“Necrotic magics like those inflicted by the Zara are difficult or impossible to treat. Even in our modern era, they most often prove fatal.”

~ Bek Trent, M.A.S.O

"Haaaaah. What the heck. These vampires are crazy.”

Silver fell back against the cool earth, glad to rest her aching back against the still cooler bark of the trees and wipe the sweat from her face. It was no use. Her hair clung to her cheeks and head, damp after hours running around in armor. More often every day, she found herself daydreaming about running away from Urias and Vespar just long enough to dive into one of the ice-cold pools around Libertia.

The bark dug into her skin as she stretched her arms until her shoulders cracked, and then sighed and closed her eyes, leaning her head against the sturdy wood. “I feel like we’ve been running around for hours.”

“We have been running around for hours,” Bek observed, “and it would have been longer if the Yulrian Festival wasn’t tonight. Olrier usually has us up till midnight.”

“To improve our night vision, yeah, I know,” Silver said, waving a hand at him, but not opening her eyes. “I don’t even think that’s possible. But an actual Altian festival…I’m excited.” She paused. “Did I hear Urias right when he said it’s in a graveyard?”

Bek was silent for so long Silver opened her eyes to find him staring at her from several feet away. Like her, he was seated with his back to a tree and arms folded against his raised knee. He looked away when their eyes met.

“It is.”

“I can’t believe it’s been two weeks already since you went to get the Stones. Or that tonight, Cevora hands them over,” Silver said softly, leaning her head back again. She enjoyed the play of a cool breeze through her hair – such a breeze had been absent up until only a few weeks ago, when the Altians had officially welcomed the coming of autumn with the turning of the leaves.

The turning of the leaves, indeed, was no small thing in Libertia. It was a sudden and dramatic change that painted the surrounding forest in vibrant and dazzling arrays of color - honey gold, rusted orange, sage, and silver. And crimson. Great swathes of crimson. Pale blue autumn flowers with petals the size of pinheads had blossomed extravagantly over the tree mosses as well, coating the deep brown bark in shades of blue that Cara had cheerily called ‘the first frost.’ Stranger still, it was not only the birds that migrated in Alti; the plants migrated as well, leaves rustling like the beat of tiny wings overhead.

Though long, Autumn nights were no less beautiful than its days, something that had Silver looking forward to the Yulrian Festival more with every passing evening. Since Olrier often kept them from their beds till long after the moon reached its zenith, they had so far had ample chance to enjoy the spectacle of the frost flowers as they opened fully to the moon, releasing luminescent pollen in great streams to rise on the night breeze. The moths and other summer insects came out in droves, attracted by the small lights. It was as if they were living with a vengeance in the final days before the harsher winter storms Illian prophetically described.

“And the vampires hand over Izathral,” Bek added darkly. Silver understood his feelings. No one knew how the sword would affect Cevora, or how quickly.

She rolled her head to the side, deep in thought. All of it, including Cevora…soon enough, it would be gone. All the beauty of Libertia, all the wonder of the Altian seasons…the darkness as well, gone into the abyss of history.

In a sense, the vanishing had already begun. No one could hide the true severity of the plague anymore. Silver knew better than most, since she spent her mornings either preparing medicines for Sara, or kneeling at the sickbeds of people who writhed and screamed, their breath thick with the scent of blood and the air rattling in their lungs. Some never regained consciousness once their fever spiked. They were the lucky ones, as far as Silver was concerned; they passed quickly, usually within hours of falling ill. The others woke to a pain she remembered all too well. Bruises slowly covered their flesh as their magic destroyed them. One by one, she watched the signs as their organs failed, their screams grew weaker, their minds duller, their eyes fogged. Blood filled their lungs until they drowned in it.

She hated every moment of her time with Sara, anymore.

Every second reminded her of what she had suffered, and every second reminded her how powerless she was. She had reached out with her magic a few times, despite herself. Like the Zara’s poison, she seemed unable to stem the flow of the wild magic that killed the people in front of her. It was hard for her to tell if they heard or not when she tried to soothe them, or when she explained how to save themselves. Their blank eyes merely rolled to her as they dug bloody tracks in their skin, their cracked lips quivering. Sometimes, she wanted to kill them more than she wanted to save them. Just to see it end. Just to see it over. Sara never said anything if Silver got up and left, roaming the streets outside the workshop angrily.

Any day, she could have said she would never come back, and that she was done with it all. But she did come back. Every morning. She wanted someone to live like she had. Just one person.

