Chapter 35
Cyra
The verdant meadow Bressen, Praya, Ariel, and I stepped out of the portal onto days later was a far cry from the killing field it had been a quarter of a century ago.
The only battle raging now was between the new grass that fought for space with early spring flowers like snowdrops, crocuses, and maidenfairs.
The place even smelled like new life, fresh and clean, despite the death and decay that lay not far beneath the surface.
I closed the portal behind me. The ship was still a couple days out from the mainland, but we were close enough now for me to get us to this battlefield where Morland’s bones supposedly rested.
At the thought of what lay buried here, the hint of something dark tingled over my skin. I looked around, trying to figure out why every nerve suddenly seemed to be alert and why every hair on my body stood on end.
Praya caught my eye as I surveyed the area. “You feel it, don’t you.”
“I feel something,” I said. “What is it?”
“Death,” she said. “You’re becoming more attuned with the Nemesis. You can feel what happened here.”
I knew instantly she was right. I definitely felt some kind of force, something that – ironically – seemed to pulse over the land like a heartbeat. I let a few tendrils of my power reach toward it, and I jumped when something like a static electric shock hit me.
I opened my mouth to say something about it, but I let out a yelp and stepped back instead as I saw a man only feet away, watching me.
He was young, likely in his late teens and certainly no older than me. His dark brown hair was longer on top and seemed to blow in a breeze I couldn’t feel. His clothing looked like a uniform, but his face was passive, and he stood still and silent between the four of us.
“Who are you?” I asked. I raised my hands, ready to send him blasting backward with a forcefield, but he didn’t move.
“Cyra?” Bressen asked, brows pinched. “Who are you talking to?”
I turned to him but stumbled back a few steps more when I saw two other men standing next to him, one short with light brown skin, and another tall and lanky with pale skin and shockingly red hair.
I spun around, and panic sent a lump up my throat.
We were suddenly surrounded by dozens of young men, all standing quietly.
“Where did they come from?” I asked as I spun in a circle. We were surrounded.
Praya looked around as well. Next to her, Ariel had drawn her sword, the one with the black marbling in the blade, but she didn’t swing it, even though there was a man standing right in front of her.
Indeed, she seemed to look right through him.
I raised my hands, ready to fight if the men proved to be a threat.
I cried out as a hand closed over my arm and turned me around, but it was only Bressen. He gripped my shoulders tightly.
“Cyra, what’s wrong? What do you see?” he asked urgently.
I looked at him incredulously. “Don’t you see them all?” I asked, trying to watch for movement, for an attack. “They’re-”
I looked around, intending to point out the men, but my words cut off as I saw the field was suddenly empty again, save for us. I whipped my head around, but there was nothing.
“Cyra?” Bressen prompted.
“There were…I saw men. Dozens of them standing around us,” I said. “I don’t understand. They’re gone now.”
“You likely have spirit anchor power,” Praya said knowingly. “You’d be more susceptible to it as Hand of the Nemesis, but it’s not innate. You would’ve had to pick it up somewhere.”
“Spirit anchor power?” Bressen questioned. “I’ve never heard of it.”
Praya smiled. “You probably have, Lord Bressen, but you dismissed it. People who claim they can see and communicate with the dead are often dismissed as frauds. Granted some of them are, but spirit anchors are real perimortals who can see and communicate with the dead when they’re in close proximity to the person’s body or an object that was important to them.
If there really are hundreds of bodies buried here, Cyra probably anchored some of their spirits unwittingly. ”
“Why are spirit anchors dismissed as frauds?” I asked, although I thought I knew. We occasionally had traveling mystics come through Fernweh who claimed they could commune with the dead, but many people decried them as charlatans.
“It’s not a visible power,” Praya said. “Only the anchor can see and hear the spirits, so no one can confirm they’re actually doing anything, and many people aren’t willing to believe something exists unless they can see and hear it themselves.
” She shrugged. “Then of course, some people who don’t actually have the power use this to their advantage if they’re clever enough. ”
I tried to remember the times mystics came through town.
I usually stayed away from them, but if one of them was actually a spirit anchor, perhaps I’d touched them inadvertently.
