Bringing zombies into the war palace made Garrett feel a tad guilty.

They could not be mistaken for penitents, with their foul rags and glowing collars. People leaped aside. Chambermaids pressed against burnished bronze walls, radiating fear.

“They’re harmless,” Garrett assured clerks and dignitaries of different species.

He silently commanded his four ripe zombies: Duck your heads when people look at you. That should allay the fearful reactions, a little.

People were unused to mind readers in these halls. Garrett supposed the milky white eyes had something to do with inspiring fear. Tall or short, flabby or athletic, zombies all gave the impression of being Servants of All. Altering their eyes was the boy’s idea.

A good idea, Garrett had to admit.

Legit Servants of All in the Torth Empire were starting to feel ashamed about the way their eyes looked. Some begged the Majority for an optics change. They had no desire to look like zombification victims—especially when everyone knew that they were the main targets for zombification.

The Majority kept ignoring their whinging complaints. Heh. The political fallout was making for good drama in the Megacosm.

Garrett parked his rental hovercart. Every part of him ached, from his forehead down to his toes. A depletion headache threatened at the edges of his consciousness.

It had been a long day of defending Umdalkdul from a Torth invasion fleet.

Stand guard, Garrett silently commanded his newly purchased acquisitions. Peer around corners. Watch places where other zombies are not watching as carefully.

To zombies, all commands and all masters were alike. They had zero curiosity. They filed off the hovercart like bedazzled children following a Pied Piper, and assembled themselves according to Garrett’s will.

Stop any Torth from entering My suite, Garrett silently reminded them.

Thank goodness the boy had figured out a way to set zombies up with basic directives, including survival and combat skills. That made them easy to handle. Otherwise? They would be impossible.

Garrett limped to his palatial doors, leaning on his silver staff. He had just enough raw power to lift the hidden lock bar and let himself into his apartment.

Whenever he felt vulnerable like this, it was like being a helpless child at the mercy of his monster of a father. He hated being weak. Depletion meant he could not ghost or teleport. He could not leave his body.

He needed to sleep for a while.

Once inside his suite, Garrett shut the heavy doors manually. He removed his cape and hung it on a peg. He limped past the six drooling zombies who stood inside his antechamber, ready to stand guard while he slept. Their minds were as echoey as chasms. They felt no moods. No opinions. They did not register exhaustion or pain. There was no way to tell which ones used to be Yellow Ranks and which ones were former Servants of All. They were all the same, now.

Just animated corpses.

Inwardly, Garrett admitted that zombies were a bit creepy.

Everyone understood why they were necessary, of course, now more than ever. Zombies were the sole reason why Ariock still had warriors willing to fight and die for him. Zombies were the reason why Umdalkdul and Nuss remained free.

Garrett used the bathroom, then shuffled towards his bed, rubbing the small of his back. The ache in his lower spine returned every night, no matter how often Evenjos healed it.

“I can give you rejuvenation healing,” Evenjos had offered as they lay in each other’s arms. “You don’t need to suffer with arthritis and slipped discs.”

Sweet.

And silly. Rejuvenation healing was an enormous energy sink which neither of them could afford. How could Garrett possibly take a week off? And Evenjos needed to avail herself in field hospitals. Warriors and soldiers relied on her to fix critical injuries, now that most of the healer Yeresunsa were dead.

Ariock continued to refuse to go near war zones. What a stubborn and self-absorbed idiot.

Garrett sank onto his bed, too exhausted for any of his evening routines. He wanted to smoke some premium tobacco for an hour or so, but he couldn’t waste that much time. He hadn’t slept for more than a couple of hours in the last three days.

He set his alarm clock for six hours hence. It wasn’t enough sleep, but a lot of desperate fighters needed a hero.

Garrett snuggled under his covers. With zombies on guard, no one was likely to knock on his door. And no Torth could appear inside his suite due to all the mirrored surfaces. The six zombies inside his apartment rounded out his defensive measures. He was safe.

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He closed his eyes, and saw death, death, and more bloody death.

His merciless imagination replayed every Torth he had slaughtered today. There was the one whose spine he had broken. And the one he had burned to death. Oh, and the Rosy Rank who had tried to spray him with insanity gas. Garrett had disemboweled that trickster. Good riddance.

He yawned.

Perhaps he should attempt to train the boy in fighting techniques? Mental advantages might make up for shortcomings in strength and athleticism. Perhaps the Wisdom of prophecy could actually become a halfway decent warrior? With some expert training, of course.

And a lot of moral guidance.

Garrett’s drifting subconsciousness continued to fight various threats even as sleepiness overtook him. He was Jonathan. And he was never any good. Just the outcast son of a monster.

He certainly wasn’t the one that all the albinos waited for. He wasn’t the messiah.

He was supposed to have saved her. Sarah. Julie. His wife. His one and only. A true hero would save her, because she was all that mattered. Why did he keep lying to himself, telling himself that he was a hero?

He was just a ghost.

