Looking to Julian, an unasked question hovered on the tip of her tongue: Was Julian’s father lucky enough to walk away, or had he died not long after crossing that bridge?
“Has anyone crossed it since?” she asked delicately.
“Why?”
“Because I think we should.”
“You want to cross over the actual Breach when we barely survived crossing the border into the Haunted Territory that surrounds it? You’re mad. This is last night all over again—you don’t think.”
“This is me thinking,” Wren protested. “We need to get to the prince, and this route you’ve proposed will waste too much time. I can’t afford to fail.”
“That’s all this prince is to you, isn’t he? A trophy to be won? A balm against your wounded pride? A chance to prove how tough you are, how many ghosts you can take on by yourself?”
He may have hit closer to the mark than Wren wanted to admit, but he didn’t understand. In the Bonewood, she had tried to do things the right way, the honorable way—and look what had happened. How else was she to regain her place? How else was she to prove herself to her father?
She crossed her arms over her chest. “And what is he to you? An object to bargain with? A pawn in a game?”
“My life, and the lives of my people, are no game,” he practically growled. “You see them out there, don’t you? You see what we’re up against? Every day we’re trapped in here is a day closer to all of us winding up like that. Do you know what we do with our dead? Have you ever even thought of it?” Wren didn’t respond, but it seemed he didn’t need her to. “We used to burn them.” Her stomach twisted, knowing what he would say next. “It didn’t work.”
Without severing the soul from the bones first, that spirit would be doomed to wander the living world for eternity, their bones too damaged for their soul to be properly reaped.
“Now we toss them into the ocean in cages. They sink to the bottom, undead but unable to hurt the living. Trapped there until we find a way to free ourselves from this waking nightmare.”
“I know it’s not a game,” Wren said, once she found her voice. “He’s a friend, okay? The prince is a friend.”
Julian’s anger seemed to have subsided somewhat. He slumped against the wall opposite, staring down at his food once more.
“And even though he’s a prince… they left him, didn’t they? Everyone at the fort, they discussed his life like he was… like he’s nothing but—”
“A pawn?” Julian supplied dryly.
Wren rolled her eyes but nodded. “I suppose being a pawn is better than being nothing at all.” He continued to stare at her, and she wished she’d never opened her mouth, but she plowed on. “I mean, I was missing too. Not that I’d fetch any sort of price—I’m no royal—but, well… Suspecting that no one will care if you’re gone and then knowing it for certain are two different things. The fact of the matter is, I care that Leo was taken, and I’m in a position to do something about it. So I will.”
Julian straightened a bit at her words, and his cool gaze roved her face, searching. Then his lips quirked. “Leo?”
Wren felt her cheeks flush, though she didn’t know why. “He told me to call him that.”
An eyebrow shot up. “I bet he did.”
“He wishes,” Wren muttered. “Look, I know it’s risky,” she said, referencing her original proposal. “And I know I’ve acted without thinking things through before…” She swallowed. “I’ve been doing that long before I met you. But this time I have thought this through, and given what I’ve seen so far, nowhere is safe. And these undead… They’re nothing like what I’ve studied or been told about. They’re intelligent and seem to have some means of communicating or connecting with one another. They have unified goals, some joint purpose, and I worry that the longer we take, the greater the chances they could bring the entire undead population of the Haunted Territory down upon us. The sooner we get through, the better.”
She met Julian’s gaze. He didn’t speak, his expression unreadable.
“I know it’s the reckless thing to do—” she continued, but he cut her off.
“But that doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing.”
Wren could only stare at him, stunned. “I thought you said I was mad.”
He shrugged. “You are. I also think you’re brave.”
TWENTY-ONE
They set out soon after. They needed to make the most of the daylight, and Julian figured they could make that bridge crossing before darkness fell. What they’d find on the other side, they couldn’t be sure, but they’d have to deal with the threats as they came.
The silence between them felt… less charged than usual. Less tense. Wren doubted they’d had their last argument, but she felt that perhaps they were starting to understand each other. They each had reasons for being here, and it extended beyond simple, selfish gain for both of them. Julian had a protective streak when it came to the people east of the Wall, a sense of responsibility that Wren suspected had something to do with the little sister he’d mentioned. He also had loyalty to whoever was calling the shots in the kidnapping—likely the regent—and believed that person wasn’t to blame for the attempted assassination. He wanted to get Leo away from the kidnappers who currently held him, so for now their goals aligned.
Of course, once they actually had Leo in their possession, things might change. Quickly. But focusing on that now was a waste of effort. They might never make it there, but they stood a better chance of surviving if they trusted each other in the interim.
As they left the cover of the trees, the ground sloped away from the forest, leading into a swath of low fields dotted with dead grass and patches of snow. Beyond were massive boulders and soaring bits of rock, obscuring the view of their destination. They had to cut through that landscape to make it to the bridge, which meant that the undead could be around every corner.
And Wren had thought the forest was bad.
At least they had daylight on their side, though the swell of dark clouds to the east told her not to remain too optimistic.
They took a break around midday at what was once a village, though the buildings were little more than foundations and rotted beams of wood poking out of the ground. This had surely been abandoned even before the Breach, and while Wren did find bones as she checked the area thoroughly, they were dead ones.
“It’s a mausoleum,” she announced, crouching before the marble structure. It was roughly the size of a wagon, heavily overgrown with creeping vines, its surface so dirty that it blended into the surrounding scenery. Mausoleums were a foreign concept brought to the island and made popular by the Valorians, a custom from their homeland. Traditionally, all bodies on the island had been buried. Since magic came from the earth, so did all life, and so that was where they were meant to return, giving their magic to future generations. It’s part of why the ghostsmiths’ necromancy was seen as so terrible. They were not only denying a dead soul rest, but they were denying future generations of their magic.