A Soul Like Glass (Kingdom of Betrayal #4)

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

M y presence?

For a moment, I think Thaden means both Gallium and me, but his focus is so finely pinpointed on me that I’m not sure…

I take a deep breath, only to inhale the heavy scent of copper again. Blood . It coats my tongue and makes breathing difficult.

Every instinct in my body is telling me to move, to get away from the copper scent in the air as fast as we can.

“We need to move faster.” Thaden bursts into action, striding toward me, pulling the fur from my stiff shoulders and rolling it up. “There’s a rocky path along the mountain ridge up ahead. We can follow it.”

I don’t hesitate, reaching for my pack and slinging it across my back, already moving in the direction Thaden pointed.

An hour later, we step out from the forest and onto a ragged mountain’s edge—a barren ridge that extends for hundreds of paces to my left and right and stretches far into the east.

The sight in the distance snatches the breath from my chest.

“Damn.”

Crimson clouds boil in the distance, turning the landscape beneath them to red. A wasteland of ash spread far, far into the east, as if crimson snow has fallen.

Dust storms swirl across the plain, the ash lifting and whipping across the flat land, all the way up the visible sides of mountains in the east.

Despite my need to hurry, I’ve missed a step.

Thaden slows a little, allowing me to catch up while Gallium follows close behind me.

Thaden points. “There used to be a fae city at the edge of the plain over there.”

I follow the direction indicated by his hand, making out the silhouettes of what could be crumbling stone structures in the distance.

“Then the blight took over,” he says. “Their animals died and their children got sick. If you look carefully, you can see a lake.”

I peer into the distance, locating the shiny, oval surface on the eastern side of the rubble. “I see it.”

“The water became poisonous,” Thaden says, shadows growing in his eyes. “Much like the lake near the Cursed City.”

“The Toxic Thirst,” I murmur. “Ingesting its water kills you.”

He nods. “The exodus of fae from the east began soon after that. Queen Karasi won’t admit it because she wants to cultivate the belief that there are many more fae ready to be called from the east, but what you saw back on the plain—that’s the entire fae population.” He gestures into the dark distance. “There are no living fae in the east now. Only bodies that continue to feed the blight.”

“What do you mean, feed ?” I ask.

It’s always been a mystery to me how the blight spreads. Even more so, the way the wasteland outside the Cursed City would give rise to monsters that would attack the city—monsters that Asha was sent out to kill.

I know that Blacksmith magic, and all the experiments Malak and others conducted, led to this, but I don’t know how .

Of course, everything Thaden tells me could be a lie, so I watch him carefully as he answers, trying to separate fact from fiction based on his facial expressions and body language.

“I, too, wanted answers,” he says.

Truth.

“When I had the chance to gain information from Milena after she captured me, she said that the rot started with the murder of other Blacksmiths thirty years ago.”

Truth. Maybe. But also… not truth.

I fight my frustration at how smoothly he speaks and how faultless his features remain. I can’t be certain how to unpick what he’s telling me into its truthful and untruthful pieces.

All I can do is listen.

“Apparently, when Malak slaughtered the Blacksmiths who opposed him at the beginning of his reign, he disposed of their bodies by burying them deep within the earth that is now the wasteland on the northern side of the Cursed City.”

The environment around the city was treacherous for as long as I knew it. On the northern side is an expansive wasteland of white ash that stretches all the way to the first ring of mountains. On the eastern side is a dangerous marsh the humans call the Sunken Bog , filled with malformed trees, deadly snakes, and mud that’s constantly sinking in on itself.

The western and southern sides remained somewhat untainted—that’s where the humans grow their crops—but only because they built stone walls around those areas to keep the rot out.

Beyond those walls, the mountains grew wild.

“Milena thought that the creation magic had leached from the dead Blacksmiths’ bodies into the soil and started an unstoppable chain of events,” Thaden says.

