Tyrus’s plan was neither complicated nor contentious. There truly was only one solution—confront the young woman while blocking her escape routes. Moria went through the front door, presuming a young woman around the girl’s age would be less intimidating. She even concealed her daggers. At the door, she turned to Daigo.
“Will you stay here? In case she runs past me. And so you don’t spook her.”
He grumbled but planted himself in front of the entrance. Moria went inside.
“I saw you come in here,” she called. “My name is Moria, Keeper . . .” She trailed off as the hairs on her neck rose. The shutters were drawn, the room dim and cool, and she peered about it. Something was not right here. It plucked at her memory, telling her she’d sensed this before. Similar yet different.
After a slow look around, she began again. “I’m Moria, Keeper of Edgewood. I come from the emperor, with his son, Prince Tyrus. I was here a fortnight ago. Perhaps you saw me with my sister, the Seeker.”
Silence.
“We were held captive here, before being sent to the imperial city with a message. I was supposed to negotiate the terms of your release—you and the other townspeople. I suspect we did not make it far before—”
“The shadow stalkers came.”
The voice sounded so suddenly that Moria started. She turned to see the young woman in the doorway of a bedchamber. She was empire-born, somewhere between plain and pretty, a thin girl wearing a simple dress. She had long, dark hair and dark eyes. “It was the first night after you left. The shadow stalkers came.”
“You knew what they were?”
The young woman laughed, the sound so jarring in light of the tragedy that the hairs on Moria’s neck rose again. She looked at the girl, who stood in the doorway as if greeting an unexpected visitor.
She’s not . . . right. Because of what she witnessed?
The girl continued, “I may never have seen a shadow stalker, but I’d certainly heard of them. It would’ve been difficult to mistake those creatures for anything else.”
“What happened?”
Behind the girl, Ronan had slipped through a window into the bedchamber. Now he stopped, his forehead creasing, perhaps wondering why she’d ask such a question. This was hardly the time for an interrogation.
The girl didn’t seem to think the question odd, though. She said, “They came as black smoke and possessed the men, who turned on the women. During the slaughter, the mercenaries took the children. The shadow stalkers did not seem to bother them—the mercenaries or the children.”
“And your family?”
“My father was possessed like the other men. He killed my mother and my older sister.”
“I am sorry for your loss.”
A pause. Then panic lit the girl’s eyes as she must have realized how dispassionate her account sounded. Her town had been massacred. Her mother and sister were murdered by her father. Yet she recited the events as if they were facts in a history book.
“The shock,” the girl murmured, gaze dropping. “It has been great.”
“I’m sure it has. But we’ll need you to help us identify the dead. You can do that, I presume?”
“Yes, my lady, I will—”
She broke off midsentence and ran for the front door. Daigo lunged through. She didn’t shriek or fall back but only cursed and started to veer. Ronan was already in flight, grabbing her by the shoulders and taking her down. He pinned her to the floor.
“Possessed,” he said to Moria. “Like Wenda.”
“Hmm.”
Wenda had been a girl from Edgewood, one of the survivors who’d accompanied Ronan and Ashyn across the Wastes. In Fairview, Ashyn had learned that the girl they knew as Wenda was long gone, her body possessed by a spirit tasked with bringing the Seeker.
This could be the same situation. And yet . . . Moria finally recognized the sensation she’d felt earlier. It was similar to the one she’d noted near the resurrected mummies. A sense of disturbance, which Ashyn had not noticed with Wenda.
Tyrus stepped into the room, having caught enough of the conversation to know the girl was possessed. He studied her briefly before walking to Moria.
“Can you trap the spirit in there?” he whispered. “I know you can command it out . . .”
If she could trap the spirit, they could question the girl. But that was not something she’d ever covered in her studies, there being no scenario where one should need to do so.
The world is changing. My role in it is changing, and I hadn’t even mastered the old one.
“I don’t know,” she whispered back. Then she turned to Ronan. “Can you fetch Ashyn?”
He nodded, and Tyrus took his place, standing at the girl’s back with his sword tip on her neck.
“Do you know who I am, spirit?” he asked.
“Tyrus, son of Emperor Tatsu and his first concubine. I am well versed in the affairs of the empire, your highness. I have a name, too. It is Guin.”
Moria crouched in front of the girl as Daigo took his place beside her.
“You stole a body and a name?” Moria said.
She had expected the girl to put on a performance when Ronan jumped her. To cry and sniffle that they were making a dreadful mistake. To babble and protest when they spoke of possession. Now, as Moria asked the question, the girl merely raised her dark eyes to hers.
