The Necromancer’s Light by Tavia Lark
❧
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Shae
All right, so that wasn’t the whole truth. He chickened out at the last minute.
But it’s more of the truth than Shae’s told anyone in ten years, and breaking open his secrets leaves him feeling raw, his heart sliced open in a way that’s difficult to bandage closed. He eats and helps clean up mechanically, quietly, and he’s grateful Arthur doesn’t ask anything else. As soon as he can, he goes to bed, closing his eyes to the smooth stone walls of the cave.
He drifts to sleep, exhausted from talking to Arthur and the nameless dead man, from spilling out his memories and magic and blood all day.
The cave closes around him, a tomb of shadows. He stands in the tomb, and dead vines grasp his ankles. Stone effigies pin back his arms. A bright white line fractures and withers into dust. He’s in the Lyralan cathedral, but he’s also in his family’s cottage. The shape moving towards him has horns and wings, but it’s also two people, and the hatred in their eyes burns just as fiercely. He doesn’t want to see them. He’d rather face the demon, he’s trapped by stone and death and—
Someone touches his shoulder.
Shae wakes with a pounding heart, each breath an ice-cold dagger in his lungs. He struggles, reaching for his knife or his rings or a handful of dirt. All he finds is warm skin under cotton, two hands gently but firmly catching his wrists.
“Hey, easy there.” Arthur’s voice is rough with sleep. Only the outline of him is visible in the faint starlight, but his aura’s as warm as a summer day. “It’s just me.”
Shae slumps back onto the cave’s dirt floor, eyes wide, still trembling. “Sorry,” he whispers. “I thought…” The dream’s already slipping from his mind. He can’t tell if another line of the array really broke, or if he just dreamed it.
“You sounded like you were having a nightmare,” Arthur says quietly. “I wasn’t sure if I should wake you up or not.”
Shae really doesn’t want to know what he sounded like, but the embarrassment is nothing beneath the warmth blooming in his chest. Maybe it’s just a job to Arthur, maybe it’s just a paladin thing, but right now, it doesn’t matter. Shae just likes the way Arthur acts like he cares about him.
“Thanks,” he says. “I’m fine now.”
Arthur lies back down next to him, and Shae misses his touch the moment his hands leave his wrists. But in the next breath, Arthur’s saying, “Come here, it’s cold tonight,” and pulling him in.
This time, there’s no mystery about their closeness. Arthur pulls, and Shae shamelessly follows, curling up against the larger man. He’s fully enclosed in the heat of Arthur’s arms, the steady thudding of his heartbeat, but there’s no sense of entrapment. This is comfort, not a cage.
He feels a warm, fleeting pressure on the top of his head, so quick he might have imagined it. If it wasn’t impossible, he would think it was a kiss. He’s too exhausted and comfortable to think much of it.
If he dreams again, he doesn’t remember by morning.
***
A few days later, Arthur helps him onto Duchess’s back like usual. They’ve fallen into a routine of casually chatting as they travel by day, and cuddling together at night. Arthur hasn’t mentioned the nightmares or Shae’s confession, which would be great except Shae has nothing to distract himself from the way Arthur’s hands linger on his thighs, the way he smiles up at Shae, as he positions him in the saddle.
“Remember, thumbs up,” Arthur says, and is physically readjusting Shae’s hands really necessary?
Maybe the problem isn’t the way Arthur keeps casually touching him. The problem is how much Shae likes it.
Shae squeezes his calves to make Duchess go forward, which has no effect. He kicks a little harder—he doesn’t want to hurt her, even though Arthur says he won’t—and she takes a single reluctant step forward, ears pinned back.
“Is she mad at me?”
“You’re pulling back on the reins,” Arthur says. “Relax.” The gentle pat to Shae’s knee is definitely not necessary. Heat flushes up Shae’s leg from the point of contact.
Shae takes a deep breath, forcing himself to relax with the same feat of concentration he needs to awaken a corpse. He moves his hands forward, back to the position Arthur originally showed him, and kicks again. This time, the chestnut mare moves into a walk immediately, as if the previous two attempts hadn’t even happened. Shae jerks in his seat with the first step, and barely stops himself from clamping his legs down to stay in place.
“Well done,” Arthur says, and Shae thinks he’s being sarcastic until he looks down and sees the way Arthur smiles up at him. The simple praise crawls into his hindbrain and takes root there, far sweeter than it should be.
Riding is easier now. He’s probably getting ahead of himself, being so pleased at being able to sit the walk, but he’s getting used to the steady movement beneath him. He doesn’t have to put as much thought into just moving with Duchess’s gait, and he’s able to pay more attention to his surroundings as they set off.
