Grave Intentions (Darkling Mage 3)

“They were on too tight,” I said.

“I didn’t want you overreacting.”

I held my hands up, my eyes barely staying in my head. “News flash. I did not know any of this about you. And in case you haven’t heard,” I continued, thrusting a finger at the dagger in his hand, “it was one of those things that killed me.”

Carver lowered the dagger, cradling it in both hands, looking, to my surprise, a little sheepish. “I admit, perhaps revealing it in the moment was too flashy.”

I leaned back in my chair, feeling slightly more secure, at least for the moment. “In case you didn’t know, I stayed with you specifically because I thought you weren’t going to cut my heart out.”

“I apologize.” Carver’s desk scraped, metal against stone, as he set the dagger down. Its tip was pointed away from me, as if to signify that he meant me no harm.

I stared at the dagger with macabre wonder, knowing fully well that it was a sibling of the one Thea used against me. So there were more of these things. I tapped my finger next to it.

“How many?”

Carver lowered his gaze. “How many? Do you mean the daggers?”

“Don’t dodge the question. How many have you killed?”

Carver’s shoulders slumped. I’d never, ever seen his confidence flag. So many firsts today. He didn’t lift his head, staring directly at the dagger, but he did wave one hand.

“Show yourselves,” he whispered.

I’ve seen some crazy shit in my time in the arcane underground. I’ve met gods, fought alongside a vampire and a werewolf, and stolen fire from the very sun itself. But none of that – fucking none of that could compare to the sight of the fallen dead.

Scores of them, standing around us, crowded around Carver’s desk, occupying every last inch of his office, of the great stone platform that seemed to be suspended in space. If they breathed, I would have felt the air at my neck.

Men and women, children, creatures stood on two legs that I couldn’t recognize, every last one of them staring off into space, each of them a pale, wavering image of how they looked in life. None were rotting, or emaciated. All were unmarked, apart from the gaping holes in their chests.

I looked around myself, my fingers digging into the armrests of my chair as if clinging for dear life. Even those bodies that stood next to me gazed on into the distance, in the same direction that Carver’s desk faced.

Carver clutched at his hair, wrinkled and mussed, like I’d never seen him before. He looked weary, crumpled, changed. He stared at the dagger, not daring to look up.

“Heaven help you, Carver,” I muttered.

He looked at me, eyes gleaming with a different quality now. In a voice groaning with remorse, Carver spoke. “It’s far too late for that.”

I looked around again, at the grating silence and stillness of the dead. “Are these their souls?”

Carver shook his head. “Only their images. I remember every life I took. Most I killed to honor the Eldest, when once I worshipped them. Many of these shades were ritual sacrifices. Many were children.” His shoulders sagged lower as he said it. “The others I slew to prolong my own life. Criminals. Rapists, among them, and many murderers.” He huffed bitterly, like he would only permit half of a sardonic chuckle to escape his lips. “But I wonder if that justifies any of it.”

Penance. Remorse. And this finally explained why Carver was so intent on only ever disabling or subduing humans. It was how he’d behaved against the cult of the Viridian Dawn, using numerous sleep spells or magically breaking their bones instead of slaying them outright. As much disdain as he showed for the wrong kind of human, he was still staunchly on mankind’s side after all.

“Do Sterling and Gil know about this?”

“They have no reason to. And I would thank you to keep this between us. They were drawn to me and my protection for other reasons. You came to me for the Eldest. You had to find out some day.”

He rested his forehead in his palm, then waved his free hand. With a great sigh, as of a hundred voices exhaling, the images of the dead stuttered, then vanished into nothingness.

“Then the hideout itself – God, the very name it was given. That’s why you didn’t argue with Asher and Sterling.”

Something that could have been a smile forced itself onto Carver’s lips. “The Boneyard is a more appropriate name than they could have imagined. As for why my domicile is designed the way it is – ”

I looked around us again, and I finally understood. This must have been a memory of his temple, wherever it was he came from. Every waking image of the Boneyard was a reminder. And to be so very literally haunted by the shades of those he killed, hell, even the name he took for himself? Carver’s lichdom was aimed squarely at his own atonement.

“And this dagger was what I used to cut their hearts out. But you already knew that.”

“Why are they so similar? This blade looks just like the one Thea used on me. It also looks like – ”