“Stop! Over there!”


    In that hideous frozen moment of indecision between running and hiding, she loses her chance. Two of the soldiers find her, the others close by. She recognises their black uniforms, the flash of silver insignia on their coats.


    One shoves a lantern in her face; the other drags her upright. “A girl! What are you doing out here in Drakonian territory? You’re not from around here, are you? What are you—”


    *


    The white light of the sword erupted into flame. Valerie nose-dived to the ground as the fire engulfed Ghen’s body. He screamed and dropped the blade. Avon dragged her human body out of the door, his face pale and shocked—


    She landed heavily, the impact jolting through her talons and up into her body. Wings spread, she shrieked at the other wyverns to stay away. The sound that came out of her mouth was a harsh, unintelligible squawk.


    The sound from Ghen was worse, a bloodcurdling cry. He contorted like some grotesque puppet, arms flailing, mouth screaming. She smelled burning flesh. Within seconds, the flames had consumed him. He collapsed on the ground, a blackened husk.


    Avon pressed himself against the outer wall, holding her unconscious body. She could see the whites of his eyes, hear his fast breaths. He stared at her. She was blocking his way. The other wyverns wheeled in the air around her, but they didn’t attack.


    Slowly, Valerie bent forward, head low to the ground, clawed wings scuffing at the dirt. It’s okay, she tried to say, and made a chirruping sound instead. For several long seconds, nothing happened. Avon only stared.


    Then he cleared his throat. “You’re safe? You want us to… climb on?”


    She did the best approximation of a nod she could with her long wyvern’s neck.


    He laughed in disbelief. She smelled the fear on him as well as the grime and the sweat, but he gathered up her human body into his arms, carrying her like a baby, and readied himself to approach.


    “All right,” he said, speaking in the soft tones one might use for an animal or a child, “I’m going to come closer. Easy now. No sudden moves.”


    He followed his own advice, approaching with care. Valerie stayed still, watching him. When he came within touching distance, she lifted her head and nuzzled his hand. He started, then smiled.


    “We’re friendly. Good. Did Valerie bewitch you? Or…”


    He glanced down at the girl in his arms, then at the wyvern again. Valerie chuffed and jerked her head, staring pointedly over his shoulder. Avon glanced back.


    “Ah… The sword. Excuse me.”


    He moved to lay her human body down, but Valerie extended her wingtip and caught herself instead. She cradled the girl in her wing while Avon retreated to fetch Maska’s sword, and as she peered at her own human face, serene in repose, the strangeness of it all overwhelmed her. As far as out-of-body experiences went, this one might be her most bizarre.


    The girl-Valerie looked small and pale against the black feathers of the wyvern’s wing. Her eyelashes cast tiny shadows over her cheekbones. This small detail fascinated her, because of course she had never seen herself with both eyes closed. Gazing down at this empty vessel, the vulnerability of her own flesh struck her with renewed acuity.


    Resurrection is trivial, read the tomb’s inscription.


    But life was fragile too, she thought. Ghen had burned alive—a horrible sight. If the sword hadn’t consumed him, if he had attacked in some other way, she and Avon might both be dead.


    She puffed out her feathers and stretched her limbs, careful to keep her human body supported. Her ears pricked, and Avon’s footsteps came trudging back. He’d returned the sword to its sheath and slung Ghen’s half-burnt leather backpack over his shoulders. She chirruped a soft greeting and lowered her belly to the ground, allowing him to pick up the girl-Valerie and place her on the wyvern’s back.


    Before Avon climbed on himself, she couldn’t resist bumping his chest with her head. He smiled again and scratched her ear tufts, which felt pleasantly tingly. She crooned in response and rubbed her head against his hand.


    “Like a cat,” he murmured. “Val, is that you?”


    She didn’t know whether to be amused or offended at the way he’d clocked her. Well, it wasn’t that hard to figure out. She told him to hurry up and get on, which sounded like a croaky growl, then tilted her head to indicate behind her.


    “All right,” he said.


    He scratched under her chin, then moved around to climb on her back. She tensed at the weight. The wyvern’s body was as long as a man’s, not counting the head, neck or tail, and powerfully built enough that she thought it could bear two human passengers. Still, she was lighter than she might have expected, which probably meant she had hollow bones like a bird’s. Avon’s legs gripped on either side of her spine, and she felt the uncomfortable urge to shake him off.


    Maybe this was how it felt to be a horse.


