My forehead creases as I maintain a quick pace to keep up with Thaden. “But Blacksmiths have died and been buried before, haven’t they? Why would this cause a problem?”
Thaden shakes his head, his eyes gleaming at me. “Burial is a human tradition. I imagine it’s all you knew since you grew up surrounded by humans. But, no. Blacksmith bodies must be burned.”
My lips part with surprise. “What?”
He gives me a cold smile and a firm nod. “Any flame will do, but a pyre built of crimson coal is most effective.”
Crimson coal is the special coal that was mined in the eastern mountains and used in Blacksmith forges. It’s the same scorching substance that the Vandawolf gripped in his hand on the day I first saw him at the Academy.
After the Vandawolf took control of the city, he forbade any person to be in possession of crimson coal. He also destroyed all hammers and medallions—except ours—although I never saw the destruction happen, and I still don’t know how he did it.
“When Malak chose to bury his enemies, it would have been an overt act of disrespect,” Thaden says. “Akin to leaving the bodies out to rot. Androtis what they caused.”
“I didn’t know that,” I whisper before turning to Gallium, who is a step behind me.
I meet his grim eyes. We were young when our people died. I don’t recall my parents ever mentioning this custom—or witnessing it.
Of course, it’s possible that Asha knows about it. Maybe she went to a mourning ceremony when she was younger. Maybe she heard or read something. There were books in the library, but after the Vandawolf rose to power, we were not allowed to access them. We also couldn’t ask Asha because we had no contact with her.
Or maybe it isn’t true at all. Thaden could be lying about all of it.
“Over the course of thirty years after that,” Thaden continues, “the Blacksmiths used that same burial ground to try to expand their power. They experimented on living things—animals and plants. They started drawing on dark magic, which drains life, and that, too, soaked into the soil. With every failed experiment and every dead thing they discarded into that same ground, the layers of creation magic and dark magic grew. It created a never-ending circle of dark life and dark death.”
Thaden falls silent, his boots crunching on the brittle ground, snapping twigs and what looks like burned moss.
I don’t have time to study the debris carefully, but the rocky surface appears blackened, and when I take a moment to peer closer…
I don’t think it’s moss, after all.
Is it ash?
Little flecks of it are caught between the uneven, rocky formations and protected from the wind so they don’t blow away…
The farther east we travel along this mountain ridge, the more barren the ground has become. But only immediately around us along the long stretch of the wide path we’re walking. In contrast, on each side of the ridge, right at the edge, there are trees. Black, misshapen ones, creaking and groaning in the wind.
I’ve fallen back a step, drawing level with Gallium, and I nearly miss what Thaden says next. “There’s a very good reason why Blacksmiths can’t access their magic without their tools.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because creation magic must be constrained. Itmustbe limited.” Thaden draws to a sudden stop and points. “This is what happens when it isn’t.”
I follow the direction of Thaden’s upheld arm through the gap in the burned trees.
Out in the far valley, dust storms rage, just like the ones I saw yesterday.
From a distance, they looked small.
Now, I can see that they’reenormous.
Tornados of alternating white and crimson ash crash across the valley and up the side of the far mountain. I’m alarmed to see that they always head southwest. If I had to guess, the Cursed City is in that direction.
Each tornado smashes into the side of the mountain, falling away and shattering into dust again right as it reaches the top of the peak.
But that’s far from the worst of it.
Dark forms clash in the middle of the plain. Crimson ash streams across them, the flow so thick that I can’t make out more than their huge silhouettes. Maybe they have horns. Maybe they have giant paws and shining, metallic bodies. Maybe they have enormous mouths full of teeth.
They’re fighting each other, slashing and clawing, on and on. When one of them crumbles, a river of ash streams across its body, and within moments, another rises to join the fight.