A pathetic, unwanted, unloved piece of crap, who did not belong in any world.

He was not human.

Not Alashani.

Not even a demonic monster, like the creature who had raised him. He had no voice, no body, no nothing.

He’d tried to save his wife. But the ocean was stronger than he was. It was dark and brutal and unrelenting. He swam. But he was unable to breathe.

He gasped. Or he tried to.

Something was tight around his throat.

Something smothered his face.

A knife plunged into his stomach.

Garrett woke to blackness and pain. He struggled to scream, but a pillow was pressed hard against his face, blocking his access to air.

Someone was stabbing him in the gut.

It felt like knives shredding his intestines. The pain was indescribable. Garrett had no chance to draw breath. Mental fog rushed inward. He was losing consciousness. Someone’s hand leaned on his throat.

This was wrong.

This was not how the book of prophecies depicted his death!

Garrett expanded his awareness. He tried to use his powers to hurl away his attackers. But he was inhibited! An attacker had injected him, possibly using his own glove, which lay on the nightstand.

Meanwhile, a pillow covered his face. His throat was broken. The pain. His gut, and his head.

He was not going to make it.

His attackers had minds, sort of, but they seemed broken. There were four of them. Or six? Their minds were nothing but a hollow roar.

Zombies?

Garrett ascended into the Megacosm without making any conscious decision to do so. It was a reflex. He floundered for an audience in the same way that someone drowning would reach for help, no matter what, at any cost.

Help. Help. Help. He sought someone, anyone, to acknowledge his death throes.

???

Curiosity seekers gathered around his desperation. As soon as they identified who he was, the festivities began.

 It’s the Imposter!

  He is dying!!!

Torth roared with triumph.

 Some brave champion must have stabbed him!

  Who?

   Who cares? Death to the Imposter!

Torth do-si-doed with each other’s minds, sharing the good news. DEATH TO THE IMPOSTER!!!!!

Had Garrett expected that his plea might actually reach someone heroic? Who? Like, the boy? The Wisdom of prophecy only checked the Megacosm rarely. At this hour, he was likely sound asleep.

Blackness engulfed (Garrett) Jonathan Stead.

Had he just gotten decapitated, the way he was painted in the final round of Ah Jun’s prophecies? Ah well. Death embraced him, as kind and gentle as he had always imagined his mother to be. If only she hadn’t been murdered by the monster who was his father.

He fell into her.

“Garrett?”

The voice of Evenjos was distant. Meaningless.

“Garrett!”

Healing power coursed through him, as inescapable as an ocean. Power thundered through every one of his veins. It fought the agony. Power crashed through every part of him, from his cells on up to his brain.

He was raised off the bed, floating upon waves of power. His eyes fell open. He was surrounded by white starbursts and ripples of unseen energy flowing around him and into him. He was utterly at the mercy of the Lady of Sorrow.

Excess force eddied around her, lifting her hair in tendrils. The blade-like edges of her wings fanned out. Her face was godlike with concentration.

The healing continued even after Garrett regained his ability to breathe and to think.

He could hardly believe that he was alive.

His guts knitted back into a semblance of wholeness. Garrett felt the repairs. His tunic and bed covers were splashed with blood, much of it still warm and wet.

He should be dead.

He was dimly aware of unmoving bodies in the corners of his bedroom. Evenjos had killed the six zombies with her powers.

Zombies?

Someone had dared to use his own zombies as murder weapons against him.

The boy (Thomas) loaded every zombie with baseline instructions, ensuring that they would never attack a hero or an ally. They were supposed to be incapable of harming anyone except enemy Torth. Their basic directives were so complex, it would take weeks for anyone to untangle those instructions, let alone reprogram them.

Unless the boy reprogrammed them.

Would he dare?

I don’t believe Thomas would attack us, Evenjos thought. She showed Garrett her recent memories. The city was buzzing with news about simultaneous attacks. Other victims were dead, killed by traitorous murder-zombies.

Chaizatel. Orlon.

They were premier warriors. Assassinated.

Garrett’s wristwatch buzzed with notifications. It looked like he had missed at least a dozen emergency alerts while he was being murdered.

Too bad you cannot question zombies, Evenjos thought.

Garrett sensed her fatigue. She had healed people all day, as usual, and then she had killed a bunch of murderous zombies, and also healed Garrett from near-death. This close call taxed her emotional stamina, if not her raw power.

“Sorry,” she said. “For lurking.”

Ah. So she had floated inside his suite as air molecules, crawling along his ceiling. She must have heard the news and gotten worried that Garrett would be a target. That was how she had known to save him.

Garrett would normally chastise her for invading his privacy, but he felt like a pile of vomit. He was nauseous and ravenous from the intensive healing.

And he was alive.

He wrapped his arms around the true hero and brought her onto the bed with him.

They lay in each other’s embraces. Neither of them would be any good in battle for a few days.

Garrett stroked her metallic feathers. “You saved me.”