Winterveil (20 page)

His soul overwhelmed her. She felt his spirit flood through her, chilling her blood and spreading down into the stone circle beneath them. There, in the black, their torn souls wound together, side by side, until Silas's spirit moved deeper into the darkness, severing the connection between Kate and the veil and sending her soul rushing back into her physical body. Kate breathed in a full living breath and pushed Silas away. Silas fell back, unconscious, to the tower floor, and the current of death dissipated, leaving the tower room still and dark.

Fume plunged into darkness. Shades still left inside the city faded from sight as the veil swept up like an invisible curtain, blotting out the half-life all across Albion from the mountains to the surrounding seas. The Winters souls within the tower screeched with frustration until their voices died. Kate did not listen to them. Her soul had been released from the torment of the black, but grief chilled her heart in its place.

She knelt by Artemis's side, part of her still holding out hope he might breathe again as she tried calling his spirit back to life one last time. Even with the veil restored, he did not answer. He had already entered death. He was at peace.

Kate stood up and picked up Silas's fallen sword. Holding it with the point pressing down into the floor, she stood over him as he opened his eyes. Silas looked up along the blade, his eyes touched by their old, cold gray.

“You brought me back,” said Kate. “You could have freed yourself, but you brought me back.”

Silas stood up. Kate held the handle of his sword out to him, and he slid it back into its sheath. “Some things are more important than one man,” he said.

“I don't know how you survive in that place,” said Kate. “Every day. Every second. The fear, the pain, and the dark. Why didn't you go?”

“My mistakes sent you into the black, but I have lived with the veil long enough to know its ways. I can endure it. I have already taken too much from you. This burden is mine. You have your own to bear.”

She took hold of his hand. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “I will never forget what you did, and I will find a way to help you. One day you will be free.”

Silas covered Kate's hand with his, then slowly pulled away. Few people had ever touched Silas's hands in friendship. Kate's hands were the delicate tools of a healer, born to restore life, while his were stained with the blood of too many deaths: trained to hold a blade and nothing more.

Silas walked back to the tower door, and as the veil strengthened once again across Albion, he and Kate could feel the energies of the people in the city shifting from fear into relief.

“The people need something more than the High Council's empty words to carry them out of this night,” he said. “If you are willing, there is one last enemy for us to face today.”

20

RUIN

E
dgar pushed his way through devastated streets touched by the growing light of dawn, heading for the place where he had last sensed Kate while the veil was down. The road was riddled with cracks. The front walls of the houses he passed had been buckled by the force of the ground shivering beneath them, but the most ancient buildings among them stood strong and proud. As newer buildings had collapsed, old ones had been revealed like whales breaking water, standing upon stepped stone platforms that had once raised them above the level of the understreets.

Any shades that remained in the city had faded from view, and any memories imprinted upon it by the veil were swiftly undone. Towers that had appeared intact returned to their aged state. Ruined houses leaned against each other across the streets, and underground pipes spewed water as the night's true devastation revealed itself. The movement of the spirit wheels had peeled back layers of recent history and let the past dominate once again.

Edgar stumbled past ancient places that had long been forgotten. He picked his way along paths that had once been pristine but were now scattered with building debris, people's belongings, and gaping trenches where old paths had been uncovered underneath.

He coughed in the stone dust, placing his hands on fallen walls as he clambered across them, making his way toward the Winters tower. Silas's crow flapped nearby, keeping a close eye upon him as it moved effortlessly through the air, and as Edgar passed into a street relatively untouched by the devastation, a voice called out to him.

“Ed?”

Tom peered out of his hiding place inside the doorway of an empty house. Edgar took a moment to recognize his face and then hurried to meet him. He picked his protesting brother up in his arms, not caring about his aching muscles or Tom's futile demands to be put down, scuffed his brother's hair, and hugged him tight.

“I didn't know if I would ever see you again,” he said, finally releasing him. “What are you doing here? Where's Artemis?”

“He went up there,” said Tom, pointing up to the Winters tower. “I can't feel him anymore, Ed.”

“He'll be fine,” said Edgar. “He's stronger than he looks.” He saw the doubt in his brother's eyes.

“Death came to the tower,” Tom said. “It took him. I felt it.”

Edgar rested his hands on Tom's shoulders. “Artemis kept an eye on you for me,” he said. “Whatever happened, he kept you safe.”

“I don't need looking after,” said Tom. “You're the one who looks like he's been trampled by a pack of dogs.”

