, heading for the section of the city where the Undercroft entrances cluster.
Find the witch. She speaks for us now.
The corpse’s words echo in my skull. The dead want me to find her. They want me toanswerfor what I’ve done.
The fog swirls around me as I walk, and somewhere in the depths beneath the city, I can almost sense it. The presence that spoke through the corpse. The thing that knows my name, that carries the accumulated grievance of every body I’ve burned without letting them speak their final words.
FIVE
ARADYA
Irun until I can’t.
My lungs burn. My legs ache. I know I should stop the bleeding, should take precautions, should do any number of sensible things that might keep me alive.
The tunnels branch and fork, splitting into passages that lead to safe houses and dead ends and forgotten chambers where the bones of the city’s original builders still lie undisturbed. I take turns at random, letting instinct guide me, putting as much distance between myself and the Mourning Crypts as the labyrinth will allow.
Ira Genn’s screams echo in my skull. The wet snap of bone. The terrible rending of flesh. The gurgling silence that followed.