My forehead creases as I maintain a quick pace to keep up with Thaden. “But Blacksmiths have died and been buried before, haven’t they? Why would this cause a problem?”

Thaden shakes his head, his eyes gleaming at me. “Burial is a human tradition. I imagine it’s all you knew since you grew up surrounded by humans. But, no. Blacksmith bodies must be burned.”

My lips part with surprise. “What?”

He gives me a cold smile and a firm nod. “Any flame will do, but a pyre built of crimson coal is most effective.”

Crimson coal is the special coal that was mined in the eastern mountains and used in Blacksmith forges. It’s the same scorching substance that the Vandawolf gripped in his hand on the day I first saw him at the Academy.

After the Vandawolf took control of the city, he forbade any person to be in possession of crimson coal. He also destroyed all hammers and medallions—except ours—although I never saw the destruction happen, and I still don’t know how he did it.

“When Malak chose to bury his enemies, it would have been an overt act of disrespect,” Thaden says. “Akin to leaving the bodies out to rot. And rot is what they caused.”

“I didn’t know that,” I whisper before turning to Gallium, who is a step behind me.

I meet his grim eyes. We were young when our people died. I don’t recall my parents ever mentioning this custom—or witnessing it.

Of course, it’s possible that Asha knows about it. Maybe she went to a mourning ceremony when she was younger. Maybe she heard or read something. There were books in the library, but after the Vandawolf rose to power, we were not allowed to access them. We also couldn’t ask Asha because we had no contact with her.

Or maybe it isn’t true at all. Thaden could be lying about all of it.

“Over the course of thirty years after that,” Thaden continues, “the Blacksmiths used that same burial ground to try to expand their power. They experimented on living things—animals and plants. They started drawing on dark magic, which drains life, and that, too, soaked into the soil. With every failed experiment and every dead thing they discarded into that same ground, the layers of creation magic and dark magic grew. It created a never-ending circle of dark life and dark death.”

Thaden falls silent, his boots crunching on the brittle ground, snapping twigs and what looks like burned moss.

I don’t have time to study the debris carefully, but the rocky surface appears blackened, and when I take a moment to peer closer…

I don’t think it’s moss, after all.

Is it ash?

Little flecks of it are caught between the uneven, rocky formations and protected from the wind so they don’t blow away…

The farther east we travel along this mountain ridge, the more barren the ground has become. But only immediately around us along the long stretch of the wide path we’re walking. In contrast, on each side of the ridge, right at the edge, there are trees. Black, misshapen ones, creaking and groaning in the wind.

I’ve fallen back a step, drawing level with Gallium, and I nearly miss what Thaden says next. “There’s a very good reason why Blacksmiths can’t access their magic without their tools.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because creation magic must be constrained. It must be limited.” Thaden draws to a sudden stop and points. “This is what happens when it isn’t.”

I follow the direction of Thaden’s upheld arm through the gap in the burned trees.

Out in the far valley, dust storms rage, just like the ones I saw yesterday.

From a distance, they looked small.

Now, I can see that they’re enormous .

Tornados of alternating white and crimson ash crash across the valley and up the side of the far mountain. I’m alarmed to see that they always head southwest. If I had to guess, the Cursed City is in that direction.

Each tornado smashes into the side of the mountain, falling away and shattering into dust again right as it reaches the top of the peak.

But that’s far from the worst of it.

Dark forms clash in the middle of the plain. Crimson ash streams across them, the flow so thick that I can’t make out more than their huge silhouettes. Maybe they have horns. Maybe they have giant paws and shining, metallic bodies. Maybe they have enormous mouths full of teeth.

They’re fighting each other, slashing and clawing, on and on. When one of them crumbles, a river of ash streams across its body, and within moments, another rises to join the fight.

My heart is in my throat; my blood, pounding in my ears.

I press my hand to my chest, trying to calm myself.

Beside me, Gallium has frozen, but I don’t miss the way his hand has tightened around his hammer.

