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CHAPTER

Twenty-Two

B ACK IN SCARTOWN, Neema and Cain used to spend long, meandering hours together, exploring the city’s underbelly. The cut-throughs and back alleys, the roofways and underpaths.

“We’re lost again,” Neema would say, to vigorous denials from Cain.

“How can we be lost, when we don’t know where we’re going?”

Down in the tombs, Neema was reminded of this philosophy. If she wasn’t safe in a storeroom, she wasn’t safe anywhere. Best to ramble without purpose and let her destination reveal itself when it was ready. Accept each encounter as an improvised moment on life’s digressive path.

In other words, pretend to be Cain.

As she rambled through the tunnels, her mind returned to Gaida’s murder. Her dream in the hammock had been a prompt from her subconscious to stay focused, not let her unexpected role as contender distract her from the far more important and pressing matter of proving her innocence.

She needed to search Gaida’s apartment as soon as possible—but when? She wouldn’t have time before the afternoon fights. Early evening, then. And with that decided, she composed a task list in her head, because fuck pretending to be Cain, she was a Raven not a Fox:

1. Complete this Trial without dying.

2. Visit the armoury with Fenn and choose weapons.

3. Fight Shal.

4. Visit Gaida’s apartment, solve murder.

5. Cake?

Neema liked to put something positive at the end of a list as an inducement. Often she chose “bath,” but last night’s debacle had spoiled that particular treat. She would be approaching baths with trepidation for a while. Also storerooms. And balconies. She would be approaching a lot of things with trepidation for a while.

She was going through her list again—debating whether “fight Shal” was strictly a task she could perform, or more just a terrible thing that was going to happen to her—when a ten-foot bear appeared from a side corridor.

She stopped. The bear did not.

A thud of concern, before she realised it was sauntering towards her on its hind legs, and waving. “Hello?”

“Good afternoon!” the bear replied, and removed its giant head to reveal a tall, burly member of the Fox contingent, sweating profusely beneath his thick fur costume. He rubbed his face, turning it even redder. “I’m torturing Katsan. She thinks we’ve laced the walls with hallucinogens.”

Of course that would be the Bear warrior’s nightmare—the poisoning of her perfectly balanced body, the loss of control. Katsan’s was not a mind that wished to be cracked open. She defended the borders—she did not cross them.

“It’s worse than that,” the Fox-bear said. He seemed happy to talk for a moment, and cool down. “Last night at dinner, Gaida confided in Cain—Katsan ’s commander didn’t think she was up to the Trials. He tried to persuade her to step aside.”

“So now you’re…”

“Whispering it through the walls. Step aside, Sister, step aside… ”

Neema thought back to the banquet, Cain and Gaida gossiping together. It was just like Gaida to spill someone else’s secret, and just like Cain to encourage her. Wily bastard. “ Have you laced the walls with hallucinogens?” she asked the Fox-bear.

“Self-doubt is more potent than any drug,” he said, slotting the massive head back into place.

“And more damaging.”

He nodded, a bear again. They’d padded out a real bear skin, and sprayed it with some rich, animal musk. From a distance, in the dark, it would be convincing. “Also, I think she has a touch of heatstroke.”

“Poor Katsan. At least it’s cool down here.”

“Oh thanks, rub it in. Eight. How do bears keep cool?”

Neema perked up. “They employ a variety of strategies,” she began, but he was already lumbering off on all fours.

“I was being rhetorical,” he called over his shoulder, his voice muffled by the costume.

So Neema created a new list—Six Ways Bears Keep Cool—and told it to the walls, because she had to tell someone.

Shortly after that she reached a familiar brick-lined tunnel, torches blazing in golden sconces. The entrance to the Hall of Heroes. Thank the Eight. Even Cain wouldn’t dishonour such hallowed ground. She could wait there in peace until her hour was up.

The tunnel ceiling sloped lower and lower, forcing her to bow her head, until she was almost crawling. An architectural nudge to visitors, reminding them to show some respect for the dead. Greet them on your knees, child of Orrun, for they are the best of us.

