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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I emerge from the tent with Tia in my arms, Jaimin a step behind. Coryn and Master are waiting for us, and as I move toward the road, they fall in behind me. The dragons have all taken their positions, so there’s no doubting where to go.

Tia’s weight is heavier than anything I’ve ever borne in my life, and every step I take is painful, but none of that would be alleviated by letting anyone else carry her. I loved her best, and I owe her this, no matter how much it hurts.

Leicht is on the road itself, the other two dragons flanking him. Before him is the pyre—only a foot high, barely long or wide enough to fit her. But it’s enough.

On the other side of the pyre are the dragon riders—and Arimen.

I flinch and falter.

“He stays,” Leicht says, his tone brooking no argument. “He must see this.”

“He’s not ? —”

“He stays.”

I sense that’s not a battle I’ll win, and I won’t demean the ceremony by stopping to argue about it. Instead, I continue forward. My companions split off to join the others, but I circle the pyre so my back is to Leicht and gently lay my sister on her final resting place.

Kneeling, I take the time to cross her arms over her torso and smooth her hair away from her face—not that it was really in the way. Even on our journey, she’s kept it neatly trimmed. She even came after me with her scissors one night, demanding I let her cut my hair before Leicht confused me with an unshorn sheep.

“I promise to visit a barber more often,” I whisper. “And no more fancy inns. We’re going to get this done, and I’m not going to embarrass you anymore.” There’s a hitch on the last word, but I pretend it never happened. “I love you.”

She doesn’t reply. She never will again.

Standing, I take five steps back, just like she described. Across the pyre, Hearne lifts his face to the sky and says, “Tavia Silverbright was born a rider, and she died a rider. Her name will live for eternity, and the dragons beyond welcome her home.”

Leicht roars, and a single stream of hot flame shoots over my head and sets the pyre alight. For a long count of three, there is only Leicht’s flame, sending his rider to her next life, and then the other two dragons roar also and join him.

The tower of flame shoots high into the air, a pillar of mourning, a beacon of loss. The heat is indescribable, unbearable, but I don’t step back. Don’t look away. I can’t. Even when my knees begin to shake and my head spins, I will not willingly dishonor Tia by stepping back.

A sudden, solid presence at my back, shoring me up, startles me. What?—

The wet kiss against my neck answers my question. Sweetie. She nickers in my ear and stands firm, bracing me, even as the flames rise higher and hotter.

Then they stop, and more than anything, I want them back. Because there’s nothing left of my sister except rapidly scattering dust.

I turn my face into Sweetie’s neck and weep.

“We spoke to the boy earlier,” Hearne tells me and Master. They and Kanesha are preparing to leave, and Jaimin and Coryn are striking camp. They’d planned to stay here another night, but I can’t. It’s only noon—we’ll be able to cover a decent amount of ground before we need to stop, and the horses are well rested. “He gave us more details about this sanctuary. We’re going to circle over it and hope the dragons see something that might be valuable, and then I’m certain the councils will want to discuss this.”

“I am too,” Master agrees grimly. “Whatever the temples are up to, they’ve crossed a line now. If we must use this secret… monastery, or whatever it is, to discredit them, then I have no compunction about doing so.”

It’s somewhat harsher than the stance he was taking earlier, but I think Tia’s pyre ceremony affected him more than he expected. For myself, I would happily see every temple on the continent razed to the ground at this particular moment, so I merely nod—and lean against Sweetie. My horse hasn’t left my side since the ceremony.

Hearne’s gaze flicks quickly to her and then away, an unsettled expression on his face. There are some horses that are comfortable around dragons, but the concept of a horse so comfortable—and so protective of her rider—that she’d pull up her picket and walk into a pyre ceremony has spooked him somewhat.

I can’t say I understand it myself, especially given the war between me and Sweetie, but it seems we’re in the midst of a ceasefire, and I’m eternally grateful for her support.

“I’ll keep in contact with you,” Master assures me. “Watch your back. The pyre would have been seen for miles, and it was a clear indication of where you are. There will likely be another attack soon.” And you’re down a fighter is left unsaid.

