Life at Obsidian Lake became similar to how they had whiled the hours away at Summer’s End. Riette and Kurellan did daily patrols, sending scouts out to find any hint of where Layton might have laid down roots. Willard popped in and out, sometimes off in the woods collecting herbs and leaves or meeting with Joa, sometimes bringing Idris the required plants for his own concoctions. Lila and Idris sparred daily – she was a keen swordsman, much better than he was – and when he had a spare minute to himself, Idris made sure to properly fit and test his hare’s foot as he walked around the tavern. Cressida made orders to guards and soldiers and courtiers; it was not long before the small town was a bustling hub of the Queen’s select troops, waiting for something to happen.

  The only difference was that somewhere in town lurked Lady Eremont.

  Idris made sure to avoid areas where she might be. He kept to himself in the tavern when he studied and ate, and he only came out for occasional exercise. For that reason, he and Lila trained in the lake at sunrise, the water up to his mid-shins, until the light was clear and the mist on the water had burned away.

  “She can’t swim?” said Lila, once he shared this thought with her. He nodded, hands on his knees, catching his breath. “Are you sure?”

  “I learned,” he said, “but she never taught me. My father – Obrin, I mean – he took me to the local river every week. I have never seen her so much as dip a toe in a river or pond. Obviously, I do not swim anymore.” He shook out his arms, readied his training sword again. “Besides,” he said, “I cannot hear Kurellan tutting at me out here, and my balance is better in the water.”

  Lila scoffed playfully. “Truly?”

  “Come and see.”

  “I can’t hit a crippled man, sir. Much less the one who employs me.”

  “It has not stopped you yet.”

  “I meant ‘hard,’” she said, flicking her own sword around her hand. “That’s what I meant to say. If I hit you on your backside,” she added, glancing once to the misty shore, “then you have to –“

  “Do not finish that sentence, Lila,” Idris said, his stomach swooping. He did not want to see who was on the lakeside.

  “ – tell Lady Riette how soft you are on her,” Lila blurted, and darted forwards.

  The splash of the cold water stunned Idris for a moment, but only for a moment. He slammed his peg-leg backwards, feeling the lake rocks skitter behind him, and raised his training sword to block Lila’s deft blow. She grunted, absorbed the shock and went for his left shoulder.

  “You’re open,” he said, and aimed for her wrist.

  “You’re not paying –“

  And then Idris felt the ground come out from beneath him, and he fell hard on his rear end, up to his neck in freezing lake water. Above him, Lila caught her breath, grinning.

  “Attention,” she finished. “Sir.” She gestured to his foot. “You overcompensate too obviously. And you said your balance was better.”

  “That was cruel,” he spluttered, shaking water out of his face.

  “That is sparring. Come on.” She held out her hand to help him up. “You must be cold.”

  “One more?”

  “I think there’s news,” said Lila, nodding to the shore. Riette was there, waving her hand.

  “So you know, I agreed to nothing,” he said to Lila.

  “Oh, so you admit you’re soft on her?”

  “I did not say that, either.”

  They waded out of the shallows to where Riette was waiting. She handed Lila the towels, then smirked.

  “You kicked his only good foot, you little devil?” she said. Idris rolled his eyes, accepting the towel.

  “It is a cheap trick.”

  “It works every time,” said Lila. “If you don’t want me to do it, you need to find a way of blocking it.”

  “She was not this vicious when she was in my employ full time,” he said to Riette. “You must have done something to her.”

  Riette tilted her head, gave him a wry smile; Idris was aware all at once of how see-through his shirt was.

  “Get dressed, Court Necromancer,” she said, digging her knuckles into his shoulder. “Business.”

  “Did you find something?” he said as she walked away. She shrugged.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe?”

  “She is as mean as you are,” Idris said to Lila. Lila sighed, slapped him with her towel.

  “You are so bad at talking to women, sir.”

  “Lady Riette is one woman.”

  “That woman, then.”

  Over by the guard posts, Idris caught a glimpse of an olive-green shawl. Lila followed his gaze and her smile faded.

  “Time to get to work,” Idris said softly. Lila nodded, took his towel.

  “I will meet you at court,” she said.

