Fiddle was quiet as Rian and Halbert walked through it toward the inn. The sun had almost finished setting when they reached the village on the plains of Caerulis. Now that the two of them had been traveling for a while, Rian knew the names of the villages. He and Halbert kept the hoods of their black cloaks up, so they wouldn’t terrify the few villagers still out.

The quiet of the village vanished when they entered the inn. Almost every table on the main floor of the small building was full. The sounds of many loud conversations blended together into a constant noise Rian couldn’t distinguish individual words from. Halbert got the two of them a room, carefully not revealing his hands when he set the coins on the counter.

Rian and Halbert found a table at the back of the room. They wouldn’t eat or drink, as they didn’t need either of those things. What they did need was to listen. The voices of the dead had led them to this village, but they hadn’t said much. The voices had only told Rian that a man was dead and his body must be found and properly buried. Rian glanced at the inn’s front window. The sun had almost finished vanishing for the night. It would be warm out, as this was the beginning of Green, the warmest part of the year.

Over the chatter of the inn, and the man singing loudly and badly on the other side of the room, Rian heard a few villagers at a nearby table. The three lived in the village and had come in for an afternoon drink. A man was missing. He had been missing for so long he was assumed dead. The man had last been seen heading for the forest between Caerulis and Haren, where he often went hunting. The border forest was half a day’s walk from Fiddle.

Rian hoped no one was very hopeful of finding the man alive, the man he already knew to be dead. He looked at Halbert but couldn’t see his face in the darkness of his hood. Not that he would have had an expression that would tell Rian anything.

“Let’s go,” Halbert said quietly. If Rian hadn’t been sitting next to him, he wouldn’t have heard him over the sounds of the inn.

The two of them left, heading back toward the forest.

“Why did you pay for a room?” Rian asked. Neither of them had need of an inn room.

“So we wouldn’t look suspicious,” Halbert said. “It was either that or pay for food and drink we wouldn’t touch. That would look even more suspicious.”

Rian hadn’t thought of that. Even after a year, he had a lot to learn about being undead. Halbert seemed to know all there was and had been teaching Rian while they traveled. The two of them went wherever the voices of the dead told Rian to go. Rian hadn’t been back to Fen since Arwel’s burial. He wondered how his parents were doing, but going back there would only bring trouble for them with the other villagers. Especially with Ora, the village elder.

It was even darker out when Rian and Halbert reached the edge of the forest. The moon was a small sliver, not giving much light, not that either of them needed it. The two of them entered the forest. They didn’t search where they had come through from Haren, as they would have found the body on the way if it was near there.

Before long, the two of them stopped. They were in a slight clearing, but some plants had grown into the grassy circle. Rian could sense a lot of dead buried beneath their feet, but none who might be recently dead. This was a big burial ground for being out in the forest, far from any villages.

“Was there a village here?” Rian asked.

Halbert nodded. “Many years ago, there was a wild Ectu village out here. They were killed and buried here. I don’t know who killed them or why.”

Wild Ectu used to despise humans and the idea of living with them, but now only some of them did. Had humans killed these Ectu? Rian hadn’t met many Ectu, and he had met even fewer wild ones, who lived out in the forests. He and Halbert crossed the clearing. Rian barely looked where he was going, focusing on the feeling of the dead beneath the ground. So far they were all buried. The man they were looking for wouldn’t be.

Rian was about to reach out with his magic, to sense any dead further out, when he found the man. He felt a body nearby when he and Halbert reached the other side of the clearing. Someone more recently dead who wasn’t buried. A booted foot stuck out of the green bushes. Rian and Halbert pulled the man out of the bushes, which had many broken branches, as though the man had fallen into them from the tree above.

The bushes hadn’t broken his fall enough. He had several deep wounds from the branches, as well as a broken neck. Rian glimpsed a man standing among the trees, watching, just before the man faded away. That must have been the man’s soul, moving on now that his body had been found. Rian and Halbert managed to carry the man back through the forest.

They reached Fiddle when the sun had almost finished rising. Several villagers called out when they saw the man. A wind had picked up across the flat plains. Rian and Halbert carefully lowered the man to the ground. They backed away as the villagers gathered around the body. Another wind blew, this one harder. It blew back Rian’s and Halbert’s cloaks, as well as their hoods. The two of them pulled their hoods up quickly, but the villagers had all gone silent and were staring at them. They had seen.

Whispers spread through the villagers, along with fear. The fear was the worst part, the way they stared at Rian and Halbert as though they were monsters. Without a word, Rian and Halbert ran from the village. No one followed. The two of them had only been seen one other time, and the villagers hadn’t followed then either. The two of them stopped running when Fiddle was out of sight behind them. Now the wind had stopped.

“At least we got the body back to the village,” Halbert said.

“They might think we killed the man,” Rian said.

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Halbert sighed. “They may. Either way, he was returned to them and can be properly buried. His soul moved on.” He looked at Rian, not saying anything for a moment. “I know you’re bothered by it, by people being afraid of us even when we’re there to help.”

Rian didn’t know what to say to that. “Aren’t you bothered by it?”

“I’ve gotten used to it,” Halbert said. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t bother me, but I’m used to it.” They walked in silence awhile. “I’m sorry. I pulled you into this.”