    She waited, holding still until he’d stopped shifting. This couldn’t be comfortable for him either. Their horses had saddles and bridles; he had neither. He leaned forward, and she growled when one of his hands pinched her neck feathers. Did he have her human body held secure with his other arm? She couldn’t quite twist back far enough to see them, so she’d have to guess.


    Valerie shuffled around away from the monastery and gazed out at the pillars lining the road. Several wyverns perched atop them, watching at a respectful distance. The sun shone bright in the sky, not quite at its highest point. The afternoon was drawing on.


    Time to go, she thought.


    She dug her back talons into the ground for purchase and took off in a single leap. Avon yelped, and his death grip on her neck feathers tightened to the point of pain. She beat her wings hard, instantly conscious of the additional weight dragging her down. With immense effort, muscles straining, she ascended above the closest pillar, then swooped over the mountain top.


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    The wind whistled through her feathers. Avon shouted something she couldn’t hear. She scanned the earth below, looking for the mountain path, then followed it down to the bridge. The entire journey felt surprisingly quick, only a couple of minutes. Far easier to cover the distance in the air than trudging up the mountain.


    She descended, then landed with what she considered reasonable grace in front of the bridge. Leaning forward, she closed her eyes and searched again for those lines of power leading back to her human body. Heat suffused the glyph on the wyvern’s skin. She focused on it, connected with it—


    And opened her human eyes just as Avon slid off the wyvern’s back. He carried her in his arms, the heat of his body warm and close, strands of hair sticking to his forehead.


    “Hey,” she said.


    “Val!” He set her down. “You missed the ride. Well—”


    “I didn’t miss it.”


    She turned to the wyvern, its eyes fixed on her. It didn’t look confused or scared, merely… attentive. She set her hand on its neck, reaffirming the connection between them.


    “Follow us,” she told it. “Protect me when I call for you.”


    Avon watched them. “Why have we stopped here?”


    “The locket.” She crossed the bridge as she answered, moving again from one magical bubble to another. “I’m not leaving it.”


    The silver locket lay hidden where she had left it, by the post on the other side of the bridge. Valerie picked it up and put it around her neck. Her wyvern launched into the air. After a moment, Avon followed her.


    “So,” he said, “we can’t ride the wyvern while you’re wearing the locket.”


    “Nope. Unless you want to go on by yourself.”


    With a mountain between them and the village and no horses, the walk would be slow and arduous, but at least they no longer had to worry about the wyverns. Valerie didn’t need to throw a glance back at Avon. She knew what his answer would be.


    *


    They boarded the night train back to Drakardia.


    The journey back from the mountains had taken nearly three hours. To her relief, the surviving horses had made it back to the village. Avon paid compensation to the councilman for the beast they’d lost, and they went on their way.


    She had filled him in on everything she’d seen in the monastery—the tomb, the black stones, the distant shore—and the spell she’d cast on the wyvern. They’d speculated too on what it all meant. If anything, she thought, they’d left with more questions than answers. Who, if anyone, had occupied the black tomb? How had the monks died? What part had the Patriarch played in all this?


    “I think it was a ritual,” she said. “Maybe they woke up whoever was in the tomb. Maybe it was the Patriarch.”


    “The Patriarch grew up in Drakardia and travelled to the monastery on a pilgrimage. He wasn’t in the tomb.”


    She and Avon shared a private cabin on the train. The soft plush seats felt wonderful after their hard day’s trek. He sat opposite her, skimming through one of the books they’d rescued from the monastery. They weren''t written in the strange runes, so in theory ought to be readable, but they were also badly deteriorated.


    “Hmm.” She discarded a cookbook and picked up the next one in the pile, a scruffy leather-bound notebook. “So who was it? Who was the man in the carving?”


    “My guess?” Avon looked at her. “The Fifth Philosopher.”


    “Didn’t he die centuries ago?”


    “Over a thousand years ago, yes. As far as we know, all the writers of the original Divinity lived around the same time.”


    “Why would the monks resurrect him?”


    He frowned. “Perhaps because they revered him.”


    “If they revered him so much, why didn’t they resurrect him sooner?”


    He pushed his book towards her, flipping it around so that she could read it. “Look at this. Tell me what you think it means.”


    Of the two open pages, one was entirely ruined, burned in some places and smudged in others. The second page wasn’t much better. She squinted at only one clear passage:


    Nibhet M. 26. Resurrected.


    Bhrann W. 44. Sacrificed.


    BW committed murder of NM and his own daughter, a maiden, after discovering his daughter with child by NM.


    She looked up. “They didn’t bring back the daughter! She was pregnant!”


