He remembered when he was a boy.

  After finishing his chores, he had been reading by his bedroom window, the twilight of the day casting deep hues across the stone. From below, he had heard laughter. Shouting. A mob of village children had been playing in the streets—he could track them by the dust clouds they kicked into the air, the ripples they left in the crowds as they rushed between the huts and shops.

  Something had overcome him, and he had snuck down the tower, climbed through a window, and gone out to join them. And they had accepted him without a single word, as if he really did belong, and the games had been wonderous, the laughter insatiable, and he had marveled at the instinctiveness of it all, how easily they cheered and smiled, as if they did not need to worry of punishment, and, for a time, he had not done so, either.

  But night had fallen, faster than he realized, and a boar from the constabulary had grabbed him, and when he had been dragged back to the tower, the captain of the guard was standing there with his uncle. Berith had barely waited for the door to close before bearing the cane. No apology was accepted—in fact, the crying had made it worse. He had curled into a ball long before the lashes ceased, and Berith had made him walk up the stairs back to his room, and the open welts had left him crawling and weeping with every step. When he had woken the next morning, blood soaked his sheets and a heavy padlock rested on the outside of his bedroom door.

  He had never left again.

  Now, he was firing wind across the extraction chamber, knocking the coffins from the ceiling. All the broken glass became blizzards in the air. He intensified the gales, concentrated the strikes, blasting the coffins down into chunks and splinters. The only thing louder than the wind was his screaming.

  And he remembered chatting with one of his instructors out in the yard. Janos—a frost expert—had been telling him stories of his father. All the expeditions they had performed together. The wild nights at the taverns. How sorry he was to hear of his capture, and his condolences for his mother’s death, as well. In a moment of curiosity, Isaac had asked Janos if he could aid him when it was finally time for him to leave on his journey. A look of surprise and guilt had crossed the man’s face. Nothing more was said, but Berith had rounded on him the second Janos had left, accusing him of insolence.

  Next, he targeted the metal. The extractors, the pipes, the drainage shafts. Spears of ice were loosed from his palms, impaling through the emulsifiers, slicing across fittings and filtration nets and sodden retention tanks. Many were still filled with bones, spilling like entrails.

  And he remembered the days when Berith would cut the mnemonic sessions short, assigning him to some busy work in the library while he left the tower. He would often be gone for days at a time. The excuses were many—some excavation sponsored by the college, a research symposium at the capital, a rogue necromancer threatening a nearby village. For some reason, he always came back in a fouler mood than when he had left. Isaac would put more effort into avoiding him then, because this foul mood would always be worsened by his presence.

  When most of the room had been sundered with ice, he began to fire raw sound, blasting through the rows of machinery, sending great clouds of shrapnel screaming through the chamber. Entire sections of the factory fell from the ceiling, all of them split open and torn apart until the pieces of metal resembled the fallen leaves of a tree. Each eruption of sound stabbed at his ears, and the pain only drove him further, only made him strike harder and faster, every blast of splintered metal only sharpening his need to destroy. He would’ve ripped the entire world apart with his bare hands, if given the chance.

  And he remembered all the questions he had asked. Why can I not use the soul-triangulator to speak with my father? Why did the sorceress capture him at all? What was she doing to him? Was he going to come back and live with us once he was rescued?

  The responses were always the same. Very quickly, he learned to stop asking.

  His legs gave out before his arms. He collapsed along a carpet of broken glass and shattered pipes, perched above a drainage tunnel that teemed with piles of bone. He gasped for air, the blood and metal spinning around him. A giant pelvis curving like the rise of a mountain.

  Heart pounding. Sweat dripping. Body screaming.

  And what he remembered most, what he had always remembered most, were the smiles. The first time he had knocked a cup off the fence with a tiny gust of wind, he had turned around and seen pride in his eyes. A nod of his head. A pat on the back.

  “Isaac.”

  The extraction chamber was destroyed. The pelvic cavity was littered with shards of metal, split open tanks, powdered hills of bone. It looked worse than the bodies that had left it.

  The meals shared in the dining hall. Cooked chicken, fresh olives, hot bread. Stews of barley and lamb, boiled eggs, apples and pears and grapes. A cider, here and there. Our little secret.

  “Hey. Hey.”

  He couldn’t breathe. His lungs did not have the energy to flex. He gasped, his vision fading, his mind desperate for air.

  A hand rested on his back. He flinched, falling to the floor. He tried to curl into a ball, lie on his side, protect his back and organs. His panting and moans brought visions of the yard. Training. Mnemonics.

  The cane. The cane. The cane—

  “Isaac. Hey. It’s me.”

  His limbs were limp. His muscles hurt. He was shriveled, emptied, drained of energy.

  The hand came again, and another followed, and he was lifted back to a sitting position. Furry fingers, tipped with claws. Breath on his neck, a voice in his ear.

  The alchemy lab. Rows of reagents, glowing potions. Grinding the herbs, reciting the chemicals, distilling the liquids. Berith’s smile lighted by the fire of the bellows.

  “Easy. Easy, now. Come on.”

