At first, all I could tell was that the chamber was dark and I was alone. I stood with some hesitance, my gut doing twists and head thick with the sludge of new consciousness. As if I’d been locked away for centuries again. But as I straightened and observed my surroundings with cautious trepidation, I saw that this was no mere room but my own Grand Observatory. The massive, sweeping bronze rings above, the platform docked at the ground, the lingering taste of power. But it was a faded power, an ancient power. It was not the Observatory of my memory but one of a later, more time-worn age. Years after the attack? Decades? Centuries? I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that it was no longer mine, but belonging only to memory and the elements of the world around it. Coarse, dark sand and dust lay in windswept drifts across the floor, joining dark, empty puddles like something from a subterranean cave system.

  “What Souls have brought me here?” I asked aloud, turning on my heel to survey the interior.

  For a moment, silence. The kind of an empty temple when you cock your head, listening for a whisper of divination that will never come. I’d killed and created long enough to know the gods never intervened for or against me. And here, in that sacred moment of pause, the eternal silence, an answer was provided.

  “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, SORCERER?” came the dark hiss, deep as grinding earth fissures, furious as a godly reprisal. A great shadow loomed over me, one of power and strength.

  I looked up at it, withstanding its impossible pressure and influence with a squinted glare. “Do you feel it? The cold?”

  “WHAT IS THIS?”

  Ah, there it is. Fear. I took a step toward the being. The costume. “What is your true identity? What Souls are present in this monstrosity before me?”

  The thing lashed out at me—not with physical force, but one that was temporal, gravitational. I felt called to bend and prostrate myself.

  “The arrogance in you. Vasian priests, then? Old princes, perhaps?” I wheezed in a new breath, straining against the weight, glaring up. “You will no longer have Emalia to torment, and for the time you can survive within me, I shall be your new vessel.”

  “RETURN US TO HER. RETURN US NOW!” it demanded. Its voice was fraying, separating into the fragments of identities that originally made up the mass of Soul influence.

  “Who were you? And how do you know of me?”

  Again, it applied an impossible pressure upon me, and it took all I had not to collapse under the weight. “You cannot make demands of me, of us, Pethyan.” Its voice shifted from one of a god to that of a discordant group, each vying to be heard, their message all the same. An illusion broken.

  “Oh, but I can.” I smiled with gritted teeth and bulging, dark veins. “See, I let myself become your vessel, and in your greed you took it, but this new home of yours is a tainted one, a Corrupted one. Specifically, the part of me nearly destroyed by your people here, centuries ago. Do you appreciate the irony of your predicament?” I began to laugh.

  It went to bark something imperious and demanding back, but seemed to stop in horrified realization that I had not bluffed. In fact, the very disintegration of its collective self made my claim’s truth evident enough. “You will free us?”

  “I will, but only if I am satisfied with your thoroughness.”

  Though I expected greater resistance, it seemed desperation was an effective motivator. “We are High Priests from a similar age, it is true. All of us bound and sealed for our knowledge of the Reaving.”

  “I am not familiar with this Reaving. Enlighten me.”

  “You should be,” a distinct voice said, momentarily separate from the whole. “You caused it, Daecius Aspartes.”

  Another said, “And it was us who organized, coordinated, and executed the spearheading mission. Who did what so many others could not.”

  “Explain!”

  They did, in a torrent of voices, each following the other in rapid succession. “Your Dead killed our priests, half our army, and destroyed the western coastline.”

  “Your buffer kingdoms, tribespeople in the mountains, our border territories, Pethya itself.”

  “You ravaged it with more Dead ever fielded, all without the caution and humanity of a human general. All without bindings of political and humane sensibilities!”

  “They slaughtered and ruined. Are you proud of yourself, Daecinus Aspartes? Are you proud of your grand defense of Pethya? Your resistance to us?”

