Winterveil (17 page)

Kate's spirit bled down into the stones, down into the warm earth beneath, spreading through the city until she could feel every soul, every heartbeat, and every shade within the walls. Streets away, laid out, dying in the cold, Edgar stopped fighting against the shades. He let them sink into his body, freeing his soul, as he concentrated only upon Kate, helping her to hold on.

Kate felt as if she were standing upon a huge, tightly bound drum. Every movement in the city created vibrations that translated into a map within her mind. She could see the Continental army along the eastern wall and frightened residents fleeing the city any way they could find. She could feel stirrings toward the very center of the city, where the veil was shifting unexpectedly above the city square.

A small group of the Skilled was there, attempting to manipulate the enormous listening circle that Kate had used on the Night of Souls, but they were taking too long. They knew they were standing at the center of the largest listening circle to have been activated in living memory, and Kate could feel their fear, both of the circle itself and of being on the surface, exposed to the open sky. Most of them were kneeling on the ground, translating the symbols on the stones, trying to decipher their meaning, and searching for the way to unlock the circle's power. They had not been working for very long when the circle thrummed with energy beneath them, and the symbols began to glow.

“Stop,” said Greta immediately. “Stop now. We are too late.”

The magistrate glanced across the city square, watching the symbols burst into life. So long as they remained in the center of the circle, they should have been safe, but there was no guarantee that it would behave in the same way as any of the circles she had used in her time. This one was being worked by spirit, not by the living. If she and the rest of the Skilled crossed it, the risk of being captured in its influence was too great.

“Sit down!” she ordered, as veins of white energy scribbled across the empty square. “Stay away from the edges. Stay as low as you can.”

The Skilled held on to one another and with a sound like screeching metal, energy thrust suddenly out of the stones, whipping their hair and toppling the rows of wooden seats around the square like falling dominoes. The Skilled screamed, and the great doors opening into the amphitheater slammed back with a thunderous clap. Shades were pressing in all around them, waiting for the first tear to form within the graveyard city. Greta was the only one who dared stand and watch, and she whispered to herself, “What have we done?”

17

REMEMBRANCE

K
ate lay upon the floor of the tower, silent and still. She had lost too much of herself. Her mind had been drawn too deeply into the black, and she could hear nothing except her own thoughts becoming stranger and more foreign to her by the moment. Memories of her past tangled together. Dreams, fears, and nightmares all fought for dominance within her mind, until it was hard to make sense of what was real and what was imaginary.

Wintercraft
was still beside her. The book that had seemed so cold and dangerous to her such a short time ago now felt like the only thing she could be sure of in the world. It felt solid and safe. She rested her fingers against it and felt the gentle touch of an unseen hand upon hers. Artemis was still there. She could smell the familiar scent of ink and paper that always clung to his skin and feel the touch of rough fingertips that had been worn by years of working with old books. She could sense his spirit as strongly as if he were sitting right beside her.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

Artemis did not answer her, but the longer his hand remained on hers, the clearer his spirit became. He carried Kate's thoughts into a memory held within the city, taking her consciousness toward a patch of bare land some distance away from the main streets. Old headstones were left broken upon forgotten graves that were choked with ivy, and trails of bramble thorns scratched across the ground. Any paths in that place had long been claimed by the creeping hand of nature, and she found Artemis standing close to two dark figures that were leaning over a grave and digging down into the earth beneath.

He looked as real to her as he had in life, but he was not wearing the torn traveling clothes his body had died in. He was wearing his favorite ink-stained trousers and a woolen jacket that had always been too big for him. It was the Artemis she had known before the wardens and
Wintercraft
had come into their lives, the Artemis who had tried to keep her safe and trusted her to help keep him safe in return. There were times when they had been happy in the bookshop, and throughout all of them he had looked exactly as he did at that moment.

The headstone serving the open grave was cracked and broken in the living world, but Kate could see it intact and new within the veil as time overlapped to let her see what Artemis needed her to see. Kate recognized the people they were looking at: the councilwoman Da'ru Marr and Kalen, the warden whose soul she had seen wandering Fume's streets. They were talking to each other and looking into the grave, pulling shovelfuls of soil up from the earth.

“This is where
Wintercraft
used to be hidden,” said Artemis. “It lay in that grave for more a century until that woman dragged it up. She should have left it to rot. It should have been forgotten.” For once Artemis was in no mood to temper his words. “According to family history, your great-grandfather recognized the danger of
Wintercraft
and wanted to rid himself of it. He tried to sell it; but it always returned to the family, and its pages could not be destroyed. Having it buried with him was the only way to be sure it stayed out of reach. My father told me stories about our family and the book, but the half-life is not my world. I don't understand it the way you do.”

