Page 25 of Storm Front

Azaiah was not in Nyx’s tent when he returned, but Nyx didn’t expect him to be. Death had work to do, just as Nyx did. His squad’s time with the campaign was drawing to a close. The emperor moved troops on and off the front lines a few months at a time, and they moved out a few days later. Nadia rode pillion with Lamont part of the way and was notably absent during nights around the fire. Lamont, for his part, barely spoke to Nyx, but at times Nyx felt Lamont’s gaze on the back of his neck.

When they returned to the palace, the emperor immediately called Lamont to his side, ignoring Nyx, as expected. With Nadia making herself scarce, Nyx found himself wandering the streets at night, restless, stopping at the little temples people made to the gods, watching incense and candle smoke drift in the air.

Finally, when he couldn’t put it off any longer, he went to the Crypts.

The Crypts weren’t places to keep the dead. They were a series of underground rooms beneath the palace where witches trained in their magic, kept records of the imperial family, and stored the shrouds of citizens whose families didn’t want a reminder of their loved one’s final memories. Witches weren’t like ferrymen, but they knew of Death, and they were the ones the imperial family went to for counsel.

Nyx entered the Crypts through a spiral stair from the first floor of the palace. Glass statues of famous witches sat in alcoves along the stairwell, glimmering with refracted light, and they cast spots on the steps as he descended. The Crypts were always pleasantly cool, decorated with strings of glass beads and heavy tapestries, and when Nyx reached the bottom of the stair, he found a group of young witches sitting on squashy chairs in the entry hall, listening to an older witch in an iron crown.

“And what,” he was saying, holding up a scroll, “are the elements of the body?”

“Blood, bile, and piss,” a girl said, and the others giggled. “Or not piss. Isn’t it? I think it is.”

“That’s part of bile, actually,” a little boy said, and the girl’s face went red. Nyx smiled as he ducked past them, and the sound of a heated argument followed him as he navigated the winding corridors. There were side rooms where a handful of older children practiced magic or dissected animals—the scent from that room was foul—and a round door with a sign reading, “Library.” Nyx opened the door and slipped inside, where he was immediately bathed in pale blue light. The light focused in a perfect circle where he was standing, and a voice called out from the stacks of shelves and folded shrouds.

“Tell me why you’re here, Prince Nyx, and then kindly go away.” Nyx frowned. He recognized that voice. “I just got back to work, and everyone’s ruined my catalog.”

Nyx held up a hand to shield his eyes from the magical light. “Just Nyx, thank you. I’m here to ask about… uh. The gods.”

“Go to a priest,” the voice said, and the light blinked out. “Why would anyone put this in the Q’s? Does this look like a Q?”

Nyx followed the sound of the voice and almost laughed when he saw the young witch from the infirmary standing at the top of a rickety ladder with a folded shroud in her arms. She looked down at him, scowled, and jumped off the ladder. Nyx lurched to catch her, but she drifted down like a puff of cloud, landing gently on her glossy leather shoes.

She was dressed much differently than she had been at the front. Her dress was embroidered with gold roses, and the ribbons marking her status as a witch were braided in her hair. Jewelry glittered at her ears and her neck, but her glare was sharp as a blade, and she waited in silence, bobbing impatiently back and forth from foot to foot.

“I can look it up myself,” Nyx said carefully.

“You aren’t wearing gloves. Oh well, I expected you to come to one of us eventually.” She plopped the shroud onto a nearby desk. “It’s Thena, by the way, before you think of calling memissagain.” She turned on a heel and gestured for Nyx to follow her. “So I guess you’re a new ferryman.”

“Not… exactly.” Nyx noticed that one of the other witches, a woman at least three times Thena’s age, bowed to her as she passed. “But you saw him. Death. In the infirmary. Do all witches see him?”

“No. Just like not all soldiers can see him. But I’ve seen things like him most of my life.” Thena glanced at him over her shoulder as she walked. “Have you?”

“No. Only recently.” The library was set in an enormous spiral, winding down, and Thena ignored every spare room and quiet alcove as she marched along. “I have questions about him, and I thought the witches might know the answer.”

“Answers. We have a million of them, and none of us can agree on what’s right. But I have a theory.” Thena slowed and started fiddling with a ring of keys on her belt. “We’re supposed to cover your eyes for this part, since you aren’t the emperor, but I’m not going upstairs to fetch a blindfold. Just don’t tell anyone what you see.”

She stopped at a small, nondescript door at the bottom of the spiral and took one of the keys from her ring. The door glowed faintly when she inserted the key, and she leaned against it, pushing hard. When Nyx moved to help, she shook her head and dug her useless, fashionable heels into the marble floor. Eventually, the door opened just far enough for them to squeeze through.

The space beyond was pitch black. Thena whispered something, and pale blue lights drifted around her, illuminating a narrow passageway. She walked slowly forward, and Nyx saw that the walls were covered with carvings: people marching over ruined landscapes, figures lifted into the air, a dragon with a woman under its paw.

“These are all the stories we don’t tell,” Thena said softly. She touched the dragon. “Like his.”

“Was he real?” Nyx had heard of enormous dragons in the air over the mage country to the north, but he’d never seen them. They seemed impossible—but so had gods, once.

“He is.” Thena smiled at the carving, then pushed away. The lights moved on as she walked, leaving the carving in darkness. “So is Death, whom you seem to know well.”

“Not too well. I know the rituals and the prayers, but learning about Death is unlucky for a soldier.”

“Yes, you’re all so superstitious. It’s healthy, though. It’ll keep you alive longer.” The passageway opened into a small circular chamber, and Thena sent her lights to ring its edges. The lights brightened until Nyx could see the low couch in the center of the room, the unlit candles surrounding it, and a simple white cloth that covered a portion of the wall.

Thena stopped before it, touching the tightly woven fabric. “We call it Death’s Shroud. We come here, sometimes, when we need to think. It’s quiet. And no one outside can hear what you say.” She looked back at Nyx. “Do you know why we use shrouds, in the empire?”

“To honor the dead.”

“No. To honor Death. They say that, long ago, Death was a woman. And she was terrible. There was a plague, then torrential rains that flooded the countryside… some tablets say that it would have drowned the world. Those accounts were a little dramatic, I think.”

Nyx thought of what Azaiah had said about corruption, the rain that would flood Iperios, and suppressed a shudder. “What does that have to do with shrouds?”

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