I FOLLOWED HER around the corner of the stronghouse. She settled by the fire with a flourish, flapping out the black cloak she wore like great raven’s wings. She sat cross legged, with her hands on her knees. I got the sense that she was coiled like a snake, ready to strike.

“If you aren’t Cinderborn, then what are you?” I said. I was at a distinct disadvantage, and I knew it.

The woman in black gave me a long, hard look. “The Cinderborn vanished from this place long ago. I thought they were gone. Faded.” She must have read the confusion on my face, for she looked wearily into the little yellow flame, and held out a hand. “I was a lost soul. An unsettled dead that awakened in the wrong world. Param, my name was. I wandered for a long time before Harald and his Raiders found me.”

The thought of others like her made me uneasy. She was as fast and deadly as a viper. I wasn’t sure I could win if she set herself against me. Not as I was, anyway. “Where are they now? Your friends?”

Her green eyes narrowed. “What do you care?”

I looked up. A reflex, I thought, searching for the stars. Perhaps for wisdom. But there was only the dark cavern roof, so far above. Great stalactites hung like bloody fangs, awash in the laval light of the pooling magma deeper into the chamber. It was cold, I realized, despite the sad little fire. In fact, I wondered if the false glow made it worse.

“Do you know you are bleeding?” she said, looking at the wound in my hip. I followed her gaze. Sure enough, my hip was soaked with radiant blood. “If you are truly Cinderborn, you can seal that wound,” Param said. “I have seen it done. Concentrate on it.”

I frowned. I could feel the heat pooling there. It was not a deadly injury, but it was nothing to ignore, either. I closed my eyes and focused on the warmth, on the energy in the blood. It grew warmer, and when I opened my eyes, the blood flow was staunched. Not healed entirely, but closed. Param watched me across the fire, but said nothing.

“You have seen it done,” I echoed her words. “But you have not done it yourself?”

The woman shook her head. “Were you stricken deaf? I am no Cinderborn. The secrets of radiance are not mine to hold.”

“Do you know where they went? The others?”

Again, the shake of a head. “I have only met one other. But he told me that once, there were legions of Cinderborn. They marched to war, and never returned. A king of your kind once reigned in Ulstassi, before the city went silent.”

“I awakened alone,” I said. “And I have met only a few other souls. This place seems…empty. I thought Hell would be filled with the damned.”

“Hell is a thought. A way of being. A festering despair. Can you feel it?” I nodded. She sighed and stirred the flames with the tip of her dagger. I wondered if they got colder, the closer she got. “This is but a lesser chamber,” Param said. “And the worlds that once fed this place are empty now. And so it is dying. Fading. The souls who once reposed here have faded, or been consumed.” After a moment, she added, “Or gone to Ulstassi on the cliff.”

“Have you been there?”

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“No,” Param said. “Harald’s Raiders roamed the black sands and the edge of the forest. He was searching for something, and we were eager to live again, if only for a while. Harald brought adventure, and danger, to a place that almost never changes.”

“Adventure?”

“There is much to be found, even digging in the ashes. And this place is no different than any other,” she said with a dark glance above. “Where there is carrion, there are vultures.”

“But they left you here. Harald and his raiders.”

“To watch for any others that might cross the river.” She drew the black veil up over her face, but it could not hide the pain in her voice or the anger in her eye at being abandoned by her friends. “None returned.”

“How long has it been?”

Param shrugged. “It is hard to reckon time in this place, especially alone. When you sit by the light, it flows, or it slows. I cannot account for the weeks or months. There is no sun, or moon. There are no stars.” A little anguish in her voice. But it took a proud edge. “But I wait, and I serve. I keep my oath.”

“You knew those Faded, didn’t you?”

“They are Harald’s men. Or what is left of them. Hollow and mindless. I do them a mercy.”

That was what I expected. “They are returning to you?”

“I think they follow the ghost of a memory. But whatever, whoever, they were… it is gone now. Only their flesh lurches on, animated by the last embers of their cold souls.”

“So you set your fire to draw them in?” I asked, leaning forward, peering at her over the pallid flame.

“Just so.” Behind the veil, she looked much like a hooded cobra. “Until I have claimed them all, I will not leave this place.”

I sad back, considering. The fire flickered for a long time. Finally, I said, “Do you think Harald found it? What he was looking for?

“I don’t know. I think it was a weapon of some sort. It was important… it drove him. From one town to the next we hunted, hounding all the time after scraps of truth. Eventually, he became convinced it was the forest of the children. That they were hiding it from him.”

“Who?”

She looked at me like I was a fool. And I felt it, but I didn’t let it show. We had reached the end of what she was willing to tell a stranger, but I had learned much. Perhaps I could get a little more… I changed my tack.

“I am going to Ulstassi.”

“The gods go with you, Cinderborn” she said. “Those that live, anyway.”

“And I intend to cross that forest. Perhaps I will find Harald.” Param stared at me from under her veil. “You could travel with me, if you want. Find out what happened to him. It would be good to have someone watch my back for a change.”

“My place is here,” she said, voice firm.

I stood and dusted myself off. The stronghouse was no comfortable repose. There was a sadness heavy about it, a yolk of despair. I wondered what had happened in this place that it ought to be carried over to the afterworld. A great tragedy had happened at the church across the river, too. It wasn’t a place I wanted to stay longer than I had to. Especially if staying here meant that more Faded were likely to fall upon me.

Bowing my head to Param, I tried to show respect. “Thank you. For teaching me.” I shouldered Bloodfang. She said nothing, but her bronze eyes shone in the firelight.

I was halfway down the hill, heading further into the black sands, when I heard footsteps behind me. Whirling, I brought my blade into a defensive guard, half-expecting another Faed to be lunging toward me. But it wasn’t.

Param stood with her veil up and her knife out. I waited, sensing the silence that slithered between us. Like a man that nearly stepped upon a snake, I froze, watching carefully.

She lowered her veil again. “I will go with you, Cinderborn. They were my family. My heart, in this heartless place. I must know what happened to them.”