Ayden Duskwalker's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Ayden Duskwalker knelt on the frozen field of Quartzrime and pressed his palm to the ice. Beneath the surface, a dead