  The voices, many, the same, few, they struck like fists against a cracking skull. I stood there, still, not breathing, staring. “Impossible,” I whispered. “They would have been chained to my intention, to my orders…”

  “Were your orders for the destruction and ruin of more land than has ever been brought by war or famine? For a spiraling madness that required Sorcerous blight brought on by dozens of circles of priests to put a stop to?” It groaned, somewhere between a great tree in a storm and a hungering Shell. “Now free us! We have answered your questions!”

  Even in my absence, such Dead should have been bound to instruction. But I hadn’t died, had I? I was Corrupted, muted, sequestered, rendered unconscious and nonresponsive—did this change things? Could that change have fundamentally altered my control of the Dead? To this day, perhaps Dead still roam, once under my will, roaming on frontiers as the Dead seemed to do now? Regardless, it didn’t matter anymore. I had failed in more ways that I could have ever feared. Even if they were lying, stretching the truth to their ends, I believed their tale of Pethya, and even if I didn’t, I would soon find such information here in this city to say otherwise. I was sure of it.

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  “Free us now!” the voices boomed.

  I looked up at their mass, at their acts of intimidation. These priests. These enemies. “No,” I said. “You will feast on Corruption and boil away like rot under the desert sun.”

  They screamed, howled, and protested like frightened, angry children, but I pulled myself from their vision and stopped holding back the waves of destructive Corruption. In one decisive crash, the Souls withered, died, and the black-veined stretch of my flesh should fade to a far more manageable state. I sat up and yanked at my sleeve, staring in the green glow of the portal room, head swimming with boiling water and rusty nails. There were only traces of Corruption now. I pulled at my tunic to study my side. The original point of contact was still dark and sinister, but the flesh around it was nearly healed. So the gambit worked, then, I thought, an empty smile upon my lips. It was hardly a true victory. Or, at least, it was soiled by the undeniable and crushing truth of my people.

  “Daecinus?” a voice rasped.

  Emalia was beside me, looking hardly better than I felt. She was on her knees and quite close. Then I realized why. She was bent over, hovering over me as if to shield me from Protis, though my creation was still and watching. Its strange, deathly face, pallid and still, was a visage of patient attentiveness with a distant threat of violence buried beneath.

  “It is I,” I said to Protis.

  Its head cocked, and for a terrible moment I thought it might decide differently. And then it grunted and swiveled to face the hall. Sounds of battle echoed in.

  Though I wished to sit there and let it all fall away, people were depending on me. Real ones. Alive ones. “Go. I will call the others.” Protis went, and I did just that, pushing past the portal’s influence with some effort. With my empowered Sorcery from the bracers and diadem, I spread my will out, ensuring all four Soulborne rushed to the livings’ aid. My control was no more fine, but it was far more potent. The previous limitations of raw Sorcerous power were shackles upon a warrior’s wrists, and with them, possibility was constrained. But now, I flexed the extent of my range and strength like thick, powerful muscles. My Corruption, stymied as it was by my scheme with the priests’ Souls, would still be a problem should I push too far. But I was familiar with the sensation, and so I would be careful. Risks were necessary, yes, but survival was paramount to accomplish anything.

  I stood with Emalia’s help and hobbled to the edge of the chamber overseeing the city, shambling like a Shell. It was still day out, though the sky was clouded.

  “Did you see him?” she asked, voice quiet and probing, rough from her possession.

  “I saw the Souls. They failed to hold a consistent form.”

  “And they told you of Pethya?”

  “They did.”

  “I’m sorry.” Her supportive hand squeezed my arm comfortingly. “The Souls… what happened? Do you feel them?”

  “I fed them my Corrupted half,” I replied, staring out over the city, feeling my physical strength returning. “Given that the Corruption is still present, I can only assume it destroyed them.”

  “Raizak above.”

  “A bold move—I know.” The festering courtyard of the keep had hundreds of Shells shuffling inwards, funneling into the tower. An impossible fight, even in a narrow hall with Soulborne aid. It was only a matter of time until the defense was lost. I would have to make my move soon.