“I stole neither. Guin is my name, and I found this body spirit-abandoned.”
“Spirit-abandoned?” Moria said. “Is that like finding an empty wagon by the roadside?”
Tyrus snorted a laugh, but Guin only held Moria’s gaze. “You mock, but that is exactly what it is like. I found it without an owner, with no owner likely to return, and so, being in need of conveyance, I took it. You won’t need magics to keep me in here. I’ve no intention of leaving.”
“And the spirit who owns that body?”
“Gone.”
“Dead?”
Guin wrinkled her nose. “I’d not take over a corpse. That would be like stealing a wagon with two broken wheels and the others about to shatter. When the shadow stalkers possessed the villagers, there was confusion. Some spirits were taken out of the wrong vessels. Like this one.”
“And you were one of those spirits?” Moria asked. “Taken from your body?”
Guin laughed. “I have been without a form for a very long time, child.”
“What are you?”
Guin smiled up at her. “You are a Keeper, are you not? Tell me what I am.”
“A marine ghost, an honorable spirit, a ruined spirit, or the vengeful dead,” said Ashyn, appearing behind Moria.
“Ah,” Guin said. “The Seeker. They are known to be brighter than their sisters.”
“Oh?” Moria said. “Forgive me. I thought I was the one who saw through your ruse and knew you for a possessing spirit.”
“True. I’ll give you that, then. You are clever. Your sister, however, possesses more conventional intelligence. She is the book-learned one.” Guin looked at Ashyn. “Which type am I?”
“You can get free, yet you choose not to,” Ashyn said. “Despite the fact you may suffer imprisonment or even torture. You are desperate enough to keep a body that you’d risk that.”
“She uses a human name,” Moria said. “Guin.”
“There are four primary types of human spirits that remain in the first world. First, marine ghosts, those who died at sea and attempt to drown others.”
“No sea nearby,” Moria said.
“See how clever she is?” Guin said.
Moria ignored her. “There are also honorable spirits, great men who were terribly wronged and cannot control their wrath.”
“And ruined spirits,” Ashyn said. “Those unable to pass over to the second world. However, if she’d merely failed to pass over, she would appeal to me for help. That leaves . . .”
“The vengeful dead,” Moria said. “Which is the same as honorable spirits, only the vengeful are women. It is an insult to our sex. The name ought to be the same.”
“I agree,” Guin said. “And now that you have solved the mystery, as I said, I will remain in this body, on the understanding you will hold it captive and question me. I only ask that when you have what you need, you will free this body.”
“We must speak to the court Seeker,” Ashyn said. “If the spirit that belongs in that body can be returned to it—”
“It cannot. But I am confident enough in that to agree. If you can reunite this girl’s spirit and her body, you may do so.”
“Where are the children?” Moria asked.
Guin blinked up at her.
“We will agree to your terms,” Tyrus said. “If you answer the Keeper’s question, and we find your response to be truthful.”
“I can tell you what I saw, but it does not include where the children were taken. By that time, I was in this body and far more concerned with keeping it alive.”
Moria got the sense that even if the situation were not so dire, Guin wouldn’t have taken much notice of the children’s predicament.
“Prince Tyrus?” It was the minor counselor, calling from the street. “Your highness? We’ve finished our accounting.”
“Then we’re done here,” Tyrus said. He turned to Guin. “You’ll be taken into custody with minimal explanation to the others. You’ll provide no more information unless asked by one of us four here. Understood?”
“Yes, your highness.”
There was much still to be done, and the responsibility for organizing it fell to Tyrus. He could have abdicated it to the major counselor. The emperor would not expect his young son to handle a disaster of this magnitude. Yet Tyrus expected it of himself.
First, two warriors had to be dispatched to tell the emperor what had happened. Then Tyrus needed to interrogate Guin before planning their next move. While Moria assisted him with that, Ashyn went back into Fairview, to cast the proper rituals to put the spirits at rest.
Tyrus and Moria briefly asked Guin about her past, but she refused to speak of it, and it wasn’t important. Whatever had happened to her in life, it had turned her into a spirit bent on revenge, wandering the world lost and confused, and likely causing trouble among the living. Now that she had a form, though, she was mortal again, and she understood that whoever had wronged her was no longer alive. She was no more danger to the group than any stranger.
About the children of Fairview, all Guin could say was that they’d been gathered and taken. As for the children of Edgewood, she’d seen their camp before the shadow stalkers came, while she was still wandering as a spirit. They would have moved by now, but the site might yield clues.
More important was what Guin had overheard as she’d flitted about. Alvar Kitsune planned to strike more border towns, amassing a larger army of the dead.