Around midday, they stopped on the plains briefly so that Eiva and Ransey could rest. The sun was setting when they reached Derwen. Quidvis insisted they go straight to the castle. Was Quidvis just in a hurry, or was there a reason he didn’t want them to go to burial ground? Rian still wasn’t rotting. Quidvis hadn’t been happy when he found Rian and Halbert in the graveyard before, but he had said they would have to rest on burial ground eventually.
“Any bones showing?” Halbert asked quietly, walking next to Rian.
“Not yet,” Rian said. “You?”
“No, but there should be by now,” Halbert said. “There were when I went a shorter time than this without burial ground while we were searching for you.”
“You should have a chance to go there tonight,” Ransey said, coming up from behind them. “Unless the royal family sends us on our way. I don’t think Quidvis can watch you all the time, at least not in that form he’s taken.” He looked reluctant. “I must find a butcher.” He split off from the group.
“Where is Ransey going?” Quidvis asked, looking back at Rian and Halbert.
“To find a butcher,” Rian said.
“It would be better if we all stayed together,” Quidvis said.
“I think him splitting up from us is preferable to him eating someone,” Eiva said.
Quidvis sighed. “Perhaps one of us should have gone with him. There could be Sancta Knights around.”
“I’m sure he knows that,” Halbert said.
Quidvis said nothing more, but he was frowning. At the castle, Halbert spoke to the knights out front, then the three of them were led into the long hall. There was no throne there. Rian had seen this hall only once before, when he had volunteered to go with Halbert and become the Speaker of the Dead. It felt like such a long time ago, but it had been hardly over a year.
Gar and Promise Pile were waiting in the hall, seated at a small, ornate table at the far end. A woman entered the hall behind Rian and the others, passing them and standing beside the table. She wore a red dress that looked to be made of fine cloth.
“Camella…” Promise said.
“I want to hear this,” Camella said. She was the Princess of Derwen, betrothed to the Prince of Caerulis.
“We need your aid against the Sancta,” Eiva said.
Gar and Promise looked at each other.
“You know they are lying to you, have lied to you for many years,” Halbert said. “And you know the truth of what happened with the King of Acra. Dienia used him to get back at Mortua for being worshiped more than her.”
“Do we really want to side with people who follow the whims of such petty gods?” Camella asked her parents. “I think we should help Halbert and his allies. We’ve trusted him before, so why not now?”
Gar and Promise talked to each other quietly.
“I remember Mae serving our court for many years,” Camella said. “Mae and her allies saved me and my betrothed from Unris. The Sancta killed Mae.”
Gar and Promise talked for only a moment longer. They both looked worried, as though they feared they were making a mistake.
“We will turn against the Sancta,” Gar said, looking at Halbert. “We will help you.”
“I fear we will not be enough,” Promise said.
“I will send word to Urvus,” Camella said. “I believe Ninette and Odell will help us.”
“We will take your letter to the King and Queen of Urvus,” Quidvis said. “We will leave tomorrow morning.”
The King and Queen of Virida insisted Rian and the others stay at the castle for the night. Rian and Halbert met in the hall outside their rooms and left together, not coming across Quidvis on the way. When Rian entered the graveyard, it didn’t come with the relief it should have.
Something was stopping the energy of burial ground from flowing into him. It was the same as when Mortua had cursed him to slowly rot to death. Quidvis’s magic was holding back Rian’s and blocking him from gathering energy. Rian and Halbert sat. Halbert pressed his hands against the dirt.
Rian tried to stop seeing, but it didn’t work. He closed his eyes.
“Call on the magic,” the raspy woman said in his mind, her voice far in the distance.
“You are our Speaker.” The man’s voice was even further away.
For a brief moment he saw the dark cave, but it slipped away. The voices of the dead could barely reach him.
“Trivius wasn’t the fool Quidvis took him for,” the raspy woman said. “He ensured the survival of the land of the dead without him. Without him, the land of the dead would have perished. It remains because you remain. You must continue to remain, even if Quidvis has other plans, which he will when he discovers what Trivius did.”
Rian had a bad feeling. “What did Trivius do?” he thought.
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“You must discover that for yourself,” a young girl said, her voice slightly clearer than the woman’s. “We know the truth now, that you are not Ruari and you never were. You have a chance he didn’t, a chance to not be consumed by your magic.”
“A chance does not guarantee it,” the man said. “A chance means it’s possible, not that it is inevitable.”
“Do not trust Quidvis,” the raspy woman said. “Trivius trusted him once, and this gave Quidvis the chance to betray him. Quidvis’s grip on your magic gets stronger by the moment. Soon, we will not be able to reach you.”
Rian wanted to know what Trivius had done, but he could feel the voices of the dead slipping away from him. He had wondered this for a while and now seemed the time to ask. “Why did you help me seal Trivius back into the Bone Garden after he was in Arwel?”
There was silence for so long he thought the dead had gone, but he felt a flicker of their presence.
“Because we knew you would one day properly bring Trivius back,” the raspy woman said. “His full return was much preferred to his spirit being within a host. When we helped you seal him away, when your brother helped, Trivius saw you. He saw you were his Speaker, which gave him hope.”
Maybe Trivius had let them seal him away. Rian didn’t like that thought, but it didn’t matter much now. The voices of the dead slipped away.