“Fair enough.” Edgar could not deny that Tom was in a far better state than he was. He smiled and looked out into the street, where people who had hidden from the night's madness were gradually emerging from their houses.

They were the servants the rich had left behind, the unseen undercurrent that made the city run smoothly. Most of them had been stolen from their homes by wardens years ago, but as soon as Fume was under threat their masters had abandoned them. Now they walked through the streets, many of them holding makeshift weapons to defend themselves, as curiosity drew them toward the place where the events of that night had begun.

In the east, the smoldering remains of enemy weapons were still embedded in the rooftops and walls of buildings the Continental army had attacked. Edgar could hear people shouting to one another as they tried to reconnect in the dark. Just visible by the light of the fires reaching from their tower tops, the High Council chambers burned in a searing crown of flames.

The crow wandered along the spine of a nearby roof, then swooped to the ground and strutted up the steep hill that led to the tower, sensing its master close by.

“Where's that bird going?” asked Tom.

“Can you see Kate in the veil?” Edgar asked. “Or Silas? Are they still in the tower?”

“I can't work it like that,” said Tom. “It comes and goes.”

Edgar weighed up the dangers of leaving Tom near a crowd of confused servants or taking him up to the tower, before accepting that his brother could obviously take care of himself. He followed the crow up to the tower steps, where the door was already ajar. There were voices inside, and he recognized Kate's at once.

Looking through the crack in the door, he could see a woman's body slumped in the shadows. He signaled to Tom to stay outside and then burst in, ready to face whatever was inside.

“Kate?” He recognized the fallen woman as Dalliah and saw Kate standing in the center of the room with Artemis's body behind her. “What happened?” His voice was so small and his expression so devastated that Kate crossed the tower and threw her arms around him, holding him close.

“Artemis is gone,” she said. “He's—” She could not say the word, but Edgar could see for himself. He didn't know what to say.

“I felt you in the veil,” said Kate, lifting her cheek from the dirt of his jacket. “You were there. You stayed with me.”

Edgar held her gently. Terrified by how close he had come to losing her, not wanting to let her go, he felt his eyes prick with tears. He did not care what else had happened to him in the last few days. His brother and Kate had survived Albion's most terrifying night. That was good enough for him.

Silas stepped silently outside, and his crow hopped up onto his shoulder. When Kate and Edgar followed him, Kate saw the stripped-back streets with her own eyes for the first time. Dalliah Grey had brought her twisted vision of the future to Fume. So much destruction, so many lives threatened, all for the sake of one soul.

Kate was not the same girl she had been just a few weeks before. Her spirit was strong, but it had been changed. There was something not quite right about the way her senses now saw the world. Colors were different—everything looked paler than before—and the healing the veil had worked on her body did not feel as strong as she would have liked. Her breaths were shallow, and her heartbeat was slower than it should have been.

She still held
Wintercraft
in her hand, and she could feel the spirit within it as strongly as she could feel Edgar's spirit beside her. Artemis had had no choice but to let himself pass safely into death, but one of her ancestors had never left her side. The silver-eyed man was still with her, his energy alive within the pages. She would protect his book. She would keep his spirit safe.

“This wasn't supposed to happen,” said Kate. “People are afraid.”

“Fires can be put out,” said Silas. “Buildings can be repaired. Sometimes the greatest struggle is simply to survive. These people still have their lives. They will be thankful for that.”

The group walked down into the street to where a small crowd was gathering. The people parted as Silas walked straight through it.

“You still have a job to do here, Mr. Rill,” he called back to Edgar. “We require transportation. The fastest you can find.”

“Where are we going?” asked Edgar.

Silas turned, the stare in his eyes matching that of his crow. “To make history,” he said.

 

The servants on the streets were happy to help them find what they needed. Under Edgar's watchful eye, two black horses were brought forward and harnessed to an old taxi carriage bearing the High Council's blue seal on the door.

Silas had not found the peace he was hoping for, but his experience within the veil had offered him a new path. The High Council did not deserve the service of people who had been stolen from their homes, the assistance of the people of the City Below, or the loyalty of the wardens who had given their lives in its name. The city had fallen in the most destructive and devastating way Silas could have imagined, but those who had risen to protect it had earned their place within its streets.

The High Council would never recognize what those people had done. In time, it would cast them out and call back the cowards who had fled. It would reshape that night's victory as one that belonged to its members, not to the men and women who had faced two terrifying incursions into their ordinary lives.

