“What the hell?” Dray cries. “Are you doing that, Kitten?”
“I … I don’t know,” I say, the magic in my blood vibrating along with the old bones. I go to snatch my hand away from the dragon, but I can’t. It’s as if my fingers have fused to the skull and no matter how hard I tug, I can’t pull it away.
“Briony!” Beaufort warns. Because there’s a humming noise too, sweeping across the valley floor and if that flash of light didn’t alert the demons to our presence, surely that noise will.
“I can’t move my hand,” I say, desperately yanking on my arm, and then I stop. Before my very eyes, I see white viscous shapes rise from the bones, like curls of smoke from a fire, crawling up into the air where they hang formless for a moment, then take shape. And I know, before I see, I know exactly what they are. The ghosts of all the men and creatures that have fallen here.
I’ve never seen a ghost before, although I’ve always suspected they existed. There have been these odd occasions where I’ve felt my sister’s presence beside me – especially in the places mostknown to her like her old academy room. To feel them is one thing. To see them another.
The sheer shapes hang where they’ve formed, staring at their hands and their feet, then staring at each other, like they can’t quite believe what they are.
Some drop to their knees, others bury their faces in their hands. They wail and sob and cry, mourning their own deaths. I catch snippets of their words, skipping on the wind. Hollow and whispered.
Some are heartbreaking. They’re mourning their wives, their children, their mothers and fathers.
Others are more puzzling. I don’t understand their meaning. Some speak in the old tongue, or the phrases are unfamiliar. But I catch the odd word.
Fool. Betrayed. Deceived.
What can they mean?
And then the ghost of the dragon itself materializes in front of me. It lifts its giant head, swings it my way, making me gasp in alarm but it does nothing but stare at me with its ivory eyes. I hold its gaze, not wanting to look away, and I hear its voice too, distant, but clear.
“Light bringer,”he says, but I’m too petrified to reply. “Come ye for vengeance and justice? Or come ye to destroy and decimate this world? Whatever your fate, whatever your fever, beware those who betrayed you once before. Beware those who unleashed the evil unto our world.”
I open my mouth, wanting to ask what it can mean, but then I feel myself yanked violently backwards. I blink and when I open my eyes, the ghosts are all gone, the humming noise has ceased and I’m wedged between the Princes.
“Briony!” Beaufort says, shaking me, “Briony, are you okay?”
“Wh-what happened?”
“You touched an old bone,” Dray says, shaking out his body. “Did no one ever teach you never to touch an old bone?”
“Why not?” I ask.
“They can be cursed,” Beaufort tells me, searching my face as if he’s going to find signs of a curse reflected back in my eyes.
“Did you see that too?” I ask.
“See what, Nini?” Thorne says, looking as anxious as Beaufort.
“All the ghosts.”
“Ghosts!” Dray says, shaking even harder. “I fucking hate ghosts.”
“But did you see them?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“Is she okay?” Thorne asks Beaufort, as his shadow magic crawls all over my skin.
“I can’t feel any curse. I think she may be okay.” He takes another glance directly into my eyes. “What exactly did you see?”
“All the ghosts rising up from the bodies. They seemed sort of lost and confused. Like they didn’t expect to be here. And I heard them too. They said they’d been betrayed.”
“Yeah, they were fucked over,” Dray says, “look how many of them died.”
But I’m not sure that’s what they meant.
