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Chapter Thirty-Eight

Trees rose around him. They formed a frame for a cloudy night sky, shot through with the moon’s silver light. Thunder rumbled in the near distance. The ground under his back was dry, and the wind that blew across his face didn’t smell like weather. It smelled like rot, like the accumulation of leaves left to molder on the forest floor. It smelled like death.

Appropriate, Rae thought. I feel like death. Where am I?

His name came again, and Rae realized that that was what had woken him up. Someone calling his name. He tried to answer, but when he opened his mouth the only sound he could summon was a gentle croak. Trying to stand, Rae inhaled sharply as crippling pain shot through his back and legs. Bile bubbled in the back of his throat. He rolled onto his side and spat out a mouthful of dried blood and yellow paste. Grinding in his chest. A numbness in his leg. Gods, I really am dying!

“Rae, you bastard! Where are you?” Mahk’s voice was none too gentle.

This time the croak turned into a moan, just loud enough to catch Mahk’s attention. Heavy footsteps, deadened by fallen leaves, and then Mahk’s round face hove into view. He had a bandage around his forehead, and dried blood clinging to his curly hair, but his eyes were bright. He looked Rae up and down, letting out a low whistle.

“Well, hell, son. You’ve done yourself a number, haven’t you?” he said. “Maybe better to stay on the Pearl, eh?” He chuckled lightly, shaking his head. “No, no, that wouldn’t have been better. Seen the wreck, I have. Even you’re in better shape than those poor bastards. Not that you’re in good shape, mind.”

“I think . . . I think . . .” Rae struggled to put words together.

“You think that you’re dying, yes. It’s been going around. Estev and La took the least of it. Left the getting hurt to the rest of us. Well, you and me, I guess.” He saw Rae’s eyes light up, and placed a gentle hand on Rae’s chest. Even that hurt like firebrands. “La’s fine. Come on, let’s get you to the miracle man.”

Mahk leaned down and slid one massive hand under Rae’s legs. This concerned Rae, not because it hurt, but because he felt like it should hurt but it didn’t. In fact, he couldn’t feel it at all. Then Mahk’s other arm went under his shoulders, and he started screaming.

“Yes, yes, very bad. I know. It hurts so bad. But that’ll be over soon, and you can get back to being an insufferable prick who isn’t nice enough to his sister. Sound good?” Mahk heaved Rae off the ground. Each step Mahk took, Rae let out a little yelp. “Sorry, mate. Gotta be quick about this.”

Each lurching step sent a shock of pain through Rae. His left arm swung free, hand banging against passing trees and off Mahk’s pounding legs. Rae felt like a rag doll knitted with barbed wire and broken glass. Several hours passed in this manner, or at least it felt that way to Rae. But then the smell of woodsmoke filled Rae’s mouth each time he gasped in pain, and warm, flickering light turned the surrounding forest into a palace of golden pillars. Voices reached his ears, then he was surrounded.

“What are you doing? You’re hurting him!” La, her voice tense.

“He was bleeding out. Look, I’ve half-run to get him here, could you maybe stop pulling?” Mahk sounded out of breath. “Couldn’t come back and fetch you. Pretty sure he’d be dead.”

“He may still be dead, the way you’re tossing him about,” La complained.

“Gods, you’re so gentle, you carry him!” But there was no end to the jostling and Mahk’s steady stride, not until they were next to a campfire. “Where’s Estev?”

“Still looking. Put him down. Here, over here.” Rae’s trip ended with an inglorious flop into a pile of leaves. It hurt so much less than it should have. In fact, Rae wasn’t sure he could feel much of anything anymore. Mahk stood over him, hands on his knees, gasping for breath. La put a hand on the big man’s shoulder. “You’ve overdone it. You should have gotten me.”

“Couldn’t . . .” He took a deep, gasping breath that rattled in his throat. “Couldn’t wait. I’ll get . . .” Air sucked through Mahk’s teeth. “Get the lifebinder.”

“Don’t be a damned fool,” La said. She pushed Mahk to the ground, even though it looked like the man was resisting. Mahk collapsed into the leaves next to Rae, staring straight up at the trees, breathing deeply. La pressed her lips together, looking from Rae to Mahk. “It won’t do to lose you both. You selfish fools, leaving me out here with Estev and gods know what lurking in the shadows. Stay still. I’ll be back with help.”

