Blinded, my other senses become enhanced. The air grows thick and rotted as we climb higher, and palpable so that every unconscious lick of my lips coats my tongue with an acrid film. Whispers wrap us in unintelligible words. The stairs seemed endless enough with a light, but being completely blind they’re maddingly so. David is in the lead, his grip tight around my wrist, and mine doubly so on Jason’s wrist behind me. The heat of their skins is the only thing keeping me from stopping. Still, the anxiety radiating through my being makes my bones vibrate with an intensity. Underneath my feet, the roughness of the hewn-stone steps are unabated by the soles of my shoes.

  On and on we trudge, the sweat bunching up underneath the collar of my jacket. David hasn’t forbidden us from speaking, but the sheer immensity of the coming encounter has kept all our lips sealed. There are no questions important enough to break the silence. All—or so I hope—will be revealed at the apex. Still, unbidden, the thought of James’s and Yasmi’s words echo in my mind. I fire off another prayer to keep my mind occupied against the monotony of the stairs.

  Hey, sorry for earlier. I’m sure your job is just as hard, keeping up with all your chosen and what not. I did mean what I said, I don’t often find the time to pray, but I guess it wouldn’t kill me to try. No need to harass the judges about it. Anyway, I really hope today isn’t my day, because I sure get the feeling that something terrible is awaiting us at the top of this castle. Please ask Moran to not have his star pupil kill us.

  I feel David’s grip change suddenly. His hand lets go momentarily, screeching me to a halt, and making Jason and then Zarcha walk right into my back. The royal’s hand claps down on my shoulder.

  “Sorry, hold on just a second. What do you want?”

  The whispers intensify, still foreign, but they chant the same words over and over now instead of overlapping. Some calm in the storm.

  “This is not a smart path, David.” A female’s voice cuts in, her words making my head spin suddenly, and it’s only David’s hand that keeps me from falling. Warmth radiates through the staircase from some point just above us. “Turn back before it is too late.”

  “I can’t do that. You should see that. Are your faculties fading, my lady?”

  “Do not patronize me. You see where this ends too.”

  “Somewhat. But I also see what happens if I don’t do this.”

  “Your choices are your own, David, but you will never be able to say I did not warn you.”

  “Mhm. Can we keep going now, my lady?”

  The warmth centers itself and comes closer and closer until I feel like my face is pressed just a little too much into a fire.

  “Parga Carter and Jason Sangredo, it is not too late to turn back. My disciple can still unblind you and return you to your life on Trentas. Forget this case, forget this woman who follows you, and you may still escape unharmed.”

  As much as the words ring true through my heart, something pushes back at the thought of abandoning a case, let alone leaving Zarcha behind in this insane place. Jason and I answer almost at the same time.

  “Not a chance. I’d never abandon someone in need.”

  “I wouldn’t ever abandon my first case, or a person I’ve chosen to protect.”

  I feel Jason’s hand turn in my grip and grasp my own wrist in turn. This is no longer just about finding a killer, but finding the one who locked Zarcha away for her whole life. It’s about proving that the odds won’t overcome us. Though we can’t see, I can feel a smile tickling at the mysterious woman’s mouth.

  “I thought it was worth a try, though I knew it was unlikely you would back down now. Good fortune on your journey then, detectives. We stand behind you now as ever.”

  With that, the warmth immediately dissipates, returning the tainted chill of what was still ahead. David’s hand retakes my own, and he laughs.

  “Sorry about that. I did say Klarya likes to pop in at the oddest times.”

  “That was the god of fate?” Zarcha exclaims. “She was beautiful.”

  My brow furrows.

  “You’re not blind?”

  David lets go of me again, and I feel him slide past me on the stairs to move down to Zarcha.

  “I’m also interested to know how you can still see. My magic should be keeping you blind.”

  There’s little sound now, the whispers gone. David mutters to himself under his breath, the words unintelligible but clear in the meaning: there’s some reason his magic isn’t working. He comes closer, to stand next to Jason, and moves quickly on to me, feeling my face around my eyes.

  “Fascinating. There’s no reason I can see the spell isn’t working on you, Zarcha. It’s just…not. I have to assume one of the gods is interfering, that they want you to see completely. Why, though, I wonder.” He sighs and moves to stand in front of me again, once again grasping my wrist. “Nothing to be done. We’ll just have to keep going and hope for the best.”

  As we begin once again to ascend, that clot of dread doubles over on me. Something primal raises my hackles that feels viciously wrong. Sweat beads up on my forehead and runs in stinging lines into my eyes. The stairs go on. We climb until my legs are numb from burning, and every step is a struggle, and then the stairs curve, and David’s nails dig into my arm.

  “We’re here,” he announces.

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  Here could be anywhere, and it’s only by the small shake in his voice and the scent of fear emanating from us all that tells me it’s better we’re blind.

  “We stand, now, in the heart of the universe itself: the High King’s chambers. It is from here he now rules.”

  The word repeats itself in crude echoes off the walls. Rules rules rules rules.

  “The king awaits.”

  The room pitches suddenly to the side, throwing us around and against the walls, the floor, the ceiling, until we’re battered and bruised and unsure of our direction. The echoes continue. King awaits the king the king. The room explodes into life. The images themselves never cross my eyes but appear as concepts in my mind. It’s difficult to explain. It’s as if I have seen the room once in a dream, and even now without sight, I can feel in my soul where everything is. Every surface is covered over and over in twisting jarring lines of blood red: numbers, writings, symbols, charts, maps. Layered one over another as to be even more unreadable than they already are. Books are open, whole or torn to shreds, along with their pages all over. Some merely float through the air as if carefully set down right there where they’d been consulted. I can make out the shapes of the others only by the gaps in the chaos.

