Vantra felt the room cave in, and nothing remained but blackness surrounding a pinprick of brightness in her perception.
They . . . they . . .
They lied, as Rezenarza said. They all knew. They said nothing. If Katta was Veer, that made Qira Talis, to walk hand in hand in the Evenacht, his Light accompanying Veer’s Darkness.
Humiliation slapped her. She traveled the Evenacht with two—three—deities, and she never guessed any of them were syimlin. What was wrong with her? She whimpered, and she covered her mouth with both hands.
She, a high priestess’s daughter, failed to recognize three syimlin—
Crisp air punched her. She snapped her head up; she hovered in a circular stone room, one flickering torch illuminating smooth walls and a continuous stone bench that curved around the sides. Opposite the door sat an arched niche with an object on a protruding shelf inside, covered in a soft white sheet.
She had phased through the kitchen? Tears blurred the space as she collapsed to her knees. She curled over them, the emotional heat of shame throttling her.
The clues were there. Katta and Qira ate. They drank. Yes, ancient ghosts did the same, attempting to appear as living as possible, but they never sucked in mist, did they? Neither used Ether Touch. Rayva and Salan stayed with them, fierce protectors, and not just for Verryn.
That’s how they knew Verryn. They were syimlin and were friends with Erse Parr long before a mortal swordsman named Verryn Traquen showed up at the Forest Temple seeking Death. That explained why those who knew them treated all three with deep respect.
It explained their sequestering in wagons under the guise of resting—they listened to prayers, cared for syimlin business. Well, other people’s prayers. She traveled with them, and they ignored hers.
Had Lorgan noticed? He must have. Why had he not told her?
The shimmering of betrayal crept through her, wrapping around her thoughts, squeezing. Lies. All lies.
But that also meant Qira—Talis—was really hurt. That survival, even with Navosh’s certainty, remained in doubt.
I did warn you.
Embarrassed fury and turmoil rode her startled shriek. Rezenarza jerked and darted away as Sun surrounded her. She choked and looked at her hand, at the shard. She still held the shard? How? She phased through the floor; it should have clunked against stone and stayed in the kitchen.
Noises came from outside the open door. Clutching the shard to her, she phased through the stone head-first. She did not want to see them, talk to them, have them tsk at her, tell her that her emotions were too much. She did not want them to remind her she needed to swallow her feelings and don a staid cloak of fake disregard. She did not want to bury her reaction and play nice in company.
She fell into another round room and kept going. She encountered a hallway, continued, and arrived at yet another room. Pulling up, she alit on the stones; it mirrored the room above, including the arched niche with a sheet covering an object.
Pain!
Staggered by the intensity, she pivoted, searching for the source. No one stood in the doorway, and no one sat on the benches. Her spin ended with her facing the alcove. She touched the shard to her nose and crept forward; the sensation came from the recess. Concentrating, she swam through the overt agony and sensed deep, consuming sorrow and desperation to become whole. Swallowing her growing fear, she triggered Physical Touch, snagged the sheet, and tore it away.
A sundered essence.
The fabric flumped to the floor. A full body clothed in a simple white, thin-strapped dress rested there, not just an arm or leg essence. It drowned in the dark mourning its head experienced. Vantra drew her fingers through the sensation, as if she touched heavy water. She knew this essence. The woman Nolaris had questioned when he trained her how to Choose a Condemned for Redemption, the one he brought unmitigated hope to, then crushed by saying she was not ready—this body belonged to her.
She needed to Recollect the woman.
She cupped her mouth and nose in her free hand and laughed, bitter with regret. Finders could not have two Chosen simultaneously. The amount of work it took to Redeem one could easily leave the second Condemned waiting years and years, when another Finder might have given them their full attention. But . . . she was not a Finder, was she? She touched the body’s left arm and felt the thin threads holding sanity together fray; if she stayed in the Fields much longer, the woman would lose herself.
That shard of yours is powerful.
