He gave her a curious look before clenching his hands and turning away.
She sighed, the frustration leaving her as swiftly as it had come. “We can make a marker, if you’d like.”
He kept his back to her, but his head turned—the only sign he’d heard her.
“I know marble is the preferred material,” she said, casting her gaze wide. “But I think granite will do nicely. It’s what the southern kings used.”
Still he didn’t move, so Wren took the task upon herself. She found a good-size stone, turning it on its side so it jutted from the earth. She considered her weapons, wondering if she could spare a blade to leave here, embedded into the ground in front of the marker, but then Julian was there, offering one of his own. It was short and simple, withdrawn from one of several sheaths on his belt.
Wren wondered if it was a family heirloom. If it was, Julian would surely never gamble it like she had with Ghostbane.
Once the blade was deep in the earth, Wren knelt before it.
Julian, meanwhile, stood next to her, hovering uncertainly. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. First he wiped them on his legs, as if trying to remove nonexistent dirt. Then he fidgeted with his armor before clenching them into fists at his sides.
With an impatient—but not wholly unaffectionate—eye roll, Wren reached up and took hold of his right hand, yanking him down onto his knees next to her. He stumbled and shuffled into position, but when he tried to pull his hand back, Wren gripped it tighter, meeting his gaze. Sometimes people did this—held hands as they attended burials and funeral rites. She could only assume it was a way to feel less alone, and being here on the edge of such a brutal battlefield, Wren figured he could use it.
Maybe they both could.
He looked down at their joined hands, surprise quickly shifting into desperate, aching gratitude, and suddenly Wren had to look away.
She took a deep breath, then spoke the ritual words. She’d never performed death rites herself before, but she’d borne witness countless times.
“Death is as certain as the dawn, and just as a new day will come, so too will the new dead rise. And we will be there. To find. To fight. To free. So the living may thrive…” She glanced at Julian, and he joined her in the last few, which would be more familiar to him. “And the dead may rest in peace.”
TWENTY-TWO
Despite Julian’s stance on the matter, Wren had taken some bonedust from several of the bonesmith corpses before they left. She had not relished it, but she needed to replenish. Besides, the House of Bone didn’t have the same conventions as the ironsmiths did. Wren would welcome any bonesmith who needed to loot her corpse should she happen to die on this mission. It was only pragmatic, like Julian had said.
The bridge loomed in the distance as they left the battlefield behind, tantalizingly close but also too far. They had at least an hour until they reached the crossing, and glancing up at the sky, Wren thought they had even less time until darkness fell. The clouds above hung heavy and low in the sky, bringing early night and threatening rain, stealing what little protection sunlight might have given them.
They were just making their final approach when her senses started to prickle. Squinting into the growing darkness, she came to an abrupt halt, throwing out an arm to stop Julian as well.
Revenants blocked their path.
There were three of them in varying states of decay, maybe twenty paces from where Wren and Julian stood. Beyond, just visible over the rise, was the bridge.
Wren’s hands went for her swords.
“Go,” they said, all three of them in unison. Just like those from the forest, speaking without lips or lungs and making the same simple request.
Fear lanced through her, quickly followed by anger. Her hands, resting idly on the hilts of her swords, tightened. This was the world of the living, and she was a bonesmith, a valkyr, here to protect the living from the undead. She would not allow herself to be afraid of them, and she’d be damned if she started taking orders from them.
“No,” she replied firmly. Julian’s head whipped around, as if he thought she’d been talking to him.
“Go. Now.”
“No,” Wren said again, grip tightening on her swords. “Why should we?”
“Go. Because she wills it. And he commands it.”
She wills it? Maybe that meant the Corpse Queen… but then who was this he they were referring to?
“What are you doing?” Julian asked, expression bewildered.
“I’m talking to them?” she said, assuming that answer was obvious. But no, Julian was wide-eyed with confusion.
“And they’re talking back?” he asked.
Could he—did he not hear it?
“They…，” she said breathlessly. “They’re telling us to go. Like last night?”
He shook his head, uncomprehending, and Wren swallowed thickly. She looked away from him, staring down the revenants instead.
Three she could handle. Three she could deal with.
But then she remembered what Julian had said. It didn’t matter that she could take them. What mattered was that she shouldn’t. They had a better shot of getting away if she didn’t engage them.
So, as much as she wanted a fight, she dropped her hands from her weapons and reached for him instead.
“Come on,” she said, diving between a cluster of rocks along the side of the road.
If they moved quickly, they might be able to lose them—or lure them into following behind, opening a path to the bridge.
“Here,” she said, tossing Julian one of her swords. Her senses were ratcheted up, and she had the feeling there might be more undead to worry about.
He caught it deftly but stared down at it like it was some strange, foreign object. “I don’t…，” he began uneasily.
“A sword is a sword,” she said shortly. “Aim for the heart—the soul’s most likely hiding place—but any contact with the ghost will cause them pain and buy you time.”
Julian’s eyes were wide as he adjusted his grip. He nodded.
“Come on,” she urged, continuing a path between boulders and scrub brush, away from the road but still heading in the direction of the bridge. She didn’t know if the revenants had pursued, but they had to keep moving forward regardless.
They were rounding a large thrust of rock when Wren’s magic flared up in warning.
A soft green mist preceded the arrival of a ghost, so subtle that Wren almost missed it and Julian absolutely did, nearly running headlong into it.
Wren cried out, swiping for his shoulder and missing.
Then she remembered he carried one of her swords. She pulled on it, the feel as familiar as her own hands, and it thumped into his chest with enough force to halt his progress. The rest of the ghost exploded from the stone to their left, appearing exactly where Julian had been, its bones either near enough to provide easy movement or its tether weak enough that it did not matter.
The ghost solidified, and Wren could see the impression of its face, its features… its rage. It was more a sensation than a visual marker, a feeling—the way the spirit bunched and gathered, preparing for a sudden strike.
“Get down!” she bellowed, the instant before it happened.
Julian dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, leaving Wren alone to face it.