Bid My Soul Farewell Page 2

  I wondered how such a man had not only found himself on the governing council, but become something of a leader in clearing out the bodies. Hamish held the door open for me and caught my curious look. I was still trying to place him; I thought I’d known most of Father’s fellow councilmen. “City planning,” he said again, stressing the words. “Streets and sewers.”

  It clicked then. Father had often mocked the role. City planning was the least respected position on the council, a near-thankless task with twice the work and none of the prestige other council members enjoyed.

  I stepped inside the room that had been used to imprison the Emperor. It smelled sharply of metal—unsurprising, as iron covered the walls, a remnant of when the chamber had been used to imprison Bennum Wellebourne, the original traitor of Lunar Island. But the metallic twinge was so sharp I could almost taste it.

  Blood, I realized, looking down at the floor. It pooled on the dark metal, drying and sticky, clinging to my boots.

  My eyes followed the lamplight flickering on the bodies.

  The one closest to me was a man. Strange, wasn’t it, that I had spent every evening in his office for a year, that I had sat across from his desk and recited my lessons like a good lad, that I had spoken to him more than my own father, and yet, in death, I almost didn’t recognize him. How could the escape of a soul change a body so much? But it had. It made Master Ostrum’s face slacker, his eyes duller. He didn’t look asleep, as I’d often heard death described.

  He just looked dead.

  “Did you know him?” Hamish asked, hefting another body around and positioning it so that he could drag it down the stairs and to the hallway.

  “Yes,” I said simply.

  Hamish thumped down the stairs, then paused, waiting for me. I picked up Master Ostrum from under the shoulders, struggling with his limp weight and the joints in his body that were already stiffening. He was larger than me, and I staggered under his weight, but I would not let his body bounce on the steps and drag along the floor like the one Hamish was weighed down with. Master Ostrum deserved more than that. I could give him so little now, but I at least had respect.

  By the time I reached the cart in the hall, hefting Master Ostrum’s body up, Hamish was waiting for me. I finally saw which body he had moved so callously out of the iron chamber.

  Governor Adelaide’s lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling, one lid half-opened, squinting up at the ceiling. Someone had removed the sword Nedra had used to kill her, but the wound remained, a stain of black-burgundy across her dress.

  Master Ostrum no longer looked like himself in death. But when Nedra had plunged the sword into Adelaide’s chest, piercing the governor’s heart and watching the life drain from her, Nedra had not looked like herself either.

  THREE

  Nedra

  THE DOORS OF the quarantine hospital swung open as I mounted the front steps. A dozen or so people rushed out, led by a middle-aged man—Dannix, the living father of one of my revenants. He ran down the steps, straight past me and to Ronan, his son whom I had raised from the dead the night I became a necromancer.

  The other people followed Dannix’s lead, running into the crowd of revenants and reaching for their dead loved ones. I paused, and so the revenants paused. My eyes went to Ronan, who stood awkwardly in his father’s embrace. Dannix pulled back from the hug, wiping a globule of drying blood from his son’s face, then picking at his hair, where gore clung to the dark strands. He gagged as he withdrew a chunk of flesh that must have been severed from a soldier during the battle.

  Dannix whirled around on me. “Where did you take my son?” he roared, advancing.

  Calm, I told my revenants. I did not need them to protect me from a single angry man.

  “You made him get up in the middle of the night, you forced him like he was in some sort of trance to follow you, and you come back hours later like this?” he said, thrusting his hand, smeared with old blood, at me.

  “I needed Ronan’s help,” I said evenly. I looked out at the other living people, each simmering with rage but too afraid to stand up to me as Dannix did, their eyes sliding away from mine as I met their gaze coolly. “I needed all their help.”

  “To fight a battle?” Dannix shouted incredulously.

  “Yes,” I said. I turned and headed back up the stairs toward the hospital. My revenants followed, even Ronan, and Dannix scrambled after us. He grabbed his son by the wrist and dragged him closer to me.

