“Norris said he didn’t want to kill me because I had potential,” Rian said.

Halbert sighed. “Then he must have seen your magic and realized what you were. There are ways he can hurt you that don’t involve killing you.”

“What did Arwel and Norris do?” Rian’s throat had gone dry.

“They used their magic to raise the remains of the dead, though there is no soul,” Halbert said. “They desecrated the dead. There is other, very dark magic such a necromancer can do. Arwel and Norris must feed on blood. Once they have fed on the blood of the living, there is no going back, and their soul will burn away further each time they use their magic. They can still put souls to rest, despite the atrocity they have committed against the dead.”

“Is there a way to bring Arwel back from this?” Rian asked.

Halbert seemed to hesitate. “I do not know if there’s a way to bring Arwel back once he’s fed on the living, but the Speaker of the Dead is the only one who can defeat necromancers like Norris and Arwel. I could only put Norris to sleep, and Arwel must have found him. Either Norris was waking up, or Arwel found a way to wake him. Arwel and Norris won’t know where the Bone Garden is, but neither do I. Hopefully we can find out in Chayer, and hopefully we will get there first. If you have questions, ask them now. If you have doubts, do not save them for later. There will not be a later.”

Rian had so many questions it was hard to choose one. The breeze across the plains had gotten a little colder. He shivered, but it wasn’t just because of the brisk wind. “You said a ritual is needed to open the way to the Bone Garden. What does the ritual involve?”

“That is something else I hope to discover in Chayer,” Halbert said.

“The villagers in the forest of Fen…” Rian thought of what Ora had said. “They were drained of blood.”

“That was likely Norris’s doing,” Halbert said. “By the sound of it, the night you saw Arwel raise the bones was the first time. He would not have needed blood until after using his magic to do that.”

Did that mean he was out there somewhere drinking people’s blood?

“What does it mean that I’m the Speaker of the Dead?” Rian asked.

“The dead speak to you,” Halbert said. “Not just trapped souls, which I can speak to as well. There are voices, the souls of the dead that I spoke to when I did that ritual. They will guide you. I don’t know who the voices belong to, as the book I read didn’t say. They are meant to speak to you, but never through you. I do know that they are the dead Mortua forsook. You must listen to the voices.”

“Then the nightmares are real…” The words came out quiet.

“They could speak to you through dreams,” Halbert said.

“I’ve always had nightmares,” Rian said. “A dark place, with voices, and dead things reaching for me.”

Halbert nodded. “That would be the voices of the dead. Have you listened to what they’re telling you?”

“No.” Rian’s voice shook. “Arwel told me I shouldn’t.” And he had always been too afraid to listen, afraid of what the voices might be saying. Was the other voice a voice of the dead? The voice said nothing to this.

“You must listen to them,” Halbert said gently. “I know you are afraid. This must be hard to take in all at once. I will give you this chance to go back to Fen.”

Rian didn’t hesitate. “I’m not going back. I want to save Arwel. Even if it might not be possible, I want to try.”

“We may not be able to convince Arwel to turn away from the path he has chosen,” Halbert said. “And it might be too late. I don’t know how fast his soul will burn away, or what will be left when it’s gone.”

“I still want to try,” Rian said.

“Good,” Halbert said. “I may not know what the ritual to reach the Bone Garden entails, but I do know it cannot be stopped without the Speaker of the Dead. Without the dead on our side, we stand no chance against the old god.”

“Is it really a god?” Rian asked.

“I don’t know,” Halbert said, “but it was once worshiped as one.”

Rian had been taught there were four gods, the children of the All-Keeper. Mortua was the Goddess of Death, Vitir the God of Life, Dienia the Goddess of Knowledge, and Amoris the God of Love. Each was associated with a season. Green, Rise, Harvest, or Fallow. There had once been a fifth, Unris the Goddess of Night and Day.

“Rest,” Halbert said. “We will continue in the morning. Early.”

Rian didn’t have the nightmare that night, for the first time in a long time. In the morning, he and Halbert walked in silence, following the path. They reached a small village at night and slept out on the plains again. At least, Rian slept. He didn’t have the nightmare that night either. Maybe the dead were giving him time to process everything Halbert had told him. The next night, Rian and Halbert were in the forest between Virida and Caerulis, and they weren’t alone. Rian heard two people talking up ahead.

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Halbert slowed, moving quieter. Rian followed. Arwel and Norris came into sight up ahead. It was darker in the forest, but enough moonlight made it through the full leaves to see the two. Norris still had the hood of his dark gray cloak up, and Arwel’s eyes were still that strange shade of red that glowed faintly in the darkness. The two stopped talking. Skeletons of various animals pulled themselves free of the dirt and came at Halbert and Rian.

The bones broke apart and fell to the ground before the animals reached Rian and Halbert. Rian could feel magic in the air that felt familiar, reassuring. Was that Halbert’s magic? More remains came through the dirt, some of them crumbling and ancient looking. There were even two human skeletons.

