Where the clay had crumbled, Will saw obsidian stones marked with runes hidden inside, control points that had transmitted the intent of the user and animated the body. It was with some interest that he noted the parts of the enchantment that acted as a transducer. The demonic turyn that the armor radiated had also served to power the golem’s movement. Yet another example of Selene’s cleverness. Or Janice’s, he reminded himself. Either way, it was a brilliant solution to providing the necessary energy to keep the juggernaut moving. The blows of Tiny’s enemies had served to keep the golem functioning.

  The driktenspal had radiated most of its excess energy as black flames already, but through the haze of dark energy, Will saw something else that shone like a bright spark. It was located inside the helm, and after he pried the visor free, Will saw that it was a simple dagger, though it glowed with power.

  There were no runes to explain its purpose. The iron blade was of a single piece with its twisted iron hilt. Will picked it up, but the residual heat burned his fingers, so he was forced to use Aislinn’s cooling spell.

  Carrying it with him, he found the lich’s bones and summoned a sack from the limnthal to put them in before he carried them back to the ritual chamber. Aislinn was still waiting patiently, and when her eyes spied the dagger, she smiled. “You found it.”

  Will had no idea why it was important, but he held it out to her. “Want it?”

  She shook her head. “I’m dying, William.” Then she smiled. “Thank you.”

  “You were supposed to be in the mountains. Why did you come here, and how did you open the gate into the nest?” he asked.

  “The beast that follows you came to find me.” Pausing, she glanced at Selene’s mutilated form, then said, “Blood is a formality, but flesh works just as well. I minced her organs and flesh until I had a pulp thin enough to use in its place.”

  As sickening as her explanation was, he had no room left for disgust. Tired and sad, he sank to his knees beside Selene, placing the bag of bones and the dagger to one side. When he felt Aislinn’s arms around him, it was entirely unexpected. She had settled next to him, then leaned her head to rest on his shoulder. “I never thought this day would come.”

  “You really wanted this?”

  “Every second of every minute of every day from the moment I sacrificed myself for him,” she answered quietly. “It was the worst mistake of my life.”

  “But you saved him, and he saved many others afterward,” Will argued.

  “Saved him for what, to murder his friends and colleagues? Did I save him so he could spend the rest of his years hating himself? What he did tormented him continually, and what I did destroyed his heart. Was it love for me to suffer endlessly, or to remind him of it constantly? There are still souls enslaved as elementals. Wars are still fought, and evil persists no matter what we do. Neither of us deserved to pay the price we did, a price that made no difference in the grand scheme of things.”

  “You really believe that?”

  A faint laugh shook her. “I could lie if I wanted, but the truth is a habit now. Cruel truth has been my only companion these many years.”

  “How long do you have?”

  His grandmother slid one arm around his shoulders, then used the other to take his left hand and press it against her chest. “Do you feel anything there?” He didn’t, but as a midwife’s son, he knew it wasn’t always easy to feel a heartbeat. He lifted his fingers to her throat. There was no pulse.

  “I’m already dead,” she confirmed. “My source disappeared long ago, when the last of my humanity vanished and my soul was replaced by the boundless, uncaring essence of my new home. My heart stopped shortly after you freed me. I can’t shore up the walls keeping me here for much longer, nor would I wish to.”

  Will’s grandfather had done the same, refusing to pass on for a short while after his life had technically ended. One of the gifts of third-order wizardry was the strength of will necessary to deny death itself, if only for a while. The lich’s bones at his feet were a testimony to what could happen if a wizard decided to turn their talents to pushing the limit even further.

  He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. The desolate scene of Selene’s death ate at him, but for the present, he was grateful for his grandmother’s presence. She remained close, her unfamiliar hand stroking his head as if he were a child, but finally she broke the silence. “Before I leave you, I have a request.”

  Will nodded, squeezing his eyes painfully shut.

  “Lay me beside my husband if you can.”

  After Arrogan had died, Will had given the body to Aislinn, and though she’d created the ring from it, he’d never known the fate of the rest of his grandfather’s remains. “I don’t—”

  “I buried him in Branscombe, in a plot on the far side of the cemetery there, where the grass and trees have overgrown the graves. A small headstone will identify it if you search carefully, and at this time of year, you’ll find the wildflowers grow thickest where his body rests. Put this beneath my head.” She activated her limnthal, which he had never seen, and summoned the pillow Arrogan had made her, the one Will had given her after his grandfather’s death.

  The lump in his throat made it hard to ask, “What about the ring?”

  “That was another evil I forced upon him,” she replied. “He can decide for himself. I’m not worthy of forgiveness, so I won’t ask it, but give him my love. I hated him and loved him in equal measure while I was trapped, but only regret remains in these final minutes.” His grandmother’s back, which had always been proud and straight, began to slump as her strength faded. She began to slide downward, so Will shifted to put her head on his lap.

  Staring up at his face, she offered her final counsel to him. “Don’t make the same mistake your grandfather did.”

  Blinking away confused tears, Will asked, “What mistake?”

