Startled by his understanding, I blinked up at Master Nicanor. His bright-blue eyes turned dark like the depths of the sea, unreadable for a moment.
“How did you know—?”
“Before I was Master Nicanor, I was just Nicanor of DarganyProvince.” He smiled, and my heart skipped as understanding passed between us, orphan to orphan. I’d never thought to ask about his life before coming to Grenwyr City, and he’d never offered to share. “When I was a trainee, earning that title was everything. I thought that without it, I’d be just another poor boy condemned to a life in the Ashes. Insignificant.”
Unable to speak around a lump in my throat, I nodded and glanced at Evander, who tossed me a wink as Cymbre admired his new pin in the firelight. Withouthistitle, he would still be nobility. Still be someone’s son. Still be a brother. A mapmaker. An adventurer. Without my title, I’d be just a poor girl lucky enough to have been raised by the Sisters of Death. I’d be nothing more than a charity case.
I clutched my new pin, the cold metal digging into my sweaty palm.
This is a job to Evander, and one he loves, but to me, it’severything.
“I won’t pretend it’s not a daunting task, living up to the title of master,” Nicanor continued, cutting into my thoughts. “Counting you and Evander, there are only a handful of us in Grenwyr Province. But you’re more than just a necromancer. More than an orphan.”
He turned, as if he meant to walk down to the shoreline, but I grabbed his wrist. I’d seen him and Cymbre at work for years. He had two trainees of his own, my friends, and we all agreed he was the wise man to Master Cymbre’s warrior.
“What am I, then?” I demanded.
Nicanor shook his head, a smile lingering at the corners of his eyes. “That’s for you to decide.” He strode to the water, dipping his toes into the frigid sea foam. A moment later, Cymbre followed with the remnants of the elderflower wine in hand, leaving me alone at the fireside with Evander.
“See that?” I murmured, slipping an arm around his waist and pointing to the two masters by the seaside. “That’s our future.”
***
Evander’s hand on my shoulder tears me from the peace of the memory, back to a future now forever changed, to a reality where Princess Valoria is on her knees mere paces from the fallen Nicanor, shaking like a leaf in a storm. She’s probably never seen so much blood before.
Nor have I. This goes well beyond a spilled vial from my necromancer’s belt. It seeps into the pale rocks, a gruesome river. Vaguely, Evander’s shouts pierce through the fog in my brain, but the sound is a faint hum compared to the roaring of blood in my ears as I try and fail to rip my gaze away from the crimson ground.
“Odessa!” Evander shakes my shoulders, snapping me from my daze.
Hot, nasty bile rises in my throat and forces me to swallow hard or be sick on my boots. My chest heaves with the effort, and Evander puts a steadying hand on my back.
Far up on the high hill at our backs, the palace’s iron gates spring open. Several guards stream down toward us, brandishing spears and blades. “Who’s hurt?” a sharp-eyed woman at the front of the group demands as they finally draw near. She frowns at thesight of Evander’s ashen face and my tear-streaked one. Or perhaps at the princess cowering among rocks and tree roots. “Where’s the attacker? Did you—?”
Her voice dies the instant she spots the body at the base of the tree, and she lowers her weapon. “By Vaia’s grace...” She invokes the name of the Five-Faced God, clutching a tiny pendant of the Face of Death she wears on a silver chain.
“By Vaia’s grace,” another guard echoes.
Murmurs ripple through the guards, but the blade-wielding woman nearest us drowns out the rest as she demands, “Who could do such a thing?”
A Shade, I’m betting. Something with teeth that can tear flesh as easily as a hawk’s wing slices the air.
And as my eyes meet Evander’s, he gives a slight nod, confirming my suspicion. “I saw it,” he mutters hoarsely. “Just a glimpse before it retreated, when Master... Nicanor...” He falters, and I grab his hand. As I squeeze his cold fingers, he finishes, “When he fell out of the gate. It was the biggest Shade I’ve ever seen.”
Which means it’s been feasting on countless spirits in the Deadlands, growing stronger. It’s a necromancer’s nightmare come to life. Evander and I can perform a raising in no time with me leading the way, but we’ve yet to kill a Shade on our own, and this one has to be powerful if it killed a seasoned necromancer like Nicanor.
The shrouded nobles and several of their living descendants watch from on high, distant black specks hardly discernable from the night sky, as more guards surround us, followed by a hazel-eyedyoung man in robes. A healer. He rushes to Princess Valoria’s side, breezing past Evander and me like we’re a couple of statues.
“You need something for shock.” He presses a vial of smoking gray liquid into the princess’s hands. He has to hold the vial to her lips in order for her to drink it down, and after a moment’s hesitation, he drags her across the hard ground away from Master Nicanor.
From the body.
Someone’s covered it—or rather, what’s left of it—with a cloak.
“As soon as you drink some of that potion, you’ll need to tell us everything,” a tall guard says, his voice hushed but his tone clipped.
I nod. Everything seems to be moving in slow motion, reminding me of the few nights when I’ve had too much wine.
“Here you are.” The healer approaches Evander and me with two more vials of smoking liquid. We accept them with barely uttered thanks, waiting for him to turn away. But he narrows his eyes at us and crosses his arms expectantly.
