Chapter 1
Chapter One
Seven Years Later
After months of searching, I’d finally found it: A crimsonlith tree. One in full bloom, heavy with the fruits that contained the last ingredient our spell needed. Now, all I had to do was steal one of these fruits, carry it back, and let Orin work his magic with the seeds inside.
And then I would finally be ready to die.
I’d been told, over and over, that these trees no longer existed in the southern region of the Valorian Empire. Yet, here one was, standing tall right in the middle of Lord Roderic’s home, kept in a glass-covered atrium flooded with light and all manner of other rare plants, just mere feet away from my spirit-self.
If only my spirit-self could have collected them right then and there...this mission could have been over in minutes.
Still, this was a start.
Having successfully located my target, I released the tethering spell I’d been using to guide my ghostly shade, sending it snapping back toward my physical self. It was a useful trick for spying and seeking—though not so much for stealing ; one needed a corporeal body capable of holding objects for that.
Minor details, you know.
Absently, my fingers closed around one of the four bracelets I constantly wore. As my thumb traced black, rose-shaped beads, I bowed my head and closed my eyes, waiting for my dizziness to subside. I’d grown quite skilled at projecting shades of myself around, but putting my pieces back together would likely always be a jarring experience.
A chill brushed over my hand—Phantom, rubbing his nose against my fingers and letting me know he still stood by my dazed body, watching over me.
Spirit-walking could be dangerous magic to wield—leaving the wielder in varying states of inebriation or outright oblivion—but I always took care to hide my body, and I never feared as long as Phantom stayed close to that body.
He kept most stray passersby away by his frightening appearance, alone, and he’d done this enough times to become something of a legend around here; the haunting, spectral beast of the once-royal city of Luscerna. When appearances alone didn’t work, he could also exert a terrifying energy that left his targets feeling ghastly ill—a rather useful power he’d gained after dying.
Or mostly dying.
I say mostly because, thanks to my magic, he wasn’t as dead as he should have been.
Three years ago, Phantom had fallen ill and passed away. But I hadn’t been ready to let him go. He was the only family I had left, and so, without thinking, I’d unleashed my shadows and given them free rein in a way I never had before, hoping they might pull him back to me…a desperate attempt that had actually worked .
Sort of.
To this day, I still didn’t fully know how I’d kept him with me—or how long the spell would last.
Limboed was the term my mentor, Orin, used. The constraints of Phantom’s physical body had been broken, his spirit had risen to dominance and headed for the Underworld…but that spirit had been stopped in its tracks by my frantic spell. Stopped, and imbued with enough of my strange magic that he was now anchored to me and, in turn, to the world I inhabited.
The same magic had also tied us together in other ways, allowing us to communicate with perfect clarity. For better or worse.
( You weren’t gone very long, ) came his voice, echoing softly through my mind. ( Are you sure you have a clear vision of your next step? )
“Clear enough.”
He sneezed. ( Hasty. Impetuous. As per usual. )
Occasionally, I missed the silence between us.
I flashed him a crooked grin. “If you think I’ve been impetuous thus far, you really aren’t going to like the next part of my plan,” I warned, patting him on the head. My hand went through him, coming away covered in a viscous, shadowy substance. It was a matter of habit, petting him; even after three years, I still missed running my fingers through his solid fur.
He bared his teeth—his displeasure obvious—but settled back on his haunches, expectantly. ( Well? What is your plan? )
“I’m going to walk straight through the front door.”
( Brilliant, ) came the reply, dripping with obvious sarcasm despite the way his thought-speech tended to soften and blur his tone.
I was used to such sarcasm from him, so I continued without commenting on it: “Luckily for us, Lord Roderic lives alone, save for his servants. We only need to get them to open the door. Then, you’ll make yourself as horrifying as possible to create a diversion and chase them away, and once they’ve fled, I’ll slip in and take care of the rest. I have the route to the atrium memorized. It’s an easy path. I can be quick.”
( Your optimism is exhausting. )
“Some might argue that optimism is a virtuous trait in a person.”