  “He was too softhearted to do what needed to be done. After I sold myself, he left me to suffer when he ought to have freed me. Remember that when you deal with your wife.” Then her eyes turned toward the bag of bones. “I know your grief is overwhelming, but don’t forget to finish Grim Talek while you have this chance.”

  “Isn’t he gone?”

  She shook her head faintly. “He’s still there. I explained before.” Aislinn’s eyes started to close, while she lifted her fingers to her face and kissed them; her arm shook as she lifted it to press them against his lips. Then she was gone. Will caught her hand as it fell.

  Remembering what she had said, he slipped out from beneath her head and placed it gently on the stone floor. He scooted over a little, then lifted the bag and placed it directly in front of where he sat. Now that he examined the bones, he could see a faint remnant of turyn lingering about them. Sitting down once more, he placed the bag in front of himself and took out the ward-cube he had made, then gave a warning to Evie. “I’m going to create a type of cage and it’s rather big. Move over to the stair entrance so you don’t get caught in it. This will only take a few minutes.”

  The large cat moved away without complaint, leaving him to his last task. Will hadn’t thought it would be so easy. Without anyone to struggle or oppose him, he activated the ward-cube and used it to deploy his modified version of Erica’s Abyssal Barrier. A rectangular boundary formed, similar to a force-cage, but with runes decorating it in long, swirling patterns that covered every square inch of the top, bottom, and all four sides. It stretched twenty feet in length and ten feet wide, and once he pressed his power into it, the world outside vanished, replaced by an endless darkness that devoured the light radiating from the runes around him.

  The spell divided existence in two, separating them so thoroughly that neither had any relation to the other. Beyond the small space Will now occupied was nothing but an empty abyss defined only by nothingness. The only things that existed within his tiny reality were the lich’s bones and the bodies of Selene and Aislinn.

  Will addressed the bones. “I know you’re there. Aislinn gave you away.”

  The lich’s voice came as a whisper, for the turyn within the barrier was limited, and the ley lines that had been close by no longer existed within the small space. “This spell was a mistake.”

  “I had to be sure. Isn’t this what you wanted?”

  “You’ve broken off a piece of reality, but unlike our proper existence, this one has boundaries. Those edges expose us to the empty abyss,” said the lich.

  “There’s nothing there,” said Will. “And when you’re gone, there will be even less.”

  “There was nothing there, fool. Now that it can see us, even the empty chaos becomes aware. It gains life as we observe it, and ancient things that never were begin to stir and gain substance. Once they look on you, they’ll follow you to the ends of the universe. You need to dismiss the spell before it’s too late.”

  “After you’re gone,” said Will, ignoring the threats. He began absorbing the turyn within the small area, denying Grim Talek anything to sustain his deathless existence. “You should have fled earlier, when you had the chance.”

  “I couldn’t leave without seeing the dragon’s end.”

  A flash of insight hit Will then. “No. You couldn’t leave. You were trapped with me.” The lich didn’t answer, so he asked, “Why didn’t you flee after I brought you out?”

  “Your conversation with the fae queen was too interesting to miss.”

  Will’s eyes narrowed. “Lies!” Aislinn had told him something before, and he hadn’t thought it through fully. The lich couldn’t pass through gates because it interrupted his astral link to his phylactery.

  “She’s dying, Will.” Grim Talek’s voice was almost too faint to hear. “She’s still fresh and new—she can’t survive the lack of turyn as long as I can.”

  “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

  “Selene. She’s like me now. She’s still here with us.”

  “That’s not true!” Will declared, but a sense of horror swept over him. The words she’d said earlier, his grandmother’s warnings, and worst of all, the memory of that strange, cold turyn that had lingered around his wife when he had kissed her lips. He turned his eyes to the ruin of her body, but he couldn’t see any trace of turyn there now.

  “You know it’s true. That’s how she opened the gate the second time after you healed her. She bled herself to unlock the blood ward again, and after death took her, she rose to open the gate for you herself. Lognion’s elementals didn’t kill her—she was already dead—they merely ruined her efforts.”

  “You made me swear to kill you, remember? Have you changed your mind?” Will demanded.

  “Perhaps. There’s never been another like me. I find myself wanting to see a little more. I won’t punish you if you let me go. That was always a bluff, anyway.”

  “Nothing but lies from you,” spat Will. “I know you were aware of what the dragon did to Spela. You wanted me dead.”

  “I wanted the metal I needed to kill the dragon, and I was willing to pay for it with your life. You’d have done the same.”

  “You’re wrong there.”

  “She’s almost gone, William. You have only seconds left to decide. She gave her life for you—twice. Do you intend to be her judge and executioner now?” As Grim Talek spoke, Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. A strange fleshy appendage caressed the outside of the barrier.

  “Damn it and damn you!” he swore, then Will dismissed the spell.

  Light flooded back in as they rejoined normal reality, and Will saw the traces of energy around the lich’s bones vanish. Grim Talek had fled.

  Returning to Selene’s body, he couldn’t see anything within or without, but he tried to straighten her limbs. Her head had caved in on one side and the front of her dress was gone, cut away so that Aislinn could get to the soft organs for her final grisly ritual. Beneath the open ribs, little remained. Her bare spine was all that connected the upper portion of her body to the legs and blood-soaked skirts.

