Page 107 of A Crown of Lies

Rowan surged out of his seat. “I said we’re bringing him home! There is no point in winning if we must do so by sacrificing the best of us.”

Rowan winced at the way Rixxis and Ieduin were looking at him with unease. He hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but there were just some lines he couldn’t let others cross. He and Ewan might not have shared any blood, but he wasfamily. If he couldn’t bring Ewan back alive, then he owed it to him to bring his body back for a proper burial so Martha and their children could mourn him.

“I have made enough concessions today,” Rowan said, lowering his voice. “Do not ask me to abandon my friend. We help each other. Look out for one another here. That’s what it means to be a Greymarker. We are all family, and all of us would gladly give our lives to make sure one made it home. I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense to you.”

Ieduin sucked in a deep breath. “It does, and that’s what scares me the most.”

“We will save everyone we can,” Rixxis said. “If there is a way to free him without risking all of us, we’ll take it.”

“Thank you.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his head. “I… I need the rest of the day to oversee preparations for the pyre and the transfer of power.” Rowan lowered his hand with a sigh. “Rixxis, if you need anything, come find me. Ieduin…” He frowned. There was tension there. He could feel it pulling tight, and he wanted to do something about it, but there just wasn’t time.

Ieduin nodded as if he could sense it too. “Later?”

“Later,” Rowan agreed.

He left the library feeling heavier than when he had gone in. They were outnumbered, and now they had to fight the undead on cursed ground, and he had to do it without Ewan at his side. It felt wrong in every way, but Ieduin had said they could win, and if Ieduin said it, Rowan would believe him.

Thirty-Two

Rixxistookthetorchfrom Rowan and held it to the pile of dry wood beneath her father’s body while a crowd looked on. Greymarkers had gathered in dark clothing, heavy cloaks wrapped around their shoulders. At first, she had thought they came out of curiosity, but as they bowed their heads in solidarity, she understood that it was more than the novelty of the pyre that had drawn them.

Though most of them hadn’t known Captain Leopold, death had touched them all in one way or another. They knew the pain she felt and had come to pay their respects to the man who’d raised their would-be queen.

Word had spread quickly through the castle as a rumor. Rowan had started it, though, and not Tofi. Something good for the people to talk about, something other than loss and death. A little hope for the future to boost morale. They’d all agreed that it would soften the somber tone of the evening.

And yet as she watched the fire take hold, climbing up to devour the heavy black shroud they’d wrapped her father’s body in, she couldn’t help but feel a renewed sense of loss. Hope did not sing in her heart as she watched her father’s body burn. Nothing did. There was only a hollow emptiness, a void that nothing and no one could fill.

She shoved the torch in with the rest of the wood and stepped back a safe distance, taking her place between Rowan and Ieduin. Ieduin put an arm around her and leaned into her side. It was meant to be a comforting gesture, but Rixxis didn’t want comfort. She wanted vengeance.

It was Divina’s curse that had taken her father from her, and she didn’t think he would rest until the necromancer was dead, no matter what Tofi said. The dead needed to be avenged.

As she stood against the oncoming chill of night, the fire taking all that was left of her past, drums began to beat. A proper Greymark sendoff, Rowan had called it. The drummers would play all night and into the morning, until the last embers dimmed and there was nothing left.

Rowan laced his fingers in hers and squeezed, saying nothing. She turned her head, looking at him. He was there, next to her, but his mind was somewhere else, far in the past. Was he thinking of the people he’d lost, too? His father? His lover? His friends? And Ieduin… He’d lost so many as well. His parents, friends…

They’re all I have now, she thought.And we are all Rowan has. All Ieduin has. For the first time, it sank in that it really was the three of them against the rest of the world. They’d given so much to come to this moment, sacrificed everything. There could be no retreat now. No compromise. It was victory or death for all of them.

Them too, she thought, looking out over the solemn faces of the gathered Greymarkers.

There was Martha with all her children, her face red and splotchy from crying for her husband, who was a prisoner in the enemy’s hands. Gallaway stood beside her, face stern. The castle servants stood at her back, an army of eyes and ears that heard and saw all, reporting to her. And Giza stood with the few mages that had made their way to Greymark to fight for a better future for all.

It wasn’t like standing on the wall in Brucia, looking out at an impossible victory. This felt different. There was an undercurrent of righteous anger running through these people, the rage of the downtrodden, the forgotten, the oppressed. The future of the new world they hoped to build began here, in the stone walls of Greymark’s ancient castle. That future was alive and well, and they would fight for it.Shewould fight for it.

After a time, the crowd began to disperse.

Martha approached the trio, a black shawl draped around her shoulders. She stopped before Rowan, her expression fierce, despite the errant tear running down the side of her nose. Her chin trembled only slightly as she spoke. “I have always been my husband’s second love. The cause has always been his first.”

“Martha, I—”

She lifted a hand, cutting Rowan off. “Ewan would gladly die to see Greymark free. Do not make his sacrifice mean nothing. You kill those fuckers who took him, Rowan.”

Rowan bowed his head and nodded. “I will, ma’am. We will.”

Martha nodded firmly before turning to walk away with the rest of the crowd.

“I need to finish packing for the march,” Ieduin said quietly. “I’ll pack your bags too, Rixxis. If that’s okay.”

She nodded and turned back to her father’s pyre, feeling even more empty than before.

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