Moria climbed down the tower ladder. At the base was a door leading into town. When she reached it, Tyrus called, “Stop.” His tone was not that of a friend giving advice, but a prince issuing an order. He jumped down the rest of the way, knocking into Daigo, who snapped and glowered.
“Don’t shove me aside next time, then,” Tyrus said to him.
When Moria reached again for the door, Tyrus caught her arm. He held fast, his free arm going around her waist, pulling her against him, his mouth at her ear, whispering, “Steady,” as he held her still. She could feel herself shaking against him. She tried to pull away, embarrassed, but he only tightened his grip, his body against hers.
“I know . . .” She swallowed. “I know why they used a woman. I know what’s out there.” It is like Edgewood.
“You don’t know that.”
Her chin shot up. “I do. I—”
“You suspect it. You cannot know. It could be a trap, and if you rush in, you’ll . . .” He trailed off, and when he spoke again, steel threaded his voice. “I feared a trap with the guards, and I wanted you to come down.”
“I—”
“I may outrank you, Moria, but no one commands you. I understand that. I will ask, though, that you pay me the courtesy of at least listening when I speak.”
“I—”
“I had cause to be concerned. You ignored me. We are partners, Moria. I’m watching out for you, as you are watching out for me. I would like you to remember that.”
Shame washed over her. “I’m sor—”
“Don’t be. Just heed me a little, now and then.” A half smile. “If only to make me feel like an equal partner.”
“You are,” she said. “And I do apologize.”
He let her go and leaned against the door, listening. Moria could hear only the thump of the gate. Tyrus motioned her behind him, unlatched the door, and swung it open. She could see the gate now, barricaded by cloth-covered heaps along the bottom. Corpses lining . . .
They weren’t corpses. They were bags. Of sand or something similar. Tyrus eased closer to the open door for a better look around. From where Moria stood, she could see exactly what she had seen the first time she’d been brought through these gates: a silent town. People had stayed in their shuttered homes then, waiting for their ordeal to end. Yet there had been bandits and mercenaries milling about, keeping the town under control. Now there was no one.
“I want you to watch the nearest homes,” Tyrus said. “Particularly the windows to see if anyone peers out and tries to warn us.”
She nodded. He withdrew his sword and moved through the doorway. Daigo slipped past, and Moria swung out at his side, both daggers drawn.
The gate thumped. The wind whistled past, whirling sand. When Moria heard that wind, she realized she didn’t hear something else.
Spirits? Where are you?
Not even the faintest murmur answered. After four days on the road, she’d grown accustomed to the silence. Now, it chilled her. There ought to be spirits here.
A thump, like the gate only softer, came from the house on her right. She whipped around to face it, but only a window shutter moved. Blame her dark imagination, always seeing the worst.
She motioned to the window. Tyrus hoped the townspeople would warn them, but that had not been her experience on her first visit. They’d been too terrified.
“I am Tyrus Tatsu!” he shouted, startling both her and Daigo. “My father, the emperor, sends me with the Keeper of Edgewood, who bore your master’s message. I come in my father’s name, without guards, to meet with you honorably. The former marshal would not wish his men to hide behind civilians. Come and speak to me.”
No answer.
“All right, then,” he muttered. “I’ll find someone who will speak to me.”
They approached the house where the shutter had moved. It had gone still now, but inside, Moria could hear scuffling, as if the inhabitants sought hiding places. Tyrus rapped at the door and waited only a heartbeat. As he opened it, noise erupted on the other side. A scrabbling. He adjusted his grip on his sword. The door swung open and—
A shape sprang at them with a bloodcurdling yowl. Tyrus’s blade flew up just as Moria caught a glimpse of orange fur and shouted, “No!” It may have been her cry that stopped him. Or he may simply have realized he was about to cleave something much too small to be a human attacker. He caught the creature with the side of his blade, knocking it away. A blur of orange fur as the beast hit the floor, then shot off, hissing, brush-like tail behind it.
“A cat.” Tyrus looked at Daigo as they walked inside. “You could have warned us.”
Daigo stood there, stiff-legged, his yellow eyes fixed on the doorway the cat had run through. His growl reverberated through the room.
“He doesn’t like house cats,” Moria said.
“All the more reason for him to warn us.” He started to lower his blade, then went still. “Do you smell that?”
