Kelley Armstrong - Sea of Shadows

She was here to help them find peace. It sounded like an act of mercy. It was not. The unsettled dead who roamed the forest were dark, demented forces bent on blind revenge against every living thing. They drove the exiles mad, and they made the forest uninhabitable for man and beast. By giving them peace, the Seeker kept their number at bay.

When Ashyn was far enough from the others, she asked Faiban to retreat a little. Once he’d backed down the path, she lowered herself to the ground. The earth was damp beneath her fingers, and she could feel the chill of it seep through her breeches. The air down here smelled fetid as the breeze blew off a nearby bog.

Ignore that. Concentrate.

Ashyn closed her eyes and reached out to the spirits. After a moment, she could feel them pulling at the edge of her consciousness. It wasn’t like the gentle plucks of the ancestral spirits; these were harsh, like needle jabs.

She repeated the words Ellyn had taught her.

“I’m here to give you peace,” she said. “You want peace.”

No, they wanted revenge.

The empire’s laws forbade execution, and this was supposed to be a kinder alternative. It wasn’t. She stopped herself from imagining what happened to the exiles. No. That isn’t right. She took a deep breath and instead let herself imagine it. Let herself feel their pain. Feel their rage.

As she opened herself up to the spirits, she kept repeating her promises of peace. She needed to persuade them that they stood no chance of avenging themselves on those who’d exiled them here, and the best revenge would be the happiness they’d find in joining their ancestors.

She could hear them now, grumbling and muttering. Their anger flared, like flames licking her face. Then their ghostly fingers reached into her mind, and she began to see images, as Ellyn had warned she would.

She saw a man crouched by a stream, scooping water. Another came up behind him and slammed a rock down on the crouching man’s head. He fell face-first into the stream. The killer calmly took the dead man’s pack and left him there as the stream ran red with blood.

“I see,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. That shouldn’t have happened to you. Now show me where you are, and I’ll give you peace.”

She followed their wordless whispers. Faiban saw that she was moving and tried to clear the way, but she waved him back. Finding the dead was her duty. Her promise to them.

As she pushed through the thick woods, vines snagged her hands and feet. Branches poked and prodded. Once or twice, she swore the branches and vines moved, as if the forest itself was rising to stop her.

Leave us our dead.

She continued on until she reached the stream she’d seen in her vision. She walked along its edge, staying away from the murky water. But with every step, the muddy shore sucked at her boots.

Leave us our dead.

“No,” she whispered. “You have enough. This one is mine.”

The wind whipped through the trees, as though in answer. She shivered and pulled her cloak tighter.

Finally, she saw the man, still lying where he had fallen, his body nothing but bone, covered in scraps of leather and cloth. His boots were gone. So was his belt and anything else that could be used.

She walked up beside the dead man. Then she took a bright yellow sash from her pack and tied it to a nearby tree. She put her fingers in her mouth and whistled as loud as she could. That would bring the volunteers to collect the body. They would take the exiles’ corpses to the camp. When they were all collected, Ashyn would conduct the rituals to put the spirits to rest, and the bodies would be buried.

Ashyn knelt beside the dead man. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Then she rose and went to find the next.

It was Faiban who saw the man first. He shouted, “Who’s that?” and Ashyn jumped, having been lost in the second world. Then she spotted the man—walking upright—and nearly jumped again, thinking, Shadow stalker.

The man was actually a living being, though he looked ready to pass into the second world—so gaunt his skin seemed stretched over bone. He shuffled as if the act of fluid locomotion took more energy than he possessed. Dirt encrusted his clothing, and his brown skin looked gray with it.

“Stay back,” Faiban said, flourishing his sword.

The filthy man fell to his knees, hands to the ground, stretching toward Ashyn.

“My lady,” he said. “I have survived.”

“And you will keep your distance,” Faiban said, his voice dropping. “He may have the fever, my lady. I must call for the governor.”

Ashyn nodded distractedly. She stared at the man, hearing his words again. I have survived. An exile who had lived through the winter? It happened, of course, but she’d not seen one in her lifetime. And no wonder, looking at him. She swore that by morning his spirit would have been leading her to his corpse.

“I don’t have the fever,” the man said. “My name is Cecil. I was exiled for the crime of—”

“Enough,” Faiban said. “If you are not sick, you will be freed. For now, keep your distance, or your freedom”—the young guard brandished his sword again—“will be short-lived.” He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled for the others.

“He’s mad,” Healer Mabill whispered as Ashyn watched the governor interrogate the survivor. A guard stood at either side of the man. One held a sword at his throat.

“He doesn’t look mad,” Ashyn said.

“The fever sometimes hides. But the governor can tell.”

“How?”

Healer Mabill shrugged. “The eyes. The manner of speech. Little things.”

“Are there often survivors?”

Another shrug. “Perhaps one every third Seeking. But they’re always infected. They’ve been in the forest too long.”

Something moved deep in the trees. When Ashyn turned, she thought she saw a last ray of sunshine reflecting off a blade. But all the guards were here, and when she squinted into the woods, she saw nothing.

“Ashyn?” Healer Mabill said.

“I thought I saw someone.”

“It might be the two men we left with the first body. I hope so. If the fools got themselves lost, the governor will leave them here.”

“They haven’t returned yet?” Ashyn said.

Healer Mabill shook her head.

No matter how far Ashyn had wandered with Faiban, they’d been able to see the torches at camp, burning bright in the dim forest. If the villagers somehow could not see them, all they had to do was shout for help.

The bard hadn’t returned either.

Ashyn shook off the thought. No one else seemed worried. She turned her attention back to the survivor, Cecil.

“He truly does not look mad,” she said.

“Don’t let that fool you, child. It’s a good thing Faiban was there. If you’d been alone, you might have ended up like my grandmother.”

“Your grandmother?”

“She was a healer in the Seeking party. She came across a survivor who seemed well. Being a kindly woman, she knelt to give him fresh water… and he ripped out her throat with his teeth.”

Ashyn’s gaze swung back to the survivor.

“Yes, take a better look, child. I know he seems like a poor wretch, but don’t trust your own eyes. You can’t trust anything out here.”

“What happens if the governor thinks—?”

A gasp cut her short. She turned to see the survivor kneeling there. His head seemed bowed. Then his body fell forward, and the others staggered back out of the way, and she realized that he had no head. That it was lying in the moss. That one of the guards was wiping his bloodied sword.

“He was infected,” the governor announced.

“But…” Ashyn whispered, barely able to draw breath. I’m seeing a man’s head. Sliced from his body.