  If Will had still possessed any remnant of sanity or decency, he probably would have vomited at the sight, but he was long past that. He’d seen too many horrors, even before that awful day. Without the slightest degree of self-consciousness, he cradled Selene’s gory head to his chest. His heart had clenched itself into a painful knot, but no more tears came. He couldn’t even weep.

  After a few minutes, he quietly rose and sought the stairs leading up to his city house in the central portion of Cerria. Evie followed on his heels, a silent shadow. As they walked she shifted into a humanoid form. “You won,” she announced.

  Will shook his head, and despite his internal desolation, he reminded himself he was speaking to a child, so he tempered his words. “I lost. Everyone loses in that kind of fight. Correction, everyone loses in every fight.”

  “Why fight?”

  “It’s a question of how much you’re willing to lose. I thought that by fighting I would lose less than if I didn’t fight. Now I’m not so sure.” Pausing on the steps, he glanced at Evie, noting that her humanoid form had improved yet again. “How did you survive the dragon fire?”

  “I hid outside.”

  Will nodded. The fire had scoured the cavern several times, so running had been the wisest choice. “Thank you for trying to save, Selene.”

  “It was all I could do.”

  The climb was slow, for there were many flights to be ascended before he exited into the closet under the home’s main staircase. In the front parlor, Will grabbed a bottle of wine from the sideboard. His hands were shaking as he removed the cork, but he eventually worked it free, then he swallowed half the bottle, choking as he tried to gulp it all down at once. Putting the half-empty bottle aside, he left and went out into the street. Evie had returned to being a housecat and vanished soon after that.

  Some children saw him and laughed, pointing and calling him a beggar, but when they got close enough to see what he was covered in, they screamed and fled. That was when he realized he’d have to clean himself before he could find help. No one would recognize him otherwise.

  Using Selene’s Solution, he cleaned himself and once it finished, no one would have guessed what he’d survived. Even the stench of his gambeson and mail had disappeared. He looked a little strange, wearing armor in the middle of the city. The guards rarely wore more than a gambeson, sometimes with a chain shirt, but Will even had mail covering his legs, and the black breastplate was definitely unusual.

  Not caring, he walked to the half-repaired palace. Despite being clean, the guards there didn’t recognize their prince at first. Grim Talek had earned him a reputation for elegant style and flawless grooming. Glaring at them, Will paused for his face to grant him passage, but it was the ominous thunder that broke from a clear sky that jolted the soldiers and brought recognition.

  Chapter 49

  Once inside, Will went to the bedroom. He needed time to collect himself before organizing some men to collect Selene’s body. He told a guard at the end of the corridor he wanted privacy for at least an hour. Despite his instruction, a knock came at the door only minutes after he entered. “Not now!” he yelled.

  “Milord, it’s Janice.”

  Will hesitated, then opened the door. “Come in.” She gave him an odd look, then entered nervously. Will waited, but she didn’t speak. He ran out of patience after half a minute. “Are you going to start, or should I?”

  Her head bobbed in a subservient gesture. “Forgive me, milord. I didn’t expect your return so soon.”

  Will frowned. He’d never seen Janice so meek when they were together. With a sigh, he corrected her mistake. “Janice, it’s me, Will. The one you’re expecting probably won’t show up for two or three days. It takes him a couple of days to replace his body and whatever else he does when he loses his old body.”

  She blinked, and he saw her taking in his attire. “Oh. Oh! I should have realized.” Her mouth closed, and she looked around with some confusion on her face as her mind processed the information, then she gaped at him. “Will?” Her eyes were growing misty.

  “Janice?” he replied, copying her tone mockingly.

  Her expression became guarded. “Are you toying with me, milord?”

  He threw up his hands. “For fuck’s sake, Janice, it’s me! Where’s Tiny? He’ll clear this up.”

  “He still hasn’t woken up,” she answered worriedly. “You’re dead. How do I know it’s really you?”

  Worn and irritated, the last thing Will was in the mood for was convincing his friends he was who he said he was. “I’m not the lich. Tell you what, come back in the morning and check on me before I pee, will that convince you?” He was referencing an embarrassing moment from years before, and thankfully she made the connection immediately. Janice’s expression turned wistful a second later, then she hugged him. The breastplate made things awkward, so he pushed her away. “Help me get this off.” A few minutes later, he stored the breastplate in his limnthal and gave her a better hug, though the mail and gambeson still weighed him down.

  “Selene said you died, or worse. You went to Hell and didn’t return. It’s been a month! What’s going on?” she demanded once the tidal wave of emotions receded.

  “I escaped, Sammy was hurt, and I found out Grim Talek let me walk into the trap without warning me. I’ve been in hiding,” he explained. “There’s a lot more to tell, but first…”

  “Why didn’t you send a message? Something! Did you tell Selene?” She shook her head in response to her own question. “No, I’ve been watching her all this time—she was bereaved! What were you thinking?”

  The words continued to spill out of her mouth until finally he interrupted, “I tried! Several times, in fact. Both of you were shielded.”