They’re only about a week from the border. This far north, the lush Charaini forest gives way to darker, taller trees, their trunks thin enough to bend with storm winds instead of breaking, their whiplike boughs held close together. The road is clear and mostly level, but the hills grow rockier around them. The weather’s still warm, probably, though Shae can’t differentiate between the weather and the warmth of Arthur’s aura.
“How long have you had Duchess?” Shae asks, because he’s greedy for the sound of Arthur’s voice.
Arthur grins and pats the mare’s glossy neck. “Five years. I’ve had her since the day I took my oath. She was a graduation present from some of my friends in the order. Bernard and Freya knew my family wasn’t as well off as theirs were, and they took me out horse shopping as soon as the vigil was over.” He laughs. “I learned not to ride her around town if I wasn’t in uniform, at first. The rest of my wardrobe was so cheap, I got stopped a few times by guards who thought I’d stolen her.”
Shae finds it difficult to imagine Arthur looking anything less than perfectly in place. People like Shae are the ones who get stopped by the guards, not golden boys like Arthur. The image makes his lips twitch in a smile. “They sound like good friends.”
“Don’t misunderstand, they’re terrible troublemakers,” Arthur says quickly, but he still smiles too. “But good friends, yes.”
“And where’s your family from?”
“Port Charain,” Arthur says. “My brother’s a sailor now, like Ma used to be.”
He continues talking about his family, needing little prompting from Shae, and Shae settles back to listen. He used to hate hearing about parents and children, brothers and sisters, furious and heartsick thinking about his own losses. But over the years, that’s faded to wistfulness. He’s glad there are happy families out there.
Arthur sighs at one point, reaching out to pet Duchess again. He’s looking at the road ahead, not at Shae. “I haven’t spoken to them in a year, though. Not since the incident with Ronan.”
“Is that the guy—your friend who stole the relic? Was your family upset about that?” Shae’s not used to feeling indignant on someone else’s behalf. It’s one thing for the Radiant Order to punish Arthur for someone else’s mistakes, but his own family turning on him? Shae’s parents had at least resented him for something he’d done with his own two hands.
“They don’t know about it.” Arthur’s next smile is hollow, and Shae almost regrets asking. “Maybe it’s cowardly of me, but I wanted to wait until after my sentencing, so I could tell them whether or not it turned out okay.” Shae wants to tell him it is okay, that he isn’t cowardly, but he doesn’t manage to pull together the words before Arthur continues. “And Ronan wasn’t just a friend. We were lovers.”
Shae’s hands tighten instinctively on the reins, and Duchess slows until Shae forcibly relaxes. “Oh.”
He’s not like Arthur. He’s not good at listening, and he’s not good at saying the right thing. Arthur’s gotten him to confess things he’d never confessed to anyone before, and it hurt but he felt safe. Now that the tables are turned, all Shae can think about is how jealous he is of a priest-killing thief.
“I’m sure your family would—”
His magic twinges within him. Seconds later, one of his rings flares cold on his right hand, sharper and more intense than he’s ever felt. He chokes, the pain buckling him over in the saddle.
Arthur swears, the sound more distant than it should be, and blazing heat briefly steadies Shae—then absence. There’s a tug on the saddle, and Duchess suddenly backs up. Clutching her mane for balance, Shae looks up through the pain. Panic freezes the scene around him, slowing down time.
He sees Arthur drawing his sword. The path curves sharply ahead, rocks rising tall around them, and the unmistakable malformed shape of a vaidkos stalks through the dark treeline. This one has only four legs, but four hideous vestigial wings stretch from its spine.
A flicker of movement at the edge of his vision. Another to the north. They’re surrounded, and Shae’s ring alerted him far too late.
“Stay back,” Arthur tells him, his blade gleaming like a torch in the sunlight. Then the first vaidkos lunges for him, and they meet in a crash of steel and fang. They part, both unharmed, and circle each other a few steps before lunging together again.
Shae can’t do anything besides try to stay on as Duchess dances beneath him. His heart pounds in his throat. He feels sickeningly helpless. Vaidkos aren’t dead. His power has no control over them, and that’s part of why he hired a sword in the first place. This is why Arthur’s here.
But it’s different actually seeing Arthur in danger.
The second vaidkos barrels from the trees. “Look out!” Shae yells on instinct, and Arthur barely dances out of the creature’s way. Both vaidkos fix their many-eyed gazes on Arthur. They’re more intelligent than mundane animals. They know the man with the sword is the true threat, and they’ll take him down before turning on Shae.