  The hands on his shoulders became arms that wrapped around his chest, gently holding him in place. Breasts pushed into his back. Straps of leather and cloth, tufts of fur. Warmth.

  Her smell. Her smell.

  His face. The apprentice tests. The gathered crowd, the spreading news of a dual-discipline journeyman. The judges approving the promotion. Pride. Joking. Smiles. Even an Archon had come to witness the event. He had shook his hand, the fingers wrinkled and cold, his white beard lined with intricate braids, and this wizened wizard had told him that no one had been a more promising mage since his father.

  “Breathe. Breathe.” Her arms pressed against his chest in slow, rhythmic motions. “In, out. In, out. Come on. Breathe.”

  He drew breath as best he could, struggling against a diaphragm that could hardly flex. Her hands wrapped around his arms, stroking up and down. On the floor in front of him, their legs pressed together, pushing through broken glass and shards of metal. Ancient fossils, stains of blood.

  “I’m here. I’m right here.”

  He gripped her arm. He listened to her voice.

  He had travelled alone. He had always been told this would be so. The Archons kept voting down any formal attempts to rescue his father. Too dangerous. Too many sandwyrms and pirates. There were other matters, there was not enough tax revenue, there were rogue puppeteers at this kingdom here, there were ancient ruins uncovered there, the Diet of Nine managed magical affairs for the nine kingdoms and all their vassals, and they could not spare special attention for just one of their agents. The task would fall solely to him. Always to him. Always.

  “Isaac. Stop. Just breathe.”

  His head tilted back. The stripes and stars banner hung above their heads, tattered and ancient. He still didn’t know what it meant. No one did. The necromancers seemed to use it as a symbol of their gods. It allowed access to their tomb. It was on every mural and relief he had passed in the city.

  Red stripes. Navy blue. Dozens of stars.

  Did the stars represent their gods? Were the red stripes a symbol of blood?

  He saw now that her hands were bloody. Long lacerations through the fur, some of it reopening the other wounds that had not yet healed. He turned his head, much as he could, and his nose was tickled with thick tufts of fur, finding it wet and red.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Isaac—”

  “I’m sorry. I—”

  He would’ve killed her. He would’ve killed all of Berith’s thralls. He had killed a number of them—some were lying pulped from sound and shrapnel, others were broken from blasts of wind. Khador students. People from his village. Not much older than he was. Used the same way.

  Their bodies. His fault.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “For fuck’s sake.” She hugged him tighter, pressing him to her chest. “Listen to me.”

  How many people had died? How many students had Berith used as practice before now?

  “It’s not your fault.”

  How had he gone so long without noticing?

  “It’s not your fault.”

  The training. The imprisonment. The absences.

  “You were a child.”

  The shouting. The curses. The resentment.

  “You didn’t know better.”

  Berith telling him that he should’ve never been placed in his care.

  “You couldn’t have known better.”

  Berith, in the yard, holding the cane, saying that he wished his brother had died.

  “You were never given the chance.”

  Berith screaming that he was only a burden.

  “That was fucking horrible,” Zaria said. “I can’t even begin to imagine—” He felt her growl. “I’d call your uncle a cunt, but cunts have a noble purpose. He’s lower than shite. The craven sod even had the nerve to seem sorry about it.”

  With her embrace, her smell and warmth, the tears began to well in his eyes again.

  “How could someone do all that to you?”

  The books. The smiles. The meals. The look in his eyes whenever he mastered a mnemonic position. The feeling of pride.

  His entire life had been a lie.

  “What should we do?” Zaria said. “I mean, I can’t rightly ask—he’s still your kin. He’ll be watching for us. We can’t beat him head-on.”

  Out of all the chaotic sensations, out of all the memories surging through his mind, one single feeling rose up inside of him. It dominated the rest, eclipsing all his thoughts.

  Anger. Fury. Hatred.

  Betrayal.

  Conspiracy.

  Justice.

  Vengeance.

  “Look.” Her hands moved to his armpits, coaxing him to stand. “Let’s just go. Right now.”

  “No,” Isaac said.

  “Come on. Fuck the lot of ‘em. Fuck the treasure.”

  He wriggled out of her grasp, kicking aside some shattered pipes as he stood. “I’m not leaving.”

  “Your mission wasn’t—”

  “I am not leaving!” He clenched his fists, broken glass falling from his robes. “He’s not going to scare me away. Not anymore. I’m not going to listen to a single one of his fucking orders.”

  Ahead, the extraction chamber lied in ruins. Shattered coffins, sundered metal, broken bones. Below, through the metal grating and leagues of rock, he could still feel the rumbling. The obelisk. All the pipework must’ve been feeding into it. The extracted souls of an entire city.

  “He wants to be proud of me? He wants to call me his son?”

  A massive tower, buried deep in the earth, glowing bright with what must’ve been thousands of souls. A black cavern stretching for miles.

  “He won’t be proud of me much longer,” Isaac said. “Not when I show him exactly what his training lessons have earned him. Not when I—”

  He stopped. While talking, he had turned to face her, and now he could see that something moved at the entrance.

