The Road to Death

1

The chill breeze blew through Esprë’s body like a gust of knives and stabbed her awake. Her head aching and swimming, she first thought she might be back in Mardakine, the town on the edge of the shrouded waste known as the Mournland that she and her stepfather Kandler called home. Sometimes an icy wind came whistling from that barren, time-stopped place that loomed over their house and down through the window of her bedroom, shattering her restless sleep.

Esprë hadn’t slept well for weeks. Since the strange mark had appeared on her back—the dragonmark known as the Mark of Death, she now knew—images of wailing souls had assaulted her dreams, screaming at her to free them, to help them slip this mortal flesh and find peace in Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead. Then the people around her, people from Mardakine whom she’d known for years—since the birth of the young town—started dying, and the dreams got worse.

Not wanting to think more about the horrible images swimming in her brain, Esprë wrenched her eyes open. The overcast sky above her was a dead-white color. She’d never seen it anywhere else. She was in the Mournland.

The young elf shivered, this time not from the cold, and brought her hand to her forehead. “Ow!” she said, wincing in pain at the bruise she found swelling there, just under the hairline of her long, blond locks. She sat up to hold her head in her hands and saw that she was on the deck of a ship. No, not the deck. She spotted the wheel there in front of her. She was on the bridge.

Memories gushed through her mind. This was the airship, the one that Kandler and Burch had stolen from that crazy elf in her cloud-shrouded tower, the lady with the papery skin and the dead-leaf laugh. They’d escaped there with Sallah, the pretty knight with the long, red hair.

After the rescue, Esprë had thought it was all over, no more vampires kidnapping her in the middle of the night. The insane, deathless elf—Majeeda was her name—had made sure of that, no more changelings posing as a long-lost aunt.

Then they’d gone after the rest of the knights, and the changeling had come and stolen her away again. Images of a horrible battle flashed through Esprë’s mind. Kandler and the others had come after her, chased her to that walking city of warforged—living golems fashioned as soldiers for the Last War—and become embroiled in a fight for her life, for all of their lives.

Esprë remembered flying the airship over the battle, using it to crush the warforged leader, to kill him, she’d hoped, but that was all. Her memories ended there.

“Hey,” a soft voice said from behind Esprë. “How are you feeling?”

Esprë knew that voice, but the throbbing in her forehead kept her from admitting that to herself. She turned slowly, unable to resist the urge.

There, leaning over the young elf, stood Te’oma, one hand on the airship’s wheel. A slight woman, with pale skin the color of the Mournland sky, her all-white eyes narrowed at the girl as she evaluated her injuries. The wind whipped her white-blonde hair around her soft-featured face, and a hesitant, half-finished smile played across her mouth, which sat like a sharp cut between her chin and nose.

The changeling.

Te’oma reached out toward Esprë’s forehead with a long-fingered hand, and the girl let loose an ear-splitting scream. She scrambled backward, away from the changeling, as fast as her feet could push her along the bridge, until she slammed her back into the railing along the starboard side. Then she drew a breath and screamed again.

The changeling stayed frozen where she was, her arm still reaching toward the girl, and grimaced. “It can’t hurt that bad, can it?” she said.

“Where are we?” Esprë demanded. She was hurt and cold, and she just couldn’t take any more of this. She’d rammed the ship into the warforged leader so she could save Kandler. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

Te’oma looked up at the overcast sky then back at the girl. “We’re still in the Mournland,” she said, “but we’re on our way out. This is no place for a young girl.”

“You brought me here!” Esprë pointed out.

Te’oma frowned. “I never wanted to. That was Tan Du’s idea. He thought the blanket of mists here would protect him from the sun. It did, but even so I argued against it.” She glanced up at the sky again. “I’d rather have taken the long way around.”

“Where’s Kandler?” Esprë asked. She tried to hide the desperation in her voice, but even she could hear it there.

