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He was still speaking English, and he had a posh accent, like the nobility of England. Was it a deception or the truth?
“You’re staring at me again,” he said. “And I’m not even shirtless this time.”
My cheeks warmed. “You’re very pale.”
“Blood loss. That, and an inability to tan.”
I laughed in disbelief. “How the hell are you still charming while half-dead?”
“You think I’m charming?” He smirked, his eyes glimmering. “And I’m not half-dead. Only a quarter dead.”
“I think you’re dangerous.”
“Right again.”
We reached the battlefield.
Wendel dismounted. He strode to a Transylvanian soldier in a bloodstained blue uniform. Snow had begun to bury the body. Wendel placed his hand on the soldier’s neck. All the muscles in his shoulder and arm tensed.
The soldier blinked his unseeing eyes before sitting upright.
I clenched the hilt of my sword. My stomach soured.
Intensity etched Wendel’s face. “Where is my dagger?”
The soldier stared ahead with clouded eyes. His blue lips moved before a gurgling noise came from his throat. He wasn’t breathing. Or perhaps, the air moving through his lungs simply remained as cold as the winter sky.
“Remember,” Wendel said. “You tried to kill me.”
“The dagger—is by—the tree.” The soldier pointed toward a pine. His gaze never left the necromancer’s eyes.
“Thank you,” Wendel said.
He let go of the soldier, and the man collapsed back into the snow. Dead again.
I swallowed hard. “That was the man who wounded you?”
“Yes,” Wendel said.
He had a disgusted, disdainful look, one I had seen before on the faces of cats. He pawed at the snow beneath the pine, then held a blade high—a black dagger with ornate silver engravings of flowers on the hilt.
“This is Amarant. Do you know what that means?”
“No,” I said.
“Undying.”
Wendel slid his thumb along the flat of Amarant as if polishing away a fleck of blood. Ripples swirled through the black metal, the mark of Damascus steel, an art lost centuries ago. What dark curse imbued his dagger?
Ever since the Hex, hundreds of enchanted blades had materialized on the European black market. The Archmages of Vienna had anticipated this, though not the breadth of cruel creativity—a thousand and one ways to die.
My hand found Chun Yi again. At least my blade was honest metal.
Wendel sheathed his blade. He cut across the snowy field without a backward glance. I followed him through the whippy branches of willows. An ice-choked river flowed through the Transylvanian forest.
Kneeling, he washed his hands in the river with the solemnity of a ritual. Every movement was slow and meticulous.
He wanted to forget, didn’t he? Bringing back the dead man.