Sara was powerless as well. Silver watched the witch struggle, calmly moving from patient to patient, easing them into death. No magic circles or herbal remedies helped. How Sara never once faltered, Silver had no idea. They had lost several dozen people to plague in Libertia alone. Beasts passed in silence within the Issurak, and only those who understood the meaning behind their lonely howls and rumbling cries knew that they lamented the death of their kin. All of the efforts of Sara and the vampires so far had come to naught.

Silver remained the sole survivor.

Nersifral’s construction also continued, though none of them saw it with their own eyes. The capital city had become a fortress hidden behind a great wall. In the far north, beasts and men waged war, but it was a quiet and distant conflict, fought in a place where skirmishes were between individuals rather than armies. Others knew more than her what transpired there, and Silver dared not demand information when she could do nothing to help.

“Eventually, you’ll have to use your magic for real,” Bek observed, interrupting her thoughts. “I know you’ve been trying to avoid it. Most likely, Olrier does, too.”

“He’s disgusted with me,” Silver agreed.

“He understands, probably more than I ever could. What are you afraid of, Silver? We all saw what you did to Olrier that first day…you could do so much more. I can tell you know how.”

“I don’t,” she said, hugging herself as she began to feel the chill. Her sweat was beginning to dry.

“It’s not like you’d hurt someone. Vespar is just about as sturdy as they come. He’s toying with you,” Bek informed her.

“I know.”

“And it doesn’t bother you?”

She felt Bek’s eyes on her. They had learned so much about magic in the past few weeks – how to dispel minor magics, how to counter more powerful ones, how to move things with barely a thought…even how not to destroy floorboards when trying to entrap an enemy. Holtson and Olrier had discussed the trickiest and most dangerous of magics with all of the trainees together, spells that were most often fatal to the castor. Ironically, that list included time travel, which she and Bek definitely knew was possible, but were not yet so sure was not fatal, at least to their future selves. Silver held back no matter what they practiced, and for the most part, it hardly mattered; she had enough issues controlling her magic that the strength of her spells was a moot point.

“We’re no match for the vampires, anyway. They have much finer control over their power than us, and a higher capacity,” she reminded him.

“Those are Holtson’s words, and he never intended for them to be used as an excuse,” Bek observed.

“Yeah, well, that’s how I’m using them,” she retorted, without any real feeling. Bek did not seem to want to argue with her, so she said, “Tomorrow will be my first time flying with Seijelar,” to fill the silence. Bek stared at her, frowning and tapping a finger against his knee.

“Be careful.”

Throwing her hands up in the air with a sigh, she glared at him. “Please just try not to be all doom and gloom for one minute. I know you’ve already been practicing with Skourett. Seijelar is about as good at keeping secrets as she is at controlling her temper.”

“Sounds like someone I know.”

Silver frowned at him as he stood, but took his hand when he offered to help her up as they were approached by Illian, Cevora, Sori, and Cara. As usual, Sori ran ahead of the group and practically flung herself at them, grabbing Silver by both shoulders and looking her rapidly up and down.

“I knew you wouldn’t be ready,” she crowed delightedly, “but don’t you worry. Cara and I covered for you, so if you just want to stop by the pool over this way…” she spun Silver around quickly and started pushing her towards the bathing pools. From behind them, Silver could hear the others conversing as Cara’s footsteps followed after them.

It hardly took the three of them any time at all to reach the deserted and well-shrouded pool where Silver often bathed. It was surrounded on all sides by trees and brush and the red-stained boulders characteristic of the area, giving it the appearance of a natural oasis. The water itself was amazingly clear and excruciatingly cold, speckled with tiny species of fish that enjoyed the gentle rush of the current where it paused as it tumbled from the mountains of Muritia. The fish also enjoyed the biting bugs that spawned where the water stagnated, so Silver did not linger long once she had wriggled out of her sweat-stiff clothes and coiled Cara’s deadly rope beside them.

Sori laughed at her when she dunked herself and then surfaced, gulping in air. The wolf had, as usual, settled at the water’s edge and taken a long, contented drink. Now, it flicked its ears in amusement.

“Some people thought you’d get special treatment from Olrier,” Sori observed as Silver scrubbed her scalp with her nails and tried not to shiver, “I think they may have been right, but not quite in the way they imagined.”

“They thought we’d have it easy?” Silver suggested, tipping her head to get the water out of her ears.

“Of course.”

Silver laughed ironically, and Cara made a sound of disbelief as she went to swirl her toes in the frigid water.

“People always think someone else has it easier,” the younger girl said, wrinkling her nose at the cold.

