Chapter 31
Sabine
The streets of Old Coros are so packed with midnight revelers that Basten and I can barely push our way through. Even without disguises, no one stops their merriment to bat an eye at their king and queen breathlessly stumbling toward Valor Belltower.
Except—
“Hey!” A cloaked beggar on the street corner, crutch at his side, suddenly shoves to his feet, moving toward us without a trace of a limp.
Rian shoves his hood back, darting glances at the crowd. “What the fuck are you two doing out here?”
“Rian?” I say.
“I told you to go to bed,” Basten growls, shoving Rian in the chest.
Rian catches his balance, combing his fingers back through his hair.
“Are you my mother now, Basten? Of course, I’m not going to heed your orders—not when those Blades are prowling around, suspicious as fuck.
” He tosses his hands in the air. “And gods, don’t arrest me again!
I’m so fucking tired of shackles. So, I slipped my guards again… you’d have done the same.”
I crane my neck sharply at Basten, eyebrows knit together. “The Blades? What’s he talking about?”
Basten pinches the bridge of his nose, muttering under his breath. “We were following the Blades earlier…it doesn’t matter now. Rian, you should get back to Hekkelveld Castle and lock yourself in.”
Rian stands taller, instantly intrigued. “Why? What are those fae bastards up to?” He reconsiders and gives me a sheepish grin. “Present company excluded, songbird.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “What do you know, Rian?”
“Only that rumors are spilling out of the Silent Ward that Artain restarted his twisted puppet show again.”
I step back, closing my eyes as my fey pushes hard beneath my skin. “We need to get to the belltower, now.”
We charge ahead, sprinting as best we can through the crowd that’s clogging the streets. I don’t have the will to tell Rian to leave us to it—and to be honest, I’m not sure I want to.
He’s proven himself helpful.
More than helpful.
Gods help me, he’s almost trustworthy these days.
Finally, we break free of the throngs as we enter the circular road around the Valor Bell tower. It’s an orderly section of the city, bordering the Silent Ward to the southeast. Nearby are churches to the ten gods, a few monasteries and convents, and parks with walking paths for contemplation.
Immediately, I skid to a halt.
At the base of the belltower, a blindingly bright portal cuts a hole through the fabric of space. My heart tightens, the memory still too fresh of Iyre pulling me through a portal just like this, tearing me away from Basten.
This time, however, no one is trying to steal me away.
Instead, bodies flow from the Volkish side into ours. They stagger. Their broken and bloody limbs hang limp. Their eyes are glazed over.
I press my palm to my mouth to catch my gasp. “Their chins, Basten. They all bear the spiral tattoo. It’s…it’s the river folk. The dead from the Lunden Valley. The ones who weren’t as fortunate as the refugees.”
The three of us stare in horror as wave after wave of resurrected bodies stagger through the portal, dragging behind them fishing nets and tattered burlap sacks.
I whirl on Rian, smashing my fist against his chest, and then blast a spark of fey, threatening. “This is your doing! I knew it was too good to be true—your newfound loyalty.”
He holds out his hands. “Me? What are you on about? What do I have to do with the risen dead?”
“You killed them when you poisoned their river valley!” I cry.
His head cocks oddly, true bafflement on his face. “What…?” His eyebrows then rise faintly. “Oh, the northwestern coastlands, by the border wall? I remember hearing a report about poisoned fields. What do I have to do with that?”
To my horror, a reanimated corpse—once a fisherman, by the look of his salt-stiffened rags—sets its jerking, unholy focus on a couple passionately kissing in front of a brothel.
Its slack jaw snaps beneath the remains of a weather-worn cloak, teeth clicking with hunger.
The lovers are too lost in each other to notice it drawing near.
“We’ll finish this later, Rian,” I growl.
A drunk suddenly stumbles into the corpse’s path, laughing, and gives its shoulder a hearty shove. “Easy on the ale, friend!”
The corpse turns, teeth bared.
The drunk’s companion stumbles to a halt, sober enough to yank his friend backward. “Trint—look! It’s one of those puppet things that Immortal Artain dragged back from the grave!”
Trint recoils with a sound of disgust. “The fae are nothing if not dramatic, am I right?”
They laugh as if it’s all a joke and wander off toward the nearest tavern.
Behind them, the corpse lunges.
Its teeth sink into the back of Trint’s neck. He cries out, voice pitched somewhere between agony and horror.
But no one looks too closely, too consumed with their own merriment.
All I can think of is Grand Cleric Beneveto, staggering down from the jail carriage with that same feral hunger.
