Or with the speed talisman, she could runtowardhim instead. Break the window with his back and shoulders, and then release him midflight. She doubted he had one of Zera’s special talismans, and it was a long way down to the mist-cloaked valley.
“It was a sunrise,” Eklor said softly. “Like any other. After the war, I used to sleep beneath the tower, in the tunnels, but this one morning, I woke early and climbed out... The sun was just rising, and I thought, as I always did whenever I saw the sunrise, that here was another sunrise that my wife and daughter would never see. And the sun”—he raised his hand as if tracing a beam of light—“hit the bones in the meadow, and I realized they would never see the sunrise again either.”
“Yeah, that’s what happens when you kill people.”
She saw his shoulders tense and then he took another breath.
But he continued in the same urbane, slightly woundedvoice. “Before then, I was so consumed with grief and rage that I couldn’t see them as real people. I saw them only as the ones who had stolen my happiness. I was a wounded creature striking out with every weapon and bit of knowledge I possessed. I wanted to hurt those who hurt me. Make them suffer.”
“You succeeded,” she said. “Congratulations.”
Eklor faced her again. “You are infuriating. I am baring my heart to you—”
“You’re giving a speech. It’s lovely. I like the bit about the sunrise on the bones. Nice touch.” Rising, she again calculated the distance between the chair, him, and the window. But she knew she wouldn’t do it. She’d promised Jentt she’d return to him alive, and attacking Eklor here and now... She couldn’t guarantee she’d survive that. Plus there was so much she didn’t understand. “What do you really want, Eklor? Why are we even having this conversation?”
“Because you are the only other person in Vos who knows how to perform a resurrection,” Eklor said. “You know what it costs, and you know what ingredients it uses.”
She didn’t tell him that her team knew the “ingredients” as well. “Yes?”
“I plan to resurrect as many of the recently dead as are worthy,” Eklor said. “There’s little I can do about those whose bodies were burned, but those who lose their loved ones to illness, age, or accident from now on... I want to save as many of them as I can. But if the public knew how the magic is done, I would be stopped.”
“You want me to keep quiet about the fact you use human bones,” Kreya said. “And that they only gain as many years as you have to give?”
“I am hoping Grand Master Lorn will see fit to change thelaw on the use of certain bones, but until then . . . yes. I invited you here to ask for your silence on this matter.”
She was tempted to say no, run out the door, and scream the truth to all the masters and wealthy who no doubt still lingered outside the grand master’s palace. But the fact was it could implicate her too. Zera had been right to worry about that. “Where are you going to get the human bones? I won’t condone more murder, and I doubt you’re going to have much luck sneaking around to steal them from city dwellers. They’re far too careful with their pyres.” She’d only succeeded because she stole from remote villages where there was plenty of room for escape.
And because she went to the forbidden zone. Which was when she understood.
“I brought the dead with me,” Eklor said, as if seeing her dawning realization. He added quickly, “Not the army. As I told you, I destroyed all the bones that I used for my constructs—that was no lie. But the untouched bones of the noble dead, as many as I could bring... It felt fitting that they should go to grant new lives.”
“Show me,” Kreya commanded.
He hesitated, studying her as if reading her thoughts.
She kept her face implacable.
“Very well,” he said at last.
He led her out of the room and to a passageway painted in subdued blues, with glints of diamonds. She’d never been to this part of the grand master’s palace. It felt odd that the greatest traitor to the guild, the man known in legends and songs as the Betrayer of Vos, should be more familiar with Lorn’s home than she was, but it wasn’t the strangest thing of today.The fact that I’m not stabbing him between the shoulder blades right now is the strangest.She remembered the rage and grief she’d felt after Jentt’s death—and now that she’d learned it was the same kind of rage and grief that Eklor had felt, she didn’t know what to think or how to feel.
She shuddered.By the bones, I’m not the same as him.
Reaching a nondescript wooden door, Kreya tensed as his hand dipped into a pocket, but he only drew out a key. He unlocked the door and swung it open. Inside was a storeroom. Scanning it, she saw there were no other exits or windows. She stayed in the doorway.
He went inside and unwrapped a bundle of velvet. Inside were human bones. He’d cleaned them, removing all the flesh so they’d be odorless and ready to use. There was no question that they were older bones—she could tell from the sun-bleached color and the fine cracks. She stared at them, nodded, and he rewrapped them and placed them carefully, respectfully, back on a shelf. The shelves were full of them. Returning to the hallway with her, Eklor relocked the door. She noticed he was again twirling the same unfamiliar talisman. So long as he didn’t activate it, she could choose to ignore it. Perhaps it was a nervous habit.
“You killed my husband,” Kreya said softly.
“I know.”
“There is no apology you can make, no act of redemption, that will ever be enough for the pain you have caused me and the people of Vos. You know that, don’t you? You can drain your life force giving it to others, but it won’t erase what you did or undo the harm you caused.”
“You are still angry, even though you have your husband back,” Eklor said. In the dim passageway, his face was shadowed. She thought he looked sad, though. A strange look on his face.She only ever pictured him contorted by rage. She hadn’t ever known it was fueled by grief. “You don’t want me to feel any relief from my guilt.”
“I don’t. But...” She thought of the bones that lay in that storeroom, wrapped in velvet as if they were precious treasures. “If you want to give what remains of your life to others so that they never feel what you—what you and I—felt, I won’t stop you.”
He exhaled, and she thought she saw the flicker of a smile touch his lips. It was gone before she could be certain. She never wanted to do or say anything that would cause him to smile or feel even the briefest hint of joy. But she meant what she’d said. If he wanted to use these bones and drain his life force to save others, that was a far better way for him to die than in a violent act of revenge.