  The Gleesdale Court was now held in the municipal building across the street from the tavern. It was normally used for town meetings but since Cressida had moved in, it was reserved for the business of the crown only. It had a good meeting table and comfortable chairs, but it was draughty and bats lived in the rafters. Idris made sure to tuck his shirt in under his warm coat before he got there.

  When he opened the door, everyone else was already there, and what he saw on the table was surprising.

  “Oh,” he said, trying to understand why there was a corpse on their maps.

  “Don’t say we never do anything nice for you,” said Kurellan gruffly, folding his arms.

  “Um... thank you?” said Idris, approaching the body. The aria felt strange, even without him reaching into it – stilted and cold. “Did you kill this man or...”

  “See for yourself,” said Riette.

  “You...” He looked around the room. “You want me to do this with an audience?”

  “You do it for Kurellan all the time,” said Cressida, with a faux-pout. “Come, I have seen you raise many bodies, we are all friends here.”

  “I will get your materials,” said Lila, hurrying out.

  “Well...” Idris examined the dead man. “Where did you find him? Some details would be nice. You cannot just gift me corpses without explanations.”

  “This one is the only one Kurellan did not cut the head off of,” said Riette, smiling. “He is fond of destroying the undead, I think it might be his only hobby -”

  “Regardless,” interrupted Kurellan, with a signature tut, “we found a few thralls wandering on the road to Harran Pass.”

  “A few? Details,” said Idris, trying to click his fingers with his gloves on and only producing a cool slap noise.

  “Seven,” said Riette. “All in varying states. This was the best one. They were heading just west of Harran Pass, into the rockier area just out of sight of the town, without much purpose.”

  “Heading west,” Idris muttered, trying to remember the maps Magus Arundale had made him study as a child. “Into the Harransee.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “We did not follow too closely, in case Lord Vonner was watching,” said Kurellan, wrinkling his nose as Idris lifted the body’s arm. “But we thought you might be able to do something with this one, so we brought it back. Call it a souvenir.”

  “Any pentagons?”

  “Not that we saw.”

  “Sigils? Bells?”

  “Hold the interrogation,” said Cressida, her smile fond and understanding. “They will debrief you if you wish, but let us deal with the stench on the table first and ask those questions later. Personally, I am not as excited nor interested about a dead body in a room as you are.”

  “Apologies,” said Idris, feeling his cheeks flush. “I... it has been a while.”

  Lila placed Idris’s usual raising materials – a rug to kneel on, a bowl of water, two jugs (one of water, one of wine), a towel and some clarifying crystals – and Idris instructed the others to take the corpse off the table so he could work while he shrugged off his coat. They laid his charge on the cold flagstone and crowded around. Joa was more interested than most.

  “I have never seen a dead-talker work,” he said, when Willard laughed at him.

  “I kneel and sweat, mostly,” said Idris, settling into his stance.

  “Quiet, please,” said Lila to the crowd.

  “Yes, let the man work,” said Cressida, smirking good-humouredly at him.

  It was strange, doing his business with people standing around him. Idris normally worked in dungeons and graveyards, places where nobody with any sense stayed, with the exception of Lila and Kurellan. He was used to cold fields and damp cellars. For a few seconds, he forgot the usual order of things.

  “State of the body, whelp,” said Kurellan, helpful despite the terseness of his speech.

  “Of course.” Idris took a deep breath, inhaled the aria. He felt the bones and muscle, the still vessel of the heart, the collapsed lungs. He followed the beats, the melody, weaving through his mind like a ribbon tying itself around his senses. “Dead for five days, maximum. Reanimated three days ago. Minor decomposition in the... stomach. Poison. Food poisoning. Bad mushroom. Yes, bad mushroom. Rather unfortunate, considering.”

  “That don’t ever get any less weird,” muttered Willard. Lila shushed him.

  “He can talk,” said Idris, focusing on Kurellan because it was more normal. “I can get good speech from him. The tongue is not so swollen and there is minor damage to the throat.”

  “Five minutes?” said Kurellan.

  “If we are fortunate, and I can concentrate for that long.”

  “Good. I have questions.”

  The old judge placed a chair behind Idris, like he used to in the dungeons, and Idris took a long, deep breath. Lila set out the minute glasses on the table behind the corpse. It was almost homely.