Rae heard her move off, and then the only sounds were Mahk’s labored breathing, the crackle of the fire, and the pounding in his head. He lay like that for a long time, wondering if each breath were his last, and what had happened, and where they were. He could feel the wraith slithering through his veins, poking about in his soul. He thought about channeling. Nothing hurt when he was riding the wraith, or at least it hurt in a different way. Could he use the wraith to stabilize himself? Dying without actually being dead? He didn’t know. There was so little he knew about the realm of Death, or even spiritbinding in general. When he died (not yet, gods, not yet) the wraith would tear free from his body. Would it try to kill the others? Would it drag his soul straight to Oblivion, or would he float here in these silent woods, haunting the site of his death for the rest of time?

This cheerful line of inquiry was interrupted by La’s return. She ran into the clearing, with Estev close behind. Rae wasn’t sure how he saw this, as his eyes were closed. Estev’s face looked like it was sewn in motley, a pattern of bruises and blood that made him shiver. But how was he seeing this?

—close now. he is very close. The wraith’s words echoed through Rae’s head like a scattergun blast. careful, child. i do not like this place.

What are you doing to me? Rae hovered over his own body, the wraith’s shimmering cloak wrapped around his awareness, a thin coil of light trailing down to his chest. Put me back! Put me back into my body!

—i am all that is holding you here, raelle. be still. keep wriggling like that and you may slip my grip completely.

Estev and La reached Rae’s body. La stood overhead, wringing her hands together while Estev knelt over his chest. The thin line of light trailing from Rae’s chest passed through Estev’s skull. Rae hung there, watching them try to revive him. Estev muttered to himself as he worked. La minced. Rae watched, his flesh growing colder.

“What’s taking so long?” La asked. “You just waved your hand over Mahk and brought him back! Stop screwing around and wave your hand!”

“It isn’t so easy with a wraithbinder,” Estev said quietly. He leaned back on his haunches, fat waist pressed against his thighs. He looked up, watery eyes following the cord of light that led to Rae’s hovering form. For a brief second they locked eyes. Estev winced. “He is already in the shadowlands. I can’t just bind a mote of Life to him. Not without destroying them both.”

“Destroying who of them both?” La asked. “Who are you talking about?”

“Rae, of course. And the dead man bound to his soul.” Estev wiped his forehead, then pulled Rae’s shirt open. “He had a scrying of his soul, done in Hammerwall. Do you still have it?”

“Yes, yes,” La said. She fumbled in her belt, producing the folded paper Indrit had created. How the hell did she get that? “Just save Rae. I give a rip about the ghost.”

“There is no Rae or the wraith. They are too tightly bound together.” He took the paper from La and unfolded it, laying it across Rae’s chest. Spots of blood leaked into the scrying, spoiling the ink. “We will have to update this before I can proceed.”

What is he doing?

—saving you. saving us both.

Estev wove his hands through the air over the scrying. Strings tugged at Rae’s soul, painful yet distant, as though sutures were cutting into his bones. The wraith hissed. Bands of fog formed over the scrying, settling onto the paper and turning into black runes woven into the ink. The wraith’s spirit formed in sharp sigils across the spotted parchment.

“That will have to do for now. The only way to do this is to let your brother die and pull him through the other side.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Rae and La said in unison, though Rae’s voice only sounded inside his own head.

“We don’t have another choice. You can’t bind opposing spirits to the same soul.” Estev kept working as he talked, weaving bands of light into the pattern hovering over Rae’s chest, drawing new skeins into the material plane, braiding them together, sealing them with fire and burning ink. “That is the only true prohibition, despite the College’s thousand laws and the justicars’ iron rule. If I tried to bind a mote of Life to Rae’s soul, then all three will be destroyed—fae and wraith and your brother, erased as though they had never existed.”

Well, I like the sound of that even less.

—we are in agreement on that point, child.

La was silent, biting her lips as Estev worked. There was a rustling sound at the edge of the clearing. Rae ignored it at first, but when La glanced in that direction, she inhaled sharply, then scrambled for the provisions piled beside the fire. She came up with a flintlock pistol, its pan closed and the hammer cocked. Rae looked to see what she was pointing the weapon at, momentarily afraid that Rassek had found them again.

