Jaetheiri. That was the name of my new nemesis. I heard it loud and clear as she pried me from Naidur’s dead grip. Calluses of a swordsman hardened her hand, like the rest of her kin, but she had fading calluses from some other occupation along her fingertips that I had never felt before.
Her grip was firm. I helped her lift me just so that she would be startled at how light I was. Through her eyes, I saw my strange white blade and felt awe flicker through her cold hard mind.
She sheathed her warfang to take me up in her right hand.
My balance was perfect, mesmerizingly perfect. She swung me through the open air and a smile cracked across her grave face.
She shook herself from my spell. The threat of her prince’s Death Circle hung heavy in the air.
And she needed to move. The streets were surging with fleeing Datreans, desperate to escape the imminent Death Circle.
To my relief, Jaetheiri did not engage them. I could feel her wariness and I understood. The fleeing Datreans were not warriors, but no one with sense runs through a swarm of desperate enemies.
Instead, Jaetheiri clamored up onto desolate stone houses and began running along their roofs to bypass the traffic.
The noise below was terrible.
Datreans pleas for mercy clashed with Brinn cries for haste, and suddenly, I realized they were different languages altogether.
I was stunned.
The Brinn language had come so naturally to me that I hadn’t noticed it wasn’t my maker’s tongue. But it made sense. My father forged me to fall into Brinn hands. Of course, he would beat their language into my steel.
“Venerated Victor!” I heard a man cry in that invader tongue. “I name you prey!”
Jaetheiri whirled around to see another Brinn looter on the rooftops, red warfang already coming down on her.
I had no interest in helping. I watched passively as she dodged the swing, her worn leather boots scrambling for purchase on the slippery slate. She ignored her imbalance to aim me at the weakness in the Brinn’s black scale chestplate and before I knew it, I was devouring the ambusher’s hunger for glory.
Demons below, she was fast.
Blood dripped from my edge and blood now forged the first link in a chain binding her to me.
I felt the roar of her thoughts; the beat of her heart. Her scrambling feet started to slip off the roof.
She had prioritized her attacker over her balance and I could have let her pay the price.
Instead, I gently adjusted her balance, keeping her on that slippery roof.
I would not let her fall. I would not allow the stone road below to smash her head in and rob me of the chance to kill her myself.
“Blessed Maethe,” Jaetheiri whispered. She knew she had almost fallen
I almost laughed; no angel was guiding her steps.
Only I was watching as she neared the city gate, a towering marvel of iron and stone, smashed beyond recognition. The sight struck me with grief. The stonesingers and the steelsingers had maintained that gate for centuries. I could still hear fragments of the now ruined ancient music of my makers. This massive grand thing had been my elder brother and I had never seen it whole, never seen it held by the Datrean wall guard. The tall figures of Brinn swarmed over it now, herding Datreans out of the city that was once theirs.
I should have been there, protecting it. Instead, I passed under my dead brother in the hands of the people who destroyed it.
Beyond the wall sprawled a sea of tanned hide tents. Only very distantly could I see the open plains of the ruined countryside beyond, the scars of the prolonged siege on open display.
Far closer, was the Death Circle: intricate musical notations a foot thick and endless in every direction, all etched in dirt with black chalk.
It was a great and terrible feat of songcraft. It was about to destroy my maker’s city and Jaetheiri stepped over it like it was nothing more than an entrance rug into her army’s camp.
The Brinn War camp stretched out like a city in its own right, and now, it had the population of a city. Swarms of surrendered Datreans were herded into pens. For what reason, I dared not guess.
Jaetheiri ignored their wailing to veer toward a grand tent made from the carefully tanned hide of some strange red animal. Two Brinn guards flanked the opening flap and saluted Jaetheiri as she approached.
“Good hunt, my lady?” Their eyes flickered to me.
Before she could answer, a raspy hiss slipped from the tent and sliced the air.
“I thought I was clear that those tablets were your only priority.” The voice in the wind. The voice that threatened my city with annihilation.
Yethyr.
At the sound of his quiet words, Jaetheiri overwhelmed my hate with something frighteningly soft. This was not the violent passion of lovers that I had tasted from the bodies of Frida and Zunad or the blinding love of family that consumed me when bound to Erjed.