“Well, someone out there probably does,” Sori said, flicking her fingers in the water. Long over her embarrassment, Silver hurried out of the water next to the woman, wringing out her hair while she danced around to get the blood moving in her feet. Sore muscles or not, she was too cold to stand still. Sori smirked as she held out something for Silver to wear. Silver took it, shaking it out, and then hesitated. Her eyebrows rose.

“A dress?” she asked, flipping it around to get a better look. A nice dress, silky smooth and pure white. Gold embroidery around the bodice and hem formed fiery, lacey flowers.

“A dress,” Sori agreed, “Is it strange? I was under the impression Atlantians wear dresses for everything, men and women.”

Silver had no idea how Atlantians dressed, but she smiled anyway.

“It’s beautiful. I didn’t know there were things like this here.”

“Good, you had me worried there for a minute.” Sori grinned up at her. “I thought about taking a bath, too, but by the keliarn’s stars, that water is cold.” Sori shivered, glancing at Cara, who seemed to agree. “You have ours?” the dark-haired woman asked then. Cara smiled broadly.

While the other two donned their own formal attire, Silver slipped on the dress and the fine, thin pants folded beneath it. It seemed silly to pull her boots back on afterward, but since Sori and Cara did, she followed suit. They both wore dresses as well; Sori a deep peridot, Cara an ethereal lavender. Even Elorian was given a leather collar of sorts, a loose strip of hide tied with silk ropes dyed scarlet and gold.

“I like this look,” Silver said, squatting to straighten the ties. The wolf huffed in her face, but she could tell it was pleased.

“We’ll grab our things on the way back,” Sori suggested, eyeing Silver’s sweaty clothes speculatively, “let’s go.”

So they did, finding that Hiyein and Ren had joined the others at the edge of the city, where a steady stream of people passed by on their way into the woods. There were no plain colors tonight, though Silver noticed that most of the men had chosen more subdued hues of the primary colors. Every one of them had traded their shorter shirts for knee-length tunics, tied at the waist with leather belts much like the wolf’s collar. Hiyein also had a cloak of some kind, the hood lined with gold and silver in some pattern indistinguishable from a distance.

“Wow,” Silver said, staring at the lot of them as much in surprise as wonder; she had never expected this transformation.

“We do look dashing, don’t we Ren?” Hiyein asked, rotating slowly to show off his cloak. Ren eyed him out of the corners of his eyes. His lips twitched with a suppressed smile.

“I don’t know if dashing is the word I would use,” Cevora observed, stopping Hiyein with a sharp tug on his hood. “Though I admit you have good taste. This is from the west?”

“Traded three weeks’ pay for it,” Hiyein agreed, pulling the hood firmly from her grasp.

“Even thieves have to look good,” Illian observed, “Whose pay was it you traded?”

“Not mine, certainly.” Hiyein looked smug.

“Before anything else questionable comes to light…” Sori grinned, gesturing away from the city gates.

They joined the flow of people threading a narrow path through the falling evening. Although Silver knew their destination was a graveyard of sorts, she honestly had no idea what to expect. It had never occurred to her to hold a festival in a such a place, and she was not sure how she felt about potentially sitting on someone’s grave.

She was thinking so deeply about graves and ghosts that she did not notice someone falling in beside her until they exclaimed, “It’s a good night for the festival.”

Silver jumped, turning sharply to stare at Vespar. She had sworn more than once that she would never get used to how easily the vampires hid their presence – although even Urias, who seemed to disappear into the night as quickly as the dragons vanished into thin air, had to admit that Bek was nearly as good at it as they were. Vespar’s green-tinted gold eyes glimmered as he leaned in close to her, ignoring Bek’s obvious glare from her other side. He smiled wolfishly. “Olrier will be pleased. You know, tonight…”

He suddenly coughed and nearly lost his balance when Urias swung an arm around his neck and pulled him away, grinning broadly. “Now, now, you know how Bek hates that,” he teased. Urias’s face quickly turned serious again, however, as he leaned in and said more quietly, “What he was going to say is, we’ll be seeing Krisa work her magic tonight. It’s a rare opportunity; I doubt a human has seen her power in over a hundred years.”

Vespar narrowed his eyes as he glanced at his friend, and Silver wondered what exactly he was thinking. At that moment, however, they crested the hill that sloped down to the city behind them, finding themselves among a throng of vampires and humans. Her thoughts turned elsewhere.

The noise in the crowds was deafening. She was too short to see much more than a few feet ahead of their group. The crowds carried them forward, right up to a line of perfectly aligned trees that no one seemed keen to pass. Silver halted with the others at her side, craning her neck back to stare into the heights of the trees. Their pale bark was bone white, their branches curled upward to form the shape of a flickering candle flame. Unlike the surrounding trees, they seemed unaffected by the arrival of fall; their leaves were still green, turned out so that their silver undersides luminesced gently in the descending twilight.