  A wriggling pile of bone was spilling into the extraction chamber. Its streams flowed upon themselves, spilling and compressing in a horribly gelatinous form of locomotion. Churning strands reached out, thick as hay bales, wrapping themselves around the pipework like octopus tentacles, as if the central mass meant to support itself upon them. Almost like it was struggling against its own shape. Almost like a man trying to rise to his feet.

  Isaac pulled away from Zaria, his boots crunching on the glass. He watched the formless ocean of corpses. They seemed to shy from his gaze. Falling, easing back. Waiting.

  “Oi!” Zaria shouted. “Fuck off!”

  Isaac had never seen a pile of bodies flinch before, but it was impossible to see it as anything else.

  She stepped in front of Isaac, brandishing her axe. “Clear out! Make tracks! Beat your bones ‘fore I do it for you!”

  The mass quivered, slowly leaking its grip off the pipes. Dozens of skulls could be seen in the nest, swirling inside. All of them seemed to be watching him.

  He remembered the necropolis. The ocean of bones rushing past, going out of its way to avoid hurting him. Helping them kill the sandwyrm, saving Zaria from digestion. The necromancer trying to communicate. Asking for an alliance. Asking for help. Letting them pass without harm.

  “You come near him again, and you’ll be naught but twigs and powder!”

  At the doors of the extraction chamber, the necromancer had been desperate to prevent his entrance. She had known who was on the other side. She had reacted violently when he had suggested surrender to the Diet. And, when he had asked if she wanted him to leave, she had looked deeply into his eyes, and said yes.

  “Why didn’t you end your own life?” She waved the axe. “Too craven, were you? Gone mad with dreams of power?” Her hackles rose, ears bent flat. “Tell me! Which was stronger? Greed or cowardice?”

  The mass seemed to deflate, coming down like a leaking waterskin. Most of the skulls dove back inside, as if they were avoiding sight.

  “Fuck off, kinslayer!”

  For a moment, all the bones stopped moving, and the pile might’ve just been a morbid trophy left by a conqueror. Then, slowly, the mass churned itself back towards the bronze doors, the same way a slug might crawl through a hole in a wall. It sounded like dry scraping, a flood of brittle rattling. There was no attempt to speak. None of the skulls looked back at him.

  The only thing she had been able to say was his name.

  “Wait!” Isaac shouted.

  The mass froze. Bones churned within.

  He began to walk forward. Zaria reached for him, but he stepped around her, moving through piles of broken glass and shattered machinery.

  The bones spilled back into the chamber. As he approached, they spread out into a high-walled semicircle, engulfing the pipes that ran up the pelvis, as if using them for support. When he stopped in front of the wall of bodies, it flexed like a diaphragm. Slowly, a single head stalk emerged from the churning wall. It extended itself towards him, shunting more vertebrae into its length like a crawling line of ants.

  Both times they had talked, the skull stalks had tried to reach for him. Both times, he had casted the anti-necrotic light, burning them away. This time, he did not. As the skull came forward, he raised his own hand in response.

  “Father?” Isaac asked.

  The skull at the head of the stalk pushed its cheek into his palm. The bone was cold, dry, and brittle. It shuddered like a bug in his grasp. But the touch was gentle, and the skinless face spoke in a soft whisper.

  “Isaac.”

  The wall of bone closed in around him, arms reaching out from its depths like a dozen corpses digging their way from a grave. Bony hands grabbed at his shoulders, rubbed through his hair, felt at his face through the deadened appendages, like the sensation was not nearly enough. He felt swallowed by a grasping forest of limbs, tangled deep in their embrace. Around him, the sea of bones seemed to shudder and sigh.

  He closed his eyes, and he almost imagined it was a hug.

  “Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac.”

  The bones were dry and old. They had no warmth. They were clumsy. They were smothering and clutching and desperate.

  “I-I-Issaa—cccc—Issaaaaa—”

  There were many gasps. A choir of voices, hissing like death.

  “Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac—”

  “Was that all true?” Isaac asked.

  Around him, the grasping hands froze. The head stalk bent away, dragging the skull from his hand.

  “Did you really mean to kill me? Take my body? Use it to save yourself?”

  The ocean of bones rustled and cracked, like a gust of wind slicing through a bush. The skull looked away, shifting its eyeless sockets down to the floor.

  “This was all your fault,” Isaac said. “Everything. All of this—it’s because of you.”

  The human skull looked up, staring deeply into his face. Its jaw snapped, biting and snarling, fighting hard to speak.

  He took a step back, brushing his way through the thick nest of hugging arms, and the ocean of bones nearly shrieked in response. Dozens of arms reached for him, stretching their skeletal fingers, growing new arm bones at the base to stretch even further. A spilling cloud of corpses rushed for him.

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  An axe blade came smashing down. Half a dozen arms were smashed in half, spraying fingers and ossein. As Isaac took another step back, Zaria swung her polearm up, cleaving through a reaching tentacle of legs and spines. The entire mass shuddered back, reforming itself into softer shapes. All the arms retreated away like worms digging through dirt, rejoining the rest.

