Bodies sprawled all over the thin corridor of the pass. Idris let their music wash through him; now he was out of the pentagon, he felt empty without the aria in his stomach and cold without its warmth. He thought vaguely of raising them, but his body hurt too much to consider it seriously. He was not sure he would have the energy required. If he did not raise them, though...

  Gently, he squeezed Lila’s shoulder. She paused, looked around.

  “Now?” she said. He nodded. “Yes, sir. Clear a space around Sir Idris! Quickly! He has work to do!”

  He pulled clarifying crystals out of his travel magic pack to help him, but he doubted he would need their assistance too much. The aria was strong enough that it made the hairs on his arms rise.

  His body was the problem.

  As soon as he knelt, he felt the burns on his knees from the pentagon press into the fabric of his trousers; he winced, straightened his back. Holding his arms straight was a strain, even when the aria felt as simple as the rain running down his back.

  Always rain when I do this, he thought, and he whispered to the aria, “Rise.”

  The surge of the magic almost knocked him out again, but the immediacy of the command tugged at his every sense. He felt the bones and sinews, the empty chests and gaping wounds of so many soldiers – not the same amount that he felt in the pentagon, lying dormant beneath the clay. Only the fresh ones.

  He heard the soldiers – the living ones – gasp in horror as their friends and colleagues climbed back to their feet. The cold rain sizzled on Idris’s arms, again.

  “Obey,” he said through the aria. Then, thinking of Layton and his armies, he said, “March.”

  It was done. He flopped into Lila’s waiting arms and caught his breath.

  “This is too much,” she said, as the undead soldiers joined their ranks. “You need to rest.”

  He simply climbed back to his feet.

  The army marched on. Nothing opposed them, this time. Frowning, Idris peered through the sheets of rain towards the end of the pass.

  “What is it?” said Lila. Then, “It’s proper quiet, out there.”

  That was it. Too quiet for a battlefield.

  They emerged from the pass into the landscape Kurellan had drawn. Ahead was a low castle keep, crumbling and forlorn; before it lay barricades of old metal and stone, likely built by Layton’s thralls. The ranks of undead stood in their designated squares and, oddly, none of them moved forwards. They stood and waited.

  Idris felt an awful shiver up his spine. Layton had to know that the Queen’s forces were invading. Why was he not throwing all of his men at the problem? The pentagons, too, felt dormant to him, even though they were sprinkled all over the clay like wax seals, stamped into the earth. Maybe he had thought that the risen dragon would do enough work.

  “What now?” Lila said to him.

  He glanced around. He did not see his mother or her attendants, nor did he see Riette. He turned to the castle keep.

  “Father,” he said, into the aria. It was the only sound his beaten throat could make.

  “Master Vonner. Welcome home.”

  “I do not want to hurt you, even though you clearly want to harm me. Come out. We can talk. I can still offer you diplomacy -”

  “You send your dog after me,” said Layton’s voice, laced with threat, “and still preach diplomacy?”

  Idris frowned, his gut churning. He gripped Black Star tightly.

  “I sent nobody,” he said, and then, coming out of the castle barricades, he saw a figure.

  It walked with the stiff, remarkably steady gait of the risen – mechanical and maudlin – but its shape was somehow familiar to Idris. In the dark and the rain, it was difficult to know for certain. None of the other thralls moved, but this one walked doggedly forwards, in a straight line, with a sword in its hands.

  A sword.

  “Bells, no,” said Lila, putting a hand to her mouth.

  Kurellan.

  Kurellan breached the castle. And Layton...

  None of the soldiers moved, not Idris’s nor his father’s. Only the shuffling, straight form of the Court Judge, broadsword in hand, coming towards them. Idris could hear Layton’s melody, pushing Kurellan on, forcing control over him.

  Dead. Kurellan was dead. And this...

  “I thought a friend might make you feel more welcome,” said Layton. Then, “Kill him.”

  The final statement came out as an aria charred spell – Idris felt it in the air, burning in the twilight – and Kurellan started to sprint, sword raised.

  Idris shoved Lila backwards and arced Black Star upwards.

  The glass hammerhead slammed into Kurellan’s steel, knocking him off balance for only a second before he came wheeling around again, this time aiming for Idris’s neck. It was happening so quickly that Idris did not have time to give into his emotions. All he could do was react.

  “Kurellan, stop!” Lila shrieked from behind, her voice cracking with grief.

  With a whoosh, the blade flashed past Idris’s throat. The grey fire burning in the judge’s charcoal eyes gripped at Idris’s fear. He could not hope to control the aria, not for a second – all he could do was hold Kurellan off.

  Glass clanged off steel again. Idris dug his hare’s foot into the sticky clay and set his stances as best as he could while heaving with desperate breath.

  “Kurellan, please,” he said, every word a strain, but the old man slammed the sword down. Idris deflected the blow. “Please, I’m sorry!”

  He knew begging was useless. Kurellan only responded to Layton’s commands, now. There was no recognition on his lined face, no fondness in his eyes – Layton's fire lived there, cold and unfeeling.

