The night crawled along with excruciating slowness. Several times Bren went over to the crack and peered through it, hoping to see a lightening in the small slice of sky that was visible, but she was always disappointed. The boy had finally fallen silent, and when he mumbled something incomprehensible she realized he was asleep. Bren wondered how he had possibly gotten comfortable enough to nod off – the rocks she was sitting on seemed to be all pointy edges, not to mention that she had felt something long and many-legged scurry over her hand.

She leaned her head back against the stone, then sat forward again abruptly when she imagined a corpse-white centipede undulating into her hair. That made her skin prickle, and she considered standing on top of a rock to avoid almost all contact with what might be scuttling around in the cave. Maybe if she –

Bren stiffened, listening hard. She could have sworn she’d heard something. Perhaps it had just been her imagination . . . no, there it was again, but so faint. As if to taunt her, Tel chose this moment to begin snoring. Scowling, Bren considered pinching his nose closed, but then instead reached out into the darkness and tapped him lightly.

“Uh?” he murmured, coming awake. “Is it morning?”

“No,” she hissed. “Be quiet.”

“Are they here?” he whispered.

“No. But listen.”

He complied, and Bren also focused during the silence that followed. Had it been real? It must have been . . . or had she fallen asleep for a moment and dreamed it?

Then it came once more, fluttering on moth wings.

A faint whispering.

“Can you hear it?” she asked.

“There’s nothing,” Tal assured her. “I have superb ears, I promise you. I can tell dice are hollow even when they’re thrown in a crowded tavern.”

“I hear a voice.”

“My voice?”

“Be quiet.”

Bren strained. The whispering did not grow any louder, but the more she concentrated the clearer it became. It sounded like . . . she swallowed, a chill washing through her.

It sounded like someone she knew.

“I think it’s my mother,” she whispered.

“Aha,” Tal said after clearing his throat. “Perhaps she’s worried about you and has come looking.”

“She’s dead.”

“Well, let’s hope not, then.”

Bren rose from where she was sitting and carefully picked her way over the treacherous rocks to the back of the cave where the whispering was loudest.

“You know,” Tal said, “the soldiers must have given up by now. I think it would be an excellent time to leave this place.”

Bren ran her hand along the wall until her fingers found a gap in the rock. Trying to ignore the butterflies now loose in her stomach, she brought her ear to this crack and listened.

Her mother’s voice carried to her clearly, whispering in the old tongue. But she wasn’t singing, as she always had before when she spoke that language. It almost sounded like she was pleading.

Pleading for help.

Bren’s fingers tightened on the edges of the crack, and to her surprise, she felt the wall shift. It wasn’t one solid slab, she realized, but rather a pile of not-very-stable stones. She pulled and the gap widened, fragments of rock bouncing to the floor.

“What are you doing?” Tal asked nervously, hovering at her shoulder.

“I’m going to try and find my mother.”

“That is not a good idea,” Tal hissed in her ear. “For the very reason that you just told me.”

“I’m not going to leave her again,” Bren growled, straining with all her strength. The rock she was pushing suddenly slipped, and she had to jump backwards as a small avalanche started.

The darkness in front of her had not changed, but now cold fingers of air brushed her skin, making her shiver. She had opened a passage to somewhere.

“What have you done?” asked Tal in a strangled voice.

“I need light. Give me your pebble,” Bren commanded.

“Ha! No.”

“I risked my life to save yours.”

“And I’ll return the favor by not letting you go in there.”

“I’m going. I have to.” She reached out and found his arm in the dark. “Please,” she asked, her voice softening.

Tal was quiet for a moment. “Aren’t you scared?”

Bren frowned. She should be scared. She should be terrified. And yet she wasn’t.

“Yesterday I watched my family die, and I had to crawl out of the ruin of our house and bury them. Trapped under that wood and ash, the weight pressing down on me so hard I could barely breathe . . . that’s what I fear. Not my mother, even if she’s a ghost. Maybe she has something she needs to tell me.”

“Oh, by all the sundered saints,” the boy muttered, and then the spectral radiance swelled, filling the cave again. In front of them was a jagged opening half the height of a man, and from the light spilling through this hole Bren could see a passage curving away into the darkness.

“Our ledger will most definitely be balanced after this,” Tal grumbled, stepping closer so that the light slid further down the tunnel.

Bren knelt down to peer into the black. “You can hear those whispers, can’t you?”

Tal gave a sharp shake of his head. “If I heard any whispers, I’d right now be running down the hillside begging for those soldiers to save me. I’m assuming you’re a madwoman, and when you go in there, you’ll eventually come to a dead-end and have to turn around.”

Bren held out her open palm. “Let’s find out. I assume you don’t want to go first.”

