CHAPTER 96

“At least I know why I couldn’t use the amulet to travel here,” I say out loud. My voice carries over the desolation like a black crow flying over a snowy field. But there is no snow. Only white ash surrounding sprouts of blackened wood and stone, rising like ribs from a dead and decomposing body. “There is no Hollow House. Hasn’t existed for days now.”

Only Hilde and Essa’s slow rummaging through the House’s remains answers me. The rest is smoky wind and anticipation. Valkas’ column of black smoke approaches slowly, looming over the trees’ green crown.

The destruction was absolute. An accidental fire couldn’t have done this. It was deliberately set, and no effort was mounted to put it out, the flames allowed and encouraged to lick up the House’s walls like something famished. Hollow House is the memory of a corpse. The stables have burned down to cinders. The old and venerable tree that grew in the courtyard is a single, smoking pillar, pared of branches, of leaves, of life itself. The secondary building, a small house, is the only thing standing, dark against the green of the forest.

Any answers that I could have hoped to find here have turned to cold white ashes. I wonder which mound is made of Lysander’s research, which Archetype would have talents capable of putting the books back together. None that I’ve met.

Essa and Hilde watch me cautiously, following my movements through the ruin. This is the end of a road they hoped would lead to safety from Valkas. They watch me like they expect me to slap my forehead and suddenly say, ‘I got it now, I know where Lysander is hiding, I know how to make all of this make sense…’

There’s no forehead slapping incoming. Whatever happened to Lysander, whatever Mossgreen wanted me to see: it is all ashes and vain hope now.

But let them maintain that hope a little while longer. Let my brain chew the problem for a while more. Turning my back on their hopeful eyes, I walk to the still-standing groundkeeper’s house. My boots leave ashy prints in the sparse unburnt grass. I walk over the stables on my way, keeping my eyes away from the ground, dreading meeting Firebrand’s glassy and half-melted dead eye watching me from between two collapsed pillars. There have been no bodies yet, but precious little has been touched at all, and the rubble is immense. I have no doubt they’re there, waiting to be found.

The little house is everything it promised to be, and that was always little indeed. A single room with a small, sooty hearth, a table and two chairs, and a pot for cooking. A sturdy ladder leads up to a smaller loft. After turning over miscellaneous cooking utensils and finding a block of hard cheese that might do for breakfast, I resign myself to climbing it and finding a small cot, a chest for clothes, and a second pair of boots.

Nothing.

I sit down on the cot and rest my head on my hand, examining my stump with vague curiosity. It feels like the world is collapsing very gently, slowly, and far away. I know that I will have to deal with it eventually, but right now I give myself permission to stay silent, stay still, and observe the solemn ruin of my body and my plans. My thoughts are a mess as well, screaming and banging against the walls, clamoring for attention as a dozen considerations beg for my attention.

Is it bad, Malco? Rue thinks into my mind.

Is what bad, Rue? I think back into his.

A pause, as Rue considers this apparently strange and off-putting question.

Everything, he thinks finally as he hums a tuneless melody on my shoulder. Is everything bad?

Well, that depends, I think calmly. Would you say that antagonizing the most powerful man in the land, killing him though he can’t die, stealing from him not just the three Challengers he needs to maintain face with the other guilds but also his very symbol of office, all to reach a place that has actually burned down – would you call that bad?

Rue thinks. The buzz rises in pitch, the melody accelerates.

Yes.

Then everything is pretty bad, Rue. Look at this. Malakei said Thomas was the key to what happened to Lysander. That he had been given orders… By all means, I seem to have found the man’s dwellings, and all he left behind were a pressed pile of clothes in a drawer and a very neat house. That’s the extent of our victory here: the empty, useless rooms of our enemy’s servant.

I cover my eyes with my hand, letting the swirl of thoughts, of plans, of lines invade my mind. They go from searching for Mossgreen and asking him for explanations, a retelling of what truly took place here, to ambushing Valkas in his literal trailblazing, defeating his Godtouched, fighting till the last breath.

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Each and every plan sails down the seas of my thoughts to meet the narrow straits of my indifference, and each is smashed to bits there, unable to circumvent the one, singular question: why bother?

Mossgreen will laugh and speak in demented riddles, Valkas will simply wake up in his castle and try again, and again, and again, until our forces are spent and we’re all out of plans. Lysander is out there, I know it, but either he’s imprisoned, which is difficult, or he hasn’t seen it fit to come find me. In both cases, any notions of rescuing him run into the issue that I have no way of knowing where he is being kept or where he is keeping himself.

“I’m lost,” I say out loud. “I made the decision the day I killed those outlaws. I chose to join Lysander, to help his cause. I revolted against Valkas the same night I was afraid I’d given Lysander away to Wyl’s people. I lost my father on my to finding Lysander, and then I lost the capacity for sadness necessary to mourn him properly.”

