Cautiously he opened her curled, bloody left hand. The tips of four fingers were sliced almost down the bone in ragged cuts that indicated she’d been in a hurry—desperate for her own blood to save her. A small knife was discarded only a few feet away, its dull blade darkened with blood. It was not much of a weapon, more like something used at the dinner table than for eldritch spells. He could see no other wounds immediately visible.
Merrick pressed his own finger to her flesh. She was cold, but it was clear she hadn’t died in the initial attack. She could have come upstairs at any time for help—and yet she hadn’t.
Sitting back on his heels, the living Deacon ran his eyes once more over the scene to seek out anything he may have missed, but the body before him seemed to have already revealed all it could. The Strop was another matter. Such an intimate item, so personally connected with another Sensitive, and she had actually died wearing it. Merrick was not foolish enough to pick it up, even though it looked destroyed.
A noise, the slightest noise in the ether, made him spin around on his heels and reach for his saber. It was nothing mortal. Some other part of the dead Sensitive still lingered in the dimness of the cellar. Carefully Merrick rose to his feet.
The unliving thing was scuttling among the barrels like an ill-proportioned rat. He knew it instantly—a darkling. Mortals, when touched at the moment of death by the Otherside, usually passed through into it. But some, those touched by the unliving, became shades. The darkling was a form of shade, one created specifically from Sensitives. If they were killed while their Center was away from their body, it would shatter and the pieces could become darklings.
Merrick quickly brought his Center back to him. He didn’t want to risk the same thing happening to him; even death was preferable to that. He knew he should lay down some light cantrips of his own, go back upstairs and get one of the Actives to exorcise the darkling as quickly as possible.
It was only the smallest of geists, a slice of pure blackness that seemed unable to find its way out of the room. It had no physical presence, but as it stumbled around the barrels rolled sideways and the dust from the floor kicked up. He actually felt sorry for it.
Caught in a moment of indecision, he glanced over at his dead fellow Sensitive. If the Actives came down here, they would kick the darkling back to the Otherside within moments, and it was the only portion of the nameless Deacon left.
“Bones,” he swore at his own recklessness. His tutors back in the Abbey would have a fit at what he was about to do.
Merrick held out his hand to the darkling—more than that, he stretched out his Center to it. The shade spun around, sensing warmth and Sensitivity; it was drawn to it like a mad magnet.
The portion of the dead woman rushed into Merrick, locking itself into his Center. To take a piece of the Otherside in like that was prohibited by everything the Abbey taught, but the time to obey prohibitions was long past. If the unliving had stopped following the rules, then so would he.
The darkling merged with him, becoming part of his own soul; a tiny sliver like a scar that he would bear forever. But it brought with it memories, flashes of what the young female Deacon had seen.
Sweat broke out on Merrick’s forehead. Shakily he got up and went to the body. “Illas,” he named her softly. “Poor brave Illas.”
Gently he rolled her over. Thanks to the darkling, he knew what would be under there, but still he had to see.
The Deacon’s corpse made a gentle sighing noise as the final air was squeezed from her lungs. Beneath were the marks he’d known would be there, but that he feared.
Five deep gouges had wrecked the stone, tearing it as easily as cloth. They had passed through the Deacon’s body, destroying her but leaving not a mark on her. Only the stone revealed what had actually killed her.
Merrick let out a ragged breath and slumped to his haunches, staring at those five marks. They were so familiar and had haunted his nightmares since he was seven. Five gouges in stone, just the same as had been carved above the stairs where his father had stood on that terrible night. They’d summoned a Deacon all the way from Delmaire to try to help him, and it had ended in disaster. Distantly, he heard himself let out a strangled gasp.
He delved suddenly and dangerously into the darkling’s memory. It was not the moment of her death that Deacon Illas had desperately tried to preserve; it was not even the memory of the night she had died.
Through the eyes of his compatriot, Merrick watched the Prior Aulis give the command—the command that Illas could not obey. It was this command that had sent her fleeing in terror in the dead of night, rather than join the rest of the Priory at morning Matins.
The attack on the Sensitives had not been a surprise. It had been deliberate, arranged by the Prior as a way of summoning a being from the Otherside.
Merrick came to himself, choking on disbelief and shock. This was why Illas had risked creating a darkling; her darkling was a bottle cast adrift on the sea, seeking a home and someone to believe her story.
He was shaking, terrified of what he had found. This was a cursed way for him to get an introduction to the life of a working Deacon. Struggling to his feet, Merrick felt the cellar spinning around him. He’d grab Nynnia and find Sorcha. Only together could they decide what to do with this rebellious and corrupted Priory.
“Well, aren’t you the little investigator?” The sound of Aulis’ voice behind him made Merrick jerk straight. Wheeling around, he saw Aulis and three of her Actives framed in the doorway. He moved to draw his saber, an instinct that seemed justified even if it was against his own kind.
The room shimmered with heat and the air cracked with power. Merrick didn’t have his Center open, but he caught a glimpse of one of the Actives raising a Gauntleted hand even as Merrick was slammed back against the wall and held there like an insect. It was Deiyant, the ninth Rune of Dominion, and they had used it against him. Merrick screamed out in shock more than pain.
Knowing it was useless, Merrick struggled nevertheless, furious and raging. His fingers arched, desperate to reach his Strop and invoke the final solution taught to every Sensitive.
Aulis, the Prior who had seemed impassive but honest, now grinned at him, crossing the distance and ripping the box containing his talisman from his belt. “You won’t be needing that.”
“Abomination,” Merrick yelled fruitlessly. “Fallen into the clutches of the unliving, you sacrificed your own Sensitives. Kill me if you like. It will make no difference . . .”
“Ah, but it will.” She smiled up at him. “It will most certainly make a difference. Our task is not done here, and you, young Deacon, will help us complete it.”
Merrick would have denied it, but a sickening realization was growing in him. Whatever this corrupted Prior was planning for him, it did not require his permission. His only chance was to reach Sorcha across the Bond, warn her if he could . . .
The rune Deiyant tightened around his throat. He was choking and twitching. His Sight twisted and blurred; the one thing every Sensitive relied on was suddenly being taken away. He reached out desperately for his partner, hoping despite it all that they couldn’t stop him. Sorcha, be careful, Sorcha. They are . . . And then all was silent.