CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
What’s broken can be mended.
A shattered spirit’s remedy requires
close attention and undivided time.
—THE HARMONY OF BEING
Tai and Ani walked at the head of a group of twelve Raunians, a truck piled high with selakki oil–doused blankets trailing them. They had developed this strategy during the last fight—split all the Raunians into units assigned to quadrants around the city. Each unit was further split into an offensive team armed with cudgels to fend off the wraiths, and a defensive team, watching their backs and covering the downed bodies with blankets or oil so the spirits could not retake them.
While the wraiths had a speed advantage, their superior strength was nullified when fighting a Raunian. Tai slapped his club against his palm, remaining vigilant. Ani marched beside him, swinging her club and whistling a sea shanty. She’d donned a prosthetic that looked like a claw and used both to disable the wraiths while her crewmember, Ena, followed with the blanket. Flanking them were their respective second mates, Mik and Leo.
With a screech, a wraith darted from an alley. Tai kicked a leg out, tripping the man, then thwacked him with the club. Mik and Leo were taking on three more and soon had them down. The wraiths were quickly dragged together and a blanket thrown over them.
It was slow work, moving across the city, section by section, taking on those who attacked them. Rosira was a city of hills, unlike flat Raun, and Tai’s unit was mostly quiet as they climbed and descended going from block to block. Everyone was focused and watchful, some more eager for the fight than others.
Ani cackled with glee when two wraiths raced toward her. Tai groaned, moving to her side so that she wouldn’t be outmatched. They took them down handily. Each Raunian also carried a container of oil on them—there were only so many blankets, after all. Since the defensive team was all busy, Tai poured oil over the downed wraiths and kept moving.
A commotion behind him had him turning, club raised. A small figure with a crown of white hair moved toward them swiftly. Tai nudged his sister who spun around to see.
“What is she doing here?” Ani hissed.
“Did you expect her to sit this one out?”
Ani huffed in annoyance as their mother approached. Only two of the king’s guard were with Pia, the rest must be with other units working to protect the city.
Pia held a staff that was taller than her. She wielded it with the expert hands of someone advanced in the martial art of daipuna, twirling it menacingly as she stalked forward.
“We don’t need your help,” Ani called out over her shoulder as she searched the dark shadows between buildings for wraiths.
“I’m the king, I can do what I want,” Pia spat. “I see you’re speaking to me now?”
Ani crossed her arms defiantly. They turned a corner to find a dozen wraiths spread out across the street tearing up cobblestones and pulling out chunks of stucco from a nearby house. All three members of the Summerhawk family raced forward to deal with this scourge.
Clubs and staff flying, they delivered beatings to the creatures. Tai felt some remorse about the bones he was breaking, knowing that they would be felt by the innocent if and when they woke up. But there would be no waking if they couldn’t get a handle on the stream of spirits.
Across the street, a group of Lagrimari emerged from what looked like a basement. Leaving his mother and sister to deal with the few remaining wraiths, he approached. The two women and one man were shouting excitedly in their language, but Tai couldn’t understand. He shook his head, pointing to his ear.
The man held out his hand, palm up and a flicker of flame appeared over it. Tai’s brows rose.
“You have your Song?”
The women chattered excitedly as a strong breeze rose and blew out the flame. They were all smiling joyously. Tai motioned for them to come and join the unit. They had come across a few Elsirans who hadn’t made it to shelters. If they found some more, it looked like these folks could help protect them from being possessed.
“We’re out of blankets,” someone shouted from the truck.
Pia and Ani returned to his side. “Who are they?” his mother asked.
“They’ve got their Songs back, looks like.”
She grinned and turned to one of her guards. “Get them on the truck. Any new wraiths we defeat should be loaded up and the Singers can keep them down.” The man ran off to follow her orders.
“Will that work? Singers aren’t immune from wraith strength like we are,” Tai said.
“No, but your young friend back at the palace said they can put people to sleep and keep them like that. We just need the wraiths disabled.”
Tai nodded. That must have been Darvyn. He had many tricks up his sleeve, Tai just hoped these Singers could manage it.
As they continued their patrol, more Lagrimari joined them, emerging from their hiding places and looking for ways to help.
“Why are you out here, Mother? This isn’t your fight.” Tai looked to his mother’s tattooed face. Her dark eyes glittered with the thrill of battle.