“Reach out with your magic and will the bones to return to their rest!” Halbert said.

Rian hesitated. Norris and Arwel turned and ran, fleeing further into the forest. The bones fell to the ground at the touch of Halbert’s magic until all of them were back on the ground. Halbert knelt and reburied the bones. Rian helped, avoiding looking at Halbert, feeling like a coward. Halbert said nothing until they were done.

“Reburying them is the least we can do after what Arwel and Norris did to them,” Halbert said, getting to his feet. “This is also burial ground enough for me to recover some energy that I used with the magic. Our magic always costs energy, even after we’re fully undead. This isn’t as good as a proper graveyard, but there aren’t many of those away from villages.”

Rian looked in the direction his brother and Norris had gone. He tried not to think about Arwel’s eyes, how they had glowed in the night. He tried not to think about his brother drinking the blood of the living. Rian wanted to believe it wasn’t too late to save him. But he couldn’t fight Norris if he was afraid to use his magic.

“We’ll go after them,” Halbert said. “Do not rush into a battle with the two of them.” He started walking.

Rian hurried to follow, lost in his worries about Arwel. Halbert continued to say nothing about Rian having avoided using his magic. The two walked in silence, not stopping for the night. By morning, Rian wasn’t sure he could stay on his feet any longer. They had reached open plains again, and a small village. The two of them stopped out on the plains to rest awhile. The sun had just started to rise.

Rian didn’t sleep long, but he felt a little better. The sun had finished rising when he woke up. He ate quickly while Halbert went into the village to see if anyone had seen Arwel and Norris passing through. Rian had just finished eating when Halbert returned.

“No one saw them pass through,” Halbert said. “They may have avoided the village.”

The two of them went through the village, following the path across the plains. Caerulis had a different sort of monarchy than Virida. Both countries had a king, queen, and court, but the court in Caerulis had much more say in matters. Things had to be decided by the entire court, not just the king and queen. The King and Queen of Virida often asked the court for advice, but they didn’t have to follow it.

Rian and Halbert reached Chayer at night, just after sunset. The village was at the shore of Caerulis. Rian couldn’t see the harbor past the buildings, or even glimpse the sea. There were still people out in the streets. Rian caught sight of two people up ahead, moving through the crowd. Only Norris was wearing a cloak, and he continued ahead while Arwel turned down a narrow alleyway. Rian and Halbert walked faster, turning the corner into the alleyway.

Arwel wasn’t alone in the narrow passage. A young man lay on the ground. Arwel was kneeling beside him, leaning over the man’s neck. Rian didn’t know how to make sense of what he was seeing, then he realized he just didn’t want to. Arwel looked up, blood dripping from his mouth. The man on the ground was still, too still.

For a moment, Arwel looked at Rian with regret, then he turned and ran further along the alleyway. Halbert knelt beside the man on the ground, then ran after Arwel. Rian ran after Halbert.

“Was he…” Rian didn’t want to say it.

“The boy was dead,” Halbert said. “Arwel fed off him.”

Rian wanted to think his brother wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. But Rian had just seen him do it. Where was Arwel going now? They followed him through Chayer, to a small graveyard on the far side. There must be a bigger graveyard somewhere in or near Chayer, as this one wasn’t big enough for the size of the city. A short iron fence surrounded the graveyard. Rian and Halbert ran through the iron archway.

Arwel and Norris waited at the far end of the path that led straight through the graveyard. The path ended in a big stone grave marker, almost as tall as Norris and Arwel. Halbert and Rian stopped a ways back along the path.

“Go home, before it’s too late,” Arwel said to Rian. He had wiped the blood off his face. He looked at Halbert with rage in his eyes. “I hadn’t expected Virida to use my brother against me.”

“You should have thought of that before you set out,” Halbert said.

The ground churned, the dead pulling themselves free of it. Some were fully skeletal, but others were only partly decomposed. At least ten dead rushed at Rian and Halbert.

“Put them to rest!” Halbert said.

Rian didn’t know how, but he knew he could no longer avoid thinking about the inevitable, avoiding thinking of what he would have to do to stop Arwel. Of what he would have to become.

Arwel and Norris turned and ran, around the back of the big grave marker. The dead blocked the path when Rian and Halbert tried to follow. Halbert had already put three to rest and quickly did the same for four more, the bones scattering on the ground. The next was one of the fresher dead, who collapsed onto the ground. Rian tried not to look at her.

“Call on your magic,” the man’s voice said in Rian’s mind. “Return them to their rest.”

Rian took a step back, sweaty and shaky.

The last of the dead fell to the ground. Halbert reached out his bony left hand. Grayish light gathered into the shape of a transparent sword. He ran around the corner of the big grave marker, with Rian close behind. Norris and Arwel were nowhere in sight. The two could have gone over the back fence, into the next alleyway over. Halbert let go of the sword and it vanished.

“Help me bury them,” Halbert said.

The two buried the dead as best they could.