TWENTY-NINE ARADYA
TWENTY-NINE
ARADYA
The sensation is overwhelming. Not painful—not yet—but vast in a way that threatens to erase me.
Thousands of voices speaking simultaneously, centuries of accumulated grief pouring through a channel built for single spirits.
My vision goes dark at the edges. My body feels distant, like a garment I’ve stepped out of.
Ah.
The voice emerges from my throat, but it’s not mine. It’s a chorus of voices harmonizing into a single tone—deep and resonant and terribly certain.
You’ve finally asked the right question.
I try to speak, to respond, but my throat isn’t my own anymore. The King uses it with the ease of long practice, shaping words that bypass my will entirely.
Don’t fight me, mourning witch. You invited me in—that’s what your kind does. You open yourselves to the dead, and we pour through. The only difference is that I am more than any single spirit you’ve channeled before.
The brand burns beneath my skin. Distant, through the haze of the King’s presence, I feel Drokhar’s awareness snap toward me—the GPS-pull of the mating bond registering that I’m in danger. He’s still at the Ash Pits, too far to reach me quickly, but he knows. He knows I’m in trouble.
The King laughs through my lips.
He feels it, doesn’t he? The Ashwalker. Your mate. The mark tells him you’re in danger, but it can’t tell him from what. Can’t tell him that I’ve been waiting for this moment since you first reached for me in the Mourning Crypts.
I manage to force a thought through the pressure of its presence.
What do you want?
What I’ve always wanted. Peace. Closure. An end to the grief that has been festering beneath this city for three hundred years.
The words sound reasonable. Almost noble. But I can feel the currents beneath them—the rage, the hunger, the endless need that no amount of acknowledgment will ever satisfy.
You want vengeance.
I want justice.
The King’s voice hardens.
There’s a difference. Vengeance is blind, indiscriminate.
Justice requires payment from those who committed the crime.
Your mate has burned more bodies than he could ever count without letting them speak.
The Council has ordered thousands more silenced before their time.
Someone must answer for that. Someone must acknowledge that the dead deserved better.
So you sent an army to kill him.
I sent a demonstration.
The amusement returns to the King’s voice.
Those soldiers could have overwhelmed him.
Could have dragged him down to my realm and forced him to face judgment.
Instead, I let them go when you commanded it.
I let them speak their truths, find their peace, release their hold on existence.
I showed him—and you—that my way works. That the dead don’t need to be burned. They need to be heard.
I feel the truth of it. The King isn’t lying—not entirely. Those soldiers did find peace. They did speak and release and let go. But the King’s version of mercy isn’t the same as mine.
You let them go because you wanted us to trust you.
I let them go because I wanted you to understand what I’m offering.
The King shifts inside me, its attention focusing like a spotlight.
You could serve me, mourning witch. You could be my voice—my permanent channel to the living world. The dead would speak through you, and the living would listen, and no one would ever be forgotten again.
The image it paints is seductive. A world where every death matters.
Where every final truth is spoken, every farewell completed, every soul given the closure it deserves.
I’ve spent my entire life trying to provide that—one rite at a time, one grieving family at a time—and the King is offering me the chance to do it for everyone.
All I have to do is give myself over completely.
And Drokhar?
The pause is answer enough.
The Ashwalker must answer for what he’s done.
He has fed my power more than any other death warden who has ever lived.
His guilt is immense—he knows it, you know it, I know it.
If he comes to me willingly, acknowledges his crimes, accepts judgment...
I might show mercy. The same mercy I showed those soldiers on the battlefield.
You’ll kill him.
I’ll give him what he deserves.
The King’s tone softens to a caress.
The question is whether you’ll help me—or whether I’ll have to take what I need.
The door slams open.
Drokhar fills the frame, his blade drawn, his armor only half-buckled from his sprint back from the Ash Pits.
Sweat darkens his temples and his breathing comes heavy—he must have run the entire distance the moment he felt the change in the mark.
His ashen eyes find me immediately—sitting on the edge of his bed, wrapped in his shirt, my mouth moving with words that aren’t mine.
Relief and terror war across his features.
Relief that I’m here, that I’m alive, that the mark didn’t lead him to a corpse.
Terror at what he sees in my face—the way my eyes have gone distant, the unnatural stillness of my body, the voice emerging from my throat that carries harmonics no human vocal cords should produce.
“Get out of her.”
The King turns my head to look at him. Smiles with my lips.
She invited me in, Ashwalker. She always invites me in—that’s what mourning witches do. I don’t force entry. I accept the channel she offers and pour myself through.
Drokhar’s grip tightens on his blade. The brand over his heart blazes beneath his armor—I can see the light through the gaps in his buckles, bright enough to cast shadows.
“Then I’ll cut you out.”
With what? Your enchanted iron? Your corpse-brands? Those tools were made to sever the dead from animation—not to separate a willing channel from the spirit she’s hosting.
The King rises from the bed, using my body, moving my limbs with the practiced ease of an entity that has worn countless bodies over the centuries.
I’m not possessing her. I’m speaking through her—exactly as she’s allowed hundreds of dead to speak before me. The only difference is scale.
Drokhar takes a step forward. His free hand reaches for me—not to restrain, but to touch. To feel the mark that ties us.
The King intercepts the movement, turning my body away.
Careful. The mating bond is powerful, but it won’t help you here. It tells you where she is, not what’s inside her. It alerts you to danger, not its source. You can feel that she’s in trouble—but you can’t feel me. Can you?