The old wood of the walls eats up my words like a bored, impassive crowd.

“What is left? What am I, now that Lysander is gone?”

The last word leaves my lips and seems to hang suspended in the air, drifting from wall to wall but refusing to sink, refusing to be absorbed, until finally it returns to me carrying new sounds.

Free, I think. I’m free.

Katha is waiting in Olvion. I’ve gone as far as I can with Lysander. It doesn’t matter if he left, if he abandoned me, I—

“Malco?”

Hilde’s voice from outside, bringing me out of my thoughts.

“Valkas is getting closer. We still have time, but… We should come up with a plan.”

Get to Olvion. The rolling hills where I saw Arbiter shine golden in my mind’s eye. Find horses, make your way. Valkas won’t be able to find you.

“Malco?”

“I’m coming,” I say, popping my head into view. I give Hilde a smile. “I’m alright, Hilde, don’t worry.”

“Come up with something?”

I swing my legs onto the ladder and start making my way down. My missing hand slows me down a little.

“An idea. Lysander has an ally in Olvion. It’s not too far from here, it belongs to a whole other guild… It won’t bring us to Lysander, but it will get us away from Valkas.”

“That’s good,” Hilde says. “It was a shame we couldn’t find Lysander, though – oo, cheese.”

Midway down the ladder, my eyes flutter over a smudge of coal. It has already left a dark stain on my palm.

“All we have to do is find a way to go around the Black Sword people. If we can find a path West we my not even need to leave the forest.” I join the dwarf at the door. “Ready?”

We’re out of the house, walking up the hill with Essa alternating between looking at us and the distance. Hilde carries the cheese.

“Found breakfast!” she says happily.

“Good!” Essa calls down. “Valkas is drawing nearer. Let’s hope their scouts can’t move through the thickets, otherwise the Black Sword is almost on us.”

I look North, where the column of black smoke signals the Black Sword’s approach. Black on black, driving a blade of fire through the woods. Fire…

I stand very still, eyes glazed over. The wind and the smoke wash over me, but I don’t dare to think of it, don’t dare to make a move. An idea dances just on the edge of my awareness.

“Malco?” Essa calls down.

Black smoke. Black Sword. Fire.

“Everything alright?”

A smudge of coal.

I ignore their shouts as I dash into the groundskeeper’s house. The very neat groundskeeper’s house. I take the ladder two rungs at a time until I find the black stain halfway up. I look up, and sure enough there’s another one waiting near the top. Cursing under my breath, I step up onto the loft, eyes wild and searching.

“Malco!” Hilde again, dashing into the house a ball of nervous energy. “We need to go!”

“Coal!” I yell down. “Thomas brought coal up here!”

“What?”

“The servant brought coal up here!” I drag heavy sheets off the bed to reveal a straw mattress. “The house is spotless, but he brought coal up here. Why?”

Under the flimsy wooden frame there isn’t even what you’d call dust.

“Maybe he was cold!”

“It’s Summer!”

The spot on my hand. I assumed it had come from the ladder, but what if…

Yes. Black marks on the side of the trunk. I open the lid and toss clothes away haphazardly. Empty. Cavernous emptiness.

“What do you expect to find?”

Hilde’s head pokes over the ladder. A thrown shirt covers her forehead almost down to the eyes.

“Sorry—I don’t know! I know what Observant is telling me, that this is a relevant detail. I just haven’t found out why and I… I have to…”

Gripping the side of the trunk, I give it a hard pull, dragging the heavy thing over the hardwood floor with a screech. The drag leaves black marks behind.

Where it used to be, perfectly framed on all four sides by the trunk’s absent shape, is a tiny, chaotic black script. It curves, rising and dipping like a ship at sea. Still drunk on the honey of my discovery, I am suddenly struck by the fact that most of it is indecipherable, a faded scribble written over itself. What’s left is cryptic enough.

Don’t do it

Must

The mouth told me to the mouth the mouth the mouth orders me I must

Burn it down

I don’t want to

Burn it down with all of them inside don’t be discovered never speak of this to anyone

Don’t want to don’t want to don’t want to

Lord Lysander is alone

Burn it down

Keep them inside

Don’t want to

“What…?” Hilde asks, coming up behind me. “What is it? Who—”

A smack! interrupts her as my hand connects with my forehead.

Stupid.

“Come on!” I push Hilde along and half-dive, half-run down the ladder.

“That made sense to you?” she asks, alarmed.

“It reminded me of something! Stupid! Stupid! I know where they are!” We burst into the sun-kissed field and run up the hill to the white ruin of Hollow House. The column of black smoke has almost arrived at the edge of the woods, ready to burst forth like a lanced boil. “We have to hurry!”