“Rowan?” I shivered. It wasn’t Rowan, but I could hope. Quamire hunched in on himself and growled, throwing up a shield around Farrow.

“You aren’t Skull Hart. But you taste like Death,” the thing inside Rowan said as he sat up.

“And you are?” I didn’t want to give this thing any information, and to be told I tasted like death. I was already aware of how frail this body was on a daily basis. I didn’t need to be informed that I was rotting. Oh. Maybe he meant Death, like the god, and not death, like my likely close demise. If it was thinking I taste like Death, then maybe it didn’t have access to Rowan’s memories.

“I guess I should play friendly with someone chosen by Death. My name is Ragnar, but I believe you’ll be more familiar with my ancient bones: the abyssal dragon.” The creature waved in a casual manner to the forest behind us. There in the twilight, covered in feet of undergrowth, lay what could be considered to be boulders.

“May I?” I deferred to the creature and shifted a step to indicate the direction. I didn’t feel like messing around with whatever was powerful enough to possess a living intelligent being.

“It hasn’t done me any favors in eons.” The creature shrugged and leaned back on his hands.

I flicked a glance to Farrow, then to the burden beasts in hopes that he would get the hint to run if something happened. “And people have used this path for how long and not messed with you?” I sank into deep, rotting leaf litter.

“People don’t often take the lefthand path at that last fork, and when they do, they always turn back before seeing me. You naively pushed on. For all the protest of your pet there.” Ragnar indicated Quamire.

The boulders held unusual shapes. The ground smelled of a particular taint that comes with bones. I needn’t get close to the skeleton.

“You can raise me, right?” The creature flashed a horrifying smile.

I stared at that uncanny show of teeth, then considered the bones. Or what was left of them. It was not something even remotely close to what I thought a fire breathing dragon should look like, Eastern or Western style. Instead, it was just a pile of calcium shot through with roots. There were no Manders creeping through it, or a blue wisp like I was getting used to with magic. I flicked through my sites, hoping to find Rowan’s wisp. Instead, I found a roiling bonfire of red surrounding his core.

The adrenaline high dripped out of my fingers, leaving me shaking. This thing, Ragnar, the abyssal dragon, it wasn’t undead, right? This was possession, not a zombie horror flick at the edge of the cliff.

“Why do you oversea a slave graveyard?” I pulled my indifferent mask on to continue mucking about with the bones rather than let the creature see how terrified I was. I could only hope to keep it’s focus on me and Farrow would catch then hint to escape.

Ragnar rolled his shoulders. “Felt like a good idea at the time.”

“At the time?”

“Had to do right by Death. Couldn’t not. Not after what Water did. So, I found a nice spot and decided to guard some gwerin.”

I perked at that term. One I hadn’t heard in a long time. Not since one friend in college. A man named Sylwyn, who’s dad was Welsh. He had a tendency of using odd little words here and there. He was what inspired my name because of an old myth he liked to tell at parties. I raised an eyebrow. “Guard them from what?”

Ragnar’s eyes reflected the stars as they stared through me. “From rising until Hart could come get them. Looks like you could do the job.”

“You want me to send these folk all on?” I waved to the cliffside where several thousand graves had to be.

“Want?” Ragnar regarded me skeptically. “I could want a great many things, little Wizard, like my strength and my life back. No, this isn’t so much a want as a petitioning of Death’s apprentice.”

I shuffled out of the deep leaf litter, leaving behind the bones. There would be no reason to dig around in Ragnar’s ribcage if he wasn’t tethered to it. “If I move them on, then you can rest?”

“Rest? No. I don’t think that is my path now. There are a great many things left over from the time when I walked with my own feet. Some of those need to be addressed. But we can do that later. For now, I do want to see what kind of apprentice Death took on.”

“We?” I kept my tone even. “Death hasn’t been talking to me recently, so I can’t guarantee anything miraculous,” I hedged and approached the cliffside where Ragnar sat.

He brushed that off. “If Death decided you were capable, then I won’t doubt him. That ‘we’ bit, though. Now that I’ve found you, I’ll be tagging along. Won’t due to leave Death’s apprentice unguarded.”

“I had a fantastic guard that I much preferred,” I returned his uncanny smile with one promising that I would drag him out of Rowan the hard way.

Ragnar patted his chest. “Oh, you mean this fellow? Don’t you worry, I’ll be giving him back to you straight quick when you take charge of those souls. Think of it like I’m just catching a lift. I’ll take a back seat for a while and keep my head down.”

I stared out at the cliff and let the gears grind on his choice of words. “I wonder how he’ll feel, knowing he’s been possessed by his most beloved god?”

“God? Pfft.” Ragnar roared with a deep bellied laugh. “I’m nothing more than a fire-blessed Fan who stepped into a curse. There’s nothing godly about me.”

“That’s going to be awful disappointing for Rowan.” I considered the cairns and tapped my fingers against my palms, wondering just how much blood it was going to take to tether them all.

“What about his consorts! Your consorts. Sorry.” Farrow ducked.

Ragnar cocked his head at Farrow like he’d grown a second head. “Consorts? Good lord in heaven, kitten, who in their right mind would want anything conjugal with a dragon? If you’re talking about Prairie, Water, and Death, there was nothing of that sort with any of them. No, no, that wasn’t ever my path. No, had a sweetheart once, but that was so long ago and almost a different world at that. Now then,” Ragnar returned his unblinking attention to me, “let’s see what you can do with that bit of power there.”