Silver’s eyes slid down then, to the land beyond the trees. That was the moment she realized just what those trees actually were; ghostly sentries to the land of the dead. A great valley devoid of people stood before her, parched golden grasses swaying in the faint autumn wind, bending to reveal gentle slopes bathed in flowers whose colors faded slowly with the sinking sun…she felt goosebumps rise along her arms. How could a place so beautiful send such a chill through her? This, she was certain, was the burial ground of Libertia.

Silver sucked a wondering breath between her teeth as Elorian passed the group of them to settle soundlessly in the grass at the edge of the tree line. It was clear that the wolf expected them to follow suit.

“What about the dragons?” Silver asked, peering nervously behind them into the crowds. She knew one thing for sure – she did not want to be pressed past the eerie, silver-leaved trees.

“Olrier has asked that they wait till we’ve settled,” Vespar said, glancing at Urias, who returned the look with a nod. “When true darkness falls, then they’ll be welcome. You’ll see what we mean.”

Silver nodded as if unconvinced, joining the wolf and Cara, who had stretched out beside Elorian on the soft earth. One by one, the others settled, Bek and then Sori, Ren, Hiyein, Cevora, even Illian. The two vampires hovered behind them, staring out over the proceedings as Urias explained, “Beneath these grasses lie all those who have returned to the earth. Their magic runs wild, thick as water. It is not a place where the living can go, particularly not on the night of the full moon. You must not step beyond these trees unless you are summoned.”

“Magilace trees,” Bek noted, looking up at the silvery branches and then over to the two vampires. “I’ve never seen them.”

“Well, tonight you’ll see many things you’ve never seen,” Urias said.

They all sat in silence for a while after that, swallowed up in the banter of the crowds that pressed in behind them. There was music, drifting from somewhere far off to their left, and the scent of sweet things, chestnut and roasted squash and sweet tubers. All the chatter of Libertia…it was warm and welcoming, as if they sat not at the edge of a burial ground, but at the edge of a great dinner table. Tonight, Silver realized, the Altians were not thinking of people they had lost. They were reuniting with them.

Something she could not do.

Silver pressed her eyes closed for an instant, taking a calming breath. This place, or not so much the place…the people…had become familiar to her in ways she had never expected. They were so much more than friends. She would lose them all, one day, but for just a moment, her heart overflowed with their presence. Her eyes strayed out over the sea of grass, up and over the dark limbs and the silvery leaves of the magilace trees, until they fixed on the pale gray clouds that streamed endlessly across the gold and crimson sky.

Twilight.

That strange space between day and night. Breathless, frozen moments. And what lay before them was a similar space, an enchantingly beautiful veneer over the dark abyss that lurked beneath its soil. Her thoughts chased weary circles in her mind as she leaned forward to rest her chin on her knees, letting her eyes fall unfocused on the empty clearing. It seemed unfair, somehow, that she could feel so fulfilled when the people she loved most in the world were possibly suffering far, far out of her reach. How fickle, that every time she leapt, first from her era, and then to the outpost, and now to Libertia, her life fit so neatly into the confines of her new world. She could almost forget that everything she held dear was somewhere else.

It was as if it were all a dream.

A long, fanciful dream that ached sometimes in the farthest reaches of her heart, and just a moment later, filled her with wonder.

A dream…

A dream she should wake up from, Silver thought with a guilty sigh. She was not searching hard enough for a way back to her era. If she had been, both she and Bek might be back already. She could be looking for signs of what had happened to her family. Sitting before a land heavy with farewells, Silver remembered all over again how much she hated them.

“What are you thinking about?” Bek asked her eventually.

“A lot of things.”

“Hmmm.” Bek did not seem so much surprised by her sentiment as he seemed to agree with it. It was possible he had also been stricken by the transient atmosphere of the burial ground, but just as likely that he was simply taking notice of the fact that the sun was rapidly approaching the edge of the horizon.

“It’s hard not to get to thinking at a place like this,” Hiyein agreed from a few feet away. Silver glanced at him, but he hardly looked thoughtful. Both he and Sori had gotten a handful of squash from somewhere and were eating slowly, peering through the night.

“I don’t like it when you think too much, Hiyein,” Illian warned.

“It’s starting,” Sori hissed, waving her hand excitedly towards the field.