Thaden’s voice sounds close to my left shoulder, a soft growl in my ear. “Do you see that mountain ridge? The one the dust storms can’t seem to pass?”

My throat is constricted and all I can manage is, “Yes.”

“The fire dragon Graviter Rex burned that ridge,” he says. “Just as he burned this one.”

Thaden points to the path we’ve been walking along.

“By burning all living matter along both ridges, he stopped the blight from spreading in either of these directions.”

“It spreads through living things?”

“No.” Thaden’s voice is harsh. “It spreads through dead things. That’s the problem. Anything dead that was once living has the potential to feed the rot.”

I sense the blood draining from my face. “A living tree drops leaves that then decompose.”

“Exactly. Even a leaf that may still appear green is already dying.” He nods, his face stony. “But it’s dead, magical beings that really feed the darkness and help it spread.”

I exhale slowly, trying to stop the sinking of my stomach. “Fae magic is connected to nature.”

Thaden nods. “They draw on their environment when they use their magic. They literally drew the blight into their bodies. And when they died, their magic fed the darkness like no other supernatural’s body could.

“Layer upon layer of magic has built up where the fae cities used to exist—creation magic, dark magic, elemental magic. Humans, on the other hand, have very little magic in their bodies, which is why the blight has not raged out of control in the south or west. But here…”

His eyes are shadowed and dark. “The fae were doomed as soon as the darkness entered the soil, water, and even the dust in the air. Now their land is pure chaos. Magic is building on itself without an end.”

I’m tense with a new worry as I turn to Gallium, my fears forming words that tumble from my mouth. “Ten years ago, when the Vandawolf killed over a hundred Blacksmiths, did he bury the bodies? He hated our people, but he would never stoop to disrespecting the dead. He would have considered burial respectful . Do you know where he?—”

Gallium reaches for me, gripping my shoulder with his free hand. “He burned them, Tamra.”

I take a shaky breath. “Are you sure?”

Gallium nods. “I heard Maybelle and Kedric talking about it. He made the humans build pyres. It took them two days. Many of the men were angry about it. They wanted to rebuild their homes. Braddock was the most vocal.”

I shudder at the memory of the human named Braddock, who had called for our deaths on the night our people died.

“They were even angrier when the Vandawolf collected up all of the crimson coal and used it to burn the bodies. It’s how he destroyed all of the tools…”

Gallium’s gaze is suddenly far away, and I study him closely.

“Brother?”

“I snuck out in the night,” he says quietly. “After I heard Maybelle and Kedric talking. You were asleep. When I got out there, the pyres were already lit. The humans were staying away. The Vandawolf was in the middle of the field, standing in front of a bowl of blazing crimson coal and he was burning tools. One by one. Putting them into the fire. Making sure they burned to ash.” Gallium focuses on me again. “I’ll never forget the look on his face.”

“Anger?” I ask softly.

He shakes his head. “Grief.”

I’m quiet as Gallium turns back to the dark plain in the east, clears his throat, and says, “The Vandawolf had no part in this.”

My worries now grow for another reason. I gesture to the dark environment in the east. “Thaden, if your village is close to the heart of the damaged land, how is it safe from this?”

His expression softens a little. “It’s sheltered by barren rocks that curve around it in a near-complete circle. It sits, quite literally, in the shadow of the mountain and also, remarkably, protected by it.”

“But…” I reach out to him, my fingertips hovering above his scaled arm. “You said that our Blacksmith magic was drawing the darkness.”

I’m suddenly overly conscious of where I’m standing and the fact that I’m wearing my medallions and accessing my power.

“Blacksmith magic is drawn to itself,” he says, his voice hollow. “You are not dead, and yet the darkness is drawn to you because of its origins.”

A sudden chill passes down my spine.

That scent in the air that I inhaled when we first headed east… A whisper in the breeze like dark voices calling…

My fear grows as I whisper, “It wants us dead.”