  “This is all incredibly detailed and precise,” said Joa. “How marvellous.”

  “Marvellous? No. Rather disgusting? Absolutely,” said Kurellan from over Idris’s shoulder.

  “Please do not comment on my work while I am trying to perform it,” said Idris.

  “This is the best part,” Cressida said in a stage-whisper.

  The death aria tumbled into Idris’s lungs, into his stomach. He felt its nuances at the tip of his fingers. Carefully, he held out his left hand, pinched the fingers into a pentagon facing the ceiling. It was all too familiar. He focused all of his attention on the body, on filling it with the music only he could hear, of imposing the will he knew he had onto the corpse -

  But then he stopped. He felt... uncomfortable about it.

  “What’s wrong?” said Lila, poised by the minute glass.

  “I...” Idris sighed, let out all of the aria he had been holding. “Nothing. Nothing, I... I feel rather sorry for this poor man. Raised twice.”

  “Once we are done here, we can leave him in peace,” said Cressida.

  “Of course. Sorry. I just...” But he could not articulate what he wanted to say, what he felt keenly in his gut, so he shook it away and returned to what he knew. “Five minutes,” he said.

  “Heard,” said Kurellan.

  Idris rode on the music, then took control. He breathed it, let it fill him, became it. He let it connect him to the corpse in a way he knew he would never be able to connect to a living being and, once he was certain that they were of one song, he felt the crest, and he clenched his raised fingers into a fist.

  The corpse bolted into a sitting position.

  Joa jumped, then laughed once; Lila turned the timer.

  The dead, dry eyes stared right at Idris. For a moment, he wondered if Layton still had a hold on this corpse, if he could see the whole room, and it struck Idris rigid, his breath catching. It had been so long since he had stared into the face of someone he had raised that he thought perhaps it was evil. If Layton did it, then to replicate it was surely wrong.

  The corpse’s breath was shallow and thin.

  “Speak,” whispered Idris, the words coming out as notes from the death aria.

  “Name, district, profession,” said Kurellan, in his normal rapid speech when dealing with Idris’s thralls.

  “Ralph,” the body said. “Harran Pass. Travelling merchant.”

  Idris thought firmly of the requirements for speech – lungs and diaphragm, vocal cords and tongue – and pushed down the rising panic in his stomach that he felt as the body spoke.

  “Tell me the first time you saw a man with a face like this one’s,” said Kurellan.

  The terrible, pried-open eyes stared right at Idris.

  Nothing happened. Idris swallowed, feeling the sweat pouring, seeing the shaking in his raised arm.

  “Speak,” he said again, letting the aria wash through him. His throat burned with the command, but the thrall did nothing. It stared.

  “What’s wrong?” said Riette, frowning.

  “It isn’t... responding,” started Lila, looking baffled, and then the thrall shivered and seemed oddly lucid.

  “When you find my boy,” the dead man said, “tell him he knows how to stop this.”

  Nobody said anything, then. Idris held the aria. He wanted to let it go, to force the corpse to die once more – he did not want this. But the body kept speaking.

  “He comes home. He renounces his queen. He belongs to me.”

  The body smiled, a loose smile like dripping ink.

  “Or we can play at soldiers,” it whispered, “all we like. Until all of your friends are corpses on either side. And you have to raise them or lose.”

  Idris did not move. He felt sick.

  “There was a dead doe in the woods,” the corpse said.

  Terrified, Idris slammed his clenched fist down. The dead man slapped face down on the flagstone; the aria burst out of both of them in a hot puff of air, and Idris knelt, gasping, trembling, eyes filled with tears.

  “What was that?” said Kurellan, his voice husky and stunned.

  “I...”

  Idris did not finish. He looked at the door.

  Lady Eremont slipped back outside, her hand on her mouth.

  It felt like years before anything else happened. Cressida moved first. She touched Idris on the shoulder and followed the trail of his mother without a word.

  “He’s in the Harransee,” said Idris, his vision blurry and his skin tingling, his throat still hurting from the aria. “That is where I will go.”

  “Where we will go,” said Lila.

  “It is not safe for anyone but me.”

  “It isn’t safe for you,” said Willard.

  “Whatever we do, I think it’s safe to say we do it fast,” said Kurellan. “Sir Idris, drink your wine and wipe the sweat off your face, it’s unbecoming of you to kneel like that on the ground.”