Silver turned her head slightly to say something, and nearly jumped to her feet as something suddenly materialized mere steps from her – something seemingly fog that rapidly took on a semi-solid form. It was as pale as a ghost – it probably was a ghost – and nearly as translucent. Milky white, wavering as if in a heat haze beneath the light of the rising moon, its body and legs were nearly lost in the wispy fog that hung stagnant above the graveyard. When the creature turned to look one way and then another, its face was nothing but a broad, ovular glob of pale smoke. Black pits wavered in that glob of smoke, split by a mouth that opened to reveal rows of very solid teeth.

Silver shivered when the ghost’s invisible gaze passed over her, even though it had no eyes to speak of, and Vespar laughed.

“That’s the Uritikain, Silver. It’s the beast that walks beside the caretaker of the burial ground, our kainjul, Krisa. Using the cyearn dust scattered over the field, it can find a safe path to guide the kainjul through the grounds. It’s harmless.”

“That doesn’t make it any less creepy to those of us who don’t live next to a burial ground,” Sori pointed out, licking her fingers shamelessly. “By the keliarn’s stars, that was good.”

“I told you,” Hiyein laughed, “I told you, too, Ren. I could have gotten you one. Even Cevora likes these…”

Silver ignored them to stare as the person who must have been Krisa – a beautiful vampire woman clothed in the traditional slit-front skirt and long-sleeved upper jacket of the Altian women – appeared at the edge of the burial ground. Like everyone else, she wore a colored belt over her attire. Unlike everyone else, the sleeves and hem of her cloak were emblazoned with pale blue flames that caught and reflected the light of the moon when she walked, making them flicker like the strange beast that guided her. Her deep brown hair was drawn up loosely against her head, tied with invisible wire so that her long bangs twisted delicately down the sides of her face. There was no doubt she was the picture of majesty, moving with such grace that she appeared to glide, her expression locked into serenity, her golden eyes surveying them all and appearing to see nothing beyond the burial ground.

Silver chanced a glance sideways to see that Vespar looked positively smitten. Some things, it seemed, would never change.

A hush descended over the crowd gathered at the edge of the grounds. The mid-November moon had finally materialized over the tops of the magilace trees. Minutes passed as the silence swelled and grew, and the kainjul slowly walked the perimeter of the burial ground. All the while, the Uritikain flowed like smoke around her legs and arms. The moonlight became fiercer as the sun receded into the pink glow of clouds that foretold a stormless dawn, until there remained nothing to mark its passage but a trail of twinkling stars and a faint glow beyond the trees.

Then a chill passed down Silver’s spine once more.

With the fall of the night, more figures joined them at the edge of the burial ground. When she turned her gaze to one of them, who passed close behind Vespar and Urias to say something beneath his breath, she sensed something more feral in him than she had ever felt emanating from Olrier - something lethal and cold and dangerous. His skin was pale and ghostly, and his eyes glittered like topaz beneath the dark fall of his lashes and hair. When he felt her attention on him, he grinned, and she imagined she could see the faint tracery of his veins. His eyes sent another shiver down her spine. Dark, beautiful, cold, cunning. He turned away to vanish into the crowd.

Vampires like him made Silver’s stomach twist with uncertainty. Even the residents of Libertia gave them a wide berth.

Across the field, however, there was more to see. A pair of exceedingly normal wolves had melted from the trees. They watched from the shadows, stalk still. A great white bear hovered just beyond the magilace trees, lightly armored in bronze plate. Birds leapt through the greenery, joined by stranger things, and Silver could hear the crows, raucous, crying out to one another as the hush thickened. There were creatures of moss and wood, their eyes hollows fixed expressionlessly on the kainjul and Uritikain. Sometimes they turned to one another, silent, their joints clicking robotically into place. The sound made her skin crawl.

And there were many more, much smaller beings whose presence Silver felt and knew, but that she could not find with her eyes. If the very greatest of the forest’s inhabitants were the nightwings and dragons, the smallest must be ants and flies and some of them, perhaps, were gifted with speech and thoughts no different from her own. Maybe. Silver was not quite ready to sell herself on the idea just yet, but the next time she talked to a spider, she would wonder if maybe it could talk back.

For a while longer, they were all left to stare around the field. Just long enough, Silver decided, for her muscles to stiffen with inactivity after a day spent sweating and running and rolling in the dirt. Then the kainjul stopped in the middle of the field. There was something clutched in her hands, difficult to see from such a distance. A box of some sort.

As they all looked on, the air at the center of the burial ground stirred. The grasses began to weave and bend beneath some invisible weight. A cool breeze rustled the boughs of the magilace trees, and the rattle of tiny leaves filled the burial ground with eerie music. The breeze grew, picking up tiny, glittering stones from the earth to spin them through the clearing like fairy dust.

