Night had fallen by the time they rowed the boat back into the cove where they had found it. With every stroke of the oars the House of Dreams grew smaller, until it was nothing but a mere speck in the distance. Until the fog covering the surface of the ocean swallowed it up, and only memories of that wretched place remained.
It was so dark they could scarcely see a thing. They’d learned time passed differently in the House of Dreams—they’d been inside far longer than it had felt. Days, perhaps. Avalon filled Hadrian in on what she’d learned with Sable in that dark, inscribed room. About Hannelore’s death, and how the House had allowed Sable to read the language on the walls. He was silent as he listened, and even when she was finished, he said nothing, though he seemed deep in thought.
He offered Avalon a hand, and she took it as she blindly stepped from the boat and onto rocky shore. Since leaving the North, she’d never been so grateful for her preference for wearing pants; she couldn’t imagine having lived through these past few days in cumbersome skirts.
Hadrian kept Avalon’s bandaged hand in his as they made their way out of the cove. The moon was smothered by clouds, so when lantern light bobbed across the water, illuminating the shore half a mile down the coast, they froze.
Hadrian yanked Avalon back, back—until they were pressed flat against the cliff face.
“What do we do?” she hissed, clutching her bag tightly.
He tugged on her wrist, urging her along as he led the way to a section of cliff that wasn’t quite as steep. He pulled himself up soundlessly, and when he got to the top, he laid flat on his stomach and reached for her.
Avalon stood on her toes and stretched her hands out above her head, but her fingertips barely grazed his. He shimmied down far enough to grab hold of her hands and hoist her up, being careful not to knock down rocks and stray branches.
Avalon smelled it then—the reek of burning flesh. A curious, metallic tang settled on her tongue—blood, she realized.
Before she could utter a warning, something struck Hadrian on the back of the head, and he let go of her. Avalon dropped like a stone, tumbling to the gravel. The book smacked her on the bridge of her nose, nearly knocking her unconscious.
The world came to her in flashes.
Men wearing dark robes concealing all features aside from their eyes—eyes that shone a hazy red in the moonlight. A glint of silver as someone rifled through her bag, quickly claiming the mask. The flutter of pages as stranger’s gnarled hands flipped through the Book of Elements.
She caught another flash of movement: a shadowy figure silently moving up behind the men, his every move fluid; the cruel smile of a curved blade, and the gurgled sounds of men dying, dropping to the gravel one by one, their throats split open ear to ear.
The next thing she knew, someone was leaning over her. A pair of hauntingly pale eyes set in a ghost-white face, the skin marked up with scars and blue tattoos.
The Wraith.
The world melted away as she fainted—slipping into a far different place.
A bloodied battlefield where the breeze smelled not of the ocean but of death, and instead of stars there was a sunless sky flecked with flesh-hungry birds…
~
More had died than she’d thought.
The sloping fields of winter grass where the king’s soldiers had faced off against innocent men and women were littered with dead bodies and weapons. Torn burlap sacks filled with clothes, food, and family heirlooms were strewn among the corpses, most of their contents having spilled out during the chaos.
As Sable followed General Terren’s orders and made her rounds through the fields that had quickly become a graveyard, she scanned each lifeless face. To Terren, it would look like she was searching for her brothers in arms, whom they were to round up for a proper burial. No one would tell that she was really counting to see how many innocents were lost in comparison to those serving in the Dark Army. And, more importantly, no one would recognize the pride on her face—pride, because a handful of the king’s wretched soldiers had fallen to her blade.
It was a secret she would carry to her grave.
A raven wheeled overhead, releasing a caw that sent a shiver up Sable’s spine. Her toe caught on a bump in the field, and she pitched forward, catching herself before she could plant her face in the mud. As soon as she realized she’d steadied herself with the corpse of a young priestess, skin gray and eyes blank with death, she recoiled.
Sickness twisted in her stomach. She felt the desperate need to clean her skin again in the river; to scrub it raw until she could no longer feel the phantom touch of blood and body parts.
Hollow voices drifted her way on a cold breeze. Sable glanced up, her bleary, itching eyes drifting across the misty field.
Her heart stopped cold at the sight of a hooded figure hunched over a body near the fringe of trees, a tall staff of spiraling beech wood in a pale hand. Nestled within the cage of wood hovered a glowing orb the hypnotizing blue of an autumn sky. Red hair curled on a breeze beneath a hood of velvet, the strands glinting like flame, despite that the sun had been swallowed hours ago by a sky heavy with clouds.
Behind the ghostly being whose form continuously flickered like a flame, Sable glimpsed a bone chariot and a skeleton-horse with wings so vast they draped on the mist-covered ground.
Breath drawn through her teeth in uneven gasps, Sable glanced to her left, where Terren and his crew were wandering from body to body, entirely oblivious of the woman—the Kyrja, a creature of the Otherworld—carefully examining the dead. Along with hunting for treasure valuable enough to bring with them over Rheingarrin, back to their city of bones, the Kyrja, neither living nor dead, had a special job: they were required to choose which of the fallen would be honored after death…and which wouldn’t.
The Kyrja’s moon-colored cloak billowed in the breeze, entirely vanishing at times, depending on the angle. The legends were true, then: upon initiation into the celestial class, the Kyrja were granted cloaks of invisibility to ensure their safe journey to, and return from, what they called themortal world.
Sable blinked in disbelief as the red-haired Kyrja rose to her feet and gracefully lifted herself into the bone chariot. The winged stallion nickered, tossing his head. He spread his vast, tattered wings and prepared for flight.