“We’ll be ready.”

Sweetie and I retreat off the road, and the riders mount their dragons, Hearne helping Master up into a saddle between Weise’s shoulders. I’ve never seen anything like that before, but I suppose it makes sense. How else would a non-rider ride a dragon?

Suddenly I wish I’d asked Tia more questions about the technical aspects of riding a dragon. It never interested me, but now that she’s gone, it’s information I’ll never have.

“You could ask.”

I don’t reply, but not just because I’m ignoring him. Master’s stopped. He says something to Hearne and then cocks his head the way he does when he’s talking to someone telepathically. His expression changes.

Turds.

I start toward Weise, then stop. Approaching a dragon without permission is a good way to meet the gods early. Before I can decide if it’s worth asking Leicht to intervene for me, Master’s straightening and speaking to Hearne.

I hear the rider master’s curses from here.

A moment later, they’re both back on the ground, and Master is striding toward me.

“What?” I demand. “What is it?”

“Mages in Terebyl report that corpses stored for the winter have gone missing in large numbers,” he says without preliminary. “And a patrol in Meswyn found a village… what was left of a village. At first they thought it was abandoned, but the livestock was still there, all people’s belongings. Then they found an arm—a forearm… It was…”

“I know what it was doing,” I say when it seems he’s struggling to finish the sentence. “Someone tried to defend themselves, but it likely didn’t help.” I inhale deeply. The stone told us that there were zombies loose, that they’d harmed innocents. I just didn’t want to think about it too much. “Maybe some of them managed to escape.” The ones that didn’t were clearly raised as zombies.

As for the stolen dead in Terebyl… we should have anticipated something like this. It’s damn cold there in winter, colder than any of the other northern countries for reasons I never paid attention to, and the ground freezes too hard for graves to be dug. It’s customary for them to store their recently dead in cold cellars until the spring thaw. That must be like a buffet for a necromancer.

“What now?” I ask Master, though I know what. It’s even more imperative than ever that I find the godsdamned champion and end this disaster.

“I don’t know,” he says. “The combined councils are meeting. We’re not going to be able to keep this secret anymore, and that’s going to cause turmoil. At the very least, the rulers of each country are going to need to increase patrols.”

Not that those patrols will be able to defend themselves or anyone else from zombies.

Master’s thinking the same thing, I can tell by the way his lips tighten. “I must return,” he says. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything.”

I nod, and on impulse embrace him. “You fight your battles so I can fight mine,” I mutter, and he squeezes me wordlessly.

Minutes later, the two dragons launch, the backdraft from their wings blowing dust from the remnants of the pyre everywhere, and I watch as they gain altitude and then bank toward the coast. Part of me hopes that whatever they see at the so-called sanctuary is so awful, they have justification to raze it with fire.

Unlikely.

This will be a scenario where politics are the weapon of choice, not dragon fire.

Sighing, I turn toward the remains of the camp. Jaimin and Coryn are as efficient as ever; the tents and other supplies are already loaded onto the packhorses, and they’re dousing the remnants of the campfire. We’ll be able to leave in minutes.

~No~

As much as I’d like to ignore that, too, I know I can’t. Before we can leave, Arimen needs to meet the stone.

He needs to know what we’re really up against.

I look around and spot him hovering beside an unfamiliar horse—his, presumably. He still seems a little shaken after the ceremony, which would be understandable if I wanted to have any compassion for him.

Which I don’t.

“Arimen,” I call as I walk toward the remains of the campfire, and yes, my voice is a little harsher than usual. “Come here.”

He jumps, his eyes widening, and looks to Coryn, who nods encouragingly.

“Wait here,” I tell Sweetie as we get closer, and she obligingly stops and begins cropping at the sparse winter grass.

“Be kind,” Jaimin warns as Arimen approaches.

“Nothing about this is kind.”

Coryn gasps, and I relent. “I’ll try.” My reward is a sad smile. “Could I have a hug?” I ask, giving in to the need that’s been chasing me all day, and the words are barely out of my mouth before his huge arms squeeze me tight.