  Zaria snarled at the tide of bones. She stepped forward, teeth bared, and the mass squirmed against the pipes, fleeing up the wall like a swarm of bugs. Isaac held out a hand. She glanced at him, gave one last growl, and stepped back to his side. Her weapon remained ready and waiting.

  “Is that still your plan?” Isaac asked. “Are you still going to sacrifice me?”

  The head stalk had receded down to a few stubs of vertebrae. Slowly, it lengthened itself out of the central mass, just enough for the head to shake from side to side.

  “Am I supposed to believe you?”

  “Isaac,” the skull said. The voice was choking, and the tremble did not seem to be coming from the bone itself.

  He looked away, back towards the extraction chamber, the red stripes of the hanging standard. The point where his uncle had vanished off into the gloom.

  All his life, he had heard stories of his father. All his instructors had known him. They’d all been his friends. He had been told stories of his father’s bravery, his many expeditions into foreign lands. The many favors that his friends owed to him. His humor and cheer. His love for his wife. His excitement at her pregnancy. The plans and dreams he had for his son.

  And, of course, that had been part of the lie. A way to convince him of his mission. Maybe Berith had asked them to tell those stories. Maybe they had even been true. But it didn’t matter.

  He heard the crack and shuffle of bone. When he looked, his father had shifted the head stalk up through the substrate layer—the length of vertebrae coiled like a snake, far larger than a human spine should be. Below it, three arms grew from the bones. They flexed their skeletal fingers, as if testing the connections.

  Two of the arms moved close together. Slowly, with their fingers, they formed two halves of a semicircle, and then they pressed the halves together. The resulting shape was a heart. The third arm pointed its bony finger at the heart, then at Isaac. Above them all, the skull watched him with empty sockets.

  When Isaac didn’t react, the third arm pointed again at the heart, and then back at him.

  “Do you?” Isaac asked. “Do you really love me?”

  The skull nodded so hard that it broke free of the vertebrae, bouncing and rolling along the metal floor. A new skull stalk grew from the central mass, and the previous spine shattered into its base pieces, all the little vertebrae squirming back along the ground like a swarm of beetles.

  One of the arms pointed towards the end of the chamber, where his uncle had gone. Then, it pointed back at the central mass. Finally, all three of the arms shook back and forth, along with the skull stalk.

  “You’re not like Berith,” Isaac said, flatly.

  The skull nodded. The three arms stretched outwards—two of them drew a large circle in the air, and the third drew a triangle that pointed out of the circle.

  “Gettin’ real sick of this shite,” Zaria said. “Not sure how a pile of bones can go fuck itself, but I suggest you get trying.”

  The skull shook hard. It repeated the gesture. A large circle drawn in the air, and a triangle pointing out of it.

  “A sundial,” Isaac said. “Time.” He paused. “You’ve spent a lot of time down here.”

  The skull nodded vigorously, as if growing excited. It bent down, and one of the skeletal arms tapped a bony finger against the skull. Towards the brain.

  “You’ve spent that time thinking.”

  More nodding. The three arms began to move, but, after a moment, they stopped. The skull peered down at them, as if growing dissatisfied. Its jaw bone shook, letting out an angry hiss. After some hesitation, the skull looked at Isaac. The ancient bone only had empty orbitals, cracked from untold millennia, but the gaze was quite piercing despite its lack of eyes. Isaac received the distinct impression that it was trying to absorb as many details about him as possible.

  One of the arms pointed a finger at him. The other two arms moved back to the central mass and folded their forearms together, rocking back and forth, the same way one might cradle something to their chest. Then, the arms moved close to the floor—one arm used its hand to flap its thumb and fingers together, as if imitating someone talking, while the other arm used two of its fingers to imitate unsteady steps across the ground. Above, the third arm continued to point at him. The arms rose to around chest-height. With a surprising amount of dexterity, they began to mimic casting motions—elements, anti-necrotics. The movements were clumsy and out of practice, but unmistakable. All the same ones that he knew very well.

  Finally, the two arms rose to the same height that he stood now. Aligning themselves vertically, the two hands pressed together and shot themselves apart, spreading far away with a grand flourish, as if demonstrating a fearsome length. The two arms held themselves straight, then bent their elbows until their forearms were pointed up towards the ceiling, hands clenching into fists. They seemed to be trying to flex muscles they did not have—biceps, deltoids. The third arm had never stopped pointing at him.

  “Isaac,” the skull said. One of the arms tapped a finger against the brain case, then pointed a finger at him. “Isaac,” it said again, tapping a finger to itself and pointing at him.

  Isaac had to turn away and wipe his eyes.

  “That’s enough,” Zaria said. “Tell us so, right now—did you try to sacrifice your son?”

  For a long moment, the skull did not move. Then, slowly, it nodded.

  “Did you hold whatever horrors are buried here hostage in order to get that sacrifice?”

  Another nod came. It was as slight as a tremble.

  “Did you have your wife killed to sell the lie?”

  Immediately, the skull shook from side to side, the vertebrae almost snapping.