But it wasn’t the undying fiendbinder. Somehow, it was worse.

The same two justicars who had followed them in Aervelling appeared at the edge of the clearing. Caeris glowed with the afterimage of her angel, her features limned in divine light, though her actual flesh still bore the wounds of her battle with Rassek Brant. Rae got the impression that she couldn’t even walk if the angel wasn’t supporting her. He flashed back to the fight at the border of Anvilheim, when the angel had kept fighting even after the justicar’s body had failed, jerking it around like a kite in a storm. The other justicar, tall and thin, with a wide-brimmed hat and a staff that looked like it was carved from living rock, lingered in the shadows at the edge of the light thrown by the campfire.

“What are you doing, Cohn?” Caeris snapped. She drew her spiritblade with a flourish of angelic feathers that coalesced into a golden sword. “Step away from that boy!”

“I’m the only thing keeping him alive,” Estev answered tersely, without looking up. “Unless you wish to simply execute him? I won’t make the effort, if that’s the case.”

The other justicar swept past Caeris to stand at Estev’s shoulder. He looked over Estev’s work, his eyes briefly flashing to where Rae hovered outside his body. He hissed.

“This isn’t allowed,” the man said.

“He will die,” Estev said.

“We all die. It is the natural order of things.” He said the word order with special weight, as though he carried the force of law in his words. And perhaps he does. “Estev Cohn, I am arresting you for violation of the Binding Accords, and for excessive—”

“Shut up, Predi,” Caeris said quietly. Predi sucked his breath in, giving the girl a harsh look. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “We don’t need a lecture on the Accords. We need the boy. He’s the one Rassek is chasing. He’s the key.” She glanced at Lalette briefly, taking in Mahk’s unconscious bulk and the pistol in his sister’s hands before turning her attention to the other justicar. She folded her arms across her chest stubbornly. “Heaven knows we need to stop Brant. Whatever the cost.”

“Even this?” Predi asked.

Caeris didn’t answer. Estev kept working.

The feeling in Rae’s chest changed, like a river reversing course. The band of light that connected him to his body grew thicker, fraying into a dozen threads, then a hundred. They spread out across his body. The anchor holding him in place grew light. His breath slowed. It stopped.

—steady now. steady on.

What’s happening?

—you’re falling through. don’t worry. i’ll catch you.

What’s happening?

—steady.

The hundred skeins dissolved into a shower of stardust. Rae took a deep breath, tasting frost and blood in equal parts. Floating toward the night sky, Rae turned slowly to face the ground. La was still, her hands to her mouth. Caeris had one hand on his sister’s shoulder, whispering quietly into her ear. Predi was a step back, knuckles white on his pistol, the barrel flicking from Estev to Rae to the ground. Even Mahk had recovered enough to watch, his massive frame propped up on one elbow. His face was pulled tight. Everything was still. Everything except for Estev. The pudgy scholar worked feverishly over Rae’s body, conjuring bands and weaving them into a knot over Rae’s chest. A final flourish, and he leaned back.

“Is that it?” La asked. “Is he gone?”

“For now,” Estev said. He leaned down, pressing his face next to Rae’s cold ear. He whispered, and Rae heard it, as loud as a shout. “This isn’t how I planned it, old friend. But here we are.”

A motion out of the corner of Rae’s eye, and the wraith dove back into Rae’s body. The phantasmal light of its cloak wrapped around Rae’s thin frame, enveloping him in fog. Frost sparkled across his face, turning his skin pale and blue. La let out a sob. Mahk forced himself to his feet, throwing an arm over La’s shoulder, hugging her close. The wraith coiled through Rae’s bones. Rae could only watch. His voice was gone.

With a sudden jerk, the wraith dragged him back. New bonds of pewter and ink formed between Rae’s spirit and his flesh. A hundred threads of burning light, weaving together into a dozen strong cables, then finally a single lifeline, chest to chest. The wraith reeled him in like an anchor.

The first breath that came from his lips was a puff of mist. When he breathed in, the still night air felt like a furnace blast in the chilled cavern of his lungs. Rae blinked, and sheets of ice slid free from his eyes. Slush shifted in his veins.

He lived, and the wraith rose through him.


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