“All right.” His excitement begins to return as he gestures to the soldiers. “I was hoping to impress you when you arrived. I can make them fight, not just dance. I was thinking...” He takes a deep breath. “I was thinking I could help by training with them, learning how to fight with them while you’re training the, ah, human volunteers. And I can start right away, seeing as these soldiers can’t get sick.”
I may not understand his unusual gift—how can he have this other magic, when he has a necromancer’s Sight?—but there’s plenty about the world that baffles me, like the existence of dragons. A boy with a Sight that doesn’t seem to match his gift is still far less strange than a fire-breathing lizard with poisonous teeth.
And there’s no denying I like the determination glimmering in his eyes.
“Fine,” I sigh, resigned to what I’m about to suggest. “Let’s see how well these things can fight already, then. Three on one. Not exactly a fair fight...” As my voice trails away, Valoria meets my gaze, and we exchange a smile as I add, “For them.”
The metal soldier who took my cloak clomps over to Karston, handing him the cloth bundle without anyone touching the pull cords on its back. Then all three metal figures turn to face me as everyone else clears away to give us room.
I draw my blade, raising it as though I’m about to cleave the head off the metal soldier nearest me.
Some of the students chuckle.
“Any time now,” I murmur to Karston, waving my sword in the nearest soldier’s blank face and trying to sound like there’s not an army of ants crawling around in my stomach right now. It’s not thatI don’t trust my own skills so much as that I don’t like the way the soldiers’ dark eye holes remind me of Shades.
The closest soldier bangs its spear sharply against the ground, startling me into even greater alertness, then raises the weapon to attack.
I block its blows without much trouble, forcing it back toward the bookcase that it so recently toppled. I hope someone’s thought to secure it to the wall.
I see one of the other soldiers spring into action out of the corner of my eye. While blocking another blow from the first, I kick the spear from the hands of the second, but it grabs on to my ankle, taking me down to the floor and forcing me to abandon my blade.
Its grip is, unsurprisingly, like bands of iron. Impossible to shake.
Valoria sucks in a breath as another soldier reaches for my fallen sword. I crawl toward it, the soldier who grabbed me still digging into my ankle.
I’ve just closed my fingers around the hilt of my blade, ready to jab the grabby soldier right in its empty eye socket, when a petite, curly-haired student—Noranna—takes a step forward and cries out, “Don’t!”
“She can’t hurt them,” Simeon tells her quickly, in a low, reassuring voice.
As if to prove his point, the soldier abandons its grip on my leg and grabs hold of my blade with both hands. It starts to squeeze and bend my faithful weapon. I’m pretty sure it’ll destroy the sword before its hands are in any way hurt.
“That’s enough!” I whirl toward Karston, who mutters a hasty apology as the soldier returns my sword, offering me the hilt. “You’ve made your point,” I mutter as I inspect my poor blade. Luckily, I don’tthink it’s ruined. “I don’t see how anyone could fight these things. They can’t stab them, and they can’t burn them.”
“In other words, they’d make a pretty sweet army,” Azelie chimes in.
I toss her a grin. “Exactly, Zee.”
“You made them move like they do in my head,” Noranna tells Karston, her fingers pressed to her full lips in quiet awe as she studies her now-motionless soldiers.
He nods, clearly trying hard not to look too pleased with himself. “Just glad I could help someone. Especially you, Nora.”
“You’re all right, then?” Valoria asks me breathlessly, hurrying to my side along with Simeon and Karston. The moment I nod, she turns to Karston and beams in a way I’ve only seen when she’s worked out something for one of her inventions. “You’re giving Karthia an incredible gift,” she declares, grabbing one of his hands, then one of Noranna’s. “Both of you are.” She takes a deep breath. “How many more of these can you make?”
A smile blooms on Noranna’s face, as big and beautiful as a Deadlands flower. “As many as you need, Majesty. I can start right away.”
“I’d like that,” Valoria agrees swiftly. “I’ve gotten word that the Ezorans have moved on to other targets, which means we could be next. So Karthia needs to continue building an army despite the fever, and I think we’ve found our solution. But...” Her eyes sweep over the little library and the narrow corridors leading to small workshops and bedrooms. “Not here. You’ll need more space.” She shifts her gaze to Karston. “Both to buildandto practice. You two will have rooms provided for you at the palace, and you can use the last empty dungeon as a workshop—hopefully, I won’t need it back to fill with more traitors. You’ll find it’s quite roomy. Oh, and there’s one more thing.” She pushes her glasses up, frowning slightly. “I think we should keepour new weapons between us for now. Until we need them.”
I know what she’s thinking. The people of Karthia are restless as it is, plagued with the fever and desperate to stop any changes to their city. Seeing a bunch of iron figures with spears probably wouldn’t have the intended effect of making them feel safe and, worse, could seriously undermine the tentative conversations between Valoria and the rebel leader when she’s promised a temporary halt to new projects.
“I can show you some more complicated moves for the soldiers. Some blocks and attacks, and even that kick I did,” I add to Karston, slowly warming to the idea of these killing machines now standing so quiet and still beside us. “But they’ve got to keep their hands off my blade from now on, understand?”
Karston laughs and flashes me one of his dazzling grins. Shame he’ll never be my necromancer brother-in-arms now. “Deal, Odessa.”
After that, the rest of the students slowly trickle out of the library, heading back to their various studies, a buzz of excitement still flitting through them. Azelie heads off to clear the remaining vines from the building, Valoria and Noranna continue to talk in low voices beside the soldiers, Karston cracks open a big old book with a torn leather cover and starts reading at a table near the bookcases, and Simeon makes me a big cup of tea that I sip in front of the library fire without really tasting it.
Now that the thrill of our new defenders is wearing off, something that’s been bothering me since we walked in pushes itself to the front of my mind.
“Where’s Jax?” I ask, frowning at Simeon as he stares into the fire from the armchair opposite mine.