Now, it really hits home why his chains were necessary.
“When the dead return,” I whisper, “They’re…hungry. For mortal flesh.”
Basten doesn’t have a religious bone in his body, but I swear I see him silently mouth a prayer.
Rian turns toward a group of young men singing bawdy fae ballads as they stagger drunkenly down the street. “You! Get out of here. You’re in danger!”
The youths laugh and push right past him.
“They won’t listen to you,” I say breathlessly. “We have to stop this at the source. Come on!”
I race down the street, heart rattling off-kilter, with Rian and Basten close at my heels. The crowd parts around us as we dart between carriages and carts, sprinting toward Valor Belltower.
When we reach the edge of the circular road, I come to a staggering halt.
Above us, a searing column of fey light pierces the clouds, shining like a blade into the heavens. The ground thrums with its energy. The bottom of the tower—once an unassuming archway leading to the stairs to the top of the tower—has become something else entirely.
A portal.
The arch now seethes with raw magic, a portal torn wide open to Volkany. From its depths, the dead spill forth in droves—staggering, snarling, lifeless things full of feverish need.
To the right of the portal, Iyre stands poised, graceful as ever, the fey needle in hand. Her fingers work delicately, widening the portal with careful skill.
Revulsion rises thick in my throat, but my gaze shifts—and locks.
Opposite her stands Woudix, shadowed in flickering black fey. Sparks crackle from his hands as he raises corpse after corpse, each one twitching to unnatural life.
My rage ignites.
“Woudix!” I shout, storming forward, my fey shattering through my human glamour like glass. “You traitor!”
I throw my hands up and unleash a bolt of silver fey, bright as lightning—but he pivots with inhuman grace, his own magic slamming into mine and dispersing it in a flash of sparks.
“I trusted you!” I cry, voice raw.
He turns toward me, unshaken. Hawk stands beside him, decayed and snarling.
“Lady Sabine,” he says, smooth as polished stone, “I suggest you return to your bedchamber. You’d already chosen your side when you bound yourself to that mortal. It’s the same side you choose every time. The wrong one.”
My hands tremble so hard that my fey fails.
So, I step forward—and slap Woudix instead. Hard.
“You liar,” I hiss. “You made me believe you were with me. All this time, you were just another pawn for my father!”
He doesn't flinch.
“I’m the God of Death,” he says, voice low and dark, almost tender. “Why would I want peace, when I can have the world on its knees, endless bodies to fill my underrealm?”
From across the portal, Iyre lifts her chin and sneers. “How does it feel, Sabine?” she coos. “To finally see what was always coming?”
Basten snarls behind me—no words, just fury. His blade is out in one smooth motion, and he charges.
Iyre doesn’t move. She doesn’t have to.
With a flick of her fingers, one of the dead lunges at him.
But Rian is faster.
He launches forward, onto the corpse’s back, and with a savage twist, snaps its neck, sending the thing crumpling to the cobblestones.
“Stop them, Sabine!” Rian shouts, wiping jelly-thick remnants of corpse flesh hastily on his trousers. “Use your godkiss like you did with the tigers in Duren Arena!”
For a breath, I hesitate, staring down at my glowing hands, where silver light pulses beneath the skin, soft and steady like a heartbeat. The memory of the tigers—how I reached into their minds, how they couldn’t help but obey—returns to me.
I turn toward Hawk, Woudix’s snarling companion, hoping, praying, that I can reach her the same way.
But as I try to project into her, I feel nothing. Not a mind. Not a soul. Just a dead, echoing void. When I direct my godkiss to the walking corpses, it’s just as silent.
“I… I can’t,” I whisper, horror lacing every word as the truth sets in. “The tigers were alive. I can only control the living. These things—they’re already gone.”
The realization lands in my chest like a weight dropped from a great height. Even now, with all this power thrumming beneath my skin, I’m still bound by my godkiss’s laws.
Basten’s voice slices through my rising panic. “Brimfire.”
When I look at him, his expression is calm, resolute. And I understand. This is the only path left.
I inhale, grounding myself.
Drawing the magic upward from my core, I feel the burn of brimfire gather in my chest, a blistering heat building behind my ribs until it surges through my arms and bursts from my palms in a sweeping arc.
The blue flame rushes across the stone in a brilliant wave, incinerating the corpses that stagger from the portal before they can take more than a few steps into the city.
But brimfire is not a gentle magic, nor easily controlled. As I learned with what happened at the convent. The flames leap—onto carts, onto banners, onto the wooden shutters of the belltower itself.
Panic stirs in the crowd as screams rise.