“Ride back to the last crossroads,” Arthur calls hoarsely. He swings his sword, fending off another blow. “I’ll meet you there.”
“I’m not leaving,” Shae snaps.
Even if he wanted to, he’s not sure he could control Duchess in such a state. She flinches back a few steps, knocking Shae sideways in the saddle. Her ears flick from monster to monster, and Shae can feel the instinctive, primal fear shivering through her body.
But she hasn’t abandoned her master, and Shae won’t either.
He can’t do anything while he’s trying—badly—not to fall off a horse. He leans forward and swings his leg around to dismount before he falls. But his previous dismounts didn’t involve another monster crashing through the trees right next to them. Duchess shies away as he moves, and he falls the rest of the way to the ground. He drops to one knee, scrambling backwards, out of the way of the mare’s hooves.
His new bruises and scrapes barely register. All his attention is focused on Arthur, dancing like a golden flame between leaping shadows. The paladin moves as if his blade is an extension of his body. The golden streaks through the air aren’t an illusion of sunlight and dust; they’re magic sharpening his sword, shielding his back.
But there are three vaidkos. No, there are four. And Arthur is only one man.
Shae rips off his glove and pulls out his knife. There’s no time for careful, deliberate cuts. He slices the blade down his palm and slams his hand to the ground, willing the blood out into the dirt. They’re a day out from the nearest town, and there are no graveyards nearby. There’s just the forest, the constant turnover of life and dead. The lingering, ambient echoes of mortality. If he reaches for it, spends enough of his strength, maybe—
Black smoke billows before him with a crack of thunder. Shae falls backwards with the sudden displacement of air. The impact is jarring, and his bloodied palm scrapes against the hard dirt road. He thinks for a second that his magic has gone wrong, except he hasn’t even started yet. The spell fizzles out, unspent.
The smoke coalesces into a shadow standing above him, and a pair of rotted leather boots before his eyes. Mouth gone dry, Shae looks up into blood-red eyes in a dead white face.
The man’s skin is warped and sagging. Like it spent a week in the river, then a week out of it. His hair is little more than tangles of mud and leaves, dried and flaking. The red eyes are the only part of him that looks alive, glittering as they fix on Shae.
“Little Shaesarenna,” Izen rasps through the dead man’s lips. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Shae’s skin crawls at the almost-familiar voice. He lunges for his knife, expecting a blow of magic at any moment, hoping his jewelry can protect him long enough to let him fight back. But Izen doesn’t strike. He stands utterly still, surrounded by wisps of red and black smoke, as Shae scrambles to his feet.
“If you aren’t here for me, then why are you here?” he asks, his voice high with nerves.
Izen tilts his head, and the dead man’s face doesn’t move, but Shae can see the way the demon’s true face would smirk, eyebrows raised. “You’ve always thought everything was about you, Shaesarenna. Do you think I’ve been pining in my tower for you all these years?” His laugh is grating, broken. “I’m here for breakfast, of course.”
Shae follows his gaze down the road, where Arthur faces off against the vaidkos in a clash of steel and sunlight. Arthur, with his divine aura and brilliant soul. Fear spikes through Shae’s lungs, and his hand tightens around his knife hilt.
All he wants to do is run, but he’s not letting Izen hurt Arthur. He’s not.
“I’m impressed to see you this deep into Charain,” he says, steadier now. “Do you need souls to break the array? It would be easier just to ask me, wouldn’t it?”
Izen jerks the dead man’s body around again, and his red stare sweeps up and down Shae’s body. The warped face is difficult to read, but Shae thinks he sees something like interest.
“Bold as ever, my precocious little student,” Izen says. “Or have you just grown tired of the cold? You had your chance to work with me before.”
“That was then.” Shae raises his hand to his side and drops the knife. He forces himself to look at Izen and only Izen as he walks closer. It’s a bad gamble, but Izen doesn’t stop him. Doesn’t move aside as Shae spreads his bare, bloody palm against the dead man’s chest. The smell of death and the dust and blood are enough to choke on. Shae takes a deep breath. “This is now.”
And with all the strength he has, he pulls the dark power from the corpse. By the time Izen realizes what he’s doing, it’s too late. All the power rushes into Shae, an ice-cold torrent of dark magic, until there’s nothing left for the demon to hold onto. The red light winks out of the dead man’s eyes, and the body shakes apart beneath Shae’s hand, cracking and crumbling into ash. A plume of smoke arcs away into the sky.
Izen’s escaping, but Shae can only think about Arthur. Dizzy with magic, every nerve in his body buzzing, he channels the power and sends it forth.