  “Sure. And we’re just supposed to believe that you’re feeling a little sad about the whole endeavor?”

  The skull looked between them. Below, two of the arms pressed their hands together, holding the fingers straight and the palms flat. It was the same gesture one might use to pray . . . or ask for forgiveness.

  “Oh, fuck off. Isaac, we’re done here. Let’s go.” She stepped over towards the door. “Get your shite out of my face!”

  The central mass squirmed away from the doors, all the limbs and pelvises moving like a spilling pile of tinder. Pipes groaned and clattered as the main body thickened and condensed along the wall of the chamber. The bronze doors were clear and open.

  Isaac didn’t move. The skull stalk bent itself into a C shape, gazing at him. The three arms all pointed a finger towards the door. They did not make any other gestures.

  “You’ll just let me leave?” Isaac asked.

  The skull looked away. It nodded.

  “You won’t try to stop me?”

  It shook from side to side, still avoiding his gaze.

  “Squire,” Zaria said, gesturing to the exit with her poleaxe. “Don’t make me drag you off.”

  He didn’t move. He stared at the skull until it finally met his gaze again. The bone was hollow, its open nasal cavity full of shadows. The teeth were alive in its jaws, wriggling like maggots.

  “Why did you attack us in the catacombs?” Isaac asked.

  The skull glanced at Zaria, then back at him. One of the arms raised two of its fingers. The skull clacked its jaws together, making a dry, hollow sound.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  The skull hesitated, looking down at its arms. After a moment of thought, two of the arms held themselves upwards, pointing out and straight, only meeting by the tips of their bony fingers. It looked like someone trying to dive into a lake. The third arm made various gestures below, mimicking the turning of knobs and the pressing of buttons.

  Over to the side, Zaria was giving him a very impatient look.

  “Wait,” Isaac said. “Is that . . . the soul-triangulator? The receiver, the dials?”

  The skull nodded vigorously. It repeated its earlier gesture—holding up two fingers while its jaws clacked together.

  “You’ve only spoken to Berith and the Diet twice.”

  Another nod. Two pinched fingers came to the mouth of the skull, sliding across the space where lips should be, as if sealing them shut.

  “You haven’t spoken to them otherwise.”

  A third nod.

  “So,” Isaac said, “you couldn’t stop this deal after it was made. They had to contact you first, and they didn’t. There was no way to take it back.”

  The skull didn’t move. It only looked at him.

  “What did Berith say to you the second time?”

  One of the arms pointed at him. It jerked and stiffened, holding its palm out, then slowly lowered itself down until it was hanging limp against the central mass.

  Isaac took a moment to answer. “Berith told you I was dead?”

  The skull stared at him for a long, silent moment. It gave a weak nod.

  “Guess he told you that he was coming, too. That was very honorable of him.”

  The skull shook hard. Behind it, the bone wall bristled and churned.

  Isaac wasn’t surprised by this. In fact, he could guess exactly how the conversation had gone. Berith would’ve berated his brother for everything he had done. Placing his son in his care, extorting ancient treasure to save his life. Telling him exactly what kind of betrayal was coming his way.

  He could hear the voice, clear as day. This is what you deserve.

  “So you weren’t expecting me to come anymore? You just didn’t recognize me?”

  A nod. One of the arms pointed at Zaria.

  “And you were expecting me to be alone.”

  Another nod. A hand cupped itself to the side of the skull, where the ear should’ve been.

  “You only recognized me afterward. Listening to our conversations.”

  Nodding again. The skull was growing closer, the vertebrae stalk shifting back and forth. Excited.

  “Then what about the sandwyrm? Was that you trying to protect me?”

  The skull nodded firmly. Two of the arms began to whack their forearms against each other, like swords clashing together.

  “Soren,” Isaac said. “The duel. That was your way of stopping it.”

  The pirate captain had been catching on to their ruse. She had flanked him with crossbowmen, and the rest of her crew had been ready to draw their weapons. If the dragon hadn’t been summoned, they likely wouldn’t have survived the encounter. His father had saved his life.

  “Alright. Final question.” He glanced behind him, through the ruined metal of the extraction chamber. Where Berith had disappeared in the dust and gloom. “What does the Diet want? Is it the treasure? The technology? The souls?”

  The skull shook its head.

  “Then what? Berith—Uncle—your brother said he refused the task until he was offered some reward buried in the tomb. What is it?”

  One of the arms shifted up the flattened bone wall, sliding along the nest of connections until it was perched at the top. It pointed a bony finger towards the wall of the chamber. Not at the pipes. The finger pointed at the colossal pelvis that the room was built inside of.

  “The giant skeleton?”

  The skull nodded. One of the other arms pointed toward the center of the chamber, at the device Berith had been working on. He remembered souls leaking from the metal. The third arm pointed diagonally into the floor. Towards the obelisk. He could still feel the rumbling in the floor. The distant sound of screams.

  His father looked at him with an eyeless gaze, as if that was all that needed to be said.

  And it was. The realization hit him like a blackpowder bomb.

