Page 132 of Bull Moon Rising

Beloved wife.

Other half.

Wait for me.

Lark sits on the edge of the sarcophagus and gazes down at the woman. Then she glances over at me. “You should take the ring, Aspeth.”

Her suggestion feels like blasphemy. “I can’t. It’s hers.” I glance overat my staff. “I should return the other to her. We don’t know where her husband’s body is, or if it’s even here. At least we can reunite them that way.”

“She’s dead,” Lark says, ever practical. “She has no use for two rings, much less one. You should take them and save your father’s hold. I’m sure the dead would understand.”

But the very idea feels wrong to me. Whenever I’ve thought about the guild, I’ve had such a romantic view of it. Of dashing through tunnels and uncovering artifacts just lying about, waiting to be retrieved. Now I know the reality. There are spiders the size of plates. There are ratlings and cave-ins and guild politics.

And the dead have faces. And we’re robbing them.

I shake my head. “I don’t think I can.”

“Now is not the time to grow a conscience, Aspeth,” Gwenna says, worried. “You said these rings were powerful. That you needed them. They’re here. We’re here. Might as well take them.”

Take them. Become a grave robber.

Because that’s what the guild is, right? It’s got a fancy name, but it’s just a bunch of people looting corpses. The thought hurts me down to my soul. Is this what I’ve idolized? Glamorized? Dreamed of all my life? I want to learn about Old Prell and the magics they used every single day. I don’t want to strip the dead of their possessions. I don’t know if I can do one without the other.

Mereden’s voice rings out clear in the crypt. “My father would take the rings.”

I sit up, looking over at her.

Her expression is calm but full of sympathy. “I understand how you feel, Aspeth. But my father would take the rings. He would break every finger from this corpse to take the rings. He would tear every bit of jewelry from her and not feel a bit of remorse. So would anyone else in the guild.” She gestures at the sarcophagus. “You can put the ring with her and close the lid. And it will probably stay closed for a few more days, until someone comes to find us. And then they’ll loot this place, because that’s what the guild does. They’ll end up sold separately or together to some rival of your father’s and then where will you be?”

She’s right. I hate that she’s right.

“You can put them back and have a clear conscience and let Barnabus conquer your lands,” Mereden continues in that practical voice of hers. “He’ll put your family to the blade and Honori will become Chatworth Secondary, because there’s already a Chatworth Hold. You can leave all of this for someone else, or you can take the rings and keep them together as they were intended to be.” Her voice grows soft. “You can honor the people they came from.”

“How do I do that?” I ask, aching.

“Name your kids after them,” Lark suggests.

“I can’t pronounce their names!”

“You’d better mucking practice,” Lark replies, but there’s a gentle note in her brusque words. “Make sure their names live on. Make sure their love lives on. What greater way to honor them?”

To my horror, I’m crying. I’m crying because I can be morally right and dead, or I can do something I know is wrong and save a father I don’t even like and people who don’t care about me. I cry because all I wanted was to save myself and have an adventure, and now I’ve doomed my friends at my side, and the Taurian I’m falling for is going to hate me.

So I cry.

And I take the rings. Because at the end of it all, I still want to live.

I inwardly thank her for the rings and commit her unusual name to memory. Andhrbrhnth. His name—Mhrfnswth. I’ll remember them.

Then I put the rings together, holding them aloft, and the inscription glows.

To create the impenetrable mist wall about your domain, wear both rings upon one finger and recite the word of power.

An endless mist wall about Honori Hold.

It’s exactly what my father needs.

FORTY-TWO

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