Passing through the narrow entrance, Neema emerged into a high-domed cave, walls studded with rose and white crystals. Hazy beams of sunlight poured down from hidden skylights, imbuing the crystals with an ethereal glow. According to deep myth, the lost tribes had carved this space as a sanctuary, anticipating the Catastrophe to come. Now it was a cathedral to the fallen. Fifteen hundred years of service and sacrifice, courage and wisdom.

Neema moved down the central aisle at a respectful pace, past flanks of marble sarcophagi. Each tomb was lit with twin candelabra, wax spilling like blood and platting to the floor. Her skin prickled, as it always did when she walked through here. Forget myth, forget metaphor—these were the true Guardians of Orrun. Empress Yasthala’s beloved husband Eyart Just, the first to be honoured. Mordir, the wise and soulful Bear warrior and poet. High Scholar Donalia Craw, who lost her life defending the Imperial Library from attack. Her effigy showed her resting in peaceful slumber on her tomb, the precious scrolls she had saved from the fire gathered in her arms.

The most recent addition was markedly different from its neighbours. In place of a tomb stood a rough hunk of unshaped marble. The plaque next to it read:

In memory of Shimmer Arbell— lost to the ocean, summer 1530.

May her effigy remain unsculpted, for none will touch her genius.

Neema drew a respectful sign of the eternal eight over her heart. As she did so, she heard a panicked flapping in the shadows ahead. A bird must have flown through a skylight and got itself trapped—it happened sometimes. Taking a candle from its holder, she followed the sound to the end of the Hall. The flapping and fluttering grew more insistent. She pushed open a heavy iron gate with her shoulder and squeezed through the gap into a small, dank side chamber. The bird cried out through the darkness.

Kraa! Kraa!

She lifted the candle higher, and caught a glimpse of a large black bird, a raven or a crow. It was trapped behind a haphazard collection of broken tombs—she could hear it lifting and dropping as it tried to escape, distressed and exhausted.

Kraa! Kraa!

A raven, definitely a raven. Neema’s heart skipped. Of all the places… She’d discovered this room last winter, when the wall sealing it closed had collapsed. The inglorious resting place of twelve ancient Raven warriors, from the days when the monastery had stood on this site. They had been moved here generations ago to make way for the new Heroes of Orrun. Now their tombs lay mouldering under a thick seam of dust and cobwebs, their mummified remains spilling from ruined coffins.

Neema had spent long, painstaking hours cataloguing everything, noting down inscriptions, extracting treasures buried with the warriors’ bones. The emperor had been delighted with her findings and the fresh insights they gave into Orrun’s distant past. But when Neema asked for funds to restore the tombs, her request was turned down. Too expensive, too much trouble, too many awkward questions about why they’d ended up in that state in the first place.

The bird had fallen silent. She picked her way around the tombs, calling to it in a soft, coaxing voice. “It’s all right. Don’t be frightened…”

With a sudden snap of its wings it burst free and flew straight at her, hooked beak opened wide.

Kraa! Kraa!

Neema ducked as it skimmed her head and circled the room. She had barely recovered when two more lifted up from the shadows, then another, and another. A flock of ravens, wheeling and diving in the compressed space, screaming her name.

Kraa! Kraa!

A wing tip brushed her face. She flung her arms up to protect herself, but there was no aggression, they were not attacking her. It felt more like…

… a greeting.

Slowly, she lowered her arms. The birds were settling now—seven, eight, nine, ten of them, perched about the room, watching her with beady interest. The one that had lured her in strutted along the top of a crumbling tomb and tapped its beak sharply against the stone. Open.

Its companions watched intently as Neema approached the tomb—the oldest and the most ruined. When she’d opened it before, she’d found nothing inside. The coffin and its contents had disintegrated to dust long ago. The exterior of the tomb, worn down over millennia, offered no clues either.

The bird gave a second, impatient tap.