“Yes. Someone has not provided that cat with a proper box. No wonder Daigo is annoyed.”
Moria pointed at two piles of feces. Then she paused and glanced around the room. It was the cooking area, situated close to the front door to allow ventilation in warm weather. Besides the cat’s mess, the room was tidy and clean. This was no squalid hovel, where cat feces might go unnoticed, and Moria doubted even the most slovenly housekeeper would allow it so close to food.
Then she saw the marks on the floor. Long scratches in the rough wood. Blood-smeared scratches, as if someone had been dragged, nails raking the floor, splinters digging in, blood filling the creases—
The scratches led to an interior doorway.
She raced for it, but Tyrus caught her arm.
“No,” he said.
“But—”
“I’ll not have you run onto a blade, Moria. Nor into something worse. I’ll not allow it. Is that clear?”
Fury whipped through her, and she glanced at Daigo for help, but the wildcat sat on his haunches, watching. Telling Moria he agreed.
“Steady,” Tyrus murmured.
“I am steady,” she snarled.
“No, you are not, and we both know why you are not.” He met her gaze, then he released her arm. “Be steady and stay at my back. Guard me.”
She still bristled. Tyrus walked into the next room with Daigo at his side, and she bristled at that, too, but paused only a moment before duty compelled her to follow.
The next room was the living area. Two doors presumably opened to bedchambers—one for the homeowners, one for their children. The left was partly open, and bloodstained streaks led into the room beyond. They were not gouges now, only trails of blood. There were gaps, though, oddly spaced, and when Daigo bent to sniff the trail, Moria had an image of the orange cat lapping at the blood. She shuddered and turned away.
“I think it was the cat,” Tyrus said.
“Yes,” Moria said. “Judging by the feces, it’s been locked in here a while. I suppose it had to eat something.”
He frowned. “I meant the window shutter.”
He pointed, and she saw a table beneath the window, everything on it now scattered across the floor. It had been the cat moving the closed shutter upon hearing someone outside. Which meant . . . She swallowed and looked from the blood to the piles of feces. Was she truly questioning what it meant? No. She knew.
She followed the blood to the bedroom door. She put her fingers against it. Across the room, Tyrus tensed, but she was being cautious, and he didn’t try to stop her. She pushed open the door and saw . . .
Nothing. There was blood on the floor, but otherwise, nothing except—
“By the ancestors,” Tyrus breathed, his eyes widening as his hands shot to his nose.
It was the scent she’d noticed on the breeze earlier, but magnified now, a thousand times over, hitting her like an anvil to the chest, her gorge rising.
Daigo pushed past. He snorted, as if clearing his nose, but continued padding forward, his head lowered as he walked around the sleeping pallet. There, on the floor—
Tyrus retched. It happened so fast that Moria barely had time to glance at him before he was doubled over, the contents of his stomach spewing out, the horror in his eyes . . . She knew it was horror partly for what they were seeing, but perhaps, even more, for his reaction. He clapped a hand over his mouth and staggered backward.
“You need air,” she said. “It’s the smell.”
He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, then loosened his grip on his mouth and inhaled deep breaths, sucking air through his fingers. Finally, he let his hand fall away and straightened, and she saw the shame in his eyes.
“It’s the smell,” she said. “And the pickled eggs you had this morning.”
Again, he shook his head, rejecting the excuse.
“If you want to step out, there’s no one here but me.”
“And me,” he said. “There’s still me.”
She opened her mouth, but he said, “I’m fine. We ought to . . . make an accounting. We’ll need to tell what we’ve seen.” He paused. “Unless you’d prefer not to.”
“Yes,” she said. “I would very much prefer not to take a closer look.” She met his gaze and he nodded, acknowledging her admission. “But you’re right. We need to. So I will.”
Daigo waited at the side of the pallet, fastidiously perched beyond the reach of the vomit. And the blood. As ashamed as Tyrus was, it had been a spontaneous reaction to the smell and the sight. If she’d eaten more today, she might have done the same.
The woman was dead. Of that there was no doubt. Yet the stench was not so much rot as infection. Moria recognized that from being with Ashyn when she’d assisted the healer. This woman hadn’t been killed by her attacker. She’d been battered and beaten, her legs both broken, one bone poking through. She’d been clawed and bitten, her flesh torn and gouged. Some of the damage, though . . . There were cat prints through the blood. Many prints, as if the cat had visited and revisited, and Moria wanted to tell herself the beast had come in, distressed and worried about its mistress. And yet, some of those bites . . .