Tal muttered something that sounded like a curse, but he tipped the thing he called a pebble from his hand into hers.

“Thank you.” She had been expecting it to be warm, but it felt just like a cool, smooth stone, like it had been polished for an age at the bottom of a riverbed.

Bren crouched, and before she could truly consider what she was doing she went down on her hands and knees and entered the tunnel. She held the pebble loosely, the light leaking from between her fingers. Ahead, her mother’s whispering voice beckoned her on.

“I’m coming, Mama,” Bren murmured, crawling forward. Behind her, she heard scraping as Tal joined her in the tunnel.

After about a score of paces the ceiling no longer brushed her head, and after a dozen more she found that she could stand. Packed earth had replaced rock on either side of her, and she had no doubt that tools had shaped this passage. Her hands brushed the walls, dirt sifting down.

“You know what this must be, yes?” Tal asked, looking around with wide eyes as he slowly came to his feet.

She shook her head, her fingertip tracing a whorled design incised into the wall.

“Old Gith,” Tal said softly. “These hills are full of their ruins and tombs.”

He put his hand on her shoulder, stopping her. “The stories say they consorted with demons, Bren. I know you’ve heard the same. Think what really could be calling to you.”

Bren shrugged his hand away. “If it’s a demon, I’ll wring its neck for pretending to be my mother.”

She started walking again, then slowed as the pale light revealed two blocky pillars flanking an entrance that opened into a larger space. One of these pillars was bare of any ornamentation, but the other was covered in countless spiraling lines of squirming runes.

“Last chance to turn around,” Tal said hopefully, and in response she strode forward, into the black.

And came face to face with the dead.

Bren gasped and stumbled back a step. The narrow chamber was small, and empty save for a large, rough-hewn stone chair set against the far wall.

Sitting in that ancient throne was a corpse.

Given the age of this barrow, Bren thought there should be nothing left but a pile of crumbling bones, but the corpse’s papery skin was still stretched taut across its withered body. Its skull was tilted backwards, jaw open, staring with empty sockets at the low ceiling. Whatever clothes it had once worn had rotted away, and Bren couldn’t be certain if it had once been a man or woman.

Skeletal fingers were curled around the verdigris-stained bronze hilt of a sword, its blade lying across the corpse’s lap. Bren swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. Light from the pebble she held slid over the length of the silvery blade, which looked as bright and sharp as if it had just been polished and whetted.

“Mother save us,” Tal said hoarsely, joining her in the chamber.

Bren’s hand went to the amulet under her shirt. It was as cold as ice against her skin, and she shivered.

“What are the whispers saying?” Tal asked, rubbing at his arms as if he could also feel a chill.

“They’ve stopped,” Bren replied, crossing the room to stand before the looming stone throne.

“Perhaps we should go,” said Tal, his words spilling out in a tumbling rush. “Certainly this poor thing would prefer not to have its rest disturbed – wait, what are you doing?”

Keeping her gaze fixed on the dead warlord’s sunken face, Bren reached out slowly to grip the sword’s hilt, her fingers brushing bone.

“I don’t think you should touch that—”

The blade scraped across ancient skin as Bren pulled it free. She had been half expecting the corpse’s fingerbones to tighten around the hilt and yank it back from her, but it gave up the sword without a struggle. Bren let out a shuddering breath.

Its weight surprised her, as it was lighter than the wooden practice sword her uncle had given her. The unadorned bronze grip felt comfortable in her hand despite the scarring from the patina, and light rippled along the strange metal. She jumped as a sound came from the corpse on the chair, but it was just the arm shifting after losing the sword, bone clinking against stone.

“Are you taking that?” asked Tal, his fear obvious.

“Yes.”

The boy made a disapproving noise. “Plenty of other swords in the world. Most can be acquired without upsetting ghosts or demons.”

Bren slid the sword into the loop on her belt she’d made to hold her wooden blade. She should find a scabbard soon, but this would do for now. She’d just have to be careful not to cut herself with the naked metal hanging at her side.

“That is the problem,” she told Tal, rubbing her thumb on the pommel. Bits of green flaked away, revealing the dark metal beneath. “So many swords in the world, and I don’t have one.” She inclined her head towards the corpse. “He doesn’t need this anymore.”

“He?” Tal repeated with a frown. “That’s a woman, I think.”

The sword of a warrior queen. Perhaps she had been meant to find it, Bren thought. Perhaps this was the will of the Silver Mother.

But if that was true, why was the goddess’s amulet so cold that Bren’s skin had started to ache? She swallowed, stepping back from the throne. It almost felt like something was watching her from the depths of the corpse’s empty eye sockets.

“Let’s go.”