Wintercraft (35 page)
Da’ru’s face darkened and she threw Kate to the ground.
Kate’s head struck stone and pain exploded behind her eyes. Then, like a match being struck inside her mind, her instincts took over. The mist of the half-life lifted as her eyes were suddenly able to filter it out and she saw something within it that Da’ru had not seen: the current of death moving swiftly towards them, like a silvery reflection flickering through the air.
‘You have two paths ahead of you,’ said Da’ru, standing over Kate, oblivious to the danger so close by. ‘You will join me. Or you will join them.’
The shades screamed again. Something moved behind Da’ru and a pair of solid, living arms wrapped firmly around her neck.
‘Get away from her!’
Edgar had left the safety of the inner circle and was pulling on Da’ru as hard as he could, trying to drag her away from Kate. He knew about the dangers of the veil, but he was there anyway, refusing to let Kate fight alone. The shades circled above him as Da’ru grabbed his hand and twisted him away. Then she forced him to the ground and bent over him, drawing a slim silver blade from her sleeve and pressing it against his neck.
‘That is the last time you will disturb me, boy,’ she said.
The current of death was closing in. It was just a few inches away from Kate when she gathered the very last of her weakening strength and grabbed hold of Da’ru’s dress, pulling her from Edgar long enough for him to roll out of her reach and back into the safety of the inner circle. She dragged as hard as she could until Da’ru turned to face her, and she managed to catch hold of her wrist instead.
‘What are you doing?’ cried Da’ru, but it was too late.
Her eyes widened as the current of death washed over Kate and then came straight for Da’ru, spreading through her body and rippling against her face. Kate took one last look at Edgar as the warm touch of death spread into her, making her body feel light, safe and free. Then she closed her eyes and, with one final breath, she let the current take her.
21
Death
Kate felt warm and peaceful. Time stretched around her and sounds faded into silence as her thoughts travelled deep into the veil, slowly leaving her life behind. She could feel the gentle emptiness of the current spreading around her, but there was no pain, no struggle, no thought beyond the certainty that what was happening was right. The current could have carried her forever and she would have been completely at peace.
But there, in the midst of it all, something distracted her.
Da’ru was beside her, battling against death, fighting against it with all her strength, so desperate was she to return to life. Kate tried to forget her and let her mind become empty once again, but then something happened that she did not expect. Something moved close by: a dark shape surrounded by an empty void of black. Death drew back from it as it forced its way into the flow and Silas stepped into the current, as immovable as a rock in the face of a storm.
‘Silas!’ Da’ru reached out when she saw him. ‘Help me, Silas!’
Silas looked at the glass locket hanging from her neck, its surface stained with his dead crow’s drying blood. ‘After everything you have done,’ he said. ‘You still think I would help you?’
‘You have no choice!’
‘Yes,’ said Silas. ‘I do.’ He grabbed the locket and snapped the chain from around Da’ru’s neck.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘Stop!’
Something moved beside Kate. A shade, darker than the rest, crept past her and started wrapping itself around Da’ru, holding her like a spider binding a fly.
‘Life is too good to waste on you,’ said Silas. ‘Your life is over and death is a pleasure you will never know.’
Da’ru struggled to free herself as the shade clung tight, gaining clearer form whenever it moved close to Silas. For one brief moment, Kate was sure she saw grey eyes within its darkness and then she knew what she was looking at. Silas’s broken spirit - the part of him that had been left behind within the half-life - had joined them in the current.
‘Silas!’ Da’ru cried, her voice echoing out across the city square. ‘You cannot do this! You are bound to me, Silas!’
‘The ways of death are familiar to me now,’ said Silas. ‘Because of you, I can never know the peace of it. You betrayed me, as you have betrayed hundreds more.’
He held the locket in his scarred hand. The fire in his palm had burned away, but the old mark left by Da’ru’s blade was still deep and dark.
‘Twelve years ago, you made a mistake,’ he said. ‘You made an enemy of me and now you will feel the emptiness I have known for yourself. Your soul will scream and no one will hear you. It is over, Da’ru. I will make the half-life your prison for as long as I live. And as you said: immortality lasts a long, long time.’
The shade smothered Da’ru like an oily web, capturing her spirit and dragging it out into the empty void of the half-life. Silas watched Da’ru’s body release its final breath and the shade pulled her spirit down through the stony ground, into a deep level of the veil that the circle could not reach.
The last few members of the crowd who had dared to stay in their seats now fled with the rest, pushing themselves up against the outer divide, desperate to escape before they faced the same fate, and Kate felt her connection to her own body start to weaken and break. The sudden feeling of separation took her by surprise. Her spirit caught upon the gentle flow of the current and her body fell to the ground, detached, empty and still.
Silas saw Kate fall and he crouched down beside her, brushing a strand of hair from her half-closed eyes. It looked as if all the life had gone from her, but he knew better. Da’ru was gone, yet the circle was still active. Kate’s spirit was not lost yet.