Her stomach lurched. Best not to think of that. No need to think of that. The point was what had attacked the woman, and judging by those deeper gouges and bigger bites, it was no cat. Moria suspected the culprit, yet she feared if she spoke the words too soon, it would seem as if she was fixated on that one answer, on the creature that haunted her nightmares.
“Moria?”
Tyrus had bent beside her, and she was about to say she was fine. Then she noticed he was lifting the blanket on the pallet. At first she saw nothing. Then she bent to peer underneath and . . .
There was an arm. Yet not an arm. A twisted thing, muscles and tendons bulging and contorted, fingers elongated and wizened, the nails thickened to claws. The same claws that had gouged tracks in the dead woman. She’d seen that arm before . . . or one like it. On her father, on the twisted thing that he’d become.
“Shadow stalker,” she whispered. “That is . . . My father . . .” She swallowed. “I have seen such a thing.”
Daigo bumped her arm, ignoring the pool of blood now as he rubbed against her. She put her arm around him. Tyrus squeezed her shoulder.
“You should step out,” he said.
She shook her head. “You’re right. It needs to be documented. We ought to . . . take the thing. If we can. When we’re ready to leave the town. Take it so the court physician can examine it.”
Tyrus nodded. “That’s a good idea. I’m not sure I’d have thought of it.”
He would have. Making plans, though, steadied her better than any deep breathing. Tyrus took hold of the thing under the blanket, tugging it by its clothing while Daigo and Moria stood at the ready, in case it was not truly an empty shell. It was. She knew it as soon as she saw that terrible, twisted face. The demented spirit within had fled.
Moria looked at the dead woman. She had fought. Fought hard, even without a weapon. The body the shadow stalker had inhabited wore a tunic cut of the same coarse hemp cloth as this woman’s dress. Her husband. What had that been like? Seeing your husband turn into that thing, having it drag you through the house, attacking you, breaking you, biting you? Worse than it had been with her father? Perhaps. But the woman had fought hard enough to send the thing crawling under that blanket, injured, the spirit within fleeing. And then the woman . . .
That was the worst of it. Moria looked at the woman and swallowed. The bites and gouges oozed yellow pus—the flesh had been rotting while the woman still lived. She’d survived the attack, only to be trapped here by her broken body, the infection spreading as the days passed and no one came . . .
Why did no one come?
Moria knew the answer to that even if she dared not speak it.
“We need to check the village,” she said. “Look into more homes. The children—”
She stopped herself. That was what she’d come for. The children. Yet now she hoped they were not here, because if they were, she’d find them like this woman—
“They are not here,” Tyrus said, as if reading her mind. “Alvar Kitsune had them brought all the way from Edgewood. He’s using them as hostages. He’d not do all that only to unleash this upon them.”
“I hope not.”
He walked over and squeezed her shoulder again, leaning in to whisper, “I am certain of it, Moria. He’s keeping them alive. We’ll find them.”
As they headed into the sitting room, the orange blur zoomed past again, as if the cat had just realized the front door was open. Daigo growled.
“We have more things to worry about than a house cat,” she murmured, and Daigo grunted, as if acknowledging that.
They moved to the next house, then to the next and the next, and within every house they found the dead. Another wife. An elderly couple. A wife and a girl. The girl was no more than fourteen summers. She’d barricaded herself in her parents’ room. Red smears covered the door, as if the creature—her father?—had beaten himself bloody trying to get inside. Finally, he had, breaking a hole in the door, the splintered edges red with blood as he’d reached through. And the girl within? She’d taken his shaving blade and slit her wrists.
Moria stared down at the girl, her body rotting in a pool of blood so deep it was still tacky. Moria looked at the thin blade, fallen at the girl’s side.
“Why did she not use it to protect herself?” she said.
“Perhaps she never thought of it,” Tyrus said. “She looks like a merchant’s daughter. It may not have occurred to her.”
Moria shook her head. “I cannot believe that. If any girl saw that thing reaching through the door, and she had a shaving blade, she would use it, even if she’d never been trained to defend herself.”
