Chapter 26
The bodies stood, drowned in Shadow’s work.
Prince Knox was outnumbered, yet he towered above the horde. The trees chimed as if inaugurating the battle, and I raised my brother’s arm. Each massive muscle caught the faded light and cast a distinct shadow. His strength pulsed in my blood, burning hot.
Those milk eyes looked at me, at Knox, at the magic of my god.
Rows of corpses convulsed, hacking air, spines tossing forward and back like they were rallying themselves. Their brittle bones snapped and cracked between hisses. They did not yet charge at me, feet buried in undergrowth, but it was imminent. I should have been afraid—I wasn’t a fighter—but there was no room for fear. I was too drenched in adrenaline to feel anything else.
A thump sounded beside me, Edith’s branch hitting the dirt. It was not the hacking bodies that left her in shock—she wasn’t looking at them. Eyes wide, chin shivering, she was looking at me.
“They are here for me,” I said in Knox’s voice.
“You need to leave.”
She was pale, and her glossy eyes tried to dig me out from beneath my mask.
“Leave, Edith,” I said.
Her lips trembled. “I—”
The lands quaked, a flock of bodies tearing through roots and charging at me like a murder of starved crows to the dead. Many fell, their skin ripping with long strides, bones snapping, and veins snagging on branches.
“Leave, now!” The heir’s timbre reverberated in the wood.
Edith leaned over and retrieved the branch at her feet. If I had time, I would use a spell of deception to make her run, but she was already swinging at the head of a corpse, spewing black blood.
Rhoswen! Deceit tensed, fingers redirecting my eyes.
I lunged back, corpse teeth scraping my shoulder, claws nearly spearing my neck. My feet hit the ground. I wailed a cry. Hot pain shot up my ankle, scorching my leg. Reaching out, Knox’s muscles were a river around bone. I clenched my fist at the corpse’s arm. The smell of rot coupled with the feeling of moist wood sliding beneath my palms. I threw my other hand on the corpse’s skull. The body flayed.
I closed my hand.
A menacing shriek tore through the broken skull, innards wet in my hand, and bone shards punctured my skin. I fanned out Knox’s grip, and the body fell.
Arms lifted, I staggered towards the next in line. With only a nick on my waist, I caught the corpse’s neck between my rib and arm and compressed. It screamed and convulsed. Tighter, I squeezed the mangled body—ankle hot and teeth gritting—as more corpses charged.
Deceit sank deeper in, fortifying my mask—my muscles—and the corpse’s neck snapped. Skin crumbling, arteries snapping like twine, the head rolled to the ground with another shriek.
The masses were coming.
I only had time to lift my forearms to protect my face behind my hands—Knox’s hands—and I was bashed to the ground. My skull rattled, striking a hard surface, the ache intense and deep. Deceit surrounded my mind, holding my vigilance.
Get up! He roared.
Like blades, I cut Knox’s arms outward, jostling three corpses that gnashed their teeth at me. Rotten breath filled my nose, and I rose to my feet. Andrael spun. The ground began to shift, the land opening up to consume.
I was being dragged down. I yelled through the bedlam, and Knox’s voice broke into the wood like a bear.
A corpse lunged—limbs bent wrong—and I grabbed its neck, midair, and snapped it in my hands. Another shriek, a cry of the dark, and curdled blood rained over me. I shrieked next. Something was cutting my legs. I looked down to where a hand had emerged from nothing but dirt and sand. Gods, corpses were unburying themselves to take me down. I dug into the ground and reached for the arm. Yanking twice with Knox’s muscles, I ripped it from its socket and swung the limb like a torch, swatting away shadows. The whetted nails sliced anything around me.
And there were so many around me.
One corpse dared to step apart from the rest, so I lodged the nails into its throat. Its cackles were drowned in blood. Ramming deeper, the corpse screamed and fell over, but there was no victory. More were coming, and I…
I was dragged deeper.
Break from the ground, Rhoswen! Deceit shouted, but my ankle barely held itself up.
I focused on the prince’s strength and the might of his legs. Charging, pivoting in dual, riding his mare. The fibers of his muscles tensed in my legs, and I leaped from the ground—Knox’s cry shaking the wood—tears flooding my eyes.
I caught a laurel branch, pulling myself from the pit to Oldurem, and saw Edith. Sweat steamed from her pores. She wielded the branch like a wild child, exhaustion secure in her swings. Though the corpses paid her no mind. She was not their purpose, not worth their time.
It was only the god and me they hunted.
“God server,” hissed in the absent silence.
I twisted in the roots, whisking Knox’s golden locks, and a corpse stood so near. It lunged at me. I lifted my arm. But then—
I choked on the air.
Rhoswen! The god was rage and ruin.
The wood fell into dire quietness. A thousand marble eyes held still.