  “He’s going to resurrect the skeleton,” Isaac said. “The Diet doesn’t care about the treasure. It’s the corpse. The one the tomb is built out of. This is the largest repository of soul energy in the world, and it’s enough to bring the corpse back to life.”

  He couldn’t imagine the scale of such a beast. He had spent the better part of three days journeying through its fleshless form, and he had only barely gone more than halfway through its length. It held a city in its bowels. It had once been the cradle of an entire empire. And now, if his uncle succeeded in his mission, it would walk once more.

  Nothing would be able to stop it. He who controlled such a colossal mountain of bone would be the terror of every army and kingdom in the world. The mere shadow of the creature emerging over the horizon would cause entire cities to flee in fear. They could smash any fiefdom or duchy that dared oppose them. They could hold every government hostage with just the threat of its deployment. And, with enough planning, resources, and ambition, they might even conquer the world.

  That would be worth killing for. That would certainly pay the price for fratricide.

  “We need to stop him,” Isaac said. “Him and the Archons. No one should have that kind of power.”

  The skull gave a firm nod.

  “Hold on,” Zaria said, moving back to his side. “You sayin’ that if your brother wins, then this titan’s gonna walk again?”

  Another nod from the skull.

  “I—” Her eyes roamed over the vast curve of the pelvis, as if it was the first time she had truly appreciated its size. “Fuck me. That’s world-ending shite, isn’t it?”

  Both him and his father nodded.

  She blew a raspberry, for lack of a better expression. “Well, my greed’s looking rather paltry now. Gods above.”

  Isaac stared into the eye holes of the skull. Behind it, the wall-covering mass expanded outwards, coming forward out of the pipes. The movement was slow and cautious, like the approach of a stray dog. The skull remained still. Waiting.

  The decision came easier than he expected. “I trust him.”

  “What?” Zaria took a step towards him, never shifting her weapon away from the bone wall. “How the fuck you swinging that?”

  “Watch.” He stepped forward. The skull stalk coiled back. “If I don’t interfere, Berith’s going to kill you. He will win. Right?”

  The skull took a moment to nod.

  “Then why did you to tell me to leave? You’re going to die without me.”

  Below the skull, two of the other arms formed a heart with their fingers. The third arm pointed at the heart, then at him.

  “You’d seal your own fate—let the Diet get their giant monster—just so I’d have the chance to escape?”

  The skull gave a single, firm nod. Again, the third arm pointed at the heart, then at him.

  “There you go,” Isaac said. “That’s why.”

  “Have you gone mad in the head? All I’ve been hearing from this puppet show is the ways he’s been trying to kill you. Is attempted murder gonna be your basis for friendship?”

  “I trust him.”

  “Well, I’d sooner suck a sandwyrm through my cunt than do the same. You’re the only noble exception in the whole bloodline, far as I’m concerned.”

  He took a deep breath, then turned to face her. “Z. The deal’s off.”

  She blinked down at him.

  “Neither of us are going to get the treasure,” Isaac said. “The only way we were ever hauling it out of here was through the help of the Diet, and they’re not going to let us have it. They’re going to send assassins after me. I’m going to be a fugitive for the rest of my life. You will be, too, if you stay here.”

  She glanced back at the shattered machinery. “Aye. Was thinking that way, as well.”

  “You should leave. Go somewhere else. Somewhere far away.”

  “Still being hunted, aren’t I? Where am I supposed to go? Nowhere to hide out in them dunes. It’s a death sentence up there as much as here.” She tilted her axe at him. “What are you doing, even? You understand this mission was a fraud, don’t you? You got no obligations to it.” She glared at his father. “It was wrong, what happened to you.”

  The skull slithered back, the central mass deflating towards the floor.

  “I know,” Isaac said. “This is my decision. I’m not leaving. I’m going to make sure no one ever claims what’s in this tomb. I’ll make sure this skeleton never walks again. And I’ll kill my uncle to do so, if need be.” He glanced at the mass of bones behind him. “No idea what I’ll do after that, but I’ll figure it out later.”

  She tried to laugh, but it didn’t quite work. Her ears were twitching, folding back.

  “You should leave,” he said. “You already have a target on your back. There’s no reason to paint a second one.”

  “Does that mean you don’t want to be my squire no more?”

  “I never was.”

  “Oh, aye? What’s next? Gonna tell me rain ain’t wet? That flowers ain’t pretty, and mead ain’t sweet? Next you’ll say the sun won’t rise.”

  “Zaria—”

  “You and I. Squire and knight. Most natural thing in the world. Fitting beyond words. Ain’t been a better pairing since cock and cunt.”

  “By the gods,” Isaac said, “you are the most exhausting person I’ve ever met in my life.”

  She managed to laugh this time.

  “Let me be clear. I have not enjoyed your presence. I have been subjected to it.”

  Her laugh grew louder.

  “It never ends with you. ‘Oh, squire, tell me of your childhood. Squire, fetch my rations. Squire, heal my wounds. Squire! Squire! Squire!’” He let out a growling breath. “Never once have I missed peace and quiet more than when I hear you speak.”

  She slapped the pommel of her poleaxe to the floor, grinning wide.