  I led Kurellan to his grave, and he was killed by the only thing he was scared of.

  The soldiers watched in silent terror as Idris attempted to beat Kurellan back. The body could not tire and threw blow after blow onto its opponent, but Idris was already spent. Every deflection strained already aching muscles, driving the hare’s foot deeper and deeper into the clay mud that the rain splashed into.

  “Idris - bells, Kurellan -” said Riette’s voice from behind, then more silence.

  There was one thing for it.

  “I am sorry, my friend,” Idris whispered, and he raised his hammer high. As soon as Kurellan opened his chest for another attack, Idris drove it down, hard, on the old man’s collarbone.

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  The crack was visceral; Lila screamed and Kurellan, off balance, crumpled beneath the glass. Idris, gasping, shaking, stood above him as he felt the thread of the death aria transfer from the castle to himself, and then he dropped to his knees and whispered, “Speak.”

  Kurellan stirred.

  “Whelp,” he murmured.

  Idris sniffed hard, unsure what was rain or tears on his cheeks.

  “I... tried my best...” said the old judge. “He was... too strong. Damned necromancers.”

  He took a rattling breath, through the break in his collarbone.

  “Please. End it. Clean. Don’t let him... use me...”

  Crying now, Idris nodded.

  “Please. I was glad... to die for... a friend.”

  And Idris let the aria go, and sobbed hard into his hands over Judge Kurellan’s body.

  *

  The night was long and cold.

  At Riette’s call, Cressida had come through the vines Idris had planted. The rain had helped them to grow fast enough for the fae delegation to be present when the Queen hugged her best friend and soothed him while he cried. It was too wet to burn Kurellan’s body but Willard built the pyre regardless, and the fae made a canopy of huge leaves to protect it from the lashings of the downpour. The body lay in Lady Eremont’s tent while she stitched the head back on. It would not do for the soldiers to see what Lila had to do to the Court Judge to fulfil his final request.

  When the storm finally stopped, the Queen’s men huddled outside the tent while she examined the corpse.

  “Necrotic strike,” said Lady Eremont quietly, for once looking humbled behind Kurellan’s body. “Straight to the heart, I think. It would have been painless, Majesty.”

  Idris, still in his burned-up shirt, had nothing to add. He could hardly speak, anyway. Cressida gazed down at the old man, and she kissed his brow and sighed deeply, and nodded at Willard. He pulled the cloth back over Kurellan’s face.

  “Do we know why he went in alone?” said Cressida.

  “I think,” said Lila, her voice hoarse, “he felt it was his duty, Your Majesty. Or at least, it was his duty to Sir Idris to try.”

  It did not need to be explained further.

  They waited until the wood was dry. The soldiers made a procession for Kurellan’s funeral. Riette helped to carry him; the fae sang a simple song to ferry the old man to his rest. Idris stood mute, filled with the music of the dead and too pained to listen. It was all too much to bear.

  When the kindling caught, he could only watch for a moment before he had to walk away, hand on his mouth, somewhere that the aria was quieter.

  He found a rock to sit on and put his back to the pyre, and he hugged his stomach and bent almost double to try and stop the tears from coming. He had cried enough – too much. From the moment he let Kurellan’s control fade, he had been unable to do much else. Lila had come forwards and cleaved the old judge’s head off with Raven’s Reckoning, and quickly covered the remains with Kurellan’s cloak. Riette had almost had to carry Idris off the battlefield. The whole time, Layton’s undead army did not move, watching his son’s misery.

  The heat of the flames on his back was inviting. Curiously, a different, cooler feeling touched his shoulder, and he realised it was the hand of his mother.

  He did what was natural and folded into her, shuddering with tears, and she held him this time, stroking his wet hair back, not shushing him or offering platitudes but tender in her own way. She did not scold him or push him away.

  It was the first time she had hugged him in almost fourteen years.

  “Kurellan was a fine man,” she whispered eventually. “It is right and proper to grieve what he gave. Nobody blames you.”

  Idris knew there had to be multiple facets to Kurellan’s decision to storm the fortress. He famously hated necromancers and had already offered his sword to kill Layton if Idris could not do the deed. Likely, he knew if he did not attempt the act, Idris would die trying. Kurellan had said that Uncle Haylan deserved the payback. But beneath that there was a different anger, an anger at a man who had abandoned his child, who treated him like property, and was willing to burn the world down to take what he thought was his.

  Kurellan had underestimated the Dead-Walker and his armour. Nothing was simpler than that. It still hurt.

  “For what it is worth,” Lady Eremont said into her son’s hair, “I am sorry, Rissy.”

  It was a sorry of multitudes. Idris felt them all. He knew she meant it – that stupid family nickname told him everything.

  “There have been many things in my life that I have regretted,” she whispered. “But not you. Never, ever you. And even though I could not choose a better father for you, at the very least, he gave me you. I cannot regret that. You do not have to believe me. I doubt very much that you will. But... I am regretful that you lived thinking I did not love you.”