Te’oma’s frown deepened as she rose to her feet, still keeping one hand on the ship’s wheel. She said nothing, just shook her head. As she did, her features shifted, and Esprë found herself staring up at her stepfather’s mournful, dark-eyed gaze under his short-cropped hair the color of polished wood. It was the same look he’d worn when he’d come to tell her that her mother had died on the Day of Mourning, the horrible event that had created the Mournland from the fair nation of Cyre and killed everyone within its bounds.

“No,” the young elf whispered to herself as her soul threatened to freeze solid inside of her. “Burch?”

Kandler disappeared, and the shifter replaced him. Burch was shorter than his old friend and much darker. The blood of werecreatures flooded his veins, lending him a feral, almost animalistic look. Jet-black hair covered his deep-tanned skin almost everywhere but his face, tumbling down in knots past his shoulders and sweeping down from his forearms and the backs of his legs. The nostrils of his wide, flat nose flared as he looked down at the girl. A tear welled in his eye, something Esprë had never seen in the real shifter’s face.

“S-sallah?”

Burch disappeared, and a beautiful, red-haired woman took his place. Her green eyes shone back at Esprë with more than a hint of sadness. A fat tear welled up in one emerald orb and rolled down her soft, pink cheek.

Esprë almost had to remind herself that this was Te’oma looking at her, not the woman who’d fought so hard alongside Kandler and Burch to rescue her. The fact that Te’oma’s clothes remained the same helped. Only the person in them seemed to change.

“Brendis?”

A black-haired young man now kneeled where the fake Sallah had once stood. The tears flowed more freely from his gray eyes.

Esprë began to cry too. “Even Xalt?” she said. She found herself sitting next to the changeling and realized that she’d been inching her way closer to her throughout the transformations.

The mourning youth vanished as Te’oma let the façade fall from her natural form. She knelt there in front of Esprë and reached out a hand to wipe the girl’s tears away, nodding sadly.

“I can’t make myself look like a warforged,” Te’oma apologized. “They’re just too different.”

Esprë buried her face in her hands and wept. The knot on her forehead throbbed as she did. When she was finally able to speak again, she peered up at the changeling and whispered, “They’re all dead? All of them?”

Te’oma nodded. She brushed Esprë’s golden hair back from her face, streaking trails of tears along behind it.

“Say it!” Esprë said. “I want to hear you say it!”

“Yes, dear,” Te’oma said. She swallowed once before continuing. “They’re all dead, every one of them.”

Esprë just stared at the changeling, not wanting to believe her.

“The warforged—there were just too many of them. Once the airship broke free from the stadium, they came rushing back in. If not for my bloodwings,” the changeling shrugged her shoulders, and her bat-colored cloak rustled to life for a moment before falling limp once again. “Well, I would have been trapped there too.”

“What happened?” Esprë asked. “The last thing I remember is aiming the ship for that huge warforged.” She rubbed her forehead. “What happened?”

Te’oma put her arm around the girl. Esprë tensed and considered pushing the changeling away, but she needed someone now. Anyone.

“The airship bounced off the arena’s floor, and you hit your head,” Te’oma said. “It knocked you unconscious. When I realized what had happened, I flew after you to save you.”

“And the others?” Esprë looked up into the changeling’s all-white eyes, trying to keep even a shred of hope from her voice.

“By the time I got control of the ship and turned it around, it was too late. Warforged soldiers had swarmed into the arena.”

“Maybe they took them prisoner,” Esprë said, hope forcing its way out of her despite her best efforts to suppress it. “Maybe they’re still alive.”

Te’oma shook her head and held the girl closer. “I flew over the arena.” Her voice choked for a moment. “I’m just glad you didn’t have to see it.”

“Did I …?” Esprë started. “Did I kill him, that warforged leader?”

“Bastard?” Te’oma said. She sighed. “No, you missed him. You’re not a killer.”

Esprë buried her head in Te’oma’s chest and wept bitter tears. She knew how much those words were lies.