I close my eyes and let go of everything just for one short moment, and when I pull back, I breathe a little easier. “Thank you. I needed that.”

“Hugs are free,” he assures me solemnly, and I manage a smile.

Then I turn to Arimen, who can’t meet my gaze. “It’s time you met the life stone,” I say bluntly, and he gasps.

“I-I couldn’t.”

“Strike that from your vocabulary. There are a lot of things that you’ll need to do on this trip. I don’t want you here—that’s not a secret—but the stone does, so you will do whatever’s needed to play your part. That starts now.”

Jaimin winces. “So much for kind.”

Dumping the stone into my palm, I extend my hand toward a visibly trembling Arimen. Is he…?

“Open your eyes!” Gods’ turds, what was the stone thinking ? This boy can’t come with us.

Whimpering, Arimen jerks his eyes open. He looks at the sky. At the ground. At Coryn, then Jaimin. I’m seriously considering using my magic to flip him upside down, but then, finally, he looks at the stone.

And everything changes.

“Oh,” he says, and the reverence in his voice annoys me. Of course, everything about him has annoyed me so far, but given I had to force him to even look at the damn rock, I think I’m justified right now. “I understand now.”

Jaimin grabs my arm. It’s like he’s afraid I’m going to throw the life stone at Arimen’s head, when the truth is, I only contemplated it for a few seconds.

“Lovely. So glad you understand.”

Coryn gives me a reproachful look, but Arimen is so enthralled by the stone that he doesn’t even seem to notice the heavy sarcasm.

“Now that you’ve met the stone, allow me to tell you a little more about our mission.”

He shakes his head, eyes still on the stone in my hand. His intensity is getting a little uncomfortable. “If it’s what the stone wants, I don’t need to know more.”

Jaimin sighs, and in my head, Leicht groans. Coryn tsks and shakes his head. “You need to know a little more,” he lectures. “Talon can look after all the big details, but if you’re going to be helpful, you need to know what helpful is.”

I don’t know what part of that sentence terrifies me more: me looking after big details, or that I understood exactly what he meant.

But I do know that I can’t in clear conscience let Arimen come with us until he knows exactly what we’re facing, so I close my hand around the stone and stick it in my pocket.

His face falls, and if I had forgotten for even a second how damn young he is, the crestfallen expression would have reminded me.

What can the stone be thinking? We should be sending this child home to his mother, or somewhere else safe. Not dragging him along to fend off zombies while we hunt down the champion.

The stone pulses in my mind, as if to warn me not to even consider it, and I square my shoulders.

“You know we’re going on an important mission to find the stone’s champion,” I begin. He won’t look me in the eyes yet, but seeing the stone does seem to have given him more confidence.

As if to prove that, he nods. “To defeat a great evil,” he parrots what Jaimin said earlier.

“How good was your education?”

He flushes bright red and shrugs. “Not… It was a small village. I can read and do basic figures. That’s why the priests took me.”

That’s not helpful. “Did you learn any history?”

He brightens. “We have lessons at the Sanctuary about the history of the temples.”

I can just imagine how relevant and factual those are. “What about the zombie wars?”

The utter confusion on his face as he glances between us all answers that. “I-I… There are stories about zombies. My friends and I used to tell them in the woods to scare each other. But I never heard of zombie wars. Is that another story? If there’s a book, I can read it to you while we ride.” His eyes are wide and hopeful, as if he thinks this is how he’s going to be helpful on this mission. By reading to us.

Jaimin puts a hand on my shoulder, and the sudden stabbing pain behind my left eye eases. I shoot him a grateful smile.

“Maybe we should sit down,” he suggests, but I shake my head.

“We don’t have time for that if we want to gain any distance before dark. Arimen, I’m going to tell you the basics now. You’re going to be stoic and strong, and then we’ll fill in some details as we ride. Got it?”

All remaining color in his face drains away as he gulps, but he nods bravely, and grudging respect stirs in me.

“Zombies aren’t a story. They’re real. Over a thousand years ago—we don’t know exactly when—some rogue mages discovered a way to reanimate dead bodies. They raised armies of them and waged war across the continent.”

