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Chapter Twenty-Seven

Dust to Dust

After another moment, Michal tenses with the breeze, and I scent why almost immediately—

Decay.

It drifts toward us over the ferns like a harbinger, and I stiffen too. Because I recognize that stench; it smells slightly different here, laced with traces of lichen and earth and fur, but the putrefied base notes remain the same.Revenant.Sure enough, Michal pulls away from me with narrowed eyes. When he turns to search the clearing, I relace my bodice instinctively, my fingers blurring as I glance around him for anything unusual. Though the fronds ripple in the wind, I detect no other sign of movement. The overcast sky feels a bit brighter than before, perhaps—the forest around us remains unnaturally quiet—but other than that, nothing seems out of place.

My gaze catches on a slight disturbance to our left, where the undergrowth shifts again. My eyes narrow. It could be the wind, of course, but—

With a shriek, I tackle Michal aside the instant before the revenant bursts from the crystalline foliage, and it collides with the tree as we vanish beneath the fronds. Cold earth cushions our fall—snow flying in every direction—but Michal explodes to his feet before our bodies fully settle, thrusting mine behind his. Hecurses viciously at his first unimpeded sight of the beast before us.

And itisa beast, I realize, gaping at the misshapen creature as it shakes its head to clear the pain of collision. More than that, however, it’s a— “Loup garou,” I whisper in horror.

Michal nods tersely.

But this creature is unlike any loup garou I’ve ever seen. His maw—caught halfway through transformation, torn forever between man and wolf—curls over both jagged and blunt teeth, dripping fresh blood down his pelt. Though his torso remains humanoid and male in shape, his hind legs resemble that of a wolf; sharp claws jut from the paws where his feet should be, the tip of each elongated finger. Except—several of them have fallen out. Several of his teeth, too, and his flesh appears swollen in some places, sagging in others. I resist the urge to retch. He hasn’t started to liquefy, at least, which means he must be recently dead. No more than a few weeks.

Swallowing hard against the stench, I clutch Michal’s arm. “No sudden movements, Célie,” he murmurs, his voice unexpectedly calm.

I almost scoff at that. Almost. He needn’t warn me about the precariousness of this situation. Panic already lifts the hair at my nape. If not for Michal, the Archbishop would’veeatenme in Cesarine, demonstrating a supernatural speed and strength to rival even vampires. And he started without a supernatural bone in his body. Not like this loup garou. For all we know, his abilities could surpass ours completely. If we flee now, we might not be able to outrun him, but even if we could, we cannot simply leave him here to terrorize the isle.

Ashes to ashes, Mathilde said.Dust to dust.

A heaviness settles over me as I gaze at his agonized body.

No one deserves such a fate.

The wind picks up again, catching our hair, my gown. Michal’s cloak. The revenant’s eyes—vicious and yellow—roll with torment as he straightens, turning toward us and sniffing the air as if catching a new scent. A bone-chilling growl issues from his chest. And in that moment, I realize the danger is greater than I feared—because the blood on his muzzle is fresh, yes, but it mingles with the slightly darker, crusted blood upon his chest, disguising the torn bits of flesh and teeth marks above it.

All at once, the cause of his death becomes painfully clear.

A vampire tore out his throat.

My fingers tighten on Michal’s elbow as the loup garou’s growls become louder, as he bares his teeth in unmistakable hatred. Though Michal’s lip curls in response, I make a split-second decision before he can escalate the situation. “We need to help him,” I say hastily, beseechingly, at Michal’s ear. “If we can just reason with him—if we can encourage him to see sense—there might be another way to deal with the revenants, one that doesn’t involve setting them onfire.”

Michal shifts wholly in front of me, his eyes never leaving the revenant. “Mathilde said they cannot be helped—”

The loup garou steps closer then, with a garbled and guttural, “Dimi—tri,” and my stomach plummets straight through the forest floor. If he knows Dimitri, this situation has just gone from bad to catastrophic, and his next ones only serve to underscore that point. “Where”—the revenant chokes, jerks, and I strain to understand him, leaning around Michal’s arm—“Dimitri?”

My vision sharpens on those brutal wounds at his throat whileCoco’s explanation of a revenant drifts back to me:One who has died and risen again with the express purpose of terrorizing the living, particularly those the corpse in question once knew.

Oh God.

With another vicious growl, the revenant lurches forward, lifting his nose again. Scenting the air around us before his malignant gaze settles upon Michal, who braces to strike. “He hasn’t attacked us yet.” I seize his surcoat swiftly, my nails piercing the leather, and Michal hesitates. “That counts for something.”

At last, Michal tears his gaze from the revenant to search my face, and in his own expression—the tense line of his jaw, the bright unease in his eyes—I sense he understands exactly what I’m asking.For my sister, we need to try. We need to succeed.“Please, Michal,” I repeat quietly. “There has to be another way.”

To my shock, he doesn’t brush me aside as the Chasseurs would’ve done; he doesn’t tell me to flee or implore me to see reason. Instead he nods, and I nearly weep in relief at the momentousness of such a small gesture. Because it means he is with me. It means he won’t kill my sister on sight.

Turning to the revenant, I ask, “Do you remember your name, monsieur?”

The revenant snarls in response, hunching to shake his head. Jerking and twitching as if unable to keep still. My heart twists at the sight of it—of his pain—and suddenly unwilling to stand it, I take a tentative step around Michal. “Stay close,” he says in a low voice.

When the revenant hisses, shaking his head as if to ward off bees, I take a small step forward, speaking much slower and softer than before. “You didn’t deserve what Dimitri did to you”—hissnarl of agreement punctuates the words—“but hurting him now won’t undo the pain. It’ll only bring more upon yourself.”

He paws at the ground again. He snorts and twitches as I wince, continuing gently, “Perhaps if you try to shift into one form or the other, the pain will lessen.”