Yethyr walked through his war camp, his steps lighter than before. The life of an entire city thrummed at his fingertips and at the moment, he seemed content to use it to add voices to the deathsong that allowed him to move. He could just barely hold the fur bundle that hid me now. I didn’t help him. I hesitated to do anything at all.
Yethyr knew I had some sort of mind of my own, but for now, he did not know the extent of my consciousness. All he knew was that holding me made people think thoughts that weren’t their own.
I wanted to keep it that way. If I could curate his perception of me, he wouldn’t know the danger he was in. For another, it would be as simple as not speaking with my own voice, but he could sense my presence. He was the first spellsinger to touch me that wasn’t one of my makers. He did not know my nature, but he had the senses to comprehend it. Any deception I tried to pull with him had to be well-considered.
So I lay in wait, hunting for an opportunity.
Yethyr stopped in front of a tent flap flanked by two animated skeletons. The deathsong that controlled them was simpler than that which commanded Acad, but I caught fragments of a shared melody.
Yethyr ducked into the tent, passing them without much thought. Jaetheiri followed behind him more warily. Through our blood bond, now stretched thin, I could feel her discomfort at the dead guards watching her.
Unfortunately for her, there were four more dead guards within. They stood watch at the corners of the tent, all in various states of decay, all bound by one man front and center.
There stood a deathsinger as tall as most of the Brinn, though the shock of frizzy gray hair made him seem even taller. His black-scale armored back was to the tent’s entrance, cutting a striking figure with his arms clasped behind his back.
“That was sloppy.” He turned. His eyes were dark blue. His gray beard was streaked dark black. “My prince.”
I could feel Jaetheiri scowl, but Yethyr did not bat an eye. “You could have assisted, Master, if you thought so.”
“I’ve been disrupting the Datrean Choir since this blasted siege began!” His words came with flippant gestures. “Don’t talk to me about ‘helping you.’ I have done more than enough. Why should I waste myself when you activated the circle uncontested?”
“It is curious,” Yethyr mused. “Datrea’s defense fell silent all at once.”
“Why would they continue such a futile song? Frankly, they should have conceded a month ago.”
“Perhaps, but they didn’t. There is a reason they waited until now. What were they waiting for?”
“Don’t ask me. Ask them!” He pointed to the city’s worth of life pulsing around Yethyr’s neck.
Yethyr looked down and through his eyes, I saw the small porcelain pendant that now contained the remnants of Datrea. It was made with bone ash, etched with musical notation, and carved in the shape of the moon above.
The crescent of that moon was now red, red with blood, red with life.
Yethyr probed it and a cacophony of sound filled his mind. I shuddered. This was the Deathsong of Datrea itself, a great and terrible choir that should never have been.
I was relieved when he stopped and the music ceased.
Yethyr frowned “There are no necromancers within my grasp.”
Now his teacher was intrigued. “Are you certain?”
“There are several children with the gift.”
“Apprentices?”
“No. Their sound is weak. They were never trained.”
Like Malinda. I felt a sudden fear. Could she be among them? Could all my effort have been for naught?
No.
I felt certain I would have sensed her life if she passed me to enter that porcelain prison.
“It's not just them. I can find no fully realized arcanists at all.” It was satisfying to feel Yethyr so unsettled. “Not a single one died by the Circle.
“They could have died of the strain of resisting us before.”
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“The lithomancers and the necromancers, yes, but the pyromancers too?”
Arcanists? Necromancers? Lithomancers? The terms were strange. Such names were cold and divorced from the true beauty of their art, but I felt certain they meant the same thing as deathsingers or stonesingers. It was all the same songcraft, the same music.
Yethyr’s teacher stroked his beard. “They may have all committed suicide.”
“I do not understand Datrea.” Yethyr huffed. “They would happily throw their lives to Hell, rather than fall into my grasp.”
“There is another possibility, however.” The man gave him a pointed look.
I felt the Prince’s heart sink. “They could have escaped.”
“Your father would not like that.”
“No, no he wouldn’t.” Yethyr scowled. A strange mix of emotions warred within him and I struggled to understand.
“Chin up, my prince.” Clearly, his teacher could read his face better than I could read his mind. “This remains a glorious achievement. The knowledge and wealth that is now yours to claim. Songsteel now litters the streets, just waiting to be looted.”
“Jaetheiri is already ahead of us on that front. She found this.” He raised me up and in this, I helped him. I would always help him draw attention to me. I knew enough that any notice at all was sure to cause mayhem.
