Until this very hour.
I cannot focus on anything else. I cannot even fathom my brother’s death. It is as though death were but a secondary consideration in the face of that warping evil which has so changed his features. That thing lying on the altar, bound in chaeora cords . . . how can it be Taar? Covered in blood turned black with evil magic, his face trapped in a rictus snarl, swollen tongue protruding through unnaturally sharpened teeth. It cannot be him. And he cannot be dead.
Suddenly I am acutely aware of the hands gripping my shoulders. Hands belonging to Thuridar, the warrior who trained me back when I still hoped to make avelarinbond. It is his voice, rough and familiar, which gasps close to my ear, “Merciful Nornala, shield us!”
So. He had not known what Kildorath had planned for my brother apparently.
I hate him suddenly—hate him more than Kildorath. More than that abomination that wears Shanaera’s rotted form. More than any of them. Because Thuridar is the one who prevented me from rushing in, from throwing myself between Taar and that knife.
Shanaera steps back from the altar, ripping her blade free as she does so. Head angled bizarrely from her neck, as though the bones and tendons no longer function correctly, she inspects her handiwork, smiling with delight. “There now,” she croons. “You’ll be docile as a lamb for our return to Evisar.” Then she throws back her head and barks,“Vulmon!”
A scuffling sound emerges from the passage on the far side of the chamber. My gaze pulls away from my brother’s corpse to see the shadows which emerge from the same hall that spat out Shanaera minutes before. Three shambling figures, all wearing Licornyn armor. All dead.
“Shakh,” Thuridar breathes in dismay. Around the chamber, other warriors of the Rocaryn Tribe gasp, and some cry out in dismay. For the faces of those dead shamblers are known to all ofus: Vaydark and Tathalar and Iannatha—warriors of the Rocaryn Tribe, lost in the battle of Agandaur, three years ago. Vaydark was a Licornyn, slain alongside his licorneir in that bloody battle, or so it was reported.
“Vaydark!” someone cries out from behind me. I know who speaks: Saidatha, a warrior of stern prowess, who was once so proud of her Licornyn husband. I helped prepare her mourning garb when word of his loss first reached us. Her voice shakes now with terrible emotion, and when I turn sharply, I see her take a staggering step forward before some wall of terror seems to stop her short.
Her husband does not respond or make any sign that he heard her. He and the other two like him cross the Moon Chamber, moving without Shanaera’s uncanny grace—dead things made animate, with no hint of fabricated life. At Shanaera’s command, they cut the cords binding Taar and gather up his corpse.
“No!”I scream, surging to my feet. Thuridar is so startled, he loses his grip on me entirely. I whirl and, though my hands are bound, grab his sword and drag it from its sheathe. Then, pivoting awkwardly, I lurch forward, aiming for Shanaera. All the warriors in that chamber are too stunned by the sight of the undead to take action. Perhaps they want me to do what they cannot.
And I will.
Swinging the sword back over my shoulder, I take aim for Shanaera’s neck, intending to hew her head from her shoulders. Her dead eyes watch my approach without interest, and shemakes no move, either in escape or defense.
But Kildorath’s blade intercepts mine. The hard clash of steel on steel jars my arms, but I am ready for it. Gripping the hilt two-handed, I whirl the blade in a circle, pushing him off, and try again to lunge. My body falls into the natural rhythms of long training, but my hobbled legs cannot perform. I stagger, seek to compensate, and manage to ward off his counter blow. But he pushes in relentlessly. He is no mean swordsman; neither is he bound with chaeora. In a succession of three blows, he disarms me. My stolen sword clatters to the stone floor. I fall to my knees, chest heaving, the tip of Kildorath’svaritaraimed at my heart.
Two dead hands clap, the sound a dull series of thuds in that echoing space. “Well, well, Tassa,” Shanaera crows, her lips twisting with rotten mirth. “I see you’ve not lost your spirit. What a fine warrior you would have made had you only found a licorneir who could stand you.”
Tearing my gaze from Kildorath, I spit at her feet. “Give me back my brother,” I growl. “Let him be buried with dignity, as befits aluinarof Licorna.”
Shanaera laughs at this, a high, thin sound that sends rippling horror down my spine. “Ah, but Taar isluinarof Licorna still! He will rule longer than all otherluinarbefore him. I have seen it, and I will make it come to pass.”
Until this very moment, I had not allowed myself to understand what Shanaera intended. Even as a desperate part ofmy mind screamed the truth, I blocked it out, insisting that she acted in pure vengeance. But it is not vengeance I see now in her death-filmed eyes. It is something far worse.
“You would . . .” I struggle, hardly able to force myself to speak the words out loud. “You would make him likeyou?”
“Like me, yes,” she answers, turning from me to Taar’s corpse, held in the arms of the dead. She touches his bile-stained face, gently, tenderly. “I will make him immortal. Like a fae king of Eledria, a ruler for the ages. And I will stand at his side, his only true mate. Hismaelar.”
Terror threatens to shatter my spine. I brace myself, unwilling to succumb even now. “You cannot do this, Shanaera. You must still have some love for him in your heart, you must! You cannot wish him to be damned.”
“Damned?” Shanaera’s fingers trail from his face down to the death wound she herself dealt him, a hideous caress. “Yes, perhaps we are damned. But so long as we are together, what difference does it make? Better to be united forever in hell than parted in heaven.” She rounds on me then, adjusting her grip on her bloodstained knife. “And what about you, Tassa? Will you join us? I haven’t the virulium to waste on you, but no doubt Taar would enjoy seeing a friendly face when he wakes.”
My eyes widen, flicking from her evil visage to the dead things that were once Vaydark and Tathalar and Iannatha. But even as I put up both bound hands in feeble defense, Kildorathtakes an aggressive pace forward and stands between me and Shanaera. He says nothing, only looks at his sister.
She returns his gaze and rolls her dead eyes. “Oh, right. You still cherish tender feelings for this woman who never looked twice at you? Truly, sweet brother, you can do better.”
“We have a deal,” Kildorath growls.
“Yes, yes.” With a longsuffering sigh, Shanaera sheathes her unclean knife. “Very well. You keep her. For now. You can both receive the gift of immortality when the time comes.” Reaching out, she pats Kildorath’s face, and I see him flinch. “Enjoy her gratitude, brother,” Shanaera says. “No doubt she will finally be willing to bestow her favors on the man who spared her fromme.”
With those words she turns and barks another, “Vulmon!”to the shamblers. They precede her from the room, bearing the heavy carcass. I watch them go like the sight of the sun setting for the last time, leaving behind a world of pitch darkness. Shanaera follows them from the chamber, but the stench of death lingers in their wake, filling up every crevice of this once-holy place. The ilsevel blossoms wither on their vines.
Kildorath turns, faces the shocked room. Betrayal simmers in the eyes of the Rocaryn warriors. They did not expect what just took place, were unprepared to see the faces of their dead. Saidatha is collapsed to her knees, weeping as I never saw her weep when she mourned Vaydark three years ago. Death in battle is noble; what we all just witnessed is profane.
“What have you done?” Thuridar demands, speaking for all those stunned souls present.
Kildorath draws himself up straight and tall in hiszhor-skin cloak. “I did what I must for the sake of Licorna. As Taar could not make the hard decisions necessary to save us, I must stand in his stead.”
