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I twitched my fingers. A dozen of my revenants raced forward. It didn’t matter if they were pierced, hacked, or sliced.

Nothing could stop them.

I smiled.

Nothing could stopme.

SIXTY-FOUR

Grey

Blood sprayed overNedra’s face. It wasn’t hers. She wiped it away and mounted another step, her small feet stepping over the bodies of the Emperor’s Guard who had not fled.

A man in a red coat screamed, sword raised, running toward Nedra. She didn’t pause or even flinch; one of her revenants just shifted in front of her, taking the blow. He plucked the sword out of his shoulder, where it stuck in the bone, and then turned it on the man who’d attacked.

Nedra strolled forward.

A body slammed into me—a revenant or an Emperor’s guard, I wasn’t sure—but before I could fall, Nedra’s sister caught me.

“Thanks,” I muttered, trying to find my footing on the stone steps slick with blood. Nedra’s sister said nothing. She had not helped me; she had merely been following Nedra’s orders to protect me.

Nedra mounted the last step. Through the open doors of the castle, more guards waited, their eyes so wide with fear that I could see the trembling whites. Nedra paused, turning to the steps and the straggling guards who remained.

She lifted her hand.

The fallen bodies of the Emperor’s guards rose in the air. Their heads sagged on their shoulders, and their limbs were floppy, as if held by puppet strings. Silence fell, broken only by the soft plops of drying blood falling onto the steps. I stared in horror. This was the kind ofthing Bennum Wellebourne had done, commanding the bodies of the dead like marionettes.

Nedra twitched her hand, sending the bodies into a macabre dance.

“Nedra,” I said in a low voice, “they didn’t choose this.”

Her eyes were on the remaining Emperor’s Guard. Their fear was palpable; Nedra’s threat could not be more obvious.

Run, or become like them. Dead puppets.

They fled.

Nedra let her hand drop. The echoing thuds of bodies crashing onto the stone reverberated throughout the front of the castle.

She turned to the open doors.

“Hold!” a general in the front shouted.

Nedra walked forward as if the castle were her home. Her revenants swarmed around her. Their wounds did not bleed; their blood was not fresh enough for that. Some had limbs dangling; some staggered unevenly. But they showed no signs of pain. Nothing but obedience.

“Hold!” the general called desperately, his voice trembling.

Swords clattered as some of the guards ran in terror.

But others remained.

“Go,” Nedra said casually, flicking her fingers.

Her revenants ran to the swords, crashing against the blades without stopping.

Nedra turned to me. Her left eye stood out, bright white against the smear of blood on the side of her face. “They’re distracted enough,” she said. “Lead the way.”

My ears were full of the screams of the dying, the squelching sound of sword meeting flesh.