“And it’s yours?”
“Ani and I are both to marry Elsirans.”
“Ah, you and the ambassador are getting married, are you? And no one thought to mention that to me.” Her voice was imperious even as she spun the staff and smashed it onto the head of the wraith racing toward her.
“I mean, we will. At some point. I haven’t asked her yet—”
“Why not?” Ani said, running up and striking at the legs of the opponent her mother fought.
“It’s only been a couple of months. I haven’t—”
“You need to lock that down as soon as possible,” Ani advised. “Behind you.”
Tai swung around and kicked out at the teenage boy who had tried to sneak up on him.
“She’s right,” Pia said, grunting as she swung at a large woman with vacant eyes. “Lizvette is far too good for you. You’ll want to make her yours before she wises up and realizes she can do better.”
Tai grit his teeth and took the boy down with a crack to the skull, then poured his remaining oil on the body. “So you two are ganging up on me now?”
“We’re just giving advice,” the two women said at the same time. Ani scowled and Pia raised a brow.
“And you,” Pia said, turning to her daughter, who was wiping blood off her club. “This wedding of yours has caused quite enough commotion. Since we’re all here now, you might as well have it in Rosira when this is all over.”
Ani blinked rapidly, her mouth open. “We … I mean … Well, yes, that would be lovely. I’m sure Roshon would agree.”
Four more of the True Father’s army raced down the street toward them. Ani seemed somewhat distracted as she fought, and Tai had to save her from a blow to the head. Pia’s solution had been a good one. He wasn’t sure why his mother was being so pleasant all of a sudden. He didn’t trust it.
He hoisted a body onto the truck where the Lagrimari sat hand in hand, eyes closed. He hoped whatever they were doing was working, or they’d have to fight off the bodies piling up in the truck bed.
When he returned to his sister’s side, she was looking suspiciously at their mother. Tai understood the feeling. This was the same woman who’d sentenced him to two years of hard labor for defying her.
“Since you’re in such an amiable mood,” he said, “how about ending the embargo?” Lizvette was a brand-new ambassador and if the embargo issue could be settled on her watch, Tai knew it would make her happy. He hadn’t ever broached politics with his mother before, but now seemed like as good a time as any.
Pia’s brows rose. “On one condition.”
The wails of attacking wraiths interrupted them, but others had them handled for now. He narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“You both come home for my birthday.”
He turned to Ani, who looked as perplexed as he felt. “When is your birthday?” both siblings said in unison.
Pia rolled her eyes. “The third day of harvest season.”
Ani shrugged, wide-eyed. While he and his sister were close, the Summerhawks had never before celebrated anything as a family.
“I’m getting older, you know,” Pia said. “I want my family with me in my dotage.” She spun around with incredible speed and smacked a sprinting wraith across the chest, sending him flying into an iron fence.
“I can make that work,” Ani said, eyeing her mother cautiously.
“As can I,” Tai said. He scanned the street before him. Fighting those possessed with spirits of the dead was no longer the strangest thing that had occurred this week.
“Use the obelisk!” Yllis shouted as he, Jasminda, Darvyn, and Oola raced toward the docks, where a large part of the True Father’s force was amassing. “Now that it’s awake, you will be able to feel it. Reach for it—allow it to focus and magnify your power. It’s feeding from all of the awakened Songs and will offer you more longevity and finer-grained control.”
The energy of the ancient caldera hummed just at the edge of Jasminda’s awareness, roused and restless after a centuries-long nap. Her Song glanced across its edges, still uncertain of how to best utilize this new tool.
All around her, the city was falling apart under the attentions of wraiths bent on destruction. Yllis’s voice strained to be heard amidst the noise of the chaos. “Focus the energy. They are beings of death, target them with life. Strike at them with Earthsong itself!”
The normal methods of attack using Earthsong—manipulating the elements of wind, earthquake, mudslide, ice, and more—were of little use against the incredibly powerful spirits. But Yllis had advised them of methods and techniques that had been lost for hundreds of years. Even Oola had needed to be reminded. They could conjure focused bolts of life energy that manifested as bloodred darts of lightning. Doing so was not easy; creating each one was cumbersome and unnatural, and they were unwieldy to handle. Without the aid of the obelisk, she did not think she could have accomplished it.