I was still wrapped in furs. The deathsinger’s breath caught even before he could see me. “Whatever is in your hand radiates immense necromantic power.”
“I know. The sound, Master. It is like nothing else.”
“Show it to me.”
Yethyr hesitated. He didn’t want to. “I cover it for a reason. It seems to affect the mind of all who gazes upon it, and it has definitely tried to influence both me and Jaethe while we touch it directly.”
“Are you calling my mind weak?”
Yethyr sighed and started to unwrap me. “Of course not, but I would be a poor apprentice if I didn’t warn you.”
The furs fell away and my vision through Yethyr sharpened to see the teacher’s wide blue eyes all the clearer.
“Such craftsmanship.” He reached for me and Yethyr resisted his every urge to recoil. I realized, much to my amusement, that he thought I was placing those possessive thoughts in his head. He thought he was resisting me, not merely the allure of my curse.
I held back a laugh as I welcomed the hand that fell on my naked blade
Flavrir.
That was this deathsinger’s name. I felt his mind and his life, and this time, I made no attempt to bond with him. I had learned my lesson from my ongoing struggle with Yethyr. I did not dare restart that fight while Yethyr had a fully realized deathsinger as an ally beside him.
So I remained passive. I felt his deathsong press up against me, probe me, but I did not engage.
“It is strangely docile,” Yethyr said. “The spirit within fought me like an ash panther when I first touched it.”
Flavrir’s fingers trailed up my blade and I forced myself not to shudder. “I’ll give credit when it is due, my prince. You have always excelled at spiritual domination.”
Yethyr was unconvinced. “Perhaps.”
“There is faint writing etched into the blade,” Flavrir said. “You are more the scholar on Datrea’s runes than I.”
Now they both bent over me.
“Bonesong.” Yethyr read. “A very Datrean name.”
“Indeed. Very fitting too. Do you not sense what was done to make this blade?”
Yethyr cocked his head, listening to the music of me. “They used bones.”
“Not just any bones, boy. Great bones. Consecrated bones.” Flavrir looked up at his prince and there was a wild panicked gleam in his eye. “Do you understand what I am saying? Do you comprehend the scope of what this means?”
I didn’t, but Yethyr quailed. The Prince of Brinn, the architect of my entire city’s massacre, was horrified. Revolted even. I was startled that he had the capacity for such feelings at all.
“Are the Datreans truly capable of that blasphemy?” he said. “Do they truly have no limits?
“They worship demons,” Flavrir whispered. “There is no telling what depths they are willing to troll.” He looked down at me with new awe. He let go of me of his own accord. He wanted me, even now, but that desire was tempered by fear. He glanced at his hand as if he thought it should be burned for the transgression of touching me.
Yethyr was more angered than afraid. He squeezed my hilt all the more tightly. “Who would do this?”
Flavrir took a steadying breath. “Zasha Deathsinger, I expect. The necromancy woven in this masterwork reeks of her.”
That annoyed me. What an unpleasant revelation! To think that Deathsinger Zasha had a hand in my creation. To think of her hands on me at all…
“Necromancy is only one part in this sacrilege, and I suspect the smaller part,” Yethyr said, and it soothed me to have her contribution to my forging lessened so casually.
“True,” Flavrir agreed. “Does this Bonesong have an inscription or a maker’s mark?”
The Prince flipped me over and translated. “May the victor forever reap what they are due. Daened, First Steelsinger of Datrea.”
Everyone in the tent, even Jaetheiri, even the supposedly mindless skeletons at attention gasped.
“Daened of Datrea,” Flavrir breathed. “I should have known only he would dare to attempt such a sin.”
“Attempt?” Yethyr laughed hollowly. “I hold in my hand success, Master. Whatever that genius was trying to do worked. The question is why?” He looked down at me, and it felt like he was asking me directly. “What can you do? What task requires the desecration of the sacred?”
I said nothing.
Flavrir straightened, desperate to fill my eerie silence. “You will have to find him and ask the man yourself.”
“Daened of Datrea?
“Hunt this mad smith down if he lives. Raise him and question his corpse if he does not.” Flavrir smiled grimly. “Either way, Datrea is yours, my prince. It’s time you walk its dead streets and take its secrets for your own.”
“The real hunt,” Yethyr murmured.
“Yes,” his teacher agreed. “The real hunt.”
And so we've begun arc 2. Get ready for Hell. Literally.
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You can hear the voices of the dead. What would you prefer to be called?