This was a quiet, steady commitment. I reeled at the feeling, desperate to cut it out of me as soon as I felt it. I refused to feel affection for the man who brought the city of my makers to ruin.
Jaetheiri stepped into the tent and then I saw him.
Wild curls of pale red hair cascaded past the shoulders and down the back of a gaunt man hunched over a war table, more ghostly than the spirits he commanded.
Instead of the black-scale armor of his people, interlocking white bones braced his entire frame.
Human bones. Their deathsong was a terrible and perfect chorus that shrouded him from head to toe. Ribs over his stomach and a spine down his back. It was as if he was wearing several skeletons woven together inside out.
The Skeleton Prince indeed.
Shards of a shattered skull made up the white circlet at his brow. More shards cut down his hollow cheeks, framing his pale sunken face.
Jaetheiri was disgustingly fond.
The Brinn warrior across the war table from him was less so. “Their firesingers burned the library before we could get to them, my prince.”
“And you let that happen?” his voice was raspy, barely above a whisper. It was a wonder a voice that soft could compete with an entire Datrean choir. “Captain, do you have any idea why we were assaulting this city in the first place?”
“It’s just a couple of tablets.”
Yethyr looked at the captain in disgust. “Such stupidity belongs among prey.”
Jaetheiri caught her breath and through instinct, I understood.
Intrinsically, somehow I knew what it meant to call a man of Brinn prey.
It was the start of a ritual older than the Brinn. It was a challenge that could not be ignored.
The captain went for his warfang. The Prince spoke again before the red fang had even left its sheathe.
“Die.”
The word was not sung and yet never had I heard a more concise or precise deathsong. Its sheer power spared Jaetheiri and the guards at attention and made the captain crumble dead.
Yethyr looked to Jaetheiri, not even bothering to watch the body fall. “You’re late.”
“So are you,” she said bluntly. I was shocked to find that she was unafraid of him. “You should have activated your circle three minutes ago.”
“There are still people surrendering,” he said mildly. “There’s no reason to kill them without cause.”
Jaetheiri stepped over the body of the captain, unperturbed. “Keeping your word is cause enough, my prince.
“Jaethe,” he said, equal parts tenderness and exasperation. “I’m not going to activate a Death Circle with you in it.”
“You should. I was late.”
He rolled his eyes.
One of the guards stepped forward. “My prince, the captain’s body…”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Proceed with the proper rituals,” Yethyr said flippantly. “Would you like anything from him first, Jaethe? My kills are your kills, of course.”
Jaetheiri glanced at the body. “Is that a brooch from the Tumai campaign?”
“I believe so, my lady,” one of the guards said.
She crouched down and snatched up the captain’s cloak’s fastenings: a red garnet, carved into the shape of some sort of animal.
No stonesongs were woven into its natural rhythm. It was carved purely by hand, and I was impressed.
So was Jaetheiri. She pocketed it and rose to her feet.
“Strip him down. Distribute what was his to his men.
“Yes, my lady. Thank you, my lady.”
“Do not touch his share of the wagon train. No Tezem should be left wanting after a hunt such as this.”
“Of course.” The guards hurriedly carried the captain‘s body away and they were suddenly alone.
Then Yethyr saw me.
“The blade you carry? What is it?” I could taste his hunger in the air.
“I took it off a looter who knew not his place.”
“It roils with necromantic power.” He straightened; he was short for a man of Brinn. “Give it here.”
Jaetheiri blinked. I tasted her confusion, and then annoyance. “Since when has a blade been of use to you? It’s too heavy, my prince. Your constitution—”
“I am the necromancer, not you. That thing was made with Datrean songcraft. We know not what it is capable of.” His eyes glittered with hunger. “I’ll handle it.”
I twisted my voice to sound like her own thoughts. “This victory has gone to his head. Why must he claim everything from it? You took the sword fairly. It should be yours.”
Yethyr’s pale face grew gray. “Jaethe, listen to me,” he said, soft and urgent. “Those aren’t your thoughts.”
For the first time in my short life, I felt cold.
He heard me. How could I have forgotten? He was a deathsinger, like Zasha and Malinda. He could hear me imitating Jaetheiri's thoughts to manipulate her. He knew. He knew!
