Page 128 of Deadly Maiden

Maybe?

I take back my curse. What if we, I, could do that?

Asher aka Kyvin stands in the doorway, silent, unaware of my fussing and my shock.

“I’d ask your opinion, but I’m not sure it would help either of us?” Still, I go up to him and then I do ask, “If I could make you a man again, alive again, would you want me to do that?”

He blinks four times, and I’m counting blinks like this answer actually means something. Then he says, “Yes.” The grated word is louder than his normal volume, and I take a startled step backward.

“Well.” I suck in a long breath, feeling my nostrils flare. “Then we should try.”

Certainly, no one would ever allow an undead to rule them. But Asher Stryke, a live, functioning man? Maybe?

Questions would be thrown at him. Like where in hell did you come from?

Kyvin…no, it’s Asher. Must remember that. Asher turns away and wanders down an aisle between the slabs.

This probably won’t be feasible.

I’m torn as to whether to try. Two other samples are in here.Donder S. I squint at the second label. “Harrod? Is that you, Harrod, whoever you are? Okay. We could try with you two first.” I have no attachment to these dead men. I don’t have their undead bodies, either, but surely that won’t matter? I only need to reverse the dying…on some undead to trial this. Inject the imprinted darkthing into the brain, meld it into one structure. I visualize it spreading in tiny filaments through the brain, like a fungus through a dark forest, and I’m suddenly eager to try this.

Except Asher has to look like Asher.

If it works, I need to make Asher alive again, after being dead twenty years. Start small with someone newly dead? And who is going to deliver themselves for that to happen to them?

I close the door and stroll toward the front, thinking, wondering about this unearthly road I am contemplating.

It feels like a boulder starting to roll downhill. Like an explosion frozen and slowed down but ready to brighten the world with its stark destruction. Like dragon flame newly spawned as a tiny ember in the dragon’s mouth. If there is a prophecy, this is the one, this is it. Not princesses, not dragons, but a prince with a throne as yet unclaimed.

His brother, Jannik, lives but his sanity and ability to rule would be questionable.

So would be the abilities of a resurrected man.

I contort my face, mouth twisting. “Yep. This is impossible.”

When I emerge from the lower level, the sun is descending. Night slowly falls while I sit on the step before the front silver door. And I am still alone.

Out here, what I saw in that room seems a dream. I retreat to the bedroom.

When morning comes around, I’ve been awake for the past few hours, restless, pacing the corridors. My main problem, now that Rorsyd still has not appeared, is that I’m penned in by those enforcers. I cannot fly out of here, or ride, if I even had a horse.

Unless I command the undead to overrun the encampment?

I dress and arm myself, choke down some food in a dead-dry throat. Then I go out the gate to study the road by which we arrived. I guess I have to take a chance. No horse. No dragonshifter. And a stomach churning with worry. As I advance, Asher appears at my side, having somehow caught up despite his shuffling, awkward gait. Then Anathema appears and bounces along with us.

“Reinforcements?” I smile at them both. “The Terrible Trio?”

“Yes. We come.” Asher smiles the creepy smile of an undead.

“Thank you. Both of you.”

Slowly, I spread my arms, position my palms upward, then raise my arms to the heavens. Faces turn, and their feet shift in the dirt. They follow me, my shambling, groaning crowd of the lost.

I bring with us an entourage of the undead, though we three are at the pinnacle of this scattered, slow-moving triangle. From above it would look pretty horrible. I look back, to left and right, at my small army with their scrambled-egg faces and shattered bodies.

Ugly, but they are mine.

If we have to, we can fight. I loosen my sword in the scabbard as we near the site where they camped. Three tents remain, half toppled, with two enforcers who retreat slowly, and a tall woman in a purple, hooded tunic and leggings, who stands beside a pale gray mare. Her face is covered in purple script and tiny scars, and her long brunette hair is gathered in a translucent strip of cloth that flutters in the breeze.

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