Vantra jerked and snarled as the words resounded in her head. Why could Rezenarza not leave her alone?
You are the vessel I’ve chosen to aid my revenge. I can’t lose track of you, can I?
Perhaps he should pay more attention to his acolytes and not her. Then they could exact revenge for him. Had he not used them in the Snake’s Den?
My acolytes? He laughed, his voice stronger than previously. She winced and settled her fingers against her temple. It is true, Oubliette is not fond of our discussions and Temmisere even less so. She still seethes from Black Temple. Regret and guilt filled his breathy sigh. I should have guessed then, that your foe was also mine. I’ll not sacrifice those I hold dear to their power lusts.
They? Did he mean the Knights? Or did he reference someone else?
I thought you disliked speaking with me.
The teasing struck a nerve, and she gritted her teeth before forcing her attention back to the Condemned. She needed to return to the Fields and perform the Recollection on the woman, as she had Laken and his torso. It would hurt, but once whole, the ghost could partake of the Evenacht’s promise. But how was she going to get there? She was stuck in a guardian’s underground haven while an inferno burned above. When the flames died, she would need to find her way back to . . . not Two Rivers, and not the mini-Joyful.
After she got her and Laken out of the Labyrinth, she would need to walk to Selaserat, as she had no funding to pay a wagon or carriage to take her. Maybe she could convince Dough to sail her to Fading Light for a promise of future compensation. Maybe. Then she would need to travel to the Fields. Lorgan said it was easy to sneak in, so she would do so and unite the body and the head.
How long would that take? Would Laken understand? Should she find his essence in Greenglimmer first? No; the woman did not have much time before she sank so far into desolate depression that she met the Final Death.
You still follow Finder rules and precepts? Why?
How else was she supposed to Redeem a Condemned? Ask him to do it?
His laughter at her snappy sarcasm echoed loud enough to shake her essence. Ask me? His amusement made her more grouchy. Why not? It’s well within my ability to Recollect a sundered essence.
Was it now? She glared sullenly at the body, annoyed he disregarded her scorn and proclaimed his expertise. How would he know which spirit to Recollect? Sticking another’s head on the torso would—
The pull is strong. I can follow it to the correct Condemned.
And he knew how to perform the Recollection.
Yes. During my time as Darkness, syimlin could grant boons to the Condemned. I did so, though not often.
Vantra circled her thumb on the shard’s slick surface, not wishing to trust him, but the woman needed Recollection, and soon. If he sailed—
As a Sun acolyte, you studied the ways of syimlin travel. We have means outside mortal restrictions.
Really. Like Talis’s Light or the Darkness ribbons?
She rubbed at her chest, forcing the bitterness down, hating that a few more tears fell. Qira—Talis had saved everyone, including her, from a nasty mephoric emblem Final Death. That did not prevent her rage at not being trusted with his or Veer’s identity from battling against concern and fear for his wounds.
Why had he and Katta even bothered to accompany her? What use had they for her and Laken? Why take an interest in a previously unknown Condemned?
And what shall you provide me in return?
Rezenarza’s words drew her back to the present predicament. She had nothing to offer but a thank-you.
“You are an odd one.”
She jumped and whirled, bumping into the niche and stumbling. She stared up at a nymph with evergreen-hued skin, black hair that brushed his shoulders, and dark eyes. His nose was too bulbous to be called stern, but the rest of him radiated it. He had a half-buttoned, untucked shirt that exposed a muscular chest, loose pants, and bared feet. He had come on a whim, had he not.
His casual appearance did not seem much like the rigid, rage-filled Rezenarza she had read about in religious texts.
“Can all ex-syimlin travel like that?” If so, he could have appeared to her at any time. She shuddered at the implications.
“Yes.” He shrugged. “One doesn’t unlearn how to travel because one’s mantle disappears.”
Oh. “Um well.” She turned to the body and grabbed the arm and leg, sliding the essence to the edge. “She’s breaking, so her Recollection needs to be done soon.”