“That sword is possessed. You need to get it away from you right now.”
“Surely you exaggerate.”
He slowly came around his war table. His steps were jerky and unnatural, much like Acad’s undead gait before I had let Aztomag consume him, but that didn’t make sense. Yethyr was not dead.
Yet.
“He’s coming to rip it from my hands,” I said in Jaetheiri’s voice. So what if he could hear? It wouldn’t matter if I could get her to kill him.
I could prevent the Death Circle if I could get her to kill him.
“He’s always wanted songsteel. He wants it all for himself. He’s going to kill—”
Yethyr showed his palms. “You don’t believe that, Jaethe. We could have killed one another a thousand times. You know I wouldn’t.” He took a step closer. “I know you wouldn’t.”
Jaetheiri didn’t want to kill him. She didn’t want to let me go. “My prince…I…I…” Her hands trembled. “I can’t…”
Yethyr stepped into her reach. One swing and he would be cut down. One swing and Datrea would escape annihilation. I pulled on my bond with Jaetheiri. I poured all my will into making her move. Just one swing. Just one swing!
But my hold was too weak. I shook in her hands, and Yethyr passed my edge unchallenged. Demons below, he was right there!
This close, I could see the musical notations carved into his bone armor. Pure deathsong. This close, I could see his eyes, so pale it was hard to say if they were blue or gray. And they were looking at me. He was looking past Jaetheiri now, he was seeing me.
He reached out his hand, encased in a strange glove of bone, and grasped my hilt, just above Jaetheiri’s shaking grip. Names flooded me. Kaeliri. Suthar. Felnae. Names of the people whose bones were now molded into gauntlets, but beneath them, much louder, much greater.
Yethyr.
His name rang with the weight of deathsong.
I realized then that I had never been touched by a deathsinger before, so like and so different from the touch of my steelsinger makers. There was a power to him, an intention, an awareness I had not felt since my father had held me. I felt seen.
Whenever I touched my wielder’s thoughts, it was always me worming my way into them. Now that river flowed both ways. He was in me, trying to bind me as much as I was trying to bind him.
And I was afraid. Even as the Prince enslaved my maker’s people, I did not ever consider the possibility that he could enslave me. Wield my physical blade, yes, but I did not fear for the sanctity of my will.
I did now.
“Bend,” his music sang, and I fought to resist, drawing from the power of my makers. My father’s composition was not so easily disrupted. It would not allow me to buckle so quickly, but likewise, I could not root myself in him as I had done to all others. Unlike them, he could feel me trying and so eluded me.
“My prince?” Jaetheiri whispered, blind to the war of wills happening right before her. Neither of us were making much ground in bending the other. Her words floated over the friction of a stalemate.
I could see through both their eyes now and Jaetheiri’s hard expression seemed inexplicably soft through Yethyr’s eyes.
“Let go, Jaethe. I am here.”
I tried to drown him out. “It was your hunt. It was your kill—”
“Tezem of my hunt,” she whispered over my words. “My kills are your kills. Always.”
And then she let my hilt go.
I felt loose, floating, and disconnected. It was the first time a wielder of mine had let me go since my forging. Everyone else had died holding my hilt. Now, our link, forged in blood, was stretched. I could still feel Jaetheiri faintly, but Yethyr now roared so much louder.
The moment I was in his hand, I knew that he was cursed. I could feel it in the marrow of his bones. His bones felt dead, hellish even, like a demon had claimed them the way Malinda’s eyes were claimed. Somehow, the very skeleton beneath his skin did not belong to him at all.
He was moving both the skeletons of his armor and the skeleton within himself with deathsong. I could hear it thrum through him, without which he would not be able to stand, let alone walk.
It was why he moved like the undead. He was being puppeted by a deathsinger; he was being puppeted by himself.
But he was not strong enough to hold me himself. I could feel my tip sag toward the floor and before his arm could completely drop, I intervened. I held myself up, taking the weight off him.
His surprise was delicious.
He looked down at me and through his eyes, I saw that I was not just a sword to him; I wasn’t sure what I represented, but I was his path to something more, something he desperately craved. He wanted to wield me; he wanted to take me apart; he wanted to possess me down to the iron of my steel.