Then, manifesting nearly faster than Silver could blink, a great, pearly dragon stood before the vampire in the burial grounds. Its massive wings remained at rest against the onyx spikes of its spine, its chiseled head craned downward and silver eyes shimmering with inner fire. Against its black lips she saw the curve of a thousand lethal fangs, against its jaws and skull bony spines that split its opalescent scales. She knew the beast at once, though she had seen it herself only once before. Etrion, the dragon srinn.

“The keliarn bear witness to our meeting,” the great beast rumbled, its voice a gentle murmur that was nonetheless loud enough Silver was sure everyone could hear.

The vampire kainjul stood undaunted, and then bowed long and low, in the Altian style. Her hair curled around her neck, remaining their as she straightened again and slowly set her pale fingers against the ebony wood of the box. It slid open a crack beneath her touch. She hooked her nails beneath the lid and pulled until it was level with her chin. This done, she turned her golden eyes to the dragon once more, and lifted the box skyward. With the four Stones in such close proximity, their power was intoxicating, a beacon for miles around. No one could possibly have any doubt what treasure had been brought before the dragons.

“And thus, they bear witness also to our peace. The Juran would return the treasure of Alti into your keeping, and there leave it while our pact remains. Etrion srinn, it is under the princess Cevora Eldoreia Altin that we bear Alti towards its future; there beasts and men are allies, and the great kingdoms of Alti flourish side-by-side once more. Do you accept this gift?” the kainjul asked in a voice high and pure and strong.

The dragon srinn reached slowly forward and tapped the lid of the box closed with one talon. The power flooding from within was cut off immediately.

“We do. And in return, proof of our peace shall reside in the hands of the humans, and there remain as the new kingdom rises. Vampire, guide them now to Izathral.”

Seconds passed, and then the kainjul kneeled and set the closed box upon the earth. When she rose again, it was to find Olrier at her side, his light brown curls swaying in the breeze. She turned, and the Uritikain at her feet ghosted forward across the parched grasses and swaying flowers, its paws never touching the earth. Several meters away it turned to look at her, and she dipped her head once in agreement.

Silver blinked. The beast was gone. It had vanished as quickly as smoke before the breeze. Where it had stood, however, was a staircase leading down into the earth.

“Cevora kuirsrinn, Illian, Silver, Bek.” Olrier’s voice rang clear and true throughout the clearing. When Silver stood almost automatically after weeks of following Olrier’s instruction, the dragon srinn turned its fiery gaze to her. “Come.”

Silver felt her eyes narrow as they waited for the kainjul to come to them, watched Krisa bow slightly and gesture that she would lead. No words were exchanged. Why her? Why Bek? Cevora and Illian made sense.

“Silver,” Illian had paused to look back at her as he stepped over the threshold of the burial grounds. She heard the warning in his voice. This was not a summons she could ignore, and it was not one she could question. Bek tapped her elbow on the way by, and she followed him with an increasing sense that she had no other choice. She was not at all happy to see that the wolf remained behind, even when Seijelar’s voice in her mind reassured her that the dragon srinn herself would never allow harm to befall any of them.

They did not make it far beyond the invisible boundary of the magilace trees before Silver found herself struggling. Nothing she had sensed so far in the magical world could prepare her for the sea of power that was the burial ground. One false step, and they would all be engulfed. One step…and yet no one seemed concerned that they would step wrong. No one, in fact, gave any sign that they felt what she felt, the hum of magic all around them, and a magic that reached for them hungrily. Or maybe just for her.

All things…

As she walked, the tall grasses tickled her fingers, the cyearn dust rising around them.

All things to be made whole…

For a moment, she thought she had spoken. All around her, the air of the burial ground shuddered, listening. The world was listening. Waiting for her to speak. It took all of her concentration to lock closed the figurative gate that was the key to her inner magic. And to hold her tongue.

It was not until she and Bek stood among the others, staring down the gaping maw of the staircase into the earth, that she breathed a sigh of relief. She hoped her sense of vertigo was simply from staring down a deep dark hole in the earth.

Olrier took the lead and they followed, Cevora behind him, and then Illian. Bek brought up the rear, his feet marking a steady rhythm against the stone steps. Silver calmed her beating heart by peering ahead of them, to a chamber lit with the warm glow of sandstone. It was not as deep beneath the ground as she might have imagined, but still, she stared openly when they reached the floor.

