34. Aradya
THIRTY-FOUR
ARADYA
The King’s realm follows me.
Not physically—the passage collapsed when we escaped, sealing the Battlefield Beyond the Veil behind tons of stone and centuries of accumulated grief.
But in my mind, the door remains open. I can feel the Gravetide King pressing against my consciousness, patient and relentless, waiting for me to break.
Mourning witch.
The whisper slides through my thoughts as Drokhar and I climb toward the surface, his hand steady around mine, his grip the only anchor keeping me from drowning in the dead’s endless demands.
You cannot escape me. I am in every grave you pass. I am in every unspoken goodbye, every burial without rites, every name that was forgotten before the body was cold.
I push the voice away. Focus on the burning brand beneath my collarbone, on the pulse of it matching Drokhar’s heartbeat, on the solid reality of his scarred fingers interlaced with mine.
The tunnel narrows as we climb. Rock walls slick with moisture, the air heavy with the smell of old earth and older death. Every few steps, my foot catches on debris—fragments of the passage that collapsed behind us, pieces of a realm that should never have touched the mortal world.
“How bad?” Drokhar keeps his words pitched low, barely louder than a breath.
I know what he’s asking. The King. The pressure against my thoughts. The voice that won’t stop whispering.
“Manageable.” The lie tastes like ash. “For now.”
His thumb traces a slow circle against my palm—a gesture that shouldn’t be comforting, given everything pressing down on us. But it is. His touch. The steady pulse of the brand that links us. He’s here. He’s real. The King can whisper all it wants, but it can’t take that away.
Can’t I?
The voice slides through my defenses, silk and smoke and three hundred years of accumulated hunger.
Everything you love, mourning witch. Everything you’ve found in the Ashwalker’s arms. I can take it all. Would you like to spend eternity listening to him beg for the closure you denied him?
My step falters.
Drokhar catches me before I can stumble, one arm wrapping around my waist. “Talk to me.”
“The King.” I lean into him despite myself. “It’s creative with its threats.”
“What’s it saying?”
“Nothing worth repeating.” I straighten my spine, pull away from the comfort of his embrace. If I let myself depend on him too much, I’ll never find the strength to face what’s coming. “Keep moving. The city needs us.”
The screaming grows louder as we ascend.
By the time we reach street level, Blackreach has become a nightmare.
The dead pour through every cemetery, every mass grave, every ash pit in the city.
They claw their way out of consecrated ground and cursed earth alike, rotting hands grasping at anything living, mouths working to form words they’ve been denied for decades.
Centuries. The accumulated weight of forgotten grief made flesh, and all of it answering to a king who refuses to let them rest.
A child’s scream cuts through the night—high, terrified, abruptly silenced. Somewhere to our left, a building burns. Somewhere to our right, death wardens fight a losing battle against corpses that refuse to stay down.
And beneath it all, the whispers. Thousands of voices speaking at once, demanding to be heard, begging for the closure they were denied.
Drokhar pulls me close as a revenant stumbles past—a woman in a burial shroud, her face half-dissolved, her hands reaching toward a house where a candle still burns in the window. She doesn’t notice us. She’s looking for someone. Someone who probably died before she did.
“The Cinder Hall.” His mouth brushes my ear, his rumble cutting through the chaos. “The Council needs to hear this.”
I want to argue. The Council has spent generations burning the dead without rites, ordering silence when grief demanded voice.
They’re part of the reason the King exists.
Every burn order they signed, every mass grave they sealed without ceremony, every mourning witch they handed over to the pyres—it all fed the thing that’s now consuming their city.
But they’re also the only ones with the authority to coordinate a city-wide response. And right now, Blackreach needs every death warden it has.
We move through streets that have become rivers of the risen dead.
Drokhar’s blade carves a path when necessary, severing revenants from their animation with precise efficiency.
Twenty years of experience in every swing—he knows exactly where to strike, exactly how much force to apply, exactly when to burn and when to simply cut.
I whisper calm to the ones that pause—brief touches of magic that buy us moments of stillness before the King’s will reasserts itself.
They look at me when I speak. Not with hunger.
With hope. These were people once. Soldiers, merchants, mothers, children.
They didn’t ask to become weapons in a monster’s war.
A corpse in rusted armor blocks our path—a soldier from one of the old border wars, his face preserved enough to show the expression of surprise he wore when death claimed him. His mouth works, trying to form words that won’t come.
I reach out before Drokhar can strike.
“Be still.” My whisper carries the weight of my magic. “Speak.”
“My—my son.” The soldier’s words grind out like rust and dust. “He was only three when I left. I never—I wanted to tell him—”
“That you loved him. That you were proud of him. That you were sorry you couldn’t come home.”
The soldier’s empty sockets fix on my face. “How did you know?”
“Because that’s what fathers say.” My throat tightens. “Go. Rest. I’ll make sure he knows.”
The soldier crumbles. Not into dust, but into peace. One more spirit released from the King’s control.
One down. Ten thousand to go.
“You can’t do that for all of them.” Drokhar’s words come out rough.
“I know.” I step over the empty armor. “But I can try.”