Winterveil (15 page)

Silas stopped resisting the desperate pull of the shade and allowed his consciousness to travel back through the upper levels of the veil. Memories flared and surged through his mind until the shade fled and Silas's mind retreated from the veil, returning to the living world.

 

When he saw through his own eyes again, the street looked as it should have been, except for the persistent gathering of shades still standing around him. Silas's fingers were still embedded in Edgar's shoulder from when he had pulled him aside, and frost retreated from his skin as he released his grip.

Edgar was pale with fear and relief. “They haven't moved,” he said. “Whatever you did, I think it stopped them.”

“I have done nothing,” said Silas. “The connection between you and Kate is real, and it is strong. I doubt you could break it. You cannot stay here.”

Edgar was about to speak when the entire street jolted violently. Windows shattered, roofs collapsed inward, and cracks began to thread across the ground. The shades reacted with fear, screaming and plunging in toward Edgar. Silas tried to protect him, but it was no use. The souls struck both of them, surging into their bodies like ink into water.

Whatever Edgar had expected, he was not prepared for the reality of what happened. His body fell immediately into shock as his soul was overwhelmed. Voices and memories exploded in his mind, louder and stronger until all he could hear were the cries of the dead. He tried to move, but his body would not answer him. He tried to shout, but no sound came out.

His dormant blood ran thick with the energies of invading souls, and he fell to the ground, smothered by lifetimes of torment and agony. His body could not bear it, and his soul tried to tear away, freeing itself from the onslaught, but in the midst of the madness Edgar felt the link between himself and Kate powerfully for the first time, and he refused to let go. He stared blankly at the sky, suffering in silence as the souls plunged into him again and again.

Silas was still standing, his body heavy with the burden of writhing souls. He took two slow steps away from Edgar. The third was slightly easier, and the farther he walked, the less the souls were interested in him. All they wanted was the boy.

Silas's entire body felt bruised. His muscles burned with every step. He looked to the rooftops, where the tip of the living tower was just within sight. One thought sent his crow gliding down from the stones, away from the dangers of that place, and the white feathers streaking its chest glimmered as it answered its master's call.

The crow settled on a nearby rooftop, flicking its black tail and calling out aggressively to the nearby shades. Silas pointed toward Edgar. “Watch the boy,” he commanded.

He turned away from the bird and ran through the streets without looking back. There was nothing he could do for Edgar there. Kate had condemned him. She could have broken the link the moment she sensed Edgar's pain. Instead she was allowing him to suffer. He had been too slow. He had allowed Dalliah to take Kate too far into the darkness.

The veil trembled around him as he moved, anger seeping from him like oil, dripping terror into the air. He found an empty warden patrol house and broke down the door just before another tremor rattled through the earth. He crossed the room and headed straight for the weapons cache hidden beneath the floor. The rusted lock cracked under his heel, and he dragged out two items, a crossbow and a hip quiver containing a single bolt.

He slung the crossbow over his shoulder and left the patrol house, his eyes set with the focus of a soldier. He paid no attention to the endless stream of souls flowing past him along the street. He ignored the echoes of Edgar's voice carrying through the veil as the boy's soul struggled to hold on to life. One bolt would be enough. One bolt would finish it all.

15

THE LIVING TOWER

K
ate stood outside her family's memorial tower and immediately felt as if she had returned home. The stones welcomed her. The arched doorway was narrow and thin, three times the height of an ordinary door, and when she looked up, her sight shifted between the broken shard that stood there in her time and the grand, beautiful edifice that it had once been.

Its walls were hexagonal, with straight sides that reflected the snowflake symbol of the family, and its very top was crowned with a black stone parapet edged with leaning gargoyles. Its past beauty made the stark emptiness of the true sight before her fade in comparison. Other towers had survived the centuries intact. Why had her family not protected theirs? Kate stepped into the stone archway, and a soft white glow emanated from the floor inside.

“They are waiting for you,” said Dalliah. “You wanted to speak to them. This is your chance.”

The floor inside the tower was covered in grit, washed down from the walls by centuries of wind and rain. Dalliah waited outside, watching Kate walk into the true home of her ancestors, but she was not the only one whose eyes were upon the girl. The entire inside wall of the tower was lined with skulls, row upon row of staring empty sockets. Each layer was separated by a horizontal row of bones, and the rows kept on rising, right to the very top of the tower's exposed shard, where empty spaces left by fallen skulls now yawned jagged and black. Fragments of bone crunched beneath Kate's boots, and she stood still, not wanting to show disrespect toward the remains of the dead.

The air hung with expectation. Kate could hear the wind cutting through the tallest stones, bringing with it a fine rain that glistened in the light seeping from the floor. There, in the middle, was a large sunken spirit wheel, its tiles perfectly level with the floor. The symbols were well worn. The edges were chipped by centuries of weather chewing into them and making their mark, but the wheel itself was well preserved.