Jasminda concentrated and brought a crackling, red stream of energy into existence and flung it at a trio of wraiths ravaging a warehouse. Her blast found its target and she exhaled in relief. The wraiths staggered and fell. According to Yllis, the blasts shocked their systems, severing their connection to Nethersong long enough to interrupt the spirit possession. The physical features of the three men blurred and shifted, transforming back to the original hosts as the spirits inside struggled to maintain their hold.
Earthsingers couldn’t eject the spirits, but in this state the creatures were powerless and the Void took over, keeping the bodies immobile and slowly allowing the hosts’ natural life energy to bring them back under control. The spirits were still there, but dormant—for the moment.
One of the Raunian women working with them broke off to douse the prone bodies with selakki oil. Dozens more bodies, hovering somewhere between alive and possessed, lay stretched across the pavement behind the Singers as they pressed forward.
As a wraith himself, Yllis was able to expel spirits from the possessed; he fought alongside them, pressing forward as a flood of wraiths converged ahead. Yllis was nowhere near as powerful as a Nethersinger though, but Kyara and the others had been deployed elsewhere in the city.
Early reports stated that the dead had been digging through the streets, trying to access the mostly underground emergency shelters. Overhead, the portal to the World After was still open, spirits pouring through, searching for hosts. The fact that the sky was dark and filled with the frustrated dead was the only bright spot. It underscored the truth that so many of the populace had heeded the call to go to the shelters and be protected. And with every willing Singer manning full shelters, the streets were mostly clear. The number of new wraiths being created was trickling to a halt as available hosts dwindled.
And so the True Father’s army that had already been created had turned from their human destruction to laying waste to as much of the city as they could. While spirits swirled aimlessly overhead, the wraiths that Jasminda and the others faced were intent upon destroying the docks. The buildings across from the line of silent boats had already been devastated. The structures were old, built of stone to withstand the raging storms of the rainy season, but now had been transformed into broken-down husks. Torn apart by the bare hands of the incredibly powerful army of the dead.
Jasminda laboriously readied another bolt of Earthsong. Fortunately, each one could take down multiple wraiths. The obelisk pulsed at the back of her senses, reinvigorating her with each beat, like a magical drum.
A wily wraith broke free of the pack of her brethren and came at Jasminda from the side, her movements almost too fast to see. Jasminda had no time to react before she was tackled to the ground, where her bones crunched against the pavement.
Pain bloomed through her arm and she knew it had broken. She whipped the wraith away from her with a blast of air, but its speed was on full display as it raced toward her again.
A dart of crimson energy sizzled into her and the wraith was down. Jasminda looked up gratefully to find Oola standing over her. The woman barely glanced her way before returning to the battle. Jasminda rose, healing her arm with a thought and faced the enemy again, more mindful of her periphery.
A chunk of cement, bigger than she was, flew through the air at her. It had been torn directly from the street. She batted it away with a focused wind and the chunk flew to her left, all the way into the ocean.
Breathing heavily, even with the obelisk’s aid, she began the strenuous task of spinning up another bolt.
“Let’s try doing it together,” Darvyn said. Oola glanced at him and nodded. As one, they faced the opposing force and shot Earthsong energy into the entire crowd. Every wraith within their vision fell, twitching and changing, their features in flux for long moments until they settled back to that of their original host.
Jasminda’s breath heaved, though she felt oddly invigorated. The carnage all around them was devastating, but a smile fought its way to her face. She turned to Oola, wanting to share in the sense of amazement, but terror quickly took its place.
Walking toward them across a rubble-filled lot where a warehouse once stood was a figure oddly clad in animal furs. The Elsiran man had his russet hair pulled back in a short queue. He was thin and of average height, but Jasminda’s heart froze.
“Sister,” the man said to Oola, who turned to face him. “It is good to see you again.”
Jasminda and Darvyn were locked in a state of shock, while Yllis stood to the side. All of them staring in silence at the True Father.
The portable radio at Darvyn’s belt crackled and a voice called out, speaking in Lagrimari. “Hello? If anyone can hear me, stay away from the cemeteries.” It was Kyara and she sounded breathless, exhausted, and terrified. “We assumed the spirits could only take over living bodies. We were wrong.”
A slow smile spread over the True Father’s face and he began to laugh.