“It’s not raising the dead,” Shae snaps, then takes a shuddering breath, forcing himself to calm down. “I won’t touch his soul. That—that’s cruel, and it doesn’t end well.”
“Do you know that from experience?” Duchess dances beside them, and Shae flinches back from the movement. Arthur takes the reins from him and runs a soothing hand down her neck. “Sorry,” Arthur continues, and Shae’s not sure which of them he’s talking to. “Just tell me, how isreanimatingthe dead different fromraisingthe dead?”
Another deep breath, before Shae snaps again. Arthur’s questions are reasonable, even if they drag up moments Shae prefers to forget. “I’d just be waking up his body, and relying on the body’s last memories. What his eyes saw, what his ears heard. It won’t behim, with any personality or emotions. Just the body’s record of his last moments.”
Arthur’s still frowning, but he says, “All right.”
Shae doesn’t quite register the agreement at first. He blinks. “What?”
“All right,” Arthur repeats. His frown melts into a lopsided grin, lighting up his golden face. “I trust you on this. And I really want to know what happened. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we found this guy.”
“I don’t think so either,” Shae says, a little breathlessly. Gods, Arthur’s going to kill him if he keeps saying crazy things likeI trust you on this.
Arthur tethers Duchess across the road, and Shae fetches the man’s fallen pack. There’s nothing inside but food, water, and a net trap. Almost certainly a local hunter, but nothing to identify him. As Shae walks there and back, he looks at the ground. There’s a clear track from the man running, but nothing else obvious in the hard-packed dirt.
Shae kneels at the man’s side and reaches out, but stops before touching him. This will hurt—the necromancy always hurts, now, like he has less and less of himself to give each time. But maybe it will hurt a little less if he trusts Arthur too.
“I’m going to touch his chest and restart his heart and lungs enough for him to talk to us,” Shae explains. “He’ll probably gasp and choke at first. It’s disturbing, but it doesn’t last long.”
“Good to know,” Arthur says. “Should I do anything?”
Shae twists his rings around. “Could you hold onto me while I do it? The contact will help.”
“All right.” Arthur crouches down behind him.
Shae expects a hand on his shoulder. Maybe on his back. Instead, there’s a gentle touch as Arthur brushes the hair from the back of his neck, then settles his bare palm flush against Shae’s vertebrae. Heat floods through him, and he bites his lip on a moan of relief.
“Like this?” Arthur asks, so close his breath stirs in Shae’s hair.
“That’s great,” Shae manages. “Really great.” He takes a deep breath to steady his nerves, then presses his own palm against the center of the dead man’s chest.
The body is cold, even through layers of leather and wool. Shae closes his eyes and calls on the cold within him. It answers eagerly, running down his arm, piercing bloodlessly through the dead hunter.
Shae feels the cold as always, but it doesn’t consume him. Arthur’s hand on his neck grounds him in life as he reaches for death.
“Wake blood and breath,” he whispers in Lyrisenian. “Give me your voice. Give me your time.”
The last word hasn’t left his lips when the body seizes up, a horrible gurgling sound rising from his throat. The mouth opens, and spit flies into the dark beard. His eyes don’t move, still dead and sightless, but when the convulsion ends, the faint rise and fall of breath remains.
“Radiant Vara,” Arthur whispers behind Shae’s ear. His hand is tense on Shae’s neck.
“We have about a minute.” Shae’s slightly dizzy, but far stronger than he would be without Arthur at his back. He says, louder, “What were you doing just now, friend?”
Wet breath rattles through the body’s throat. Words come with it, rumbling echoes of a deep, strong voice: “I was running. I was heading home, and then I was running.”
“Where is home?”
“I don’t know,” the hunter says. He doesn’t sound lost, just matter of fact.
The smell is overpowering. Shae resists the urge to cover his nose, even if the dead body wouldn’t know he was being rude. “What were you running from?”
“I don’t know,” the hunter says again.
Either he doesn’t remember, or he couldn’t identify the threat. Shae considers his questions carefully. “Did you see it?”
“Yes.” The ribcage heaves. “There were two.”
“What did they look like?”