Beneath the layer of grit and dirt, the floor was laid with an old mosaic of soft blue and white tiles depicting a perfect snowflake with the spirit wheel set into its very center. The delicate arms of the design pointed exactly to the points of the compass, but the tiles stopped a short distance from the surrounding wall, leaving bare stone in their place. Kate realized that the bones she could see must once have been sealed behind an inner wall, but that someone had taken the bricks away, exposing the skulls within.

Despite the gruesome surroundings, Kate still felt welcome in that place. Within its walls, life was simple. She no longer felt the tension of the veil invading her senses or the gentle whispers of the city's souls that followed her constantly wherever she went. Even Dalliah, standing outside, felt far away. She could not have been more comfortable if she had found herself back in her old bedroom with nothing but the peaceful predictability of an ordinary day stretching ahead of her. It was an intoxicating feeling, but Kate was wise enough to see through the lies that were so carefully laid before her. The pain in her palms was enough to remind her of the danger she was in. She was not there to be accepted by her ancestors. She was there to be used by them.

Kate stood next to the spirit wheel but would not go close enough to be touched by more than a faint glimmer of its pulsing light. It was easy to believe that nothing existed in the world outside, that there was no city, no people, no green land hidden beneath a blanket of white snow.

“I'm here to talk,” she said out loud. “I want you to listen to me.”

The bones in the walls shivered enough to shake fragments of dust from their resting places.

“You wanted me to come here,” said Kate. “I want to know why.”

“Speak with us . . .”

The harmony of the collected voices seemed gentle, but the hidden energy carried with their words was tinged with malevolence. The feeling of welcome Kate had experienced faded back a little.

“Dalliah Grey brought me here,” she said.

“. . . she ended many of us. She freed us . . .”

“This is not freedom.”

“. . . we have been waiting . . .”

“. . . the city is ready . . .”

“. . . the veil must fall . . .”

“How many of you are here?”

“. . . we are many . . .”

“Let me see you.”

The tower shifted back to its original state, and Kate saw a thin staircase curling up around the intact walls, reaching up toward another perfect mosaic that was pressed into a vaulted hexagonal ceiling. Beneath it, hundreds of silver lights shimmered down the walls: spirit lights, every one of them a soul, listening to her.

“Are my parents here?” Kate did not want to ask the question, but she could not escape the possibility. She had to know.

“. . . they are gone . . .”

“. . . taken into death . . .”

Kate was relieved that their souls had not become trapped within the veil, but part of her was disappointed that they had moved on, leaving her behind.

“. . . the younger generations have fallen away . . .”

“. . . they do not follow the cause . . .”

“What cause?”

“. . . the only cause that matters . . .”

“. . . knowledge. Truth . . .”

“Did you
choose
to exist like this?”

“. . . we are waiting. We knew you would come . . .”

“. . . you will be our end and our new beginning . . .”

“You had your time,” said Kate. “You lived your lives. Why did you not go into death?”

“. . . we would leave behind too many questions. Too many days unseen . . .”

“. . . history needs us.”

Dalliah entered the tower. The walls settled immediately back to their decrepit state, but the souls remained. “Every person has her purpose,” said Dalliah. “Yours was to come here with me and finish the work of the Walkers. You could not resist that fate any more than your ancestors could resist theirs.”

“Life doesn't work that way,” said Kate. “We make our own choices.”

“I brought you here. You did not come by your own free will.”

“I knew what I was doing,” said Kate. “I belong here more than you do.”

“You had no choice in this, despite what you believe,” said Dalliah. “No person can change her fate. Most souls live and die exactly as they are meant to. Others, like you and I, are destined for something else.”

“What about the souls in the wheels?” said Kate. “Were they destined to be sent into the black, or was their fate
your
choice?”

“The strong must control the weak or the world will crumble into chaos,” said Dalliah. “Walkers have always been the strongest minds, the greatest souls. We have spent generations trying to drag the world out of the hole that ordinary people would like to see it languish in forever.
Wintercraft
represents only one small aspect of our history. Our ancestors were thinking beyond this world long before the first drop of ink touched its pages. We were here when the first body was laid in the ground that would become this city. Fume was built to explore the mysteries of death. This was our laboratory. People sent their dead to us to find peace, and we learned from their memories in return. The city is ours, and it will give us what we need once again.”

Kate walked around to the other side of the spirit wheel and felt the consciousness of hundreds of spirit eyes following her as she moved. “No,” she said. “You weren't there. You didn't do any of those things.”

“I know my history,” said Dalliah. “I know what I have seen.”

“You know what the veil has shown you,” said Kate. “I have seen your memories. I have seen the final moments of the bonemen who were sealed into these wheels, and I know that Walkers do not know nearly as much about the veil as they think they do. Including you.”