    He waved an impatient hand. “That’s not the point. One of them was resurrected, and one of them was sacrificed.”


    “A life for a life,” she said.


    He nodded. “That’s how I read it too. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”


    “St. Morta came back to life. She was Maskamere’s first necromancer. But her magic didn’t sacrifice anyone, at least in the stories I heard. And you know I came back without killing anyone. Well, except Lord Gideon.”


    “I suppose it doesn’t matter,” said Avon thoughtfully, “as long as the monks believed that a sacrifice was necessary.”


    That could be true in more ways than one, she thought. The monks might carry out the sacrifice even if the spell didn’t need it. Or their belief might itself shape the spell, years of tradition and ritual all bound up in that one room with the tomb…


    “At least one of them had to be blessed. We know that for sure.” An idea occurred to her. “Wait! What if they tried to sacrifice the Patriarch to bring back whoever was in the tomb, only he fought back? Maybe he massacred them instead.”


    “Then we still have a missing resurrected man to account for,” Avon pointed out. “Unless he was killed too.”


    “Or woman,” she said, but with little conviction. The monks had all been men. The lid of the tomb depicted a man. Clearly, these dog-headed fools didn’t even value the life of a pregnant woman over that of a man. “Maybe Ghen would have known. Whatever we found in there, he thought it was worth dying for.”


    “Yes,” said Avon, his mouth thinning. “That was… regrettable.”


    “The sword consumed him because he wasn’t a child of Maskamere.” She tilted her head. “Do you want to talk about that?”


    It was the one topic they hadn’t yet broached. She’d hoped that he would bring it up, because she couldn’t get a sense of how he felt. This talk of forty years ago was academic, and she sensed that he was comfortable with that—after all, it had nothing to do with him—but they couldn’t keep ignoring it.


    Avon drummed his fingers on the table. “What is there to talk about?”


    “You can’t tell me you didn’t think about it while I was sleeping. While we were trekking up the mountain.”


    “I did think about it,” he admitted. “I accept the truth of it. That I am, in some sense, a child of Maskamere. Your theory about my grandfather may be right. But it’s…”


    He trailed off. She leaned forward. “What?”


    Avon glanced down. “To tell the truth, I hardly know what to say to you. I’ve had cause to reflect on my actions these past two years. What we did in Maskamere—to you, your people. I believed it was worthwhile to make you part of something greater, for the betterment of the Empire. But to learn that my father would go to war for such a base reason, when he knows full well the connection our family bears to Maskamere…”


    Another pause. Valerie held her breath.


    Avon met her eyes. “You were right. My father’s end goal was always to destroy, not to build. I disagreed with his strategy, but I still followed his orders. I burned the silvertrees. I killed your people. That, I do regret.”


    The enormity of that statement hit her like a train. She gulped, her chest tight. Her eyes filled with tears; she wiped them away.


    “I won’t ask for your forgiveness,” he went on. “I don’t expect you to offer it. You’ve always had the right to hate me, and a change of heart is hardly an absolution, particularly under these circumstances. I always wanted you to…”


    “What?” she whispered.


    He took a breath. This entire speech seemed to pain him. “I was going to say submit, but that isn’t quite right.”


    Her heart fluttered. For a moment, she hesitated. Then she leaned across the table, sweeping the books aside, and took his hand in her own.


    “I know what you wanted,” she said. “All I want is to make it right.”


    The firm warmth of his hand sent a shiver through her skin. His eyes, too, kindled with a warmth she hadn’t seen before. She’d never felt more connected to him. She couldn’t help it. Weren’t they alike, in so many ways? He’d done awful things. By any measure, he was a terrible person, but what was greatness if not terrible? She would give him a privilege that few ever enjoyed: the chance to fix his mistakes.


    He nodded slowly. “Thank you for standing by me.”


    “Yeah. Of course.” She withdrew her hand. “Thank you. For believing me. For taking me on this journey.”


    Funny how he’d always done what she wanted when it came to magic, she thought. Or maybe not funny, since acquiring the blessing of the silvertrees had benefited him too.


    His expression flickered. Then he glanced out of the window, where a distant black speck soared above the train tracks, and smiled wryly. “Had I known you’d bring home a new companion, I might have been less generous.”


    “Don’t worry.” She smiled back. “You’re still my number one.”


    The silence that settled over the carriage was a pleasant, anticipatory one. She felt his pleasure radiating out like the sun’s rays, and the same tangled knot in her own heart. What was this sensation?


    She might call it happiness.