“All right,” she murmured. She was not sure if she was dreaming, or hallucinating, whether this was part of the Trial or not. Cain had warned her that the Dragonscale might have lingering effects, perhaps that was it.

She put her palms against the edge of the tomb lid and pushed. Despite its poor condition it was still heavy; she had to put all her weight behind it. The ravens squawked encouragement from their perches, urging her on. Slowly, the slab came free, toppling to the ground with a violent thud. The birds flinched at the sound but remained where they were, hopping and calling out to each other in excitement.

Neema peered into the open tomb. Nestled inside lay an ebony chest, the size of a blanket box, the curved lid covered in black leather and carved with a feather design. The birds whirred and preened as she ran her fingers along it. The carving was so lifelike she could feel the ridges of each barb under her fingertips. Its quality put her in mind again of the lost tribes, except that it was in pristine condition, and the wood was freshly oiled.

The first raven curled its claws around the edge of the tomb and uttered a long stream of croaks and gurgles from the back of its throat. It seemed to be talking to her, as if she too were a raven. Long, involved sentences.

“I can’t understand you,” she said.

The bird carried on, unbothered. It reminded Neema of herself, when she got stuck on a favourite topic.

There was a brass key in the lid. She turned it, surprised by how smooth it was. The latch drew back with a satisfying tok . The raven mimicked the sound perfectly— tok— and gave a little shuffle of anticipation.

Neema opened the chest.

On the inside of the lid, the Raven of the Last Return glared out at her, painted in the old style with white-rimmed eyes and bold outlines, beak open, ready to attack.

The chest was packed with weapons.

Daggers, twin hooks, throwing knives. Swords in black leather scabbards. An iron fork, its prongs sharpened like talons. A black leather cosh. Everything held neatly in place, with black velvet compartments and black leather buckles. Black on black on black. Newly forged weapons of the highest quality, designed for a Raven warrior.

Which made no sense. The last Raven warrior had died fifteen centuries ago.

Neema lifted a warhammer from its compartment, admiring its weight and balance. The hammer head was curved like a raven’s beak, coming to a sharp, deadly point. “Beautiful,” she murmured. “Horrible.”

The ravens agreed proudly.

She slotted the hammer back in place. Beneath the top layer was a second, deeper compartment, housing a set of leather armour, a helmet and shield, and a short cloak, all patterned with the same feather design as the trunk. Black on black on black. She held the jerkin against her body, testing it for size. “I think this would fit,” she said, to the head raven. “What do you reckon?”

“Why don’t you try it on?”

She turned, clutching the jerkin to her chest.

Cain was watching her from the doorway, hands in his pockets.

The ravens lifted up in a flurry of feathers. Neema felt the beat of their wings against her face as they circled above her head. One last call— Kraa! Kraa! — and the room was empty.

It became clear to her, in the silence that followed, that Cain had not seen the ravens, and that she had imagined them.

She had definitely imagined them.

“Would you like me to rescue you?” Cain asked. “Or are you happy down here talking to yourself?”

Neema put the jerkin back in the weapons chest. “Help me with this.”

They lifted the chest out of the tomb, through the iron gate and into the pale crystalline glitter of the Hall of Heroes. Cain was leading the way. At the end of the hall they ducked their heads and crawled back up through the entrance tunnel, with its golden sconces and flickering torches.

When he could stand up straight Cain stopped, and put down his end of the chest. The torch flame warmed his ivory skin, burnished his dark red hair. “We’re alone,” he said, meaning—it’s safe to talk.

Neema thought of all the things she would like to say. Not all the things. One thing. The thing she could never say. I’ve missed you. My friend.

His sharp green eyes were searching hers. “What’s going on, Neema?”

She thought of Gaida, whispering Katsan’s secrets into his ear. I’ve missed you, my friend. But I don’t trust you. Not one inch. “Nothing.”

He shunted the ebony chest with his foot. “You stumbled on this by accident?”

No. A flock of imaginary ravens led me to it. “Yes.”

“Fine. Fine.” A word people use when they are not fine. He walked off.

Neema dragged the chest up on her own.