Rian shook his head. “It was my own choice, to have a chance to get Arwel back, or at least stop what he and Norris were planning.” They had managed one of those things. “I don’t regret it. Given the chance, I would make the same choice again.”

“So would I,” Halbert said.

Rian hesitated. “Why did you become undead?”

“I made a deal with Mortua without knowing the full of it,” Halbert said. “She didn’t give me a chance to refuse. She took my wife, Beth, who was ill. That is why I made the deal with Mortua. She said she would save Beth, but not that she would take her. I didn’t want to serve Mortua forever, so I sought necromancy, knowing the undead are out of Mortua’s reach. I don’t regret taking myself out of her reach. I do regret that I don’t know if Beth’s soul is at peace, despite Mortua having taken it.”

“Would Mortua stop a soul from finding peace?” Rian asked. “Isn’t helping the souls of the dead find peace what she does?” He didn’t trust Mortua, but a lot of people did.

“In theory,” Halbert said. “I wouldn’t put it past her to do otherwise. She is not known for her mercy.”

Neither of them said anything more while they walked. Was there a way to find out if Beth’s soul was at peace? Rian couldn’t think of one. The voices of the dead were those who were out of Mortua’s reach, but Rian didn’t know how they had achieved that without becoming undead. He didn’t know what became of those Mortua had taken, but the other voice had told him hers wasn’t the true land of the dead.

Rian hadn’t heard that other voice, the one he suspected wasn’t a voice of the dead, since sealing Trivius back into the Bone Garden. The voice had been present all his life, but so had the voices of the dead. Rian knew little about either of them, and he didn’t know where to find out more.

Rian and Halbert reached the main city of Caerulis at night. Chayer was also the country’s main harbor and the home of the Sancta. So far the Sancta had left Rian and Halbert alone after the two had stopped Arwel and Norris and stopped Trivius from roaming free. The Sancta had set out to purify the objects needed to reseal the Bone Garden, where Trivius was sealed, but Rian and Halbert hadn’t heard from them in the last year. The two of them would be needed to reseal the Bone Garden.

Chayer had two large graveyards, one of which Rian and Halbert stopped in for the night. It was the bigger of the two, closer to the city wall. There was no one in sight. The sun had long since gone down, leaving the graveyard in shadows. Rian and Halbert took off their cloaks, leaving them under a tree. Rian’s clothes were now almost as ragged as Halbert’s and were just as loose. The two of them were entirely just bones, with no skin or anything else that had been there.

Rian lay on the ground near the tree, the energy of burial ground already flowing into him. He and Halbert had to rest on burial ground eventually. Rian let himself stop seeing, then he let the ground swallow him. He didn’t want to watch the dirt pull him under, but resting out in the open wasn’t a good idea. They could be spotted lying there. He wasn’t sure all of the Sancta would leave them be.

Necromancers were considered wild mages, one of the many things the Sancta didn’t approve of. The Sancta tended to express their disapproval by destroying the source of it. Rian blocked these thoughts from mind, trying to rest. He awoke to a dark, musty cave that was slightly damp. The voices of the dead were all around him, but they didn’t grab at him anymore. They knew they had his attention.

“We know you don’t like being feared,” the raspy woman said.

“You must not let it get in the way of your duty as Speaker,” a young girl said.

Rian had always heard the voices of the dead that were out of Mortua’s reach, but now that he was fully undead, he was officially the Speaker of the Dead.

“We found the man’s body,” Rian said. “Where to next?”

“The dead are restless,” a man said. “We do not yet know why. We will tell you when we do know.”

The darkness of the cave rushed in, but Rian didn’t let himself see yet. He would only see darkness if he did. He could still feel the burial ground all around him. It wasn’t uncomfortable, rather it was oddly comforting. What was uncomfortable was that he couldn’t move, which wasn’t the usual for resting in the ground. Something was stopping him from moving. He wasn’t alone in the darkness, but the dark was all he saw, even when he let himself see. There were several presences all around him, and they were massively strong.

“You must go to Divius,” Vitir said. He was the God of Life.

Rian knew whose voice it was when he heard it. It just came to mind who it was. Supposedly the gods always let people know which one was speaking when they spoke to people, not that they went around talking to people often.

“I can’t reach Divius,” Rian said.

The sacred forest, and the sacred lake at its center, kept itself blocked off unless the gods allowed entry. Divius was a holy place, at the center of the countries.

“We will allow you entry,” Dienia, Goddess of Knowledge, said. “We must speak to you there. Alone.”

The presences faded away. Rian returned to the surface in the graveyard. The sun was rising. Halbert was already up, putting his cloak back on, pulling the hood up. Rian did the same.

“The dead are restless, but the voices of the dead don’t know why yet.” Rian hesitated.

“What else did they say?” Halbert asked.

“Vitir and Dienia told me to go Divius, that the gods want to speak to me alone,” Rian said. He didn’t want to talk to them, definitely not alone, but he doubted this was just a suggestion. What if Mortua was there?

“I will go with you to the edge of the forest,” Halbert said, sounding worried. “Be careful.”

Rian nodded, though he doubted there was anything he could do if the gods meant him harm. He didn’t think they did mean him harm, other than Mortua. Her hatred of undead was well known.