Artemis's eyes looked troubled but determined. “I wanted to keep you from all of this,” he said. “I thought
Wintercraft
was just a book, but I had heard enough to know that just holding it ruined lives.” He looked over to the figures that were lifting the book from the open grave. “It infects people. It makes them forget about what is important, but I never forgot. Some of our family wanted to follow the Skilled path; others turned away from it. I should not have tried to make that choice for you.”

The vision of Da'ru and Kalen faded as they left their tools behind and carried the book back into the city. Artemis moved toward the grave and read the inscription written upon the stone:

 

In Death—Wisdom.

In Remembrance—Life.

 

“I didn't realize how important these words were,” he said, as Kate looked down into a shattered coffin where the bones of one of her ancestors lay exposed to the sky. “This saying was one of your great-grandfather's favorites. He always said: ‘Death is the final question. It is the one piece of knowledge that no one can possess until it is his time, and remembrance is how we keep the past alive.' Even though people leave us, we remember them, share their stories, and trust they are at peace.”

Kate moved as close to Artemis as she dared, and his spirit slid its hand into hers. She felt the warmth of his touch, and sadness swept through her.

“Everything you have suffered began in this place,” said Artemis. “If I had done things differently . . . if I had brought you here and let you live with the Skilled from the start, you might have been safe.”

“You did the right thing,” said Kate, finally trusting herself to find her voice and keep it steady. “I wouldn't have changed anything.”

The gravestone crumbled back to its ruined state as Artemis let the memory fall away. “I am proud of you, Kate,” he said. “Something has changed inside you. You can feel it. You are not going to die today.”

Kate thought that Artemis must not have seen the bolt strike or realized how perilously close to death she was herself. Her heart fell still.

“You are not finished,” said Artemis, holding her hand a little tighter. “You have to survive. This place . . . it lets you see what you didn't see in life. None of this has happened by accident. You and the warden. That is what you need to concentrate on now. He is the answer.”

“Silas?” Kate's hand went to her chest, where the crossbow had struck.

“I know he did this to you, but there is more at stake here than you've seen. The veil will not stop here in the city. The Skilled remained in Fume for a reason. There must be people here who can balance the worlds of the living and the dead. Fume cannot function without them. Most of the Skilled are dead, Kate. Without enough of them to channel the veil, no one will survive. Thousands of lives will end before their time. There will be nothing here for the Continent to claim. Albion will be a country of ghosts.”

“I can't stop it,” said Kate. “Not now.”

“You have to take control of this, Kate. You have people who care for you. Trust them. There have been cruel people within our family. Too much blood has been spilled for too long, but not all of our family are as bad as history makes us seem. Trust yourself to do what is right.”

Kate could feel the veil pulling her in. She wanted to be free from the worry and the pain, and she did not want to be left alone. “Take me with you,” she said. “I don't want to stay here.”

Artemis pulled her into a hug, and she felt the soft delicacy of his spirit pressing against her own. “This is my time,” he said. “You are not finished here yet.”

Kate sank against her uncle, her heart burdened with grief.

“Don't worry about me,” said Artemis. “So long as you are safe, that is all that matters. Think of Edgar now. He's a good soul. He will help you find your way home.”

Kate felt Edgar's presence close by, and something tugged inside her. Artemis's spirit fell away, her vision of the city died, and her consciousness returned to her body in the tower. “No,” she whispered, opening her eyes under the gaze of the skulls and plunging back into the pain of a body on the very edge of death. She tried desperately to reconnect with Artemis. She tried to touch his body, but her fingertips could barely reach his hand.

“Good-bye, Kate.”
Artemis's voice spread like a whisper beside her, and she let her hand fall weakly to the floor.

“Good-bye,” she said, her voice a trembling sigh breathed through tears.

She lay still. The last of her family was gone. Silas had turned against her, and her connection to Edgar was only bringing him pain. All Dalliah wanted was to use her as she had used everyone else in her life. Everything that was precious to her was being taken away. She could simply lie there and give in, or she could fight. All her sorrow, all her pain crystallized inside her. She could not let Dalliah have what she wanted. Artemis was right. She had to take control.

Every movement set spikes of agony streaking through her body, but she managed to wrap her fingers around the bolt, and before she could think about what she was doing, she pulled hard. Torturing pain ripped within her as the silver-tipped weapon slid cleanly from her chest. She screamed out loud. The shaft of the weapon was slick with blood. She could feel the wound oozing beneath her coat, and her body shivered with cold as the blood seeped away.

She should have been dead. The pain alone should have been enough to finish her as soon as the bolt hit, but something else was happening. Her blood felt like rivers of ice, and as she looked up at Dalliah, she felt Silas standing outside the door. She sensed him there, even before the door swung back and he burst inside.

Dalliah turned on him the moment he entered the tower. “Do you still doubt me, Silas?” she demanded. “Look at her! A Winters soul has been broken upon the final wheel. This is the start of everything I have seen and that which is yet to be.”

“No,” said Silas, pointing his sword at Kate. “She should be dead. Death should have taken her.”

“What good would she be to me then?” said Dalliah. “The girl is already bound to you by blood. You have done half of my work for me, Silas. She is not the only one skilled in Wintercraft.” Dalliah held out a hand that was dusted with veil frost. “I needed to break her spirit, but your actions have given her soul the final push. I thought you might enjoy that. Welcome to a new world.”

Kate breathed in a shallow breath, and her soul sank through the wheel, anchoring down into the very heart of the veil. She felt its darkness creep across her mind, but she refused to let it engulf her. She closed her thoughts to it in the way she would try to forget a nightmare, never letting them dwell too long upon the torment that was waiting to snatch her away.

Dalliah lifted her hand, and veil energy spread swiftly through Kate's body as Dalliah's use of Wintercraft took hold. Kate's torn muscles fused, her skin healed, and the blood around the wound dried to a fine dust, preserving her physical life for the small part of her soul that had not yet been claimed by the black.

Silas was used to the veil's influence and barely noticed his own wound knitting together at the same time. He watched Kate struggle to her feet. Her silver-tinged eyes were flooded with the milky gray of death, but her face was still and focused. Dalliah had expected her to act as a passive channel when the veil fell, but she had not seen Kate work the veil before. Silas had witnessed Kate's abilities firsthand, and she was not an energy source to be bled. She was instinctive and strong. Her connection with the veil was more powerful than Dalliah could have anticipated. Dalliah had underestimated exactly what Kate could do.

Kate focused the energy around her and concentrated upon the spirit wheel beneath her feet. The Winters soul that had been trapped there for centuries had been enough to hold back the veil's fall; now she would see if another could bring it back under control.

The skulls in the walls began to tremble. The outer tiles of the spirit wheel began to turn, and the Winters tower rocked suddenly within its foundations. The floor cracked and shuddered. The air felt dense and heavy, like the calm before a thunderstorm. Vibrations pulsed like a heart underground and the surface of the Sunken Lake rippled outward, sending thin waves lapping in circles toward its shore.

A high-pitched noise sounded from the distant walls of the city and spread inward, growing louder all the time, until it reached the tower in one almighty eruption of sound. The tower broadcast it like an explosion, as if someone had struck the center of the city with a weight, sending a deep wave of noise sounding through the streets.

Silas and Dalliah were slammed back against the wall as energy exploded up through the floor. The wheel flared with light, its central tile burning brightly with the carved symbol of the Winters family, and the walls tore into darkness, letting the half-life spill across the living world. Swaths of spirits moved across Fume like smoke rolling across the ground, but these were not only the surface-dwelling souls of the restless dead. Among them moved the dark and tortured souls claimed by the black. They all were rising up, and they were listening to Kate.

The veil's collapse spread like a sheet of ice splintering into pieces across Albion's sky. Energy splintered like violet lightning, snatching at the clouds and splaying out across the city's memorial towers. Fume was the central point of impact, opening the eyes of the living to the world of spirit that existed barely a breath from their own. As the veil fell there, so it followed right across the whole of Albion, crackling out to the far shores of the Taegar Sea and the slopes of distant mountains in the High North.

In Kate's hometown of Morvane, shades that had wandered the streets unseen now moved clearly in the darkness, drawing shouts of fear from early traders working in the market square. Alleyways and roads flickered with spirit lights wrapped in shadow, and souls that would normally be glimpsed only as movement out of the corner of a person's eye now stood like fragile reflections caught in the firelight. People locked themselves in their houses and peered out at the moving figures from behind the safety of their windows, but the dead had no interest in the living. Phantoms moved swiftly through the streets, swept out past the town's barricaded walls, and traveled away into the far-reaching wilds, heading for Fume.

Kate was drawing in all those who had died in torment, attracting thousands of wraithlike souls from the forests, down the rivers, and across forgotten valleys. The shades passed through areas of Albion not seen by human eyes for generations, racing toward the graveyard city like an avalanche speeding across the ground. Firelit villages were swamped by swaths of gray and black. Animals stamped, howled, and bayed. Lanterns blew out, and those who had been woken by the noise looked out their doors to witness a wall of souls rumbling through their streets. The cries of the dead were heard by everyone, either awake or in dreams, as lost ancestors finally made their presence known.