I lowered my hand, fingers grazing over my side. Moist, rotting flesh burrowed between the low slats of my ribs. Nails had punctured past my skin. I was cold, but my hand and side were warm. Wet. The corpse yanked back its hand, and a river of blood poured out from my side.
The corpse licked its hand, my blood covering its rotten tongue. Holding myself upright, I stole a step forward, reaching for the corpse, but… My skin snapped. I could not uphold the mask. Faintness met me, and my mask fell as I fell to my knees.
The corpse’s voice was trill, scraping my ears.
“Your time has come.”
I bowed to my death, unable to rise.
Corpses melded into the wood as though they were trees themselves, and I was to die in my humility. This wood was their birthplace. This was their grounds, and I was a fool for believing I could escape their home. That I could walk within the creation of Shadows, fight the monsters, and live to tell. Fool.
Child, Deceit hushed. You are no fool. He stroked my mind softly. You are of those who will deliver the realm. Fight until your last breath.
The god was kindling in me.
I could not die in this place. Not this damned place. I was chosen by the gods to bring Andrael into lighter days, so the sun might rise over the realm and burn away the dark. But I wondered—could the gods save me from what they did not understand?
Something cold clawed past my skin to my bones. The Shadow. Fear deepened itself in me. Deceit swelled, hissed, and said my name with nails tearing into my mind. His ancient breath swayed beneath my skin. Then, Deceit was gone, but there was no void. Where he once was, another lived.
It came upon me, devoured me.
The lands already so dim, the darkness unfolded, washing my sight. And yet, I could clearly see in the dark. Cold blood chased my veins, the black webbing trailing beneath my skin. The Shadow wrapped my bones. I did not think to stand, but my body rose apart from my will. I did not speak, I did not fight. I was overcome.
Lifting my head, I stood before the army of corpses, spine ironed straight.
The corpse staggered back.
“Vessel.” The word unraveled with a drawn s. Rotting breath curdled in the distance between us as pearl eyes searched me from my hair to my feet. The corpse hacked as though words clotted its throat.
“She be of two,” it said, biting the air.
The blood spilling out of my side was no longer warm.
If I could, I’d fall back to the ground and coddle my wound, say my prayers—that the gods might take my soul before my feet would meet the sands of Oldurem. But I was not within my own influences. I was held up by a Shadow, and it seemed to keep the army banished to the fringes of the battle. Waiting.
“Fall back into the dark from whence you came, child,” I said, I think. I did not know. My lips moved, but my voice did not escape me.
“Her soul is not for you this day.” Then, it dawned on me.
This was the Shadow speaking through me.
The corpse’s stare rounded, eyelids snagging at the eye socket, and it bowed—spine cracking, hand to its chest, this disgusting creature bowed to me. To the Shadow within. It left with a final gust of putrid air to sweep my sweated face.
Wallowing back, the corpses buried themselves deeper into the wood, leaving Edith and me. They tucked behind the laurels with eyes that watched our every move. Breaths were patient. It was as though we were standing in the eye of a storm, the wood breathing around me. Chaos was looming, but it never came.
This day would not be my end, and it was the Shadows, not the gods, that saved me.
“Rhoswen.” Edith kept her branch in hand. “Come.”
I ripped my eyes from the corpses.
“Where is Skye?” I asked. Violent air tore through my throat. I lifted my arm, coughed, and red splattered my skin. I wiped the blood and wrapped my cloak around me.
If Edith noticed the blood, she said nothing about it.
“She ran towards the estate.” Edith gestured to me, eyes scouring the corpses.
“Come. Now.”
I hobbled through roots, leaning against trees, and made my way towards Edith.
Child. Deceit washed over my mind like drowning waters. What happened?
Edith set my arm over her shoulder and led us.
They stopped attacking, I told the god, and my thoughts ended there.
He mined for memories. I held them closer, afraid.
Tell me.
I held them tighter. Would you ever leave me?
The fates have yet to decide, he said without a lick of emotion. Tell me. What happened?
My thoughts were frail. The Shadow… It came to me, and the corpses drew back.
Olden fingers tapped my aching mind, but the god did not leave. Marked by two, Deceit mulled. A god, they yearn to kill, but they bid to the Shadow’s will.
I winced, my foot meeting the ground, my ankle burning.
I do not understand, Deceit. They could have killed me and been done with it.
It is a familiar story, is it not, child? He asked as though I ought to know. The Shadow has marked you, infesting your body like a plague. Just as I, the Shadow has work for you. Only, we have yet to know what the dark powers yearn to fulfill through you.
I fear, Deceit.
Need I remind you? He asked. Whom you serve matters not. What lives must die.
But what if I am now tethered to both plains? The sands of Oldurem and the Everlaides.
Deceit sung low, The sands will not come for you, child. I will not allow it.
I lashed back. Says the god who knows nothing of the Shadows.
The God of Deception did not speak. His troubles weighed upon me as he released a seething breath, growling through clenched teeth. Indeed, the god did not know of the enemy that threatened Andrael.