My father’s curse was as always an effective poison.
I retreated into myself, locked in a stalemate for dominion as we were. I needed to conserve my strength and perhaps, if I could get him to relax, if I could get him to believe he owned me, I could do something.
“Are you alright?” he said.
“Quite.” Jaetheiri straightened, adopting a nonchalance that Yethyr saw right through, but did not challenge.
“Good.”
Her eyes dropped to me. Through our stretched bond, I could feel both her surprise, happiness, and resentment. “You can hold it?”
“It appears so.” Yethyr moved me in a slow arc through the air and laughed. It was an annoyingly pure and joyous sound. “It’s helping me, which is strange, seeing as it just tried to kill me a second ago. Perhaps it is designed to be disinclined to ever change hands, but loyal to whoever holds it in the moment.”
I scoffed. As if I would be that fickle. I tempered my offense. Getting him to believe that could be useful.
“It warrants further thought, but I will deal with this later.” He started toward the tent flap in his jerky way. “You were right. I have delayed the Circle long enough.”
He limped out of the tent, and made his way through camp, Jaetheiri like a shadow behind him.
People made way for him. I could feel dozens of eyes follow me. Their terror of their prince gave way to hunger.
Yethyr felt them too. “Jaethe, get me something to cover the sword with. It appears to sing a selkie song to all who see it.”
Jaetheiri very quickly provided a fur blanket to cover me with, hiding me from view. It dulled my vision through Yethyr’s eyes, but I could still see as he approached the Death Circle.
Jaetheiri hung back. Everyone in the camp did. No one dared be near the circle as it crackled to life at his approach.
He had to be stopped. There were still swarms of people fleeing Datrea. An entire city's worth of people was going to be annihilated if someone didn’t do something.
And I could do nothing.
Yethyr had not killed with me. I had never been able to force any of my wielders to do anything without a significant blood price.
Could I convince him?
I dropped a thousand reasons for waiting into the currents of his thoughts. “With every second I wait,” I rasped in his voice, “three dozen slaves are added to the bounty.”
“That is true,” Yethyr stopped before his toe touched his circle. “But, my steel friend, that is three dozen lives that would not go to me.”
He clutched at a porcelain necklace with his free hand. “Conquering Fang of Maethe. I dedicate this feast to you.”
The black circle he had painstakingly drawn through months of work turned crimson. Yethyr did not sing. I realized all at once that he never did. He did not think about his songcraft as singing. He thought of it as a composition written within himself. Something he composed and orchestrated and released out into the world.
But they were songs. I could hear his work, even if he did not open his mouth.
It was deathsong, pure, and all-consuming, just like Zasha’s choir.
He held me aloft with his other hand. I stopped helping him, and his arm drooped, but it made no difference.
The Death Circle was open.
It was like a great black maw had opened up beneath the city. Life, precious and vital and delicious, flowed from the city in ribbons of red. It was just like when I killed, except on an apocalyptic scale. A red cloud obscured Datrea like the whole city was a gutted fish in the water, its lifeblood clouding the sky as if it were the ocean.
Then that blood staining the sky came rushing toward us. I could hear the cut-off screams of the dying as their lives passed me and poured into the porcelain pendant in Yethyr’s hand.
What could he want with all that? The entire unsurrendered city. Its men; its women; its children; its beasts of burden; its pets. All gone. All to feed the hunger of one monstrous broken man.
I hated him. It was at once clear to me that I had been made for one purpose. Not to destroy the world; not to destroy the Brinn. No, I existed to destroy him, their dreaded Skeleton Prince.
I would not kill him. A quick death did not pay for the death of thousands. Yethyr had made a ruin of a great city and so, I would ruin him. Ruin his country. Ruin everything he held dear.
This I vowed as I heard the final death rattle of my maker’s city. This I vowed as wrath and malice consumed me. This I vowed with the lives that flowed past me as my witness.
I would destroy Yethyr.
Thank you so much for reading! I really appreciate all the support I have gotten during the transition to move this story to Royal Road. Do tell me what you think! I love comments and often respond to them
I will be posting a chapter every day until July 30, 2025. Make sure to follow the story and come back to read more!
Datrean had fallen. What will be its legacy?