The room was built like a small basilica. Thick columns sloped cleanly into the stone overhead, ageless and smooth. Long and narrow, the room’s walls were etched with line upon line of strange text. Altian, maybe, but Altian from centuries ago. There were hieroglyphics as well, thin swaths of wall imprinted with hundreds of strange, foreign symbols. Some had been painted once, but all that remained were fading hints of ancient dye. Channels in the walls lit the room, and they were concentrated deeper inside, at the far end of the chamber. There, the sandstone had been smoothed and preserved, Silver thought, by magic. It was coated in perfect lines of Altian script, but they showed none of the wear from the rest of the chamber. Her eyes fell blindly on the characters, drawn instead to the image of massive feathered wings carved into the perfect sandstone behind them, like a great watermark.

In front of those wings hung shimmering silver chains. There were ten of them, spread in a great web from either side of the chamber. They were fastened to the stone walls on hooks as big around as her hands. Where the silver links met, there was a single sword, its blade tightly encircled in the silvery links. Gold peeked through the chains - the head of a golden dragon spitting a long tail of flame down the spine of the blade. Its wings, spread in flight, served to guard the ornate bone hilt. Nestled between the dragon’s shoulder blades was a single, gleaming crimson stone carved into an oval roughly the size of an egg.

This was the blade said to turn men to vampires.

Sensing the living magic of the blade, Silver did not doubt it now. Its power licked at the surrounding walls, searing and wild…it was a magic not so different from that which had almost killed her. Her eyes narrowed as she realized they had all stopped moving forward, and stood now halfway between stairs and sword, their eyes riveted forward.

It was Olrier’s voice that broke their enchantment.

“A warning, princess: you alone may touch the blade Izathral. Its curse has claimed the lives of many a thief and unsuspecting admirer.”

“I’ve heard as much,” Cevora agreed, surprising Silver. No one had mentioned that when the princess said she would take up the blade.

“Even for one such as you, the blade’s curse is poison. Although the beasts have promised it to you, do not take it lightly.” Cevora turned her burning gaze to the vampire, who smiled grimly before turning his own eyes to the sword. “I have no desire to change your decision, princess. Do as you wish. I only bear the burden of warning you, as all those who have ever taken up the sword have been warned. It is a tool of war, even if it is wielded as an instrument of peace. Go and claim your kingship. It is a burden no man or woman can appreciate until it is theirs.”

All things…

Again. Silver looked sharply over her shoulder, half-expecting that there would be someone there. There were only whispers. Whispers that filled the chamber, ringing in the shadowed arches around them.

But no one was paying attention to that – they were all looking at Cevora, who was slowly approaching the sword.

“Cevora, wait.” The words were out of her mouth before Silver realized what she was saying. The princess turned to look at her, chin set and green eyes determined. Dread crept down her spine as Silver covered the distance between them, standing face to face with the woman who would lead all of Alti when the war was done. “It’s too dangerous,” she said, “we need you…as a human, Cevora.”

“Kuirsrinn,” Cevora corrected her stiffly, “Cevora Kuirsrinn, Silver. I wish to do this. There is no other way.”

“This is her duty to her kingdom,” Illian said, watching them both, just steps away. Silver saw in the firm set of his jaw, not so different from Cevora’s, how little he wanted the princess to go through with what she was about to do – and how little choice they had.

“The beasts will still follow you, Cevora,” Silver said.

“They won’t.” The princess regarded her steadily, unblinking. “You’re still a child, Silver. I’m not afraid of what I’ll suffer now, only of what will happen if I let my fear stop me from doing what I must.” Cevora stared at her for a long moment, as if that alone could impress her full determination upon Silver. Then the princess turned away, towards Izathral.

All around them, the whispers grew louder.

And Silver felt her heart lurch. The weight of her own thoughts was like lead in her joints, the press of an alien need, a hunger that filled her up, moving her against her own will. Relsrir had shown her things she should never have remembered. Silver was certain of that now. This sword was one of them. It was this blade she had carried, this sword…

It was hers.

And she would have it, whatever the cost.

“Yanlejatju, Izathral.”

Wake, Izathral.

Again, the words came to her, whether she wanted them to or not. Who was she to demand that the sword wake? Who was she to issue a command, her voice ringing through the chamber…and yet Cevora turned to look at her, eyes dark. Their gazes met as the chamber echoed with a sound like shattering glass. Metal rained to the sandstone floors as the chains on the sword fell away. There was no chance for anyone to stop her.

“Yanorit.”

Come.

Again, a command, pulled deep from the pits of her consciousness. The sword came to her, no differently than any of the myriad items they had practiced their magic on in the months since she had come to Alti. Silver felt the hilt of the blade in her hand even before she glanced in its direction; warm bone and hot metal. Then she felt the blade’s magic scouring her body, heat rising rapidly up her hand and arm, brushing her face and causing her eyes to tear. Suppressing an involuntary shudder of panic, she pushed back, glaring as her magic threw off the touch of the sword’s power. It raged against her, licking with invisible flames against her exposed skin. She kept a tight hold on her own power. Eventually, the heat began to recede. Izathral calmed.