Edith and I came upon the wood’s path.
Dizziness cast over me time and again, many wobbly steps nearly throwing me to the ground. Edith held me up while I cradled my ribs, and Deceit’s tail wrapped around the bones of my arm, possessing my hand to lock over my bleeding wound during those dizzy spells.
For some time, we walked in silence, but as the estate was drawing nearer, Edith began to cry. I could conjure two reasons that’d inflict tears—the calmness of this moment after being flooded with adrenaline, or that I served the gods. I was a foe to the lords of the realm and a threat to her nephew.
“Edith,” I said weakly.
“You have asked me not to speak of Briarwood’s death.”
Her face hardened.
“I will not, so long as you do not speak of what you saw.”
She tore from my side, and I stumbled on my feet. Sucking my teeth, holding my wound, I fought to gather balance. Deceit rippled through me, helping me stand.
“You serve the gods,” she spat.
“The gods that seek the nobles’ deaths. You—” She pointed her finger like a spear.
“You serve those who seek to kill my nephew.”
My voice was but air.
“I will not.”
But you will. The god lurked in me.
“I will not harm your nephew. That is not my purpose.”
Deceit stressed, It is your purpose.
Edith’s face reddened.
“Family names have been turned to ash in the hands of the gods. You do not know what my name has been through, what the Ravens have endured. Curses have tied our lineage, but it is not your right to end us.” Her lungs stretched in a heave of air.
“The Shadows are dark, Rhoswen, but light will not be found in death. Not in my nephew’s death. He is only cursed, but he is good.”
I stepped towards Edith, my ankle burning, but she claimed further distance.
“Edith, please understand.” My mind raced as I grappled for words.
“Yes, I serve the gods, but I have not been sent to kill anyone. My place is watchful eyes. And, the guild…” Words dwindled, but I spoke through the grief.
“Without the direction of the guild, I am not even watchful eyes. I am simply an advisor.”
Edith lifted her chin, her glare angled down. She uttered, “You lie.”
“I do not, Edith. Please, try to understand. My mother died when I was a child. My father aimed to take my life. I ran from my home, and the gods were all I had. Without them, I would be as lost as the souls in the wood.”
Edith measured me as her nephew had many times before.
“Who do you serve?”
“Edith—”
“Who do you serve?”
“Deception,” I said as though I should be ashamed.
“I do not kill. I deceive.”
“Have you deceived me? Deceived me into believing you are who you are not?”
“What I have shown you of myself, I swear to be true.”
She bit.
“Apart from your loyalty.”
“Yes.”
Closing the gap between us, she stared into my eyes. In hers, I saw pain. Betrayal.
“You swear to me, to your god, that you will not kill Alistair? That you will not harm him?”
My brows vaulted my forehead, my eyes wide.
“I swear to you, I promise, I will never harm Alistair.”
“And you will speak to no one of Briarwood’s death?”
I could not care why Edith wanted Briarwood’s death to remain unspoken. So long as her secret was bartered for mine, I was content.
“I promise.”
She challenged.
“On the faith of your gods?”
“I swear on both my life and my faith, my word to you will be unbroken, so long as you do not speak of my allegiance.”
Edith took a bold step and grabbed my arm, ripping my hand from my ribs.
“And if you put Alistair in danger,” she fumed.
“I will kill you myself.”
I breathed in to accede, to offer a final shred of confidence, but my exhale was laden with pain. Faintness met me from all angles, my leg on fire, the blood spilling. Wincing, I couldn’t drag out a single word through melded teeth.
I fell into Edith.
“Rhoswen, what’s the matter?” She asked, leaning down. She saw the blood and gasped.
“Oh gods, child.”
“If I die, you’ll have one less reason to worry,” I deadpanned.
Her brows stretched thin, mirroring her lips. I thought Edith might strike me with the flat of her palm, though she only sighed.
“Do you not understand, child? It is not the gods I grow weary of. It is the death of this age.”
She set us upright, and I held onto her wrist. “Edith.”
“What?” She asked with a bite.
Deceit coiled around my spine, knowing where my thoughts lay.
“I want you to believe me,” I said.
“What you have seen of me is truly who I am.” I took her hand in mine, fighting the faintness caressing my stability, and avowed.
“I promise, Edith, I will not hurt your nephew.”
You do not speak in the tongue of deception. Ire was on Deceit’s tongue. He snapped in a low growl, You forget your place.
My teeth scraped together as Deceit tensed.
Edith rested her hand upon my back.
“Though I do not entirely understand you, Rhoswen, I believe you.” Herding me at her side, Edith revived our steps down the path.
“We must get you back to my nephew. Time is crucial.”
The God of Deception clicked his tongue thrice. Man will fall, and the gods will rise. Do you forget it is man that killed your brothers and sisters? Man that curses the gods’ names? It is man who left you abandoned to die.
The god sulked into the unlit regions of my mind with a final hiss.