His jaw drops, and for a second I think he’s going to faint again. Instead, he sucks in a deep breath. “Are they like the stories?”

“We don’t know how much of the stories are true,” Jaimin admits. “We’ve encountered two groups of them so far, so we know the part about them being difficult to kill is real.”

“Dismembered body parts will still crawl after you,” I add, making a mental note to fill Jaimin in later on the current zombie situation. “The only way to destroy them is magefire or dragon fire… and the stone’s champion.”

“S-So they’re back? Or did they never… How did the war end?”

“We don’t know. Scholars at the time thought it best to wipe all records from existence and let zombies become a scary story.” I’m still bitter about that. “They thought if people didn’t believe it was real, nobody would search for a way to do it.”

Arimen screws his face up, looking even younger than he is. “That’s stupid.”

At least we agree on something.

“The stone appeared to warn us that somebody has, in fact, found how it’s done. Our job is to find the champion as fast as we can so they can end this before it results in war again.” I pull the stone from my pocket and hold it out. “Stone, could you please confirm that what I’ve said is true?” Not that Arimen seems to be doubting me, but once he gets over the shock, I’m sure he will.

~Yes~

The pure joy that lights up the boy’s face is almost painful to see. “It can talk to us?”

“Yes or no answers only,” Coryn says. “And sometimes it tells us how it’s feeling. You can pet it, if you like. It’s very friendly.”

Arimen reaches out tentatively, then snatches his hand back. “Uh… maybe another time. I don’t think it’s right for me to touch a holy object. I’m not worthy.”

Leicht’s groan isn’t just in my head this time.

“At least you get to fly,” I complain. “I have to ride with him.”

“There’s plenty of time for that later,” Jaimin intercedes hastily as Arimen takes a big step back from Leicht. “We need to get moving. Arimen, you can ride with me and Talon, and we’ll answer your questions as we go. Leicht will scout ahead—if that’s okay with him?” He glances questioningly up at the dragon, who nods, making Arimen take another step back and me roll my eyes. It was a fucking nod, for the gods’ sake.

“And I’ll take the rear,” Coryn declares. “At least until we’ve got some distance. I don’t trust that mean bishop.”

Arimen opens his mouth as if to defend his former master, then closes it again. Some things are indefensible, after all.

I leave him with Coryn and turn to Sweetie. She nuzzles me with her soft nose, showing the same support and affection she’s offered all day, then gives me a shove that sends me reeling backward.

Into Jaimin.

“Whoa!” He steadies me. “What happened? Maybe we should camp so you can get some sleep.”

I glare at my horse, whose moods apparently change with the wind. “No, I’m fine. Sorry about that. I stepped on a rock and lost my balance.”

We both look down at the rock-free ground, but he politely pretends I didn’t just tell an outright lie. Instead, he steps closer to me and lowers his voice. “While we have a moment… are you okay?”

The question is simple, even ordinary, but his face and the intensity of his gaze are not. It feels as though he can see inside me, see all the hurt and confusion and anger I’m gripping tight to. I don’t have time to let it go. I can’t. I have a mission.

“I’m—” Fine sticks in my throat. I can’t say it. Not to him. Not when I’ve hidden so much from him all these weeks, and yet he stepped in to protect me, no hesitation, no questions, when I needed him. I can’t forget his face in the moment he realized Leicht and I had bonded, the fierce way he shielded me from scrutiny.

He holds my secrets now, and I have no regrets. I won’t lie to him, not even about something this small.

“I can’t think about it,” I confess. “I need to keep going. I need to see this through.” I’m not even sure what “it” I’m referring to. Tia’s death? The bond with Leicht? The potential war with the temples? How did my life turn into this?

“Don’t think about it, then,” he says softly. “But if you want to talk, about anything, I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

I nod. “Would you be offended if I said I think your purpose on this mission is to keep me sane?” It’s supposed to be a joke, but my delivery is flat, and he doesn’t laugh.

“Nothing would bring me greater honor.”