The spirits in the tower flickered with agitation.

“The Walkers experimented upon one another,” said Kate. “You may have lived a long life, but you and all the rest discovered most of your knowledge by accident. You stole it from the souls of others as they died. Some of you murdered to keep your secrets or to cover up your mistakes, but if you all knew so much about the veil, you would not be trapped on the wrong side of death, holding on to lives that should have ended long ago. The Walkers did not even exist until the bonemen's time, so do not pretend that this is your city. I understand that you are trapped, but you do not represent all the souls here. You only serve yourself.”

“You do not know anything,” said Dalliah.

“I know that you did not have to help the bonemen repair the veil the first time it began to fall. You could have ended it then, but you didn't. You had already lost your soul by that time. You could have let the veil fall and claimed your spirit back centuries ago. Instead you fixed the veil the only way you could. Why wait until now to change your mind?”

Dalliah looked up at the surrounding souls. There was no reason to lie, so she answered honestly. “I was naive,” she said. “The bonemen came to me for help. I helped them. I did not have the same sense of conscience that they held at the time. They never forgave me for what I made them do. The ones who survived could not overcome the grief of turning against their own people, and when the High Council claimed Fume as its capital, the bonemen refused to fight. Those who lived through the wardens' attack abandoned their work and fell back into the edges of ordinary life. I have paid the price for what I did then, but none of it would have been necessary if the veil had not been tested to its very limit. That is something you would need to ask your ancestors about. Having their souls bound to a tower, gradually being forgotten by their own blood, does not even begin to compare with the world that I have seen. It is time one of the Winters family realized what true suffering is like.”

The ground shook violently. Two skulls tumbled from the upper reaches of the walls and smashed to dust between Kate and Dalliah.

“This is where it will happen,” said Dalliah. “The veil will fall here. I have seen it. You cannot prevent it.”

Kate had been given plenty of time to consider what she was going to do in that tower during her journey there, but now that the moment had come to announce her decision the words were harder to say than she had expected.

“Why would I want to prevent it?” She was surprised by the steadiness of her voice. “I am a Winters. These souls are my family. This is my cause now.”

She stepped onto the spirit wheel, and the central tile rocked slightly beneath her boots. When she walked into that tower, she had known she would never leave it. The need to be there was too strong. She did not know what Dalliah had “seen,” but she knew her only defense was to take control. Silas had once told her that intention was everything when dealing with the veil. If Dalliah forced her to manipulate it against her will, her connection would be erratic and weak. She had to step forward. She had to face whatever was to come with a clear mind, to retain as much influence over it as possible.

Her eyes blackened as she stood on the wheel. She could already feel her soul ebbing away, thread by thread. It was like falling asleep, only instead of exhaustion her body felt as if it were sinking into icy water, numbing her senses from her toes to the tips of her fingers. The outer tiles flushed a deep dark red, and the souls around her dimmed to barely the faintest glow. Dalliah looked on, surprised. She had not expected Kate to participate willingly.

“The city is under attack,” she said, excitement shining in her deathly eyes. “The blood of battle will draw the veil even closer.”

“I know what to do,” said Kate.

“This is the final wheel to break. The bonemen and I
prevented
the veil from falling five hundred years ago. There is no way to know what will happen when it truly does fall.”

“Then we should get on with it,” said Kate, “and find out.”

She made sure her feet were firmly upon the central tile. Her mind was racing, warning her that it was not too late. She could still run. She could take her chances and break free from the fear that Dalliah might actually be right about the course of her life.

Kate did not believe in destiny. As she stood there, surrounded by souls that had once shared her blood, all she believed in was chaos. No one could predict the path her life would take. Nothing was that simple or that cruel. People were free to make their own choices and react to events in their own way; otherwise what was the point in life? So long as the veil was in turmoil, everything was under threat. This was her only chance to stop Dalliah from damaging the fragile balance that had existed across Albion for centuries. It was her only chance to put right what her ancestors had got so terribly wrong.

“I'm ready,” she said.

Dalliah opened her bag of papers and pulled out a cloth-wrapped package. It was the package the disguised Blackwatch agent had given her at the eastern gate, and inside it was a blade that Kate had seen before, a sharp dagger made of pure green glass. The same blade Da'ru Marr had used on the Night of Souls. The memory of that night haunted Kate as the glass glimmered in the spirit light.

“I gave this to Da'ru when she first began to serve me,” said Dalliah. “I thought she would be standing here with me tonight. Your presence is far more than I had hoped for.”

“The veil obviously does not get everything right,” said Kate.

Dalliah let the bitterness pass. “Your blood alone will not be enough for this wheel,” she said, standing at the edge of the tiles, holding the blade in her right hand. “The process requires a living soul, a powerful soul, to focus the veil's collapse, right here in this room. For that to happen, your body must die.”