Silas lifted Kate up in his arms. Every step was a struggle and with every inch he gained, death willed him more powerfully to turn back. Its promise of peace overwhelmed his thoughts and smothered his senses, but still he walked forward, knowing better than to listen to something that could never be his. Da’ru was right. No matter how much he longed for it, death did not want him.
With one last immense effort, Silas broke out of the current and into the half-life, carrying Kate’s body through the veil and hesitating on the edge of the central circle just long enough to hear Da’ru’s screams echo distantly upon the air. For twelve years he had longed to hear that sound, to finally be able to repay her for what she had done to him. He had always known it would be worth it. He had been right.
Silas closed his eyes, allowing the call of death to tempt him one last time, then he opened his hand and let Da’ru’s glass locket fall to the ground. The little sphere fell slowly, as if all those years of waiting had been crushed into those last few moments and, with the quietest of tiny sounds, it smashed.
A patch of blood stained the ground among the broken shards and a thin trail of white rose out of it, twisting and splitting into many separate threads, snaking up to link with some of the shades around Silas before each thread snapped and faded away. His may have been the only spirit Da’ru had bound into a cursed life, but it was not the only one who had been denied the path into death. Whatever bond that blood had created between Da’ru and them, it was broken now.
Shouts of surprise spread around the crowd as the candles in their hands illuminated one by one. Each one had been carried there to remember a life that had been lost, and the spirits who had lived those lives drew closer to those who were remembering them, relighting the flames and showing them that there was no reason to be afraid.
Many in the crowd stopped trying to run and reached out to the spirits of their ancestors, to lost parents, children and friends. The current of death continued its journey through the half-life, shining with inner light as the freed souls drifted peacefully into it, completing their journeys at last. And for a short time the Night of Souls was what it was always meant to be: a time of peace, remembrance and joy.
Kate’s skin was deathly cold and her lips touched with blue as Silas carried her out of the mist and into the central circle. The call of death severed from him at once as his feet touched the symbols, and the pressure of the living world returned to him like an iron weight dropped upon his shoulders. Kate’s energy spread through his blood like hot needles, connecting with the circle until its light faded and died. The circle’s energies collapsed, reconnecting the city square with its rightful place in time. The mist dispersed and the bonfire blazed suddenly back to life.
With the shades gone, the crowd overran the few remaining wardens, tearing open the upper doors and pouring out into the city like ants. One of the councilmen stood up to speak to the fleeing people, but his voice was lost among the frenzy of stampeding bodies and Silas caught only three words of what he had said. Three words that were set to shape his future.
Silas Dane. Traitor
.
.
Silas laid Kate carefully on the ground. There was movement around the table as Edgar and Tom ran to free Artemis from his ropes, and he limped straight over to her, sending Silas’s hand instinctively to his blade.
‘Stay back!’ said Silas. ‘This is no time for you.’
Artemis stopped, not daring to move any closer. ‘Is she all right?’
Silas ignored him, pulled a bloodstained cloak from the shoulders of a dead warden and covered Kate with it.
‘What happened?’ Artemis asked.
Silas glared up at him in fury. ‘If you want this girl to die, keep asking foolish questions. If not, get out of my sight.’
Edgar stepped forward, holding the book of
Wintercraft
out for Silas to take. ‘I don’t know if it’ll help,’ he said quietly. ‘But … here.’
Wintercraft
out for Silas to take. ‘I don’t know if it’ll help,’ he said quietly. ‘But … here.’
Silas took the book from him, and Edgar took hold of Artemis’s arm.
‘What is he doing?’ demanded Artemis.
‘It’s all right,’ said Edgar. ‘We can trust him.’
‘Trust him? After everything that’s happened? Why should we trust him?’
There were many things Silas could have said to a man who had allowed himself to be taken prisoner, relied upon his niece to help him escape and then dared to complain at her not being unscathed at the end of it. Instead he shot Artemis a look that would have made anyone wither. Edgar led the limping man away.
‘You did well, Kate,’ said Silas, as he pressed a hand against her forehead, using the veil’s energy to call her spirit back into life. ‘There are few people who could have done what you did tonight. Your idiot uncle will never understand it, but you should be proud of yourself. You did many souls a great service today.’
Silas looked over at what was left of the High Council. They were talking amongst themselves, no doubt discussing how best to make a dignified retreat. Some of them were smiling deviously, despite the gruesome scene of death around them, and Silas realised that it would be so easy for him to end them all right there. In just a few moments he could rid Albion of its greatest threat.
He considered it carefully, noticing the thinly-disguised fear in the men’s eyes as they made their way out of the circle.
No, he decided. Now was not the time.
Gradually, the colour started to return to Kate’s skin. She opened her eyes and Silas lifted his hand gently from her head.
‘Silas?’
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