leaned forward with his burden to keep from falling off. When they reached the crest, the nightmare stopped and, with a startled cry, reared in the air.
Ashok surged forward to grab the stallion’s neck. His hands brushed the enchanted necklace-it was hot, nearly hot enough to blister flesh. The magic strained to keep the nightmare’s true nature in check.
It will burn out soon, Ashok realized. The necklace won’t last the journey to Rashemen.
He would have to deal with that later. For now, he worked to keep the beast from bolting down the hill and leaving them trampled on the plain. After several minutes of curses, cajoling, and threats with his chain, Ashok got the nightmare to keep its four feet on the ground. Only then could he begin to take in what had upset the stallion so violently.
Behind him, the man loosened his grip on Ashok’s waist and looked over his shoulder across the valley.
“We arrived in time,” he said, and there was such profound relief in his voice that it almost distracted Ashok from the sight of the vast army spread below them.
Men and women on horseback, armed for battle, rode in ranks as if they’d been born on the back of a horse.
There must have been thousands. The ghosts of the Tuigan invaders prepared to follow their leader into battle. Ashok saw the wild exultation on their faces as they slapped blades and rode their horses side by side.
In the distance, a horn blared. The riders shouted in answer and formed into lines. Their horses reared and neighed in frenzy, eager to run. The nightmare quivered beneath Ashok. The call to battle had infected him.
“Time to go,” the man said. “Will you ride with me, Palum?”
Ashok surveyed the steep slope into the valley. It would be a punishing ride, getting down to the army. He grinned and dug his heels into the nightmare’s flank.
The beast took off at a dangerous gallop. Ashok leaned all the way back in his seat, grinding his legs into the nightmare’s body to keep his balance. Snow and mud flew up around them. Ashok’s teeth clamped together painfully at the jarring motions. Fire burned in his muscles. Then, with a final, wild leap, they were in the valley and riding among the ghost horses and the Tuigan warriors. They saluted him with blades thrust in the air as he rode into their midst.
A fierce cry ripped from Ashok’s throat. The roar of hoofbeats deafened him. The charging army was a furious storm tearing across the plain to meet its fate. Come what may, the riders were together, and in that breath, they were invincible. Ashok lost himself in that feeling of wholeness, just as he’d once done among the shadar-kai dancers in Ikemmu. Now he was a man among ghosts, but they looked at him and saw-what? Not a shadar-kai but a warrior-his soul marked him as one of their own.
They rode out of the valley and into blinding snow. Ashok’s vision blurred. He raised a hand to see in the darkness, but there was no path to follow. Reluctantly, he reined in the nightmare and forced him to stop. When the wind died enough that he could see again, Ashok realized the ghost army was gone. He felt behind him, but his passenger had vanished as well.
Ashok slid off the nightmare’s back and walked a few paces back toward the valley. There were no hoofprints, no signs to mark the horde of invaders as ever having existed.
He retraced his steps on foot, leading the nightmare. After only a few minutes, he came upon the stone cairn and the dark form of Ilvani crouched in the snow. Ashok sat down beside her and left the nightmare to rest.
He had too many questions, so he asked the most obvious first. “How did I get back here so quickly?”
Ilvani regarded him somberly. “I told you. You traveled fast but not far. At the end, he was so close to his army. He just needed a guide.”
“I touched a spirit tonight,” Ashok said. He looked at his hands. He hadn’t put his gloves back on after touching Ilvani. “I didn’t know it was possible to feel the touch of an undead thing without it corrupting my flesh.”
“They do corrupt,” Ilvani said. “But they do it insidiously-one small touch, then another and another.”
“They’re restless. They pull and grab and overwhelm you,” Ashok said, understanding at last what she meant. “It’s enough to drive a person mad.”
“So they call me.”
“There’s power in your gifts,” Ashok said. “I’ve seen it and not just tonight.”
She looked at him curiously. Ashok put his hands on the cairn where the Tuigan warrior’s bones lay. Two worlds overlapping.
“Eight months ago, when I was imprisoned in the caves, waiting for the shadows to take me, I dreamed …” It was hard for Ashok to speak of it, even after so many months. “I saw my father and”-he would not say Reltnar’s name in front of her, not ever again-“others I’ve killed. They waited to take my soul. Then you came to me in the dark. You drove back the shadows.”
Ilvani gave him a sympathetic look. “It wasn’t me.”
“No. I wanted it to be you-I still feel when I look at you that there’s a connection.”
“It’s safer to think that,” Ilvani said. “He knows that, as well as we do. That’s why He takes different shapes-me, Natan-he takes the pieces he needs and puts them on like puppets on the hand. The game isn’t fair.”
Ashok nodded, acknowledging her words, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe them, not entirely. It wasn’t just that he didn’t want to accept the weight of Tempus’s presence in his life. Ilvani
How easily everything could have fallen apart-for himself and for Ikemmu. The shadar-kai constantly stood on the edge of oblivion in more than one sense.
“Daruk was right,” Ashok said.
Ilvani scowled. “About what?”
“That it might all fall apart-Ikemmu, Uwan’s dreams for the city, and the shadar-kai. Tomorrow it could all be gone, and I wouldn’t be able to stop it.” He feared the fate of the city he’d come to call his home, but if Ikemmu fell, it would not represent the worst of his nightmares. As always, he had only to look to that beast of fire and death to find what he most feared.
When Ashok first began training the nightmare, the beast sent him dreams that invaded his waking life. The nightmare preyed on the fears of his victims, and for most shadar-kai, their worst fear was to fade and lose their souls to the void. In Ashok’s visions, he’d feared losing his friends.
Skagi, Cree, Ilvani-all those companions he’d grown to trust-he’d never known a bond such as the one he shared with them. They’d seen him through darkness and accepted the best and worst parts of him. He’d already lost too many in the short time he’d lived in Ikemmu.
Chanoch, Vedoran, Olra-he’d lost his Camborr teacher so quickly, with barely a breath between the thought and the reality. With Chanoch, it had been slow, agonizing hours spent in the dark. Vedoran … Ashok could not summon an image of the warrior’s face without remembering their last embrace, when Ashok had driven a knife through his heart. What if Beshaba never claimed the warrior? Had Ashok condemned Vedoran to the void, his soul gone forever?
“The people who gave me life and purpose keep dying,” Ashok said. “How do I know their souls reached their gods? That Tuigan warrior wandered for more than a century before he found his final rest.” When I die, no god calls me home, Ashok thought. His father and brothers were still waiting in the shadows for him. He accepted that fate, but he would do anything to spare his friends. “I have to protect them.”
“You can’t change their fates,” Ilvani said. “Souls slip through our fingers when we try to grab them, just like memories. In the end, they all fade.”
“Then maybe it would be better if I had no companions at all,” Ashok said, “nothing to touch me.”
“Completely alone?” Ilvani said. “Then why not fade now and be one with the void?”
Ashok heard the anger in her voice. “What did I do wrong?”
“I thought you understood,” Ilvani said. “You can’t run from what you are. All you can do is face it. If you think Tempus will comfort you, then turn to Him, but remember what you have right now. The moment is what matters. Only the moment is real.” Her voice quivered. “You have the power to recognize the truth from the shadows. It’s a precious gift, as precious as life.”
