22
“Well, fuck,” Taliesin mutters.
A spike of fear pierces my already-ruined heart. I clench my hands, shifting my weight, ready to run if so much as a speck of dirt skitters across the floor. A long moment passes where neither of us moves. The moment stretches into another, then another, until at last Taliesin approaches the wrecked sarcophagus.
He leans over the opening and peers inside. A tense beat passes. “There’s nothing here. It’s safe to come closer.” Then he holds out his arm between me and the platform, like he’s blocking me from getting too close. “Just don’t touch it.”
“The magic protecting it is clearly gone.” Even so, I approach slowly. Despite how little I believe in fate, I have no desire to tempt it.
The sarcophagus is lined with red velvet with a small square of pillow tucked into the wider end. Piles of grit lay inside, and the bottom half of the lid has collapsed inward at an angle. A sudden urge to touch it comes over me. My fingers twitch,desperate to dance across the surface, to feel the rough stone that once contained a god.
“It looks like someone smashed their way in,” he says grimly. “Better than the alternative, I suppose.”
I’m not so sure.
It confirms my fears: the Order has excavated Arawn’s body in preparation of my return, after I’ve killed and then resurrected the man standing beside me. My stomach twists. He knows I came to kill him. I don’t think he knows why, even if he knows the full truth of what I can do.
“What is it?” he asks.
For stars’ sake, I wish he couldn’t read me as well as he does.
But maybe he should know. Put it all out on the table, so he understands how far the Order has already gone.
Before I can speak, his eyes lock on something behind me. “There was something else here.”
He strides by, heading toward a large depression carved into the wall. The floor beneath it has been clearly disturbed. Tracks pattern the dust—footprints and a deep curving groove that snakes toward the exit, like something heavy was dragged away.
“The harp,” I say. “It must have been here.”
He kneels, running his finger through the dirt. Then he lifts it to his nose and sniffs.
“No, if it was the harp, the rebels would have taken it when they found this place. It was something else.” He glances up at me. “Something that smells like magic.”
A shiver goes down my spine. “So they stole a god and whatever was stored here with him.”
He nods. “Can you read how many Order members were here?”
I press the talisman embedded in my neck. Usually, power hums against my skin, even when I don’t call for it. It’s like an endless well. Sometimes low but never empty. Until now.
I shake my head, pressing harder. “There’s nothing there.”
“You’re saying no one was here? But it must have been the Order.”
“No, I’m saying the talisman’s magic is gone. Or it’s empty.” My voice spikes as panic claws up my throat. “Or they cut me off.”
“Or it’s muted.” His eyes lift to the walls. Outside, they were an endless black, but here the color has faded to a dull gray that strikes an unsettling resemblance to my dagger’s hilt.
“Iron,” I whisper.
The god’s tomb is built of human iron. Or at least lined with it. My mind spins through the implications, none of them good. Who would ever need to cage a dead god in iron? With wards? And then drag him from its grave?
Arawn is already alive.
The thought came to me before, but it was easier to dismiss. Now…now it’s as if the truth is shouting in my face.
It doesn’t explain my assignment, though. If he’s already alive, why would the Order want me to resurrect him?
So they can control him—and his access to magic.