  “Look,” Isaac said. “I—” He stopped, meeting her gaze. “I’m very glad I met you. And not just because I would’ve died, otherwise. It was, without a doubt, the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Daggers, rope, and all.” He paused. “But I. . . .”

  She watched him, silent.

  “I want you to stay,” he said. “But I won’t ask you to. Leaving is your best choice.” He gave a weak shrug. “Like you said out in the desert—a little bit of coin isn’t worth anyone’s life.”

  She looked at him for a moment. She glanced behind her, eyes roaming over the ruins of the extraction chamber, coasting her vision up and across the massive wings of the pelvis. She looked forward again, watching the squirming wall of corpses that was his father. Finally, she looked at the open bronze doors. Her axe glinted in the light.

  “Squire,” Zaria said, “can I be honest with you?”

  “You can call me a different name, first.”

  “You’ve always reminded me of my little brother. Littlest one, to be specific. We called him Lem. Little Lem.”

  Isaac looked down at his tattered robes. He had lost a lot of weight since the start of his journey.

  “Not my real brother, mind, just another urchin my father let in off the street. Looked like he’d never been off it before. He was human—like you—same sorta hair and skin. Had little dartin’ eyes. Flinched at every sudden move. Must’ve been sick as a babe ‘cause half his face was yellow and sunken, like bruised fruit. Never spoke a word. None of us were sure if whatever sickness he’d had prevented him from doing so, and or if it was just choice on his part. Either way, we never got a proper name out of him. Thus, he was Lemon, on account of his face, or just Lem, for short.”

  She scratched her chin, gazing into the floor.

  “Course, I was the oldest, and that meant I was in charge of keeping all the young beasts in line. Making sure they were feed, clothed, not pinched by the guards. I’d make rounds, roaming around the usual haunts, tracking ‘em through alleys and shops. Has to be that way with pickpockets. Out of all of them, Lem was the hardest to find. You would not see a hair of him if he didn’t want you to. Sometimes, I’d catch him hiding out in the rafters above the shop, and he’d hardly look different than the rats.

  “Anyway, the rounds were always the same. Bringing them food, asking them what’s good, telling them if father or I was getting a windfall of coin and we could maybe buy some clothes, medicine, what have you. With Lem, you know, it was like feeding a stray dog. He’d look at you real suspicious, approach very cautious-like, nab it from your hands, and scamper back off to the shadows. Always acted like I was seconds away from slitting his throat, like he’d never once experienced kindness before, and he’d long since stopped looking for it from anyone. The yellow on his face went to his eye, and the mismatched pair would always look real sharp at me, no matter what. Never seemed to believe I wasn’t playing some trick on him.

  “Still, that was my duty, and I took it serious. Rain or shine, I’d track that little shite down and hand him some bread. I’d ask him if he needed something, and he’d look back all fierce, like he was daring me to spot some weakness. I’d drag him off to get his clothes patched if I saw any holes. I’d often have to haul him over to a sawbones to fix some scrapes from a fight. Once, I had to pin him down and shave his head for the lice, and I’ve never once had such a vicious struggle from another creature. Nothing would ever change with him, is what I’m saying. This went on for months. Every day. Neither of us were droppin’ our stubbornness toward each other, and I never once got a word of thanks out of him. But, hey, that was alright. He stayed alive. That’s what counts.

  “Except, one day, no different than the others, I’m walking through a back alley, and I see Lem waitin’ for me. This was my own secret route—case of emergencies sorta thing—and so I knew right away he must’ve followed me some days before. Second I lay eyes on him, he rushes forward, thrusts something in my hand, hugs me tight ‘round the waist, and disappears down the alley. Fast as a blink. I open my hand, and there was this little flower sitting inside. It was glowing. Real pretty. Some magic plant, probably nicked from a greenhouse in the mage district. Not something he’d come by on accident.”

  She opened her hand, staring into the palm.

  “After that—fuck me, it was like a switch had thrown. I’d catch him playing games with the other siblings, and I guess they liked him well enough to stop mocking his face. He started contributing to the family fund, and, by Xotra, that little cunt could earn better than the rest of us. Never seen so much coin on such a little brat. I’d still do my rounds with him, but most of the time he’d come to me himself, make it easier—even helped deliver the loaves, couple times. I’d chat with him, no different than normal.” She laughed. “Oh, he hated me teasing him. Got real prickly about it. Course, that just meant I had to keep doing it. He never spoke a word, never hugged me again, but I could earn a smile, here and there.”

  She looked his way for a moment, and he could tell she wasn’t really seeing him. Her gaze was far away.

  “When you live a life like I do, you make a lot of excuses for it. It’s the way the world is. It’s self-defense. You got no choice. Better you than them. And, tell the truth, it is survival most of the time. Can’t negotiate with a hungry belly. Still, none of them words ever helped me sleep at night. I’d get to thinking about—well, what was I doing being alive? What kind of value was I adding to the world? If I was to die, then and there, could anyone really say it was such a bad thing? Was I just a burden on others, always taking and never giving?”

  Her fingers tapped against the haft of her weapon.