( Some might argue that pessimists live longer. )
“Why are you so worried? You’re already practically dead.”
( Yes, but you’re not. )
“This is going to work,” I insisted.
Phantom snorted, unconvinced.
“Also? Lord Roderic is a monster, if it helps you focus on becoming a distracting monster yourself. He’s King Aleksander’s puppet, responsible for plenty of unjust arrests and disappearances.”
I bristled as Aleksander’s name left my lips, fighting off a wave of nausea along with a rush of white-hot fury. Even with no audience save for my dog, I refused to let my hatred for the Light King show. He wouldn’t control my emotions; to allow such a thing felt too much like bowing to him.
Something I would never fucking do, regardless of how many admirers and supporters he collected.
When I was finished carrying out my full plans, he would be the one bowing to me . Or groveling, more like, while begging for mercy I wouldn’t give.
I leaned against the wall of the run-down, unused shed we’d taken refuge in, forcing myself to inhale several calming breaths. To hang on to my exhausting optimism like I always did, even when I felt like I was cracking apart from the inside out.
( You should rest for now, ) Phantom urged, rising to his feet with an uncertain wag of his feathered tail. ( You still look dizzy. )
I didn’t argue. But there were too many people passing too close to the shed for comfort, so first, we moved to a less conspicuous location, tucking ourselves away in the small forest behind Lord Roderic’s estate.
I dozed against a thick oak tree while Phantom kept watch. We waited until well after sundown—until most of the lights in the manor had flickered out—before we put our plan into motion.
I donned my hood and pulled my scarf up to cover most of my face; I didn’t plan on being seen, but one could never be too careful. The bounty on my head was impressive at this point—between the lies the Light King had told about me and my family, and the occasional…ah, questionable missions I’d taken on to obtain the things Orin and I needed to get by. I didn’t have time to deal with an arrest, or to pull off yet another elaborate escape from the city prison.
Not when I was this close to achieving the goal I’d been working toward for years .
I quietly scaled the front gates—while Phantom simply shifted into shadows and passed through the narrow bars—and then I tiptoed to the massive double-doors and gave several swift knocks, lingering there until I caught the sound of what might have been footsteps.
( They’re coming, ) Phantom confirmed, ears twitching.
I darted out of sight, hiding in the nearby hedge to watch my companion work.
After his death and near-resurrection, he’d gained the ability to shift his not-quite-solid body into different shapes. At first, they were mostly his same lanky, canine form—only larger or smaller, depending on his mood. He’d grown more talented at it as the years passed, though, and now he was constantly surprising me with the different forms he managed to twist himself into.
He was brilliant tonight, as usual. First, he shifted into a vaguely-human shape—that of a hunched-over old man, convincingly pitiful enough that Lord Roderic’s servants heaved one of the doors open after only a brief glance through the curtains.
Then, as soon as the door opened fully, shadows engulfed the porch and everything around it.
When the darkness fell away, Phantom was transformed again, his shape now that of a hulking wolf with its fur bristling, its mouth open and breathing out cold, sparkling fog.
While the servants scrambled away from him in panic, I slipped inside and crept quickly in the opposite direction.
More servants soon arrived to aid the others; the sounds of their clashing with Phantom echoed loudly through the house, and I had to fight through the sudden surge of fear that tried to grip me and slow me down.
I wasn’t sure what I would do if anything happened to him. Over and over, the grim, sobering fact played through my mind: He’s the only family I have left .
I couldn’t stop thinking of it, even once I shook off the fear and pressed deeper into the manor.
I’d never recovered my father’s body, no matter how many times I’d risked sending my spirit-self back into Rose Point to search for it. My mother still lived, but in the same way that most who had been at our home on that horrible night seven years ago ‘lived’—that is, she stood like a cursed statue. Still breathing, but otherwise unmoving, her pulse a barely-there fluttering beneath her pallid skin. Her eyes remained wide-open, too, as if the darkest depths of Hell were the last thing she’d glimpsed before the curse settled…and even after all these years, she still couldn’t pry her gaze away from those depths.
