It was morning, the second day of my existence and I was already fuming. Yethyr stood over 102 Datrean corpses, all arranged neatly in rows in the center of the army’s encampment, all killed for Brinn greed, and all in danger of being risen again for Flavrir of all people.
“None of them are arcanists or Brinn,” Flavrir assured Yethyr. “As agreed.”
Yethyr frowned at their armor. “Most appear to have been guards of the wall,” he observed.
Flavrir shrugged. “I am consistent in my preferences. Will you release their spirits to me?”
No. These people had served their city nobly; they had done what I had wished to do when I had first awoken. They didn’t deserve the horror that Yethyr had inflicted on Wes.
My disgust bled into Yethyr and he easily misconstrued it as his own. Considering how uncomfortable with puppeting corpse thralls he so clearly was, it made sense he would assume my distaste was his.
I tensed. This was an opportunity. My manipulation was disguised. Desperately, I wished to urge him in his voice, but I held back just in time.
Flavrir was a deathsinger too and would hear my whispers, just as Yethyr heard me when I tried to manipulate Jaetheiri.
And I had almost made the mistake twice.
“Of course,” Yethyr said to my grief. I felt as he drew upon the pendant around his neck and 102 lives spewed forth from it like ribbons of blood. The bodies stirred and then went still as Yethyr released them from his composition. “They are yours.”
He turned away quickly and told himself it was because he was ‘“disinterested” in the results of Flavrir’s often involved corpse thrall negotiations.
But I cataloged his discomfort; it was precious to me, something that I suspected I would be able to use.
To distract himself from the feelings he was pretending not to feel, he turned to Jaetheiri to find her attention fixed on an approaching woman.
She was a windsinger. The horned headdress whistling with windsong made that clear.
Unlike Aesherri though, her curls were as white as snow, the wrinkles in her face were deep, and she was smiling from ear to ear.
“My prince! I come to volunteer myself to your glorious hunt!”
“You and…” Yethyr looked past her as if the act would materialize other windsingers out of thin air.
“Just me!” she said cheerfully. “Nisari! The Blustering Gale! I am known to you, yes?”
Yethyr’s face became pinched. “Yes.”
“Then you know that you will only need me.” Nisari put her hand on her sheathed warfang. “The Datreans will not know what hit them!”
Yethyr swallowed a sigh. “We are…thankful for the aeromancers’ commitment to our divine cause.”
His sarcasm sailed over her head. “Venerated Victor!” she saluted Jaetheiri. “It delights me to join you for a hunt at last! I look forward to sitting beside the campfire and hearing of your exploits in the Oredreirium.”
“Look forward to disappointment,” Jaetheiri said drily. “There is nothing to tell,”
“If there were nothing to tell, my dear, then you would not be known to me.” Nisari looked back at Yethyr. “Who else travels with us?”
The Prince frowned. This was a sour subject. “Leaving before the spoils are divvied up is a sacrifice, which requires it to be volunteer only. Besides my thralls and Lady Jaetheiri herself, I cannot promise the host will be large.”
“All the better!” Nisari cried. “I abhor the large hosts of this present time. It is so difficult to distinguish oneself among thousands. In this hunt, our name is sure to be recorded. When do we leave?”
“As soon as my tent is folded, so I suspect it will be before midday.”
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“We’re rushing? I like it!” She rolled her shoulders. “I shall make my way there then. For Maethe’s glory!”
“For Maethe’s Glory,” Yethyr echoed.
Nisari turned away cheerfully and Jaetheiri watched her stride across the encampment with arched eyebrows. “Well, at least we have an aeromancer on the mission.”
“Yes. One aeromancer, the senile aeromancer no less. Against the might of dozens of Datrean master arcanists.” Yethyr’s grimace became slightly more wry when he looked at Jaetheiri. “Our odds are looking better all the time.”
Jaetheiri almost laughed and Yethyr counted it as a victory.