Silver exhaled slowly, shifting the sword to look at it more closely, oblivious to the people around her. Its weight was as familiar to her as the clothes on her back.

“What have you done?” Cevora asked breathlessly, the sound bringing Silver back to them. Truthfully, she had no answer. She had calmed as well; the sensation from before of moving against her own will, the voices, the whispers… all gone.

“Saved you from one burden you never needed.” Unthinkingly, Silver twisted the hilt in her hands and laid it neatly away where she knew the sheath should be, at her side. It slid home with a satisfying hiss, and when she looked down, she found the sword was invisible. A smile touched her lips, out of place in the face of Cevora’s rage.

“Silver, this isn’t—you can’t do this,” Cevora’s voice was rising.

“Were you even listening to what Olrier just said?” Bek barked, drawing her eyes back to where he stood with Illian and the vampire. They all stared at her, maybe expecting her to suddenly turn to ash, or clutch her chest and keel over. No – not Olrier. He stared at her like someone who had confirmed something, his eyes narrowing.

“Give me the sword,” Cevora finally demanded, fury lacing her curt words, “It might not be too late.” Silver fixed her with a level gaze. Her refusal must have been clear to all of them.

“How long can this go on, Olrier?” Illian asked, not moving his eyes away from her or Cevora for an instant.

The vampire was shaking his head slowly, clearly deep in thought. “Indefinitely, I would say. Izathral’s curse strikes the moment it is touched…if Silver remains standing, which she does, that is proof enough that it will not do her immediate harm. I can say nothing for its long-term effects.”

“Vampirism,” Illian muttered, eyeing her rigidly. “Do you really understand, Silver?”

“I do.”

“I don’t think so. You have the look of someone who thinks they’re invincible. Why don’t you believe the sword will turn you into a vampire? Where does that confidence come from? Tell me,” Illian demanded calmly.

How could Silver tell him she had no idea? It would sound stupid, even coming from her. Whatever Relsrir had shown her, it was not enough to prove she was immune to the sword’s curse, only that she had touched it before and survived. But he was right, nonetheless. She was confident.

“As Cevora kuirsrinn said, to be too afraid to do what we must…that would be worse than any curse. So long as one of us carries Izathral for you,” she directed at the princess, “there is no harm, right? Illian is your shield. I will be your sword. And you, princess, will rule as you must. Isn’t this why Olrier called Bek and I here, instead of just you and Illian?”

“The beasts had a hand in that,” Olrier disagreed.

“You did not answer my question, Silver—” Illian began, but Cevora raised her hand for silence, fixing Silver with her sea green eyes.

“And if I trust you, Silver, I won’t regret it? You would have me believe that.”

Silver nodded slowly, somber.

“Why? Why would you do something like this for me, who you have a hard time even calling your princess. One day, I have no doubt you’ll have a hard time calling me srinn. Who are you beholden to? The dead Atlantian king?”

“Everything I do,” Silver said after the most minute pause, “I do for Alti.”

“A land in which you are a foreigner.”

Silver smiled ironically, shaking her head. “We don’t choose the places where we find our home.”

“Then tell me this – what would happen if it was in the best interest of Alti for me to die?” Cevora asked, meeting her eyes with a hard stare.

“This is ludicrous,” Illian growled, “you both—”

“I would kill you,” Silver said, no longer smiling. Silence descended again, and she could see Bek rubbing his forehead out of the corner of her eye, probably wondering how she could enrage so many people in a single day. It did not help, she was sure, that it was so clear she was not joking. “Swiftly, and painlessly,” Silver added after a moment, as if that would help.

Cevora seemed at a loss for words. Nonetheless, when Illian began to speak again, she silenced him again as well.

“And you ask me to trust you?” the princess said.

“It’s in Alti’s best interest for you to live. I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” Silver informed her. Long minutes passed as the princess closed her eyes, seeming to consider carefully what she said next.

“Your honesty, Silver, is as dangerous as that sword. But fine. On this day, we have become the new kingdom of Alti, and you have become the image of the blade that beasts and men will follow into war. Remember that you asked for this. We are not friends, and we are not equals.” The woman’s eyes burned with a quiet fury. “Come.”

The princess pushed past her, and Silver stepped out of the way hurriedly. Then, she did just as Illian did, despite feeling his eyes on her.

She followed.