Rezenarza walked to her and looked down as the pale arm slid and hung limply over the niche. “So I see.” He frowned and touched the ghost’s shoulder. “Erse lets this happen?” Anger rippled through his voice, and she shivered. Even an ex-syimlin possessed divine rage.
“My ex-mentor Nolaris spoke with her, asked her questions, then denied her,” she whispered. “I think that harmed her. I wanted to help her, but Laken called more strongly. Maybe I should have Redeemed her first anyway.”
Rezenarza slipped his arms under the body and lifted her from the niche. “This is unconscionable. A Finder should have Redeemed her long before she entered this state.”
Vantra nodded. “The Elden Fields are all heads that should have long-since been Redeemed.”
“Hmm. We have an agreement on something, then.” He glanced at the doorway before Darkness ribbons swirled around him and he vanished into a black void.
“What have you done?” Black-claw growled, storming into the room, magic forming around his fingers.
“Saving a spirit from the Final Death,” she whispered. Sun spun around her and solidified into a shield; not her doing, but the shard’s.
Black-claw stopped and eyed the protection, seething. “The Final Death?”
“You were her guardian.” A fine trembling coursed through her arms. “You didn’t feel her slipping away?”
“I—”
“She’s breaking! Couldn’t you feel it? It filled this space, agony upon agony, twisted by dark desperation and hopelessness!”
“He is not a spirit,” Navosh said, hobbling into the room using a gnarled cane. “He can sense some things, but not as you described.”
“Can you?”
“Yes.” He stared thoughtfully at the niche as Laken and Jare stopped in the doorway. She did not know how to interpret their expressions, so bowed her head to touch her nose to the shard. That her only comfort lay in an inanimate object pricked her despondency and self-loathing. “The Finders have much to answer for—and they will.” He half-laughed. “I think Rezenarza was bored.”
“Bored?” How did he come to that conclusion?
“He’s not the helpful type. Or the compassionate type unless there’s a purpose behind it. What boon did he ask in return?”
She blinked a new spate of tears from her eyes. “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”
Navosh’s wry amusement faded. “He didn’t elicit a boon from you before he left?” He tapped the bottom of the cane against the stone. “Surely the Sun shines in the Evenacht. Unless the ghost was an acolyte of his while alive?”
“He could ask for anything,” Jare said, his voice tight and brittle. “And make payment due at the most inopportune time.”
“He could, but he won’t,” Navosh said. “He’s a boon-up-front faelareign.”
What did it matter to Jare? It was not like she would ever encounter him again after she left Greenglimmer. She would Redeem Laken and then . . .
And then what? She squeezed her eyes shut. Her dreams of being a Finder had ended. The Sun temples she encountered did not want her as an acolyte. What was she going to do with herself?
She gasped as a hand settled on her shoulder. Navosh. The Sun shield did not stop him?
“You hear the calls of the most frantic,” he said, his tone soft and warm as a cozy blanket. “And you respond. That’s a rare ability, a gift the Fields desperately need. It’s good, you sensed her and responded. For all Rezenarza’s duplicity and dark dealings, he sympathizes with the Condemned. Many of his followers spent time in the Fields, and he has yet to forgive what he considers a grave insult.”
“That’s why he came?”
“That, and I think he wanted a taste of the inferno above without endangering his skin. Typical nymph, in that regard.”
Vantra had no opinions on nymph behavior. “Shouldn’t you be resting?” she asked.
“I’ve rested for the better part of . . . centuries.” He glanced over his shoulder with a frown. “How long has it been, anyway?”
Black-claw glared daggers at them and did not answer. Another being she pissed off without meaning to. Was she supposed to ask his permission to see the woman whole?
Navosh tightened his grip. “Come. We’ll speak more in the mist room.”
True, she needed mist. The shield dropped, and she walked with him to the door, unable to look at the furious guardian.
“Vantra.” Jare reached for her; she turned Ether and whisked away from him, heading down the hallway to a destination she had no idea how to reach.