  “He’s a child,” he hissed at me, anger seething through his voice.

  I didn’t pause, but my look made Dannix stumble back. “Don’t be simple,” I sneered. “He was no longer a boy the second he died.”

  The look on the man’s face was as shocked and horrified as the one Governor Adelaide had given me as I sliced into her heart with a steel blade. A part of me wished I could wrap the spoken words around my fingers, like I could grasp a soul, and slip them back past my own lips, swallowing them down forever. But of course, I could not. I let the silence hang between us as Ronan slipped his hand free of his father’s grip and followed me through the open mahogany doors into the hospital. Once all the dead were inside, the living followed.

  I headed to the stairs leading up to the clock tower, the place I had claimed as my own. I knew that there was a bed with blankets waiting for me beneath the steady ticking of the giant clock, but the idea of climbing all those stairs suddenly wearied me. I pushed the exhaustion away, but I could not summon the strength to mount the steps.

  “You can’t just do this!” Dannix was not yet done with me. He strode across the tiled floor, stopping several meters before he reached me. “I’m his father! If you want to wage war on the Empire like Wellebourne, fine, but not with my son!”

  I stared at him coldly, and I could see his courage falter. Every single one of my revenants turned to face him, their dead eyes leveled on his face, twisted with rage. I strode forward, and my revenants parted before me, each one moving in perfect sync. I stepped uncomfortably close to Dannix, and he backed away from me, stopping abruptly against the stone wall. I could smell his breath, count the individual hairs sprouting from his cheeks.

  I felt rather than heard the warning from my revenants. Not about Dannix and his silly fight with me, but a real threat. I whirled away from the angry man, striding back to the mahogany door, my exhaustion forgotten for the moment.

  Small ships floated on the black water, their bows pointed toward the quarantine hospital. Six—no, eight.

  “What are they doing?” Dannix had followed me outside.

  Set a watch, I whispered silently in my mind, the words echoing in the minds of all my revenants. They streamed out in formation, some along the steps, others heading around the shore on either side of the hospital’s island. In moments, I had eyes watching each direction.

  “Are those ships going to dock?” Dannix asked. “What do they want?”

  “It’s a warning,” I whispered. I hoped.

  News of the battle at the castle must have traveled quickly. Why else would they be here, now? It did not matter that I had killed a necromancer. I was a necromancer. I had stopped the plague, but did these people in their threatening ships know that? Did they care?

  “Are they going to attack?” Dannix asked warily.

  The ships didn’t move.

  “Not tonight,” I said finally, turning to go back inside.

  In truth, however, my certainty was false. I could only hope that, at least for now, their fear of me outweighed their indignation. Because that was the only weapon I had left.

  Fear.

  FOUR

  Grey

  I JUMPED AT a sound I didn’t recognize, so startled that I burst from sleep. Light flooded the room, blinding me. I struggled to sit up, a weight sliding off my body. Heavy damask. My brain fought through the fog of exhaustion.

  I was i
n a bed. A large, ornate bed, with heavy drapes that had been flung open by a servant.

  “Master Astor,” the servant said, no hint of humor at the rhyme. “You have been summoned.”

  “Summoned?” I looked around the room. After the bodies had been cleared from the palace, Hamish, the city planner, had offered me a bed here. I had accepted, too exhausted to think of where else I could sleep. I’d left Yūgen Academy in cuffs; I couldn’t very well stroll into my dormitory room. And my parents’ home was not a home to me. It never had been. When I’d first left for Yūgen, I’d sworn to never spend another night there.

  “His Imperial Majesty has summoned you,” the servant pressed again.

  Finally, his words sank in. The Emperor. Wanted me. I looked down at myself. I’d been so bone-weary last night that I had collapsed on the blue-and-gold-damask-covered bed, pausing only to strip off my blood-crusted shirt and pants. I sat on the silk sheets in nothing but my undergarments, and, when I looked back, I could see I’d stained the luxurious cloth with the previous day’s grime.