  Emalia must have seen it too, for she gasped and stumbled back, turned, and made for the chamber’s exit to the hall.

  “You will not be able to assist,” I said.

  She stopped, shaking and pale. “We need to do something!”

  “We will. Tell me all you know of this broken portal.”

  …

  Oskar’s shield wall had retreated a good few paces, yet more Dead were coming. Even with the Soulborne ripping and tearing at the mass of them, it still wasn’t enough. There were simply too many. They piled up in front, creating a mound the others scrambled over to attack down upon his men. They bunched up and pushed, creating a wall with enough strength to break his own. Fortunately, the archers behind stopped flinging arrows and drew blades to assist, adding their weight to his crumbling wall. Oh, what he’d give for another score of professionals right about then. His own left hand, probably.

  “Another step!” he shouted. “On three!”

  The men gave a few more ferocious hacks as he counted out loud. Then on three, they all stepped back a full pace to let the pressed Dead stumble forward into hand-forged death. At the same time, Protis, knee-deep in gore and bisected parts, roared something out, then leaped out to slam into a mass of Dead just before Oskar. He nearly stumbled back in surprise but barely held himself there. It took some fucking balls too, if you’d ask him. Wasn’t every day you fought side-by-side with a Greyskin-look-alike.

  “Soulborne take middle,” the towering thing grunted.

  Oskar nodded and shuffled back, letting the other Soulborne fill in his place. Though Protis lacked a shield to protect itself and others, it was big and strong enough that one would probably just slow the fucker down. Soon, the other three Soulborne joined in, filling out the center so his men could transition into two proper ranks, the injured and exhausted taking the rear. But everyone was tired. Tired to their bones. Even Feia, usually of little help in times like this, where a hard press and sharp iron were the only ways of doing things, had joined in with a pike she’d scavenged from somewhere, jamming it over the heads of the others, thrusting Dead flesh with unsurprising ferocity. She wasn’t a soldier, but damn him to Neapoli if she wasn’t a mean fighter. Of course, he already knew that though.

  “Emalia!” he hollered over his shoulder, voice cracking partway through. “How’s Daecinus doing? Up and breathing?”

  “The Soulborne are fighting, so he is conscious,” Feia replied with a wicked grin—she’d not taken the news of what the crazy bastard had done quite well, but then again, she didn’t seem too worried he’d actually die.

  Still, the man himself responded quickly enough from the portal room, “Working on a solution. Keep up a fighting retreat.”

  “I hear you there.” Oskar pulled one of his men back and took his place, hacking off a Shambler’s arm with a chop so clean he nearly grinned. But he was too tired, too sore, too fucking scared to smile. The hall was full of Dead. They were losing ground, and soon, would be losing numbers.

  We could retreat to the portal room, he thought, then dismissed the idea. Only thing worse than a last stand was one where hungry Souls were trying to burrow into a frightened, desperate mind. He shivered and bashed out with his shield, creating some more space for his blade to do its gods-praised work. Something he’d done a dozen times now, but if there was one good thing about fighting Dead, it was that they were predictable.

  He expected a whole cluster of Greyskins to appear at the stairs just then, barrelling down the hall just to spite him. But none did. This time, he did grin—even if only for a moment, looking like a corpse with rigor mortis more than anything. But still, it was good. It meant the fear was still weak. Still a distance away from overpowering. It was when that old friend took over that he found it near impossible to do anything but run. Not a good trait in a leader. Not honorable or glorious. But those types never lost a battle and saw what happened to the loser.

  So Oskar held firm and cut and stabbed and shouted nonsense murder words, buying time until fear took over again. Until the constant wave of Dead was just too much to handle. Until one of the men was pulled down and torn to pieces and everything went to shit. Because it would. He knew it. And to the screams of his dying warriors, he knew, somewhere in his worn, pessimistic heart, he’d run.