“Pushy much.” I grouched. I was going to start small before getting out the big knives. Puncturing my non-dominant pink felt like the easiest route, like I’d tried back a week ago in the other graveyard. I dripped a spot onto my palm, focused my sight to the wisps, and tugged. A hand grabbed the back of my shirt. “Thanks, Farrow.”

“Does you no good going over the side and joining your dead down there, Tan.” Farrow answered.

The tug was doing nothing with that many tethers. “Gonna need a bit more.” I muttered, staring at the smudge where the red had already bubbled away with that little bit.

“No bleeding yourself dry,” Farrow hissed.

“Trying not to. Would seriously help if Death had explained exactly what it was that made this transaction work,” I grumbled.

“How’d it work last time?” Farrow whispered, nervous of the creature staring at us through Rowan’s eyes.

“I’d cut my lip. You can believe me or not, but it felt like, well, like something licked it off of me.” My cheeks burned hot at the explanation. It sounded more intimate than I meant. But, maybe there was more to that kind of offering than a pinky promise. “Thank gods for sharp teeth.” I bit into the side of my lower lip. The sting let me know it had worked. “Now.” I grasped that same strange feeling that I thought of as tethers and pulled. “Heed me.”

The ground trembled. Cairns tumbled over the side of the cliff and buried the switchback trail. Screaming from a long distance away echoed up. I swallowed, flinching at that same warm sensation trailing across my lip as last time. Skeletal remains and the deep, peculiar stench of rotting meat engulfed the landscape below me, all crawling toward us. Ragnar watching in fascination, a smile wider than necessary.

I dragged in a steadying breath and tried to grasp the sheer volume of threads. “Heed me.” I needed to get control over the skeletons before their free movements meant them overtaking us. The tethers were dragging all of my strength. “Death, anytime now would be appreciated.” The tethers were scraping every nerve raw. The skeletons would be on us.

“Has he taught you nothing?” Ragnar frowned at me and stood to look over the edge of the cliff.

“Still kinda new at this!” I bit into my pointer finger this go around and smeared it across my lips. “Damn it all, Death!” I registered that I’d bit hard enough for the blood to splatter as I threw my hands out to the air and grabbed the tethers. Like holding onto lines in a net, I pulled once more, this time focusing on what it had been like when Death had turned on and off my sensations. “Heed me!” That stupid heat practically French kissed me, and I finally had a firm grip on those tethers. The skeletons paused, wavering in wait mode. I couldn’t give in to a sigh, or I knew I’d be ripped apart. I swallowed, copper ever present at the tip of my tongue. The weight of those souls was cold and heavy in that sudden, clear silence. So many. So many who didn’t know freedom in the end. “You’re free, my friends. Find yourself a bit of peace in that. Please.” The tethers started snapping at the edge of my conscious. Blue wisps evaporated here and there across the cliff. At first, it was nothing more than a rubber band on the skin, but as it cascaded and more skeletons crumbled into bone dust and bodies liquefied into sludge, the retribution of the tethers stung like hornets. I didn’t know what would happen if I let go of the remaining tethers, but getting bitten by undead was not an option I wanted to test out.

The mountainside smelled of death. Tumbled cairns had led to a minor rock slide that had rained down on the village below, made worse by the scramble of the skeletons. With the last few wisps pittering out, I sagged against Farrow who helped me lay down on the dirt to watch the stars.

I chuckled. “At least I didn’t pass out this go around.” Farrow did not return my humor, his complexion leaning more green than his usual pink tone.

Ragnar stared hard at me, his displeasure intensifying.

“If you’re just gonna look down on me, do it from a distance. You’re blocking the stars.” I groaned.

The creature tsked, grimacing at the cliffside. “I’d have thought he would have given you a better explanation.”

“Do you want to do the honors?” I hissed.

Ragnar folded his arms across his chest. “What kind of teacher is he being to you?”

“Absent. Until he wants to come licking blood off my lips. Wanna explain why your friend is weird?” I bit back.

He scrunched his nose and blanched. “That one’s beyond his usual. No, well, not entirely outside of his normal. It’s probably how Death is dealing with that stupid blood magic.”

“He needs mine to break the blood magic on the slaves?” I asked. That didn’t make sense for the undead in the castle.

“No. The blood magic he had was the pure form. What the people have been using is a bastardized form that has been turned into something truly ugly. I would suggest you take some time talking with Death about how to actually deal with a necromantic army. This would have been an optimal starting point. I’ve been sitting on this plot for centuries waiting with them. Pity.” Ragnar kicked at a stone.

“Would love to, beasty, but it’d help if he’d answer my calls!” I yelled at him, before realizing the red in his eyes had disappeared, giving way to Rowan’s yellow. Which meant I got to spend the next hour explaining to Rowan what had happened, and then the next three hour walk into a dark forest rehashing every nuanced thing said and done by that infernal creature.

By the end of it, when we’d cleared out far enough to no longer smell rancid flesh, we collapsed in a small meadow. We laid down in a heap against Ravur’s warm hide, tossed our travel cloaks over us, and shivered ourselves to sleep.

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