  “We have time for ablutions,” the servant said in a lower voice. “But we should hurry,” he added.

  After quickly cleaning and dressing in a set of simple, borrowed clothes the servant produced for me, I rushed down the hall. The servant allowed me to go first, as was proper, but subtly touched my elbow when it was time to turn down a different corridor. He cleared his throat when we reached an ornately carved mahogany door with a shining brass knob. Another servant stepped out and led me inside a bedroom cast in shadows.

  “Is he here?” a voice said from behind the dark curtains of the bed.

  My eyes adjusted to the dim light slowly as I padded across the thick carpet. This was not at all like the bedroom I’d been given. Five or six times larger, with a full-size table on one side, floor-to-ceiling windows hidden by silken drapes, and a desk, behind which stood a secretary with a quill at the ready. The room held nearly two dozen servants and nobles and yet did not feel crowded at all.

  A man close to my age—the Emperor—lay propped up on pillows in the center of an enormous bed, the four posts scraping the ceiling and holding back velvet drapes spangled with gold thread. I finally met the Emperor’s eyes. His face was pale and wan, his cheeks sunken. I was reminded harshly of the last time I’d seen him—groveling on the floor, a prisoner for months, subject to Governor Adelaide’s whims. He somehow looked smaller and weaker here, surrounded by pillows, than he had on the iron floor.

  “Greggori Astor,” the Emperor said in a soft voice that still commanded respect.

  Emperor Auguste gazed out at the council members assembled in the room with hooded eyes. There were more than thirty men and women on the regular council, but less than half were gathered here now.

  “I have learned,” Emperor Auguste said, his voice growing stronger as he spoke, “that I cannot trust this colony to be ruled under a regent. Not when the regent is someone like Adelaide, and her council mostly made of vipers.”

  He coughed, his body falling against the pillows, but his eyes were sharp as they roved around the room. “You all know the law. I had chosen Governor Adelaide because her opposition, Lord Anton, was openly proposing secession. I had made it clear when I overrode the vote and appointed Adelaide that such proceedings would not be tolerated. And yet most of the council was so busy trying to undermine my authority that they neglected to see Adelaide was a necromancer poisoning the very people they were supposed to protect.”

  The full impact of his words settled on me. All of the council members who’d voted for Anton, including my father, weren’t here. My stomach sank. Was Father even now in the dungeons below, awaiting trial for treason?

  As if reading my thoughts, the Emperor continued. “The council members whose selfish neglect led to this disaster on Lunar Island will face punishment.” He paused, his eyes skimming the crowd, resting on no one in particular. “The ones fully in support of Adelaide’s blasphemous necromancy or who openly advocated for rebellion obviously must be dealt with first. We’ve arrested five.” He rattled the names off quickly—none of them Linden Astor, who I knew had been integral in gathering supporters to break from the Empire. “I am not certain we’ve weeded out every threat, but know that the remaining traitors who occupied council seats will be found and tried for their crimes against the Empire.”

  My eyes darted around the room at the remaining council members. I wondered if the woman by the door shifted because she was afraid of being found out, or because she was simply uncomfortable. I wondered if the man standing to my left didn’t meet my eyes because he had something to hide, or because his mind was elsewhere.

  “Sir,” a man near the window said, taking a step closer to the Emperor’s bed. “What about . . . ?” He glanced around at the other council members in the room. I recognized him from one of Father’s dinners—Finip Brundl; he did something with exportation tariffs. When he didn’t continue, the Emperor waved his hand at him impatiently. “What about the necromancer?” Finip said, all in a rush.

  A chill descended on the room. I kept my eyes trained on the Emperor, whose stony expression betrayed no hint of his thoughts.

  “What about her?” the Emperor asked without inflection.

