Page 143 of Requiem of Silence

“Do you promise no hard feelings?” she whispers. Movement in your periphery catches your attention. The girl-queen. You will not make the same mistake twice where she is concerned.

“I promise.”

A blast of Earthsong shoots toward you from the side. Potentbut clumsy. You bat away the charge and give the girl-queen a withering glare.

“Your protégécould use some manners.”

Oola lifts a shoulder. “She is young. And headstrong.”

You sigh, and deflect new blasts from the child coming in a swift stream. The glint of a knife peeks out from Oola’s fist. You can no longer read the expressions on her implacable face, but disappointment fills you. Her emotions are still well shielded, but—there. A glimpse of remorse in her eyes.

A vein in her neck pops forward as she tightens her fist.

“I will give you some more time to think on my offer,” you say, taking a step back.

Surprise registers on her face. She expected you to strike.

And so you do, but not in the way she expects. A mental direction calls forth the regiment of waiting wraiths. They pour from their hiding places, racing down the gangplanks of ships and out of the shadows of destroyed buildings. Nearly one hundred strong, overwhelming the tiny force before you. Two Singers, Yllis—whose wraith form you cannot control, interestingly enough—and a handful of swarthy foreigners carrying oil canisters.

Pathetic.

As the wraiths converge, you lift yourself into the air on a controlled current of wind. Your sister spares you a glance before returning her focus to the battle before her.

Family has often been disappointing. But she will come around.

Once you are king again, she will have no other choice.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

If Harmony were tangible, would you

embrace it?

Hold it to your bosom, safe and secure?

What we value, we protect,

and yet we continue to neglect

that which needs so much care and nurturing.

—THE HARMONY OF BEING

The new wraiths were motionless; the only sound coming from the cemetery was the whistle of a chilling wind. Goose bumps pebbled on Kyara’s flesh.

Mooriah stepped up to her side. “The spirits are leaving other hosts to converge here,” the woman said. “The Earthsingers will have no effect on these new things as they are not alive.”

As if called by her words, Darvyn arrived, running with the wind at his back so he glided across the ground, nearly flying. He punched his arm forward, toward the waiting horde, and a red lightning strike shot out into a wraith standing fifty paces away. The thing did not react at all. It stood stone-faced, still waiting.

Darvyn attacked again and again, shooting blasts of energy into more of the creatures. Kyara sank into her other sight and redirected her avatar. It tore spirits from the unmoving bodies, releasing them from possession only to have the corpses retaken again and transform.

She opened her eyes again in the real world. “The selakki oil?”

Darvyn nodded and turned to grab a canister from a Raunian warrior, who led the group accompanying the Nethersingers. Kyara ejected another spirit and Darvyn let a stream of oil fly through the air to coat the body. The hovering spirit just darted away, toward the back of the cemetery to find another host.

“We don’t have enough oil,” the young man said. “Not for every corpse in that cemetery.” The graves stretched out for thousands of paces. He was right.

The wraiths began to move, shuffling into a cluster at the edge of the burial ground. Whereas up until now, they’d all been foreign—Yalyish they’d assumed—now there were a startling number of Elsiran faces along with some Lagrimari.

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