It was the most logical reason for why I had the power.
Or perhaps I’d picked it up at the Priory one of the times I’d been there.
Surely one of the priests or priestesses had it.
It must be new since this was the first time I’d seen-
My eyes widened as a memory burst into my head, the vivid image of seeing my mother the night after she’d died.
I’d been at the kitchen window, and I’d found one of her bracelets sitting on the counter.
My mother didn’t wear much jewelry, but this piece had been an anniversary gift from my father.
She often took it off to clean or cook so it didn’t get dirty or damaged, and she must’ve forgotten to put it back on the last time she took it off.
The bracelet had sent a wave of grief through me, and I’d looked up to see my mother outside the window standing at the edge of the vineyard.
She’d started walking, and I’d rushed out of the house and after her down a row of grapevines until she vanished.
I’d searched frantically for twenty minutes for her before sitting down in the middle of a row, just hoping she’d reappear.
Jaylan and Brix found me still sitting there later that night when they realized I was missing.
Jaylan had humored me when I told him I’d seen our mother, but I knew he thought grief was making me imagine things.
Nevertheless, he’d gone back to the house to get blankets, and the three of us had slept out under the stars, waiting for her to come back.
Was it really possible…
“Cyra,” Bressen’s voice was gentle, and I knew he must’ve seen the memory. It was a powerful one, and my mind was open to him.
I leaned forward, and Bressen gathered me into his arms. I laid my head on his chest and willed the wave of pain at the memory to pass. When I lifted my head again, Praya and Ariel stood patiently waiting for me to pull myself together.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just-”
“No explanation needed,” Praya said.
I pulled back, and Bressen kissed my forehead before letting me go.
“I’m ready,” I said.
He nodded, and I let my seeker power reach out across the field.
Bressen couldn’t remember exactly where in the area Morland had been killed – or almost killed – but my power knew immediately.
The tug in my chest pulled me to the left, and I walked toward it as Bressen, Praya, and Ariel trailed behind me.
The tug grew incessantly stronger until I crossed a particular spot, then it suddenly shifted downward, as if it might root me there.
“Here,” I said. I stepped back and let my hand hover over the spot. The sensation told me we were in the right place.
I held up my other hand as well and let my earth magic work. In front of me, the ground peeled back as layer upon layer of dirt lifted away to pile on either side of the spot my magic had isolated. When the hole was several feet deep, I saw the shapes of bones appear at the bottom.
Bile rose up my throat at the sheer volume of skeletons piled on top of each other in a mass grave, their once white bones discolored from decades under the dirt. My hand went to my stomach as nausea overtook me, and I swallowed hard to keep from vomiting.
A gentle hand landed on my waist as Bressen pressed his body to me from behind.
He’d sensed my distress, and I knew the sudden lessening of my queasiness was his doing.
I wasn’t sure if I was grateful for his help or annoyed that he was taking away this feeling that part of me believed I should experience.
“It’s an unfortunate reality of war,” Bressen said softly in my ear. “Hundreds, even thousands die, and most are buried where they fall.”
“Especially the enemy?” I asked.
I felt his exhale on my cheek. “Especially the enemy.”
You’ll kill tens of thousands before this is over.
Magdalene’s words rose up in my mind, and I swallowed again. Would someone else a few decades or even centuries from now dig up a field and find the bodies of the thousands I’d killed?
I shook the thought away. Bressen was adamant Magdalene’s vision wouldn’t play out the way we feared it would, and I had to believe that.
I extended a hand over the hole and called on my summoning power. The bones at the bottom began to shudder and rattle, and I clamped my teeth shut to keep them from doing the same.
Just when I wasn’t sure I could take it anymore, something came shooting up out of the hole into my hand.
It smacked hard against my palm, stinging it, and I closed my hand around it.
It was an ulna, an arm bone. I knew that from studying anatomy during my healer training, and my stomach lurched all over again as I held the dirt-covered bone.
I turned to Praya. “Will this do?” I asked, and she nodded.
I handed the bone to Bressen, and he wrapped it in a cloth we’d brought. I turned back to the hole to fill it in, but my eyes widened as a ghostly white arm reached up out of it and dug its fingers into the ground.