  “She’s—” Finip turned to the window, which faced the bay. “She’s out there still, Your Imperial Majesty. She’s violated every law of the Empire and our gods, and yet no charge has been made against her. You yourself saw the evidence of her crime—”

  The Emperor silenced Finip with a flick of his fingers. “I saw the evidence,” he said in a clear, strong voice, “when she used her undead revenants to save me.”

  Hope surged in my heart for Nedra.

  “But you are correct, Brundl,” the Emperor continued. Finip looked taken aback that the Emperor knew his name. “What kind of leader would I be to allow a murdering necromancer to go free merely because she saved my life?” His eyes drifted as he contemplated his next words. “We must have a trial,” he said, his voice so low that, had it not been silent in the room, I doubted anyone would have heard him.

  After a moment, he glanced up. “You may all go,” the Emperor said.

  The council members hurried to the door. Finip Brundl was among the last to leave. Another man gripped his elbow, whispering in a low undertone, “Don’t press it.”

  I started to the door.

  “Not you.” Emperor Auguste’s full attention was on me, his piercing eyes trained on me. “Stay.” My feet rooted to the floor.

  Finip glared at me before the servant shut the door in his face.

  The Emperor smiled and nodded to a chair beside his bed. I hesitated—his gleaming white teeth seemed both an invitation and a threat.

  I sat. “Are you . . . recovering well?”

  “No,” the Emperor said. I blinked, unaccustomed to such brutal honesty.

  “I was locked away for half a year, forced to live on nothing but scraps, with barely a ray of sunlight touching my skin. I am not well,” the Emperor elaborated, emphasizing the last sentence. He coughed again, dry and raspy. “But neither is this colony, and that is my sole concern right now.”

  Father was wrong, I thought. He always acted as if every person in authority held power only for the glory and riches, but it seemed like the Emperor actually cared.

  “It’s not just Adelaide’s necromancy, although the plague she cursed this land with was a disaster deadlier and more tragic than any I’ve yet seen,” the Emperor continued. “It would be naive of me to think that Lunar Island’s problems are limited to one necromancer with a lust for power.”

  Nedra had been the one to show me just how bad things could be on our island. At Yūgen, the lads like Tomus had popularized and romanticized rebellion, but I knew they were just parroting what their fathers were saying. It was easy for the rich who wanted to be richer to blame tariffs rather than their o
wn faults or bad luck. Nedra had shown me true poverty, desperation, and hopelessness. In the factories and the hospital, and, I assumed, throughout the north. Those people had actually had a reason for rebellion. They had so little, and that was before the plague. Now they had even less, and it wasn’t hard to imagine that rage might fill the hole death had left behind.

  The Emperor looked up at me, thin red veins standing out against the whites of his eyes. We were close to the same age, but the Emperor’s eyes looked ancient. And sad. “There is no one on this island that I trust,” he said, his voice clearer.

  I must surely be among those who did not merit trust. Not only was my father a marked man, but although I had worked to free the Emperor, I had also fought beside a necromancer.

  “What will you do with the traitors?” I asked, careful to keep my tone neutral.

  The Emperor’s eyes did not waver from mine. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “People are angry. Whenever there is a tragedy—and with the plague, there were thousands of tragedies—people look for someone to blame.”

  “They should blame Adelaide,” I spat.

  “And they would have. She would have hung for her crimes. Just as anyone who practices necromancy should.”

  Nedra’s name was unspoken between us.

  “She’s not like Adelaide,” I said quickly. “She’s not trying to—”

  The Emperor’s cold gaze settled on me. “Necromancy is forbidden.”

  Necromancy was against every law of gods and man. The punishment was death. Once, hundreds of years ago, it had been merely taboo, a dangerous pastime of alchemists who no longer feared the wrath of vengeful gods. After Bennum Wellebourne’s revolt against the Empire using an army of the undead, it became the highest crime, the worst form of treachery.

  “You’re going to put Nedra on trial,” I said. It wasn’t a question.