I laugh, though there’s no joy in the sound. “You realize you’re about to murder me, right? That makes you as wicked as a Shade, even if you’re not willing to get your hands dirty.” I wish I could see her face as I taunt her. It’s so much more satisfying that way. “If it’s a world without monsters you want, you should start by falling on your own sword.”
Lyda’s breathing becomes more and more ragged as she pulls me by the back of my shirt down a long tunnel to the Deadlands. This is probably the hardest day’s work a delicate lady like her has ever had to do. Maybe she’s even breaking a sweat.
She doesn’t say another word. My back aches, sore and scratched and probably bleeding from being pulled over sharp stones and twigs. Finally, she releases me, and my head falls on a soft bed of flowers.
I must be in one of the Deadlands’ fields or gardens.
Something sharp slices across my arm above the shackles. It’s a shallow cut, but it still hurts enough that I have to bite down on my lip to keep from crying out. I don’t need to ask why Lyda did that. I’ve done it enough times myself.
She wants to be sure the Shades will find me.
“Goodbye, Sparrow,” she murmurs, pressing a light kiss to my forehead. “I’m sorry. I did care for you once, you know, back when I still hoped I could change your mind.”
“So that’s it, then?” I shout after Lyda’s retreating footsteps. I can’t believe I ever looked to her as a mother of sorts, a silver-tongued snake in a fancy dress. Cymbre was my real mother. A sword-wielding, foul-mouthed, plain-trousers-wearing real mother. “You’re just going to leave me like this?”
Of course she is. She’s no better than Hadrien, and just as much of a coward.
The wind rustles through the Deadlands’ giant blossoms like a song, lulling me to sleep. This is when I’d reach for the honey on my necromancer’s belt, if I were wearing it.
But my sword is gone. My friends are gone, or as good as gone. There’s nothing left to tie me to the land of the living.
Nothing, nothing, nothing, the flowers sing.
I might as well stay here and breathe in the chill, utterly scentless air until my own end. I’ve been fighting so much lately. All my cuts and bruises, the screams of the dying, the sights and smells of so much carnage. It’s a lot for anyone to bear. I deserve a good long rest in a place where everything is beautiful, a place where the cold dulls all other senses.
I close my sightless eyes and curl up on my side.
After a while, I can’t feel the warmth of fresh blood trickling down my arm anymore. I’m as light as a blade of grass, ready to float away.
Evander drifts in and out of my thoughts. Sometimes he offers me his hand from the other side of a deep ravine, and at others, he turns his back on me. Almost like he’s two different people. I wonder which Evander is real, and which is the one I conjured during my potion-fueled hallucinations.
A hand closes firmly over my shoulder. I guess this is the real Evander, come to take me to wherever he is now.
He grips me by both shoulders, shaking me so hard my teeth bang together.
Gasping, I sit up, inhaling the Deadlands’ crisp air.
Another pair of cold but solid hands grabs hold of mine, pulling up to my feet.
“What’s happening?” I rasp over the sound of my beating heart.
No one answers. I can’t tell how many pairs of cold hands are on my back, are gripping my arms, are marching me through the field. They’re spirits, I’m sure of that much. But I can’t imagine where they’re taking me. Maybe they want to feed me to the Shades that have been terrifying them all into hiding at the farthest corners of the Deadlands.
As I stumble down a hill, quickly steadied by their many hands, I say the first spirit’s name that comes to mind. “Firiel?”
Long, icy fingers trail through my hair, then touch my cheek as if to say, Yes.
“Meredy, she could be in danger. If—if you help me find my way out of here, I can try to save her from the terrible thing that’s happening in Karthia.”
As I think of Meredy, a knot forms in my throat. I wish I could see her again. But even if I do make my way out of here, I don’t know how long I’ll last in the Shade-ravaged Grenwyr City when I can’t see a thing.
The spirits steer me to the left, and my shoulders tense at the sound of running water.
There’s a bridge here, I realize, as the wooden planks groan under my feet.
A moment later, I feel a familiar tugging around my navel, drawing me toward a nearby gate. Lyda must have forgotten why they call me the Sparrow. And so, for a moment there, did I. I don’t need to rely completely on my sight when I’m in the Deadlands.
The spirits support me as I stagger toward the gate, too dizzy to run, and the pull grows stronger until I know without needing to look that we’re standing in the gate’s glow.
The spirits must be repaying me for all the times I’ve taken many of them home to their bodies. Protecting me, like I’ve always tried to protect them. Or else they know I don’t belong here. That I belong in Karthia, with the sun and the birds and the wide, sparkling sea. With the hopes and failures and laughter of the living.
I want to cry and smile at the same time. “Thank you,” I murmur. “I had no idea you’d come to . . .”
My voice trails off. The touch of the cold hands vanishes as suddenly as it arrived. The spirits must be gliding away. All but one, it seems, as someone gives me a firm push toward the gate and home beyond.
In the distance, the flowers of the Deadlands rustle their soft petals and sing.
Stay, stay, stay.
I hesitate, one foot in the gate.
If I go back to Karthia, everything around me will be out of my control. The killings. The monsters. The twisted dreams of a mad prince.
Except there’s one thing I can control. What I do about it.
I step my other foot in the gate, humming to drown out the Deadlands’ song, and begin the long walk through the tunnel.
Things will never be perfect, as Master Cymbre tried to teach me. Life will be hard and painful as long as I cling to it, but there’s beauty in it, too. It used to be easy to find, whenever I looked in Evander’s eyes. And now I’ve seen it in Meredy’s. And it’s mine to fight for.
I’ll think of every lost life with every breath I take, always.
Yet as long as I’m alive, I have to keep going. One step after another through this tunnel until I’m back in Grenwyr City to rejoin the battle, a little more broken than before.
For Evander. For my friends and the Dead and the helpless. For me.
All I can do is keep fighting.
*
I fall out of the gate feet-first, toppling over onto cobblestones that are cold and slick with what I hope is rain.