Her heart caught in her throat. This was the blathering of a madman, the raving of the dying. But to cut him off would be a cruelty the Blackguards would never forgive. She had to listen to his words, no matter how vile.

“Your son enjoyed killing seventy men and women. Enjoyed it. And don’t you dare excuse him as a true believer who thought he was sending souls to a better place, to their just reward. He barely prayed the prayers his position demands. He giggled. He killed women before they’d finished their confessions. He stabbed them through the stomach first. Or the loins. He did it for fun.”

And her heart sank. And her heart died. Her son. Her son was inhuman—and she’d known it for long and long.

“Perhaps you can’t hear this. Perhaps telling you the truth will only gain your condemnation and his. But I live to serve you, Karris White Oak, Karris Guile, Karris White, my Iron White.” And now tears spilled from those broken eyes. “I have adored you, always been in awe of you, and I’ve never known how to tell you that this shadow grows in your very house. I have nothing to gain from this, but Karris… he is poison. He may be the flesh of your flesh, but he is not the flesh of your spirit. He is nothing like you. You are so good, and so worthy. Please. Cut him off. Cut him out. And don’t let him near me. High Lady—”

“Enough, brother,” Gill Greyling said, putting a hand on Gav’s shoulder. “We will tell her the truth of it all. I promise. But for now, enough.”

It was as if the jaws of her mind were being pulled open until the corners of her mouth tore open, and her throat were being stuffed with putrid meat faster than she could swallow. Make it stop. Just make it stop. “Are you ready?” Karris asked, cold as iron is cold.

“I am,” he said.

They helped him sit, and then stand. He looked at his compatriots, this boy of eighteen summers. He whispered words in the ears of some, nodded to others. He acted with a gravitas far beyond his years. A few of the Blackguards rushed from the room, unable to contain their weeping though they were supposed to stand strong.

Their weakness was forgiven.

Moving slowly—a wight must move slowly amid the Blackguard—Gavin Greyling approached Karris last.

He knelt. First he looked to his brother Gill. “I’m sorry, brother. You told me to take more care a hundred times. I never listened.”

“I should—”

“It’s not on you,” Gav said. He squeezed his brother’s hand. “Brothers, sisters, I’m sorry to leave you before the final lap of the race.”

Commander Fisk was weeping. He said, “One cannot give more than all. You have finished your race, Blackguard. You may put your burden down.”

“Permission for an extended absence, sir,” Gavin said.

Commander Fisk cleared his throat twice trying to find his words. “Permission granted, soldier.” He snapped to attention, and all the Blackguards followed. The commander drew an ancient dagger from his belt, said to have been passed down from Karris Atiriel herself and the first Blackguard. He spun it in his hand and presented it to Karris.

Then he snapped back to attention with his Blackguards. Some met Gav’s eyes as he looked from face to face. Others couldn’t bear it. Gill was shaking like a leaf trying to keep his composure.

The ward fell silent, even other patients hearing the hushed flap of immortals’ wings.

“I shall miss your jokes,” Karris said. “I shall miss your light and easy spirit.” Her own was as heavy as a millstone.

“Let’s not stretch this out longer than I can take,” Gavin said. He pulled the skin of his chest tight against his ribs to show the chinks between the bones. He stared at his brother’s face and squeezed his hand hard.

“Well done, good and faithful servant. Orholam take you to your rest,” Karris said.

Then she stabbed him in the heart, sliding the dagger home hard, and then pulled it out quickly.

Gill held Gav’s hand until the light went out of his eyes, and then lowered his brother’s body onto the table and fell across him, weeping.

Karris fled, all her ideas of dignity and position forgotten, until she found herself on a rear balcony, in the shadow of the Chromeria, looking over the back bay, where a bone-white ship was loading. She gripped the rail unseeing.

She had always thought that heartbreak would arrive with tears and wailing, disconsolate flopping about and shutting oneself in one’s bed chamber. Not eating. Not sleeping. Looking gaunt and pale, like in the stories.

For her, the sound of her heart cracking was simple and sharp and accompanied by nothing other than silence. It came in one sentence, pitiless and plain, stilling all argument and complaint:

So this is what my life is now.

Gavin, are you out there somewhere? She would know if he were dead, wouldn’t she? She would have a feeling, right? Why did he feel so close, after all this time?

But that was only a stubborn, stupid denial.

She couldn’t afford to lie to herself anymore. She couldn’t let any more good kids die for her willful blindness.

The Third Eye had told her, Orholam will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.

But God either didn’t see, or didn’t care, or didn’t save. The husband she’d longed for was gone; the son she’d longed for was rotten; the stepson she should have kept she’d driven away. God was a liar.

Her fields were barren and sere, picked clean. Her story was over. Now she would merely survive. She would do her duty. That was all there was.

This is my life now.

“Commander,” she said, not turning.

“High Lady?” Of course he had followed her. In all the ways that didn’t matter, she was never alone.

“I know they were motivated by love, but there will be no more expeditions to search for my husband. I forbid them. He is gone. Let us live for the living, not die for the dead.”

She straightened her back and squared her shoulders, and, with an iron heart, she finally did what she’d sworn she would never do.

Find Gavin.

Below, the bone-white ship cast off from the quay. As the sun slowly rose, Karris watched it sail away until it disappeared into the horizon.

Chapter 78

Liv reached the crest of the hill unseen, of course. Her mastery of her new powers had grown greatly in what was now almost a year since she’d ascended. Now, when people weren’t paying attention, she was able to impose order on their very thoughts.