I’m about to thank her for volunteering when she jabs her sword into me.
I fall to my knees in the grass beside the metal soldiers, trying to think of Meredy. She always gives me the strength to keep fighting. But all I can think of is how much everything hurts. As I writhe in the grass, I realize I’m on my back now, not my knees. Small gaps of time seem to pass without me noticing as my heart picks up speed, pumping blood out of me faster and faster with each beat like it’s working against me. I touch a hand to my side, and it comes away slick with red. I wonder if I’m about to see Evander again. That, I wouldn’t mind.
“Sparrow, the spirits!” Valoria’s voice echoes dimly in the swirling darkness of my mind. “Grab the spirits!”
Oh, right. We have a job to do. I have to stop trying to stanch the life leaking from my skin if this is going to work.
Gritting my teeth, I take a deep breath and push back the dark and the pain. I manage to crawl on my knees toward the nearest soldier. Either this is getting easier or shock is dulling the worst of the agonizing burn in my side now.
I’ve never willingly let my spirit leave my body before. But I have to try, for the sake of all the blurry faces gazing worriedly down at me.
Putting my hand on the metal soldier’s chest, I test the limits of my skin, trying to feel past it. Light-headedness overcomes me, and instead of taking a deep breath to clear my head, I welcome it, letting the feeling lift me up and carry me out of my body.
My hand—or rather, the filmy fingers of my spirit’s hand—reaches with ease through the metal confines of the soldier and draws out the spirit of a wiry, angry-looking man. Count Rykiel. I don’t like him any more in death than I did in life.
His spirit sneers at me for a moment before he’s whisked away, toward a faint blue spot near the cliffs overlooking the sea—a gate.
I release a shaky breath and move to the next soldier, resolving not to look at how much of my blood is staining the grass around me.
As I place my hand on another metal shell, now understanding exactly how to reach past it, I catch a glimpse of Jax, Simeon, and Commander Ilyra. They’re pale, but they’re still here, just like me. I’m not sure whether they’ve figured out what to do yet.
Everything’s so blurry.
Everything but my spirit’s hand, that is, which I push out of my skin and plunge into the metal body before me to draw out another spirit.
The distant sound of creaking joints tells me more of Hadrien’s soldiers are rushing out of the palace, but they’re all stopped by a loud burst of Nipper’s song before they reach us. As I tear my gaze away from the spirit of a tall woman I’ve just removed from her metal husk, I see the new batch of soldiers got stopped somewhere between the palace’s front entrance and where their fallen companions lie. I wonder if they realize the metal bodies piled on the ground are now nothing more than scraps, as they’ll soon be.
I’m not sure how many spirits the four of us necromancers pull from their metal hosts—not enough, or someone would have told us to stop, and Danial would be healing us. But I don’t mind. I hardly feel anything now, except a nagging urge to follow the spirits I’m freeing toward the hazy blue glow.
My spirit pushes against the walls of my skin, restless in its cage.
I don’t think I can hold it in much longer.
I’m about to call for Danial. But before I can shout his name, Valoria screams.
Glancing up, my eyes find the palace doors, but no one new emerges.
It’s only when I glance at Valoria that I realize her scream was one of rage, not fright. And only when I follow her gaze do I realize that Hadrien is running along the cliffs in Karston’s body, Valoria’s crown on his head sparkling in the sun as he flees down toward the city.
Someone has to stop him.
Anecromancerhas to stop him.
Dragonsong won’t work on him any more than blades will, not when he’s inside flesh and blood. But I can’t stand the thought of him wearing Karston’s skin for another moment. I’m going to draw him out like poison from a snake bite.
I stagger to my feet, fighting now to stay inside my body, to keep myself standing. With one hand, I apply pressure to the stab wound Orsa created. With the other, I cast aside my useless blade. It’ll only slow me down, and I don’t want him to use it against me.
“Go get him, Sparrow!” Simeon calls weakly as he pulls another spirit from a fallen metal soldier with Ilyra’s help. “We’re almost done here!”
Valoria grabs my wrist, but I shake her off. “I have to do this,” I grit out, already stumbling after Hadrien. I don’t know if she can hear me or not. “It has to be me.”
I take a path he won’t expect, one where he won’t see me coming until I’m right in front of him. I think the bleeding from my wound is slowing on its own, but I hope it doesn’t slowtoomuch. I don’t want to have to reopen it again to let my spirit grab hold of Hadrien’s.
I trip over something in my path as I hurry down the hillside—a body, I think. There’s no time to check, no time to lament. As what little life I have left seeps from between my fingers, I run as fast as my weakened legs can manage to get to Hadrien.
We meet on one of the lower cliffs, just out of view of the palace itself.
Stars dance before my eyes as I try to focus. I had to outrun him and circle back, to surprise him like this.