  “I dunno,” Zaria said. “I lost that flower, of course—didn’t have no chance to take it when I was sold for coin. Still, when I had it, I’d look at it some nights, watching it glow, and I’d get this feeling in my chest. I knew that if someone got in my face and called me a thief and asked what good I’d ever done for anybody, then I could just point right at that flower. I could tell them that there was this human boy named Lem, and he’d known naught but a life of suffering, and I’d managed to turn him into something like a happy kid again, all ‘cause I’d refused to give up on him.”

  She glanced at his father. The bones had all rested still, like a mass grave hung up on a wall.

  “Still don’t know what I want to do with my life, now that I’m no longer a pirate. But, after thinkin’ on it for a while, I do know one thing. I want that feeling back again. I want to have something that I can point to and be proud of. I want some evidence that my life has actually made a good difference in the world.”

  Isaac waited for a moment. “So . . . ?”

  “So,” Zaria said, hefting her axe, “let’s get going already. Your uncle’s gaining a lead on us as we speak.”

  Something odd happened to him. He blushed again, as he always did, but this blush was different. He felt it inside his chest and stomach, and it was both a burning and cooling sensation, a spreading warmth that sent chills across his skin. His knees began to feel weak, and his heart pounded in his chest. It was the first time in his life that he had ever felt this way, and it only got worse as he looked at her.

  Outwardly, he merely nodded, doing his best to clamp down on his smile, and turned back to the mound of bones. “Father?”

  The skull stalk reared back, as if surprised that attention had returned to it. Below it, all three of the arms pointed to the side, towards the open bronze doors. They bent out and repointed themselves, as if to emphasize the direction.

  “I’m not leaving,” Isaac said.

  The skull bent down close to him, enough that he could see the cracks in its empty orbitals, the ossification of the frontal plate. “Isaac.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  His mind was still a chaos of emotion. Anger, shock, grief, and betrayal. He doubted that he would ever lose the emotions entirely. They were the kind that would follow him for the rest of his life.

  But, now, he felt ready to face those emotions, the same way he had faced every single threat that had crossed his path on the long march of his journey. He glanced back at Zaria, and her only response was a single nod, and he knew, in his heart, that he needed to see nothing else. He was ready.

  “We’re going to stop him,” Isaac said.

  The jaw of the skull lowered, as if it would try to speak. But, after a moment of staring into his face, it closed its skinless mouth, and it gave only a single nod.

  There was a rage burning inside of him. It was not an inferno anymore. It felt like a sword that had just been pulled from the maw of a blacksmith’s forge—glowing hot, deadly to touch, but molded into shape. Pointed and sharp. Ready to hammer down until it was as strong as steel.

  “Right,” he said. “It won’t be easy. Berith’s a necromancer, and he has dozens of thralls. If we can—”

  “Hold on. Need to clear something.”

  Zaria stepped toward the mound of bodies. She reached out a hand, cupped it to Isaac’s chest, and pushed him backwards in a curving arc. She did not start speaking until she was standing squarely between him and his father.

  “Listen here, you sack of shite.”

  The ocean of bones flinched.

  “Your son may be trusting you, but I’m not. I’ll need to see a lot of evidence to the contrary before I start believing you’re not pretending to be remorseful. If I smell a single hint of treachery, if you so much as part a single hair on my squire’s head, then I’ll be sucking the marrow from every last one of your bones. Are we clear?”

  The skull nodded very fast. Below it, the three arms held their palms up, as if being robbed at knifepoint.

  “Good. With that being said. . . .” She cleared her throat. “I, uh—I’m sorry for fucking your son. In front of you, I mean.”

  “Zaria!”

  “What? He’s been watching us since we got here. He’s seen everything we’ve done. Might need to clear our union with your sire, don’t you think?”

  The skull stalk reared back like a sandwyrm. It nodded up and down in wide, firm oscillations.

  “That’s your approval, then?”

  A graveyard worth of arms squirmed out of the central mass. They held themselves out straight, closed their bony fingers into a fist, and raised their thumbs. Dozens of arms lining a mashed wall of corpses, all giving a thumbs up.

  Isaac thought he might die of embarrassment.

  “Well,” Zaria said, grinning wide, “best permission to fuck I’ve ever seen. Think he’ll give me some bone thralls as a dowry?”

  “Ivtarr, gods above, strike me down, please.”

  She slapped him on the back. “Three merry band of men, we are. On our way, then. World-ending cunts to kill and all that. Come on, you—” She paused, looking at his father. “Hold on. Never got your name, actually.”

  The skull looked to Isaac.

  “Cain,” Isaac said. “His name is Cain.”

  Zaria bowed. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, then. Fine son you got here.”

  Cain, through the skull, gave a firm nod. Somewhere below the earth, in the device that trapped his soul, he imagined his father was smiling.

  Isaac marched through the extraction chamber, towards the sound of screams and rumbling. To his left walked a hyena pirate who had taken him hostage not three days prior, and, to his right, there crawled a legion of bone that clattered and hissed like an army of death.

  He felt like nothing could stop him.