A moment’s pause. Then his voice lowered. “Perhaps she did not see the point. She could hear what was happening elsewhere in the village. She’d seen what had happened to her mother. Perhaps she thought there would be no sense fighting. That she would not—could not—escape.”
And perhaps she was right. No. She was right. The girl could have fought off this one shadow stalker, but there were more beyond the door. All the men of the town had turned to monsters, hunting and slaughtering.
There’d been no escape except this: a quick death where she did not need to look into her father’s eyes and see the horror he’d become.
Moria spun on Tyrus. “Why was the emperor not quicker? If he’d been quicker—”
“The bodies are rotted, Moria,” he said, his voice still soft. “These people did not pass yesterday or even a few nights ago. I believe this happened almost as soon as you left.”
“And what would be the point in that?” she snapped. “Alvar was holding the village hostage, threatening to do exactly this. Why do it before your father has a chance to respond?”
“Because he knew my father could not respond. Could not give him what he asked for. So there was no reason to keep the townspeople alive. Better to slaughter them quickly, before they revolted. Harvest the menfolk for shadow stalkers. Leave the corpses as a message to my father, one that says ‘you are responsible.’ He knows my father too well, and he knows exactly how he’ll play his hand—”
“This is not a game!” she roared, so loud the words scraped her throat raw. “Everyone here is dead. Everyone in Edgewood is dead. Every person I have known since I was a babe has been slaughtered or turned into a monster, and I’m not sure which is worse, but I know one thing—this is not a game!”
He reached out for her. She backed away and slid in the blood, and he caught her, arms going around her, gathering her in. When she struggled, his grip tightened. She pounded her fist against his back and he only said, “Go ahead. Let it out.” But she couldn’t vent her rage on him, and she froze there, torn between anger and grief until her chest heaved. Then the tears came—great, gasping sobs, hot tears flowing down her cheeks, her body shaking, Tyrus holding her against him, whispering in her ear, telling her it was all right, no one was here, just him.
She’d cried twice after the massacre at Edgewood. Once when she found her father’s Fire Festival gift. Again when she finally broke down with Ashyn, sharing their grief. But those were nothing like this, her whole body consumed, the sobs so deep they hurt, the tears like acid, stinging her eyes and her cheeks. This hurt. Everything hurt. Everything was wrong, so horribly wrong.
“I couldn’t stop it,” she whispered, finally pulling back. “Not at Edgewood. Not here.”
“I know.” Tyrus held her face in his hands, fingers against her burning cheeks. He kissed her forehead. “I know.”
“I’m the Keeper. I’m supposed to be able to stop it.”
“I know,” he whispered again. And kissed her again, on her forehead, on her cheeks.
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to stop it.”
“I know.” More kisses, his lips blessedly soft and cool. “Neither do I, Moria. Neither do I.”
She looked up at him. His face moved over hers, mouth lowering toward hers. Then he stopped. He hovered there, then pulled her against him in a fierce hug. When she finally moved away, he rubbed his hand over his face and looked around, as if momentarily forgetting where they were.
“Thank you,” she said.
A wan smile. “No need. You keep my secret about what happened in the other house, and I’ll keep yours about this.” He said the words lightly, but the haunted look crept into his eyes, fear and shame returning.
“It was the smell,” she said.
“No, it was a weak stomach. I’ve always had one, and I suppose I never realized the impediment it might cause on a battlefield. I . . .” His gaze shifted away. “I’ve never been on one. A battlefield.”
“The empire isn’t at war.” It hasn’t been since before your birth. She didn’t say that. While it might allay his guilt, it would only remind him of that deeper fear, the one that said, after so long at peace, Tyrus wasn’t the only one unprepared for war.
“There are still skirmishes at the borders,” he said. “I should have insisted on going. Sparring in the court isn’t nearly enough. I see that now. This . . .” He motioned at the girl on the floor, then waved out toward the town beyond. “I’ve heard the stories, Moria, but they do not prepare one . . .”
“Nothing can,” she murmured.
“I worry now whether I—” A sharp shake of his head. “And now is not the time to think of that. We must tell the others what we’ve found. The town needs to be thoroughly searched for survivors. And then we’ll search for the children of Edgewood. For now, remember them. They are still alive. I am certain of that.”