  Lila tended to Idris’s immediate needs – the towel for his face, the drink of water – but Idris’s head was ringing. Everything seemed fake, a cold fa?ade of a life he thought he knew. He raised a thrall to speak to it and his father still had total control of what it was going to say. That must have been why the aria felt so odd when he came into the room – Layton had left something in the body. There was no way out of the nightmare. What was he meant to do?

  And... his mother...

  “What was she doing here?” he whispered to Lila as she fussed around him.

  “Do not think about it,” she said. “That is the Queen’s business now.”

  “No, I...” He struggled up. “I need to talk to her.”

  Nobody followed him.

  Lady Eremont was standing by the lake, gazing out over the black water under the grey sky. Wherever Cressida went, she was no longer attempting to console Idris’s mother, and Idris suddenly wondered what he was doing, going after her. She was not invited to the meeting and had stumbled upon something she found distasteful – something her son could not help, but that he was, by virtue of her poor decision making. Nothing he could say could make any of this feel right to her. When she left, he had been an ignorant child. Haylan’s letters told her everything but Idris supposed seeing it in real life was different.

  He stood behind her, taking deep breaths, and he said at last, “What did you expect?”

  She did not respond, but her shoulders tensed.

  “I cannot be anything other than what I am,” he said. “If you do not like it, you should not be poking your nose into my business.”

  “The dead deer,” she whispered.

  Idris thought he had not heard her correctly. Slowly, his mother turned, looked him in the eye.

  “You knew then,” she said, not a question but a statement. “That was when you knew, when... when you came out of The Underwood that day and told me... told me about the doe...”

  Tears were rolling openly down her cheeks, but she did not heave with sobs or melodrama. Somehow, that was worse. He was surprised she even remembered.

  “I did not know,” he said quietly. “When I think, now... I should have known, then.”

  “You told him? Layton?”

  “It...” Idris pursed his lips. “It is unimportant what I told him. Suffice to say, it means nothing. He still wishes me harm.”

  Lady Eremont did not speak. Idris sighed, hard, and shook his head.

  “You are not required here, Mother. Please go home to Temple Hill. None of this -”

  “The man,” she interrupted. “That you... you...”

  “Raised?”

  “You...”

  “Not everyone can be fortunate enough to be born to save lives,” he said bitterly. “Some people have to make do with what is left behind.”

  “Is it difficult?” she said.

  “Diff... black bells, Mother, what difference does it make?” he said.

  “Haylan watched you do that every day?” she said.

  “He did.”

  “And...

  “And he was proud of me,” Idris said, hating how his heart sank.

  “Proud?” said Lady Eremont, her cheeks red, her eyes hard. “No. No, he was not proud, how could he have been? We brought you up to be -”

  “To be what? Decent? Noble? And all of that is somehow gone because you made me this way?” said Idris, clenching his jaw. It was the same, tired argument he had heard since he was twelve, that necromancy was abhorrent and that it made him wrong and depraved; he was not going to listen to it from his own mother. “I did not choose this. You chose this. And if it makes you sick to your stomach, I hope you know it makes me sick, too.” He watched her, wondering what she was thinking. “But it does not matter. I am not an Eremont anymore. Nobody needs to know that we are related, if that is what worries you. Nobody owns me and the only man foolish enough to claim me is deranged. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough that he kills me, and then nobody needs concern themselves with me anymore.”

  “That is really how lowly you think me,” his mother said.

  “Yes. It is.”

  The hard edge returned to her thin lips. “I see.”

  “I am tired of begging for your affection. It is thin affection, anyway, if watching me raise a man is enough to reduce you to tears,” Idris said.

  “None of this is what I wanted for you,” she said. “This is not – Idris, I need time, still -”

  “Take all the time you want. Away from me,” he said firmly.

  “I came to help,” she said, clenching her delicate fist. “I came to support you. But you keep ignoring me, pushing me out -”

  “Then now you know how it feels. To be ignored and pushed out. If you will excuse me, I have things to do.”

  “Where is he?” she said to Idris as he walked away. “Layton? Did you find him?”

  He did not answer. There was too much work to do for him to care about his mother’s wants.