“Do not trust Quidvis,” the raspy woman said, her voice so quiet he wasn’t sure he’d heard it.
Rian opened his eyes. He had so many questions, and he was more worried than ever that Quidvis was up to something. Something that wouldn’t end well for anyone except Quidvis.
“The energy of burial ground is distant,” Halbert said. “Quidvis’s magic is keeping it out of me.” He looked at Rian questioningly.
“It is for me too,” Rian said. “My magic feels muffled.”
Halbert frowned hard. “I can barely feel my magic.”
“We weren’t cursed by Trivius,” Rian said. “That was a lie. I feel wrong.” He hesitated. “Do you think we can undo it?”
Halbert sighed. “I don’t know. If we can’t reach our magic, then maybe not. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.”
“The voices of the dead could barely reach me,” Rian said. “They told me to call on my magic, but I’m not sure I can.” Again he hesitated. “The magic of the Speaker of the Dead isn’t entirely gone.”
Halbert looked away. “It’s still dangerous then.”
Maybe it could help them, but Rian feared it too. He thought of what the man had said, that there was a chance Rian’s magic wouldn’t consume him. A chance didn’t mean it was certain.
“For now, we should go back to the castle,” Halbert said. “We’ll keep an eye on Quidvis. There’s not much more we can do until we have a clearer idea of what he’s up to.”
The two of them went back to the castle, but Rian barely slept that night. He felt wrong, Quidvis’s magic holding back his. Just as the voices of the dead had told him, the grip of Quidvis’s magic on his own was getting stronger. In the morning, Rian and the others left early. Eiva had a bag with her, with what they would need for the journey to Urvus. She had brought meat for Ransey as well.
The sun was rising when they set off across the plains of Virida. It was a surprisingly warm day, the sky clear and blue. They reached Brush at night but didn’t risk stopping out in the open on the plains. Rian, Halbert, Eiva, Ransey, and Quidvis continued until they were in the forest between Virida and Acra. It wasn’t far from Brush to the clearing where Blossom’s village had been, but the clearing wasn’t empty when they got there.
Percival and five Sancta Knights were standing in the clearing, talking quietly among themselves. They stopped talking when they saw Rian and the others. Percival wore a cuirass and cloak like the Sancta Knights, but his cloak and clothes were white rather than tan. The symbol of the Sancta was pressed into the metal of his cuirass, and those of the knights with him.
A sword without a sheath hung through Percival’s belt. It looked like just any sword. Was there magic in it? Rian wasn’t sure if he just couldn’t see it because of what Quidvis had done to him. Percival drew his sword, his knights drawing theirs.
“You don’t know what that sword is,” Quidvis said. “The sword must be returned to the Grove of Sacrifice, or Ilidu will be freed.”
Percival frowned. “You’re speaking nonsense, Ectu.”
“I am the All-Keeper,” Quidvis said, a deep rage in his golden eyes.
The Sancta Knights looked at each other, one of them raising a brow.
Percival snorted. “You are not the All-Keeper, Ectu. Vitir warned me a false god claiming to be the All-Keeper was loose in Ivrua.” He tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword. “We will cut you down for your blasphemy.” He frowned at Rian and Halbert. “Aren’t you the necromancers? What dark magic is hiding your true nature?”
Quidvis and Ransey drew their swords. Rian and Halbert stepped back, still without weapons. Eiva let out the cry of a raven that was echoed by ravens overhead. She took the form of a raven, flying with them at Percival and the knights. Quidvis and Ransey struck at the group. Rian couldn’t feel any dead buried in the clearing. The village burial ground had been near there, close enough that Rian should feel it without trying.
“There should be dead here, but I don’t feel them,” Halbert said.
“Neither do I,” Rian said.
Ransey pulled back from the fight, looking away from the knights. He was likely fighting to avoid eating the flesh of the knights and giving Mortua more power.
Percival may not know what the sword he had was, but he knew how to wield it. He fought Quidvis, their swords moving so fast they were only blurs. More ravens swooped at the Sancta Knights, clawing at them with sharp talons. Several ravens attacked Percival.
“Fall back!” Percival said, shielding his face with one bloodied arm.
Percival and the knights ran from the clearing, back toward Virida. Quidvis moved to follow, but Eiva returned to human form beside him, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder. Quidvis scowled at her. Eiva let go quickly.
“We must go after him and get the sword back!” Quidvis said.
“We’re outnumbered,” Eiva said. “Halbert and Rian are defenseless, and Ransey has a hard time fighting while also fighting his hunger for flesh.”
Quidvis breathed out hard, as though calming himself. By the rage in his eyes, it hadn’t worked. “Very well. We will continue to Urvus.” He walked away, walking fast for having shorter legs than the rest of them.
Rian, Ransey, Halbert, and Eiva looked at each other, then hurried after him.
“Traitors, all of them,” Quidvis snarled. “My children know by now that I’m in Ivrua. They think I’m too weak to stop them.” He smiled, but it was unnerving. Predatory. The smile faded, and he said nothing more.
Could Quidvis have taken on all the knights and Percival by himself? Was he holding back, trying to convince everyone he was weakened? If he was strong enough to kill Trivius, there was no way those knights had been any match for him.