  She pulled back, lifted his head and dried his eyes, and held his cheeks the way she used to when he was small. Her eyes were shining, her face youthful but sad.

  “I have always loved you, young Master Eremont,” she said firmly. “You are my boy. My Rissy. And I missed you so much. And I am sorry that I could not be here, that I could not be brave. And you have grown into such a fine, noble gentleman and I am proud of that. And I am so, so sorry, Idris. I am sorry.”

  He buried his head back into her shoulder and cried harder. She did not pull away again. The rain resumed, with a short rumble of thunder.

  *

  When dawn broke, hazy and orange, Idris was washed and dressed and already in Cressida’s war tent, with the maps laid out and his diagrams spread over the table. The rain was still falling but it was preferable; at least the Queen had material to work with.

  He did, too. The undead soldiers that had followed him out of the pass were huddled beneath the pyre canopy, around the ashes of Judge Kurellan, still and silent.

  “Sir Idris?”

  He looked up, swallowed the soreness in his throat. Riette stood by the tent entrance, her helmet under her arm, her hazel eyes filled with sympathy. He did not want it. The only thing left to do was act; there was no time left for tears or sorrow. Either he killed his father today or the rest of his friends fell and became puppets, and he was not willing to allow that to happen.

  “Did you sleep?” she said.

  He shook his head, gestured to the maps.

  “There is too much to do,” he managed to say, but his voice was mostly breath and creaks, still burned from the aria. “Layton will be ready for us this time. Lady Eremont said the cleansing did not work, or at least they did not have the time to make it work – and the dragon, out there, we need to find a way to get rid of those bones. I think I can make it through to the fortress if -”

  He was stopped by her hand, firmly on his shoulder.

  “Please do not touch me,” he whispered, close to tears and not knowing why. “Please. I am... filled with noise and I feel...”

  “This is not -”

  “This is my fault and I will fix it,” he said, pulling away and returning to his maps.

  “The Queen has called court.”

  “We do not need court.”

  “Idris -”

  “A man is dead,” he said, his voice breaking. “A man is dead who we loved. Who we admired. There is no Gleesdale Court. There is no plan. There is no war and there is no army. There is me and there is Layton and that stupid, awful breastplate -”

  “If you say one more word my heart will break,” said Riette, in a strange, quieting voice, and Idris stopped. She took a deep, steadying breath and sighed. “Come to court. Please. At the very least, your mother would like to see you.”

  Court gathered near the edge of Idris’s pentagon of pentagons, with the funeral pyre to the right and the bodies huddled there. An awning had been erected to protect the nobles from the rain; Cressida gazed out towards the pass, still and silent.

  “Majesty, Sir Idris,” said Riette, bowing her head and moving to let him in. He bowed, being careful not to meet anyone’s eye.

  It was terribly quiet. Willard squeezed Idris’s shoulder, unfamiliar still with his half-shaved head of curls and the bruising swelling under the stubble.

  “What would you like to do, Rissy?” said Cressida softly.

  They waited. Lila, on the edge of the pavilion watching the thralls, finally stirred.

  “I don’t know if his voice can hold up, Majesty,” she said. “He did a lot, yesterday. Perhaps... perhaps I can lay his intentions plain, if you’ll let me?”

  Cressida nodded.

  “Sir Idris wants to take the fortress,” Lila said. “He wants to face Layton man-to-man. And whatever we can do to get him there, we should do. But we are not going to dissuade him from that, not in any shape or form. Either he goes without us or he goes with us. I don’t think it much matters to him what we decide.”

  “You will have our full force behind you, Master Dead-Talker,” said Joa, with a simple bow. “You need not ask.”

  “I would like to attempt the cleansing one more time, Majesty,” said Lady Eremont, “if you will allow it. I think we can at least deactivate the pentagons.”

  “Permission granted,” said Cressida.

  “I go with him,” said Lila, holding the hilt of Raven’s Reckoning. Idris shook his head, but she addressed only the Queen. “I will protect him, Majesty.”

  “As will I,” said Riette, in that odd soft voice.

  “We will all do what we can,” said Cressida. Idris had never seen her look so solemn and regal, not even at the height of the Orrost war. It made him appreciate her more than ever.

  But he still felt alone. Separate from them in a way they could not understand.

  Plans were made and he mostly ignored them. Lady Eremont watched him the whole time. When the Queen was satisfied, she sent them on their way, back through the sheets of rain. Idris started doggedly to the ranks of horses.

  “What do you need?” said his mother, suddenly at his side.

  “A clear road,” he said.

  “I will see it done.”

  “Mother,” he said, turning to hold her wrist. She waited. “I...” He was not sure what he wanted to say, all at once, but she smiled.

  “All will be well, my love,” she whispered, and kissed him on the cheek before she went.

  Then, inexplicably, Riette was there.

  “Do not push me away from this, not this time,” she said, before he could open his mouth. “Choose a horse and let us go.”

  She and Lila boosted him onto his steed. Then, through the rain, they rode together.