He began wandering the encampment under the morning sun. I thought his movement aimless until I realized he was approaching his sole corpse thrall.
Wes did not look like a skeleton from afar. He must have found spare black robes in his room back at the forge. With the hood over his skull, he could pass as an especially slight steelsinger. The massive knapsack he had swung over his shoulder made him look even smaller. He must have taken Yethyr’s command to pack seriously.
Wes did not notice the Prince’s approach at first and I did not blame him. His burning gaze was fixed on the massive pens filled with the swarms of Datreans who had escaped the Death Circle. Dimly, I could hear wailing, begging and harsh words.
Yethyr had barely looked in their direction himself. I resented him for that, but I realized then that perhaps I should be grateful for his disregard.
Now that he was looking, I was forced to confront the harrowing remainder of my failure. I could see the Brinn separating the Datreans into groups. For what purpose I did not know, but the sight filled me with a deep foreboding.
Wes was similarly moved. No expression could be gleaned from his skull, but his somber intensity was palpable.
“My prince,” Wes said carefully like he was testing the sound of the title.
“Steelsinger,” Yethyr greeted in Datrean when he stood beside him.
“Do I want to know what will happen to them?” Wes asked, voicing both of our fears.
Yethyr looked at the Datreans. I loathed him for feeling no remorse. “Thralldom, most likely, once they are divided appropriately. We are a practical people when it comes to our spoils.”
Wes scoffed doubtfully but did not contradict him.
“How fares undeath?”
Wes hummed. “Strange. Half an hour after you went to the Palace of Songs, the music that held me together was gone and I collapsed into a pile of bones.”
“Oh.” Yethyr’s cheeks burned. “I…um…I apologize. I had hoped I could maintain it at a distance. My master can. I’m sure all I need is practice.”
“Practice?” Wes cocked his hooded skull. “Am I…am I your first?”
“Besides temporary practices for my studies and my own body…yes.” Yethyr frowned. “Do you find that concerning?”
“Surprising is all,” Wes said. “Your composition is already smoother than your teacher’s. He helped me get out here and I found the experience of him puppetting me…more uncomfortable than being a bone heap.”
Yethyr grimaced. “...yeah. He has never had a delicate touch.”
Wes noted the sympathy in his voice. “You speak as if you are familiar with the sensation.”
Yethyr shrugged. “There was a time before I had mastered the deathsong commanding my body. Flavrir had to help me.”
Wes winced. “I see.”
“Indeed. There is a reason I prioritize making my own compositions so smooth.”
“Well, I will endeavor to keep close to you in the future.” Wes shuffled. “It was not an experience I would like to repeat. He is a disconcerting presence, I confess.”
“He is,” Yethyr agreed. “But he stood by my deathbed when others did not and delivered on the promise of getting me out of it. For that, I will overlook much.” The Prince did not wish to dwell on such thoughts. “Come. We are breaking camp. It would benefit us both if you stay close.”
Wes allowed himself a last look at the Datreans and it finally sunk into me that I was leaving them here.
“Datrea is the people,” Erjed’s words came back to me like a torrent and it rang like censure. I thought of Malinda and then the countless like her now trapped in Brinn pens.
I was leaving them to this terrible fate, and for what? To avenge Erjed and the dozens of lives the council sacrificed to escape? To answer for Deathinger Zasha’s betrayal? To bind Yethyr to me in blood so that I could ruin his life?
I knew what Erjed would have deemed more important.
I was not leaving them, I decided. I was punishing their leaders, who abandoned them, but then I would return, and through Yethyr, I could save them. I could free them…free Flavrir’s poor corpse thralls too while I was at it. I did not know how to achieve that, but I would.
The people in those pens were the last of Datrea. They were the priority. Always.
I will be back, I promised in silence. I go to avenge us. I go to bind your conqueror to me as his people try to bind you, but I will come back.
I had to come back.
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Will Bonesong come back and save the Datreans?
