“No, Your Majesty.”
“Dragon fire might do it,” Isaid, pointing as Zynda came around. She spouted a blast of flame through a cloud of ash where there weren’t any people. We all leaned forward to watch. The ash disappeared in the flame, but in the wake of her passage, the air eddied with oily black shadows, the ash condensing again into coils, then into humanoid shape—and continued to move toward the castle.
“No good,” Ursula murmured. “Whythis, why today?”
“Does it matter?” Brant muttered darkly.
“It might. This is magic. You fight magic with magic. The ash has been there since last autumn. Why did it wake today?”
“It’s midsummer,” Kelleah said. She returned our surprised gazes with imperturbable calm. Of course she would’ve come to the walls, in case anyone needed her healing skills, not knowing we had nothing to fight. Wouldshe be able to help the fallen? We’d have to retrieve them first, risking more of us.
“Midsummer,” Ursula echoed, realization in her voice.
“You call it the Feast of Danu, and Danu is your goddess, not mine,” Kelleah supplied, a pointed reminder.
Ursula had discussed—and quickly dismissed—celebrating the Feast of Danu, but the holiday had fallen out of fashion with the population under Uorsin’srule. He’d promoted worship of Glorianna and Her church as the primary religion for the Twelve Kingdoms. With so much else to do and really no one to champion the event, any thoughts of celebrating Danu’s Day at midsummer had faded before they’d fully formed.
“But even in Annfwn we observe the longest day of the year,” Kelleah noted. “As it’s a day full of the potent magic of life.”
“Enoughto raise the undead,” Ursula murmured, eyes still on the running women. Mounted soldiers had picked up two, but three others still jogged slowly, hampered by their pretty summer gowns. “The question is how do we put them to rest again?”
I measured the distance with her, and the relentless pace of the smoke creatures, many of them congealing into shape now. They’d soon reach the castle. How doyou wall out something like that? Unless we could find a way to nullify it, the stuff would slowly suffocate everyone in Ordnung.
“We can’t put them to rest,” I realized. Ursula glanced over at my abrupt tone. “The ash has to be utterly destroyed,” I told her. “Here and everywhere.”
She blanched, swiftly following my meaning, then turned to one of her guard who also ran messages. “Have Shuadraft a proclamation, short, as many copies as possible to be distributed throughout Mohraya as quickly as possible, and then beyond. Any ashes of victims of Illyria that have been buried, scattered, sealed in crypts or urns—whatever it might be—should be avoided or kept locked away. Anyone in possession of these remains should notify Ordnung so we can deal with it.”
The guard took off at a deadrun and everyone looked at Ursula expectantly for the solution. She looked to me. I had nothing.
“Zynda can magic it away. I’ve seen it,” Jepp said, arriving out of breath with Kral behind her. He met my gaze steadily, tossing me an ironic salute, gaze going to the scene below and eyes widening in incredulity.
“Call them in,” Ursula ordered Brant.
He relayed the message to Dary, once againatop the watchtower, who employed her flags to signal Marskal using the Hawks’ code.
“You can call them in,” Kral drawled, “but your precious sorceress refuses to use the power, remember?”
“She doesn’t like toabusethe power.” Jepp rolled her eyes at him. “Something you could stand to learn, Your Imperial Highness.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, then lifted a shoulder and let it fall, laughing.“Not so much of a danger anymore, as I no longer possess that title. All your fault, hystrix.”
“You too?” I asked, somewhat surprised—mostly at how little my brother, who’d once held ambition above all else, seemed to care.
“As our esteemed elder brother recently took pains to remind me,” Kral replied, gaze icing as he met mine. For a moment we shared a strange camaraderie, both exiled princes,stripped of our titles. And both strangely in this place.
Wind from Zynda’s wings buffeted us, and we all reflexively crouched. Marskal slid down the dragon’s extended leg, landing neatly beside us on the wall. He used a network of ropes that made a sort of harness on her great body.
“Nicely done,” I told him.
He nodded in appreciation. “We’ve been working out the system. Hoping to use similarharnesses with other winged shapeshifter and human-form fighting pairs in battle.”
The dragon became a hummingbird in midair—an astonishing collapse of size—who then zoomed in to hover beside Marskal before transforming into Zynda.
“I notice you didn’t trythatform against me,” I noted.
She grinned. “Too easily eaten, even by a mossback.”
“Enough banter,” Ursula ordered crisply. “Zynda—Jeppthinks you can use Tala magic to destroy the ash, which we believe to be the risen remains of Illyria’s undead.”
