12. Alistair #3
Shame curdled his gut. He might not have been the one to execute the sentence, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d personally failed Iggie all the same. “I…I’m sorry,” he said as Iggie continued to sob. “The Order had no right to do that to you.”
Iggie didn’t respond, and Alistair watched helplessly as the necromancer regained a tenuous grip on his composure. Once his heaving chest had slowed, he mumbled something.
Alistair leaned in. “What was that? Please, I couldn’t hear you.”
“I said, you seemed only too eager to do the same thing when you arrived here. You weren’t interested in asking me questions or trying to understand my perspective. Had we met that first night, you’d have used your dawnflame to burn me to a crisp. Just like them.”
Alistair’s shame deepened. He bowed his head, Iggie’s condemnation ringing in his ears.
The necromancer was right. Alistair had thought he knew how to differentiate right from wrong, good from evil.
He’d come to Singer’s Rest pursuing justice.
Yet, what right did he have to judge someone he’d never met, based solely on rumors or superstition or prejudice?
“For what it’s worth,” he said, keeping his eyes downcast, “I’m so, so sorry.
You deserved better—then and now.” Swallowing, he looked up to meet Iggie’s puffy blue eyes.
“I may have started off as your prisoner but believe me when I swear that I’d never do anything to hurt you.
I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you, like those Knights should have when you were a boy. ”
A bitter laugh tore from Iggie’s throat. “Even if it means defying your precious Order?”
“Yes,” Alistair growled with such vehemence that Iggie’s eyes widened, his laughter dying away.
Their gazes remained locked, an unspoken current of emotion passing between them.
It was like that moment in the harmonite cavern when he’d heard Iggie sing—two lonely, broken souls that recognized their heartache in one another.
At last, Iggie flushed and turned away. He nodded, even though Alistair could tell by the necromancer’s expression that he still didn’t believe him.
“Thank you,” he whispered all the same. His voice came out hoarse, and he cleared his throat.
“Something snapped in me after my parents died. I lost control of my powers, giving in to pure instinct. I reached out to my parents with my duskflame and I…I brought them back. They were my first true undead, fully reanimated and capable of acting on their own. They caught the paladins by surprise and slaughtered them while they were preparing to deal with me. The villagers ran screaming, and I…well, I fled, too, with nothing but the clothes on my back and my pair of skeletons. I’ve been on the run ever since, never staying too long in one place lest I attract the attention of the Order again.
” He gave a snort that devolved into a sniffle as he gestured toward Alistair.
“Though I suppose we can both see how well that worked out.”
Alistair’s lips twitched. “Your crucial error was choosing this mountain to spend the winter. Anywhere else, and you likely would have been left alone until the passes cleared. But Singer’s Rest is practically a national treasure.”
Iggie’s answering grin appeared more genuine despite its wavering edges. “My mistake. Next time, I’ll be certain not to do anything that might upset the rich.”
Alistair’s chuckle quickly faded as another thought occurred to him. He sought out Iggie’s favorite skeletal guards, Marlon and Cynthia. The pair were never far from Iggie’s side, their yellowed bones more worn than the others. As if they’ve been with him for a long time.
Unease curled through Alistair. What was it Iggie had said about factors that affected the relative strength of his undead? They tended to last longer when they were raised soon after their deaths…and when he had a closer connection to them while they were still alive.
Merciful Light!
“They’re your parents, aren’t they?” he asked before he could stop himself.
Iggie averted his eyes, a flush coloring his pale cheeks.
Mutely, he nodded. “I’ve thought countless times about dismissing them, but I just…
I can’t. I know they’ll fall apart eventually, and that keeping them around like this probably isn’t healthy or conducive for me moving on.
” His bottom lip quivered. “But they’re all I have!
All I’ll ever have of my mom and dad, even if they’re only a pale imitation. I…I talk to them sometimes.”
Alistair flashed back to the whispered conversation he’d overheard on the tower’s staircase. He’d assumed Iggie was simply praying to his deceased parents or speaking aloud to himself. Now that he understood the truth, his heart felt as if it was about to snap in two. “Iggie…”
“I just want them to know that I’m okay.
” Iggie glanced toward Marlon and Cynthia, setting his jaw.
“Wherever their real souls are, I hope they can hear me. That they know their sacrifice wasn’t in vain.
Whenever things get hard or feel hopeless, that’s what keeps me going—the thought of how much they gave up for me. Even if I don’t deserve it.”
That last bit came out in a choked whisper, and before Alistair could process what he was doing, he’d scooted forward and tugged Iggie into a tight embrace.
At first, the necromancer went still, as rigid as a frozen slab of ice.
Then, he gradually melted into Alistair’s touch.
His head fell on Alistair’s armored shoulder while his arms looped around Alistair’s back as best they could with Alistair’s breastplate in the way.
Even past his armor, Alistair relished the contact.
It was precisely what he’d longed for…no matter how much he knew he shouldn’t.
“Don’t ever say that,” he whispered into Iggie’s ear.
“Don’t even think it. You’re not evil, no matter what some misguided members of the Order might claim. There’s nothing at all wrong with you.”
“But I got my parents killed! I steal everywhere I go. I’m a…a murderer!”
“Have you killed anyone since that night?”
Iggie shook his head, and Alistair released a pent-up breath.
He hadn’t thought Iggie capable of that, but it was still a relief to have confirmation.
“Killing the people who murdered your parents and were about to do the same to you hardly seems like the act of a deranged lunatic. Neither does borrowing what you need to survive. I don’t exactly condone theft, but it sounds like you had no other choice.
And as for your parents, they made their choice, not you.
Because they thought it was worth it. That you were worth it. ”
Iggie shuddered in Alistair’s grasp. “I want to believe you.”
“Then do. After all, I am a paladin. And everyone knows that paladins never lie.”
Iggie managed a gurgling half-laugh, half-sob that tore at Alistair’s heart.
He sat there holding the necromancer until Iggie’s trembling body stilled once more, his breathing resuming its regular rhythm.
Tentatively, Alistair rubbed a hand up and down Iggie’s back.
Iggie’s breath caught, and Alistair paused, worried he’d gone a step too far.
“Please,” Iggie whispered. He shifted in Alistair’s arms so that their faces were a mere hand’s length apart. His eyes were storm-roiled oceans, sucking Alistair into their tempestuous depths. “Don’t…don’t stop.”
His heart pounding in his chest, Alistair reached up to stroke Iggie’s cheek.
His fingertips traced the sharp line of Iggie’s jaw, and Iggie shuddered, his stormy eyes darkening still further.
Despite the haggard exhaustion weighing down Iggie’s face after the events of the past day and their recent discussion, the necromancer was still the most alluring thing Alistair had ever seen.
Once the blizzard outside passed, the two of them would continue onto Singer’s Rest. Alistair would return to his responsibilities as a Knight and decide what to do about the troubling truth Iggie had told him concerning the Order as well as the abomination threatening the village.
Tonight, however, there was no paladin or necromancer—only two men, huddled together against the cold and the storm and the harsh world outside.
Closing his eyes, Alistair gathered his courage, leaned in, and pressed his lips to Iggie’s.