  A presence makes itself known, that same feeling of dread and wrongness approaching steadily leaving invisible footprints through the writing and the paper. I can feel Jason and Zarcha moving with me as we reverse until our backs are pressed against the stones. There’s no use trying to run down the stairs without a guide, some knowledge I never had tells me in my memories. The impression of David remains relatively stable.

  “Brother. You look even more unwell than the last time I came up here. Are you eating?”

  The voice that answers makes my ears pop and grow warm, a slight tickle like they’re bleeding but I don’t dare lose my grip on Jason’s arm to check. It’s something low and grating, like metal being dragged across the stones of the room, and it repeats over itself in what sounds like a quiet scream.

  “‘Eat’ is a fatuous term. I glean nothing from it. How long?”

  “You haven’t left your tower nor let any servants bring you anything for three years, seven months, nineteen days, and eight hours. None can find the entrance except for myself.”

  “What is three against three trillion? I haven’t caught up.”

  “There are plenty more. You must come down.”

  The voice splits itself again, now the grating and the scream and a normal one in between.

  “Why? Do the people yet yearn to scour me?”

  “The people do not know you. Your duties below do not wait with your same patience.”

  “Yes, I suppose they don’t.”

  The presence steps closer to David and then past. It pauses slightly. Then it’s moving closer to us, closer, until I can feel breath on my face. I try to hold my breath, but I get a single lungful of rancid breath. I fight the urge to double over and cough, fight to keep from showing any reaction at all. The presence moves on.

  “They are very early and yet far too late. This one sees. She does not understand.”

  I feel Jason tense in my grip, and I squeeze harder to tell him now is not the time for heroics. This is so far above our pay grade it’s not even risible. We have no power next to the leader of the whole universe and his brother.

  “Zarcha, sir,” she says unbidden.

  “Zarcha, yes. You look just like her, not that anyone else would remember. Are you like her too, I wonder?”

  “I couldn’t know. I don’t know who Zarcha even was, except for some old story I can’t remember.”

  “A pity. Yet, that is precisely why you’re here.”

  Zarcha tries to say something more, but her words are suddenly stifled by something. Jason tries to pull away, but I keep a firm grip. The voice splits again, adding a tone so low I can feel it like an earthquake through the floor.

  “Don’t fret, Jason Sangredo. You are known. You are safe. We would not harm your companion. We only wish to give her some of what she has lost.”

  Zarcha’s muffled cries intensify and then disappear entirely. The High King mutters continually under his breath, the same four voices now incongruous and fighting to speak. I understand some of it. The story of Zarcha, the warrior queen who led the werewolves during the first Shadow War, and when they relocated to Wolven and established a new dynasty, bringing together the militant groups into one people again. Whispers of the universe beyond, the names of endless stars and planets and moons, of the powers that be and will come to pass. Zarcha only squeaks in response, almost inaudible against the incessant whispers. And then they stop abruptly. The world is silent enough for my ears to pop. The presence moves until it’s once again in front of me.

  “One who needs to remember, and one now who wishes to forget.”

  And I do. The High King seems to be drawing all my memories to the surface: Of Leo and Cory, and the souls on the farm; of those tumultuous years afterwards trying to drink away everything else I cared about; of the countless bodies I’ve seen since that swim over and over in my head, half-bloated and swarming with flies. I feel the bile rise in my throat, fear and disgust gripping me so tight I can’t breath, building and building and piling on top of itself until I’m forced to my knees, and the king’s presence kneels with me, and the whispers begin anew.

  Too late too late but oh so early. Early, early, before their names are in the wind. The gardener, the gravedigger, the warrior. The shepherd, the seamstress, the poet. Too late to stop the events of the future proceeding. The first have fallen, and the last are coming fast. Your chase has begun. Give them to us, give them that you would cast aside.

  Nothing seems to happen, but now I’m kneeling in a hallway somewhere else. My sight is back, and the vision of a tall blond man standing close by passes in and out of my vision as my head sways back and forth. My head is pounding. Why am I here again? In this hallway, in this place, on a planet far away from….somewhere. Where is here? Where is that place far away?

  “Carter, can you hear us?” A voice cuts through.

  A man, supporting me on one side. His face is contorted in a look of concern I’ve seen before. Where? His face resolves, it’s Jason. Yes, Jason, I know him. A hand squeezes the other side of me. A woman. Zarcha, I remember. Why do I know them? I can’t remember. The other one—David, my mind fills in soon enough—works some kind of light around in his hands.

  “Do you remember what happened?” Jason asks.

  “I…no. What happened? Where am I?”

  “Just below the tower, where we started. The High King touched you, and you collapsed, and then we were all whisked away here.”

  “He said something as we disappeared, that you were free of your pain now.”

  I try to remember, but there’s nothing there. We’re on King’s Isle, visiting with the High King, this I know. But how we got there, where we came from, it’s gone. Not quite patched, but loosely stitched closed.

  “I…don’t know. I know you three, but that’s all I remember.”

  “Do you know who you are?” David asks.

  “I’m….” And I don’t. I know what I ought to be. I know that I know that I know that I know, somewhere and somewhere and deep down that I am, but it’s a recording skipping in my head. I am, I am, I am, repeated endlessly and never finishing.

  “I don’t know.”