The halls and grounds of my old home were full of bodies in similar poses—bodies of both my family and our court, as well as most of the guests who’d come to celebrate my birthday.
Phantom and I were the only two members of our kingdom who I knew had escaped this fate; I’d spent years searching for others with no success. They existed, I believed, but nobody wanted to admit they’d been at Rose Point that night. To admit they’d been exposed to the cursed shadows that still twisted throughout the grounds to this very day.
I gave my head a shake and carried on. Tonight, I just had to steal this last ingredient. Then I would be able to go where I needed to go. To fix what I needed to fix.
I continued toward the center courtyard as quickly as I dared, pausing only to occasionally run my fingers over the rose-shaped beads of the bracelet that helped channel my projection spell, sending the spectral version of myself ahead to check my route.
As long as that projection of my essence stayed within a few dozen yards of my body, the side-effects of separation were minimal; I could move while simultaneously seeing the path ahead through my specter self’s eyes—eliminating any chance of being ambushed by stray servants or, worse, by Lord Roderic himself.
Within minutes, I was pushing open the glass door to the atrium, bracing myself as a whoosh of hot air rushed over me.
The stifling air reeked of ripe and borderline-rotten fruit. The tree I sought was said to be especially pungent, its smell similar to that of burned flesh. This proved accurate; once inside the glass-walled room, I could have found the way to my target with my eyes closed.
The ground turned uneven and spongy beneath my boots as I approached the tree. With a slightly trembling hand, I reached up and plucked one of the lowest-hanging fruits. They were bright red with appendages that seemed to be alive, moving like scrambling spider legs.
The seeds in the center of these legs were the edible parts, but only when properly prepared. Without proper preparation, they were poisonous—which was likely the main reason behind this tree’s near-extinction. Well, that and their known association with the world of the dead; they supposedly bloomed only in soil where bodies were buried and carried the essence of the underworld in their crimson blooms.
Which was, of course, why I needed them.
Lord Roderic loved to boast about his chef being able to prepare edible dishes from the potentially fatal seeds; the fool’s careless bragging was what had led to the rumors that ultimately brought me to his doorstep.
I plucked a few more of the spidery, waxy-skinned fruits for good measure. Carefully, I placed them in the special container Orin had provided, then secured that container in the canvas bag slung across my body.
The vastness of the central courtyard was more apparent now that I truly, physically stood within it. I couldn’t help pausing for a moment to take it all in. My gaze swept over the abundance of colorful, rare plants—most of which I couldn’t identify. Insects, equally colorful and unusual, buzzed loudly around my ears. The air no longer smelled purely ripe and sickeningly sweet; now, there was an undercurrent of salt and a tinge of smoke. A scent that felt familiar, though I couldn’t say what it was.
My eyes kept returning to the crimsonlith tree. To its pale roots that rose above the ground, crisscrossing the dark soil, intertwining like skeletal fingers. To its silver leaves and the blooms I’d plucked…
Blooms that had already been replaced by new ones, several of which were starting to unfold, their flashes of crimson burning in the moonlight that filtered in through the glass roof.
My pulse skipped at the incredible, impossible sight. The air above the tree’s roots flickered. The soil between the pale fingers seemed to shift, veins of sparkling, bluish black popping up through it.
I blinked, and the sparkling colors disappeared.
My skin crawled as I thought again of the legends surrounding this tree—the claims that its supernatural flourishing came from soil filled with decomposing dead. Even knowing the legend, something about witnessing that flourishing in real time was unnerving.
I breathed in deep and exhaled slowly. Calmed my racing pulse. Settled the magic that had begun stirring in my blood and smoothed the chill bumps from my skin.
I would not allow myself to be unnerved by anything concerned with death.
In a matter of days, I planned to greet the world of the dead with a confident smile, knives in hand, steps unflinching. All my life was now centered on this one goal.
And I would not be turned away from it now.