Silas had not left orders for the wardens to imprison the councilmen. They would be allowed to go about their normal duties, and in the aftermath of such a serious crisis Silas knew where they would be. It was time for Albion to hear something other than their usual platitudes and lies. The government of the High Council would not survive that day. It was time for his country to change.

He climbed into the driver's seat and took the carriage reins while Kate, Tom, and Edgar seated themselves in the back. Silas spoke out, addressing the people around him. “These streets are yours,” he said. “What has happened here will bring great change to Albion. No one will hold you against your will again.”

A loud cheer rang out from the district surrounding the Sunken Lake. The old shades standing around its edges settled back into their watchful role, and word soon spread across the city that Silas Dane and Kate Winters had been instrumental in stopping the nightmare that had gripped its people and its dead.

As Silas drove the carriage over ruined roads and between cracked buildings, he passed people crying in the streets, comforting and helping one another. Some of them had gathered in nervous groups and were looking down at the exposed listening circles. Most of the circles appeared dormant, but Silas could see Kate's energy still rippling through their carved words. For all his efforts, Kate's soul had not separated completely from the half-life. His spirit had taken her place within the black, but she was still bound to the veil in her own way. The edges of her soul were touched by the upper reaches, and while Silas did not know what effect that connection would have upon her, so long as she was spared the torment of the depths he considered his soul a welcome exchange.

The carriage wheels crushed wanted posters bearing Silas's and Kate's faces into the ground and rattled loudly over fallen chunks of stone. As they approached the surrounding walls of the city square, Silas saw that the grand black carriages belonging to the High Council were already outside, and all the doors leading into the amphitheater were open. People were filtering into the square, drawn in by news that the councilmen were going to address the people. Silas, Kate, Edgar, and Tom climbed from the carriage and joined others who wanted to hear what the High Council had to say.

Most of the wooden seats had been pulled back into position; but the square was barely half full, and all nearby eyes turned as people felt Silas's cold presence. They knew him at once, and many of them recognized Kate's face from the council's posters. Kate's group took their seats as whispers of their arrival rippled around the square.

A councilman was already standing at a podium in the middle of the central circle, speaking about the battle that had taken place at the city walls. It was the outspoken councilman, the one Silas had sent to witness Edwin Gorrett's interrogation. He looked smaller now and far less confident. His voice was wavering as he relayed edited versions of the wardens' reports to the people around him. With the rich residents gone, the only people left to hear him were the traders and the servants and a good number of representatives from the City Below who had decided to stay to make their own voices heard.

“. . . and we should be thankful”—the councilman continued—“for all the, er, all the efforts that the esteemed High Council has made in order to bring this conflict to its final resolution.”

“Liar!”

“The council are cowards!”

“We want the truth!”

Dissent rang from the crowd. No one wanted to hear the council's lies. They had been emboldened by their experiences. They had looked into the eyes of death, had fought against their Continental enemies, and had won. The wardens guarding the councilmen looked on silently, refusing to quiet the crowd, but some of them were standing guard over a small group of prisoners who had been caught within the square. Greta and her group of the Skilled were kneeling on the central circle with their hands bound behind their backs. Prisoners of the council.

“And we must—we must all remember the brave actions of the late councilman Edwin Gorrett,” said the councilman, wincing even as he spoke the name, “without whose selfless actions and sacrifice Fume would, er, Fume would not have survived this day.”

“Go back to your chambers!”

“Hide like rats!”

“Where is Silas Dane? Let him speak!”

The crowd fell silent. No one knew who had spoken those last words, but enough of them had noticed that Silas was present in the crowd. Many looked around nervously, unsure whether the former warden and current “traitor” to Albion could truly have been instrumental in helping them that night.

Silas did not move, but some members of the crowd did not give up.

“How exactly
did
the High Council save the city?” demanded someone near the front. “How did
they
calm the souls of our ancestors? How did they drive back the enemy and clear the sky of souls?”

Unsure how to respond, the councilman lowered his head. “Clearly . . . ,” he said after some thought. “Clearly the attacks upon the city were severe enough to cause certain residents to see things that, perhaps, might not truly have been present.”

“Are you calling
us
liars?”

“I know what I saw!”

“The Skilled were right!”

The councilman raised his hands in peace. “No one can be certain of what has happened here tonight. All we can do is set the city back to rights. There is a lot to do before our residents can return.”

“We
are
residents!”

“The capital must return to its usual operations,” said the councilman, “as a symbol of endurance and perseverance across Albion. We will make sure our lands are clear of the Continental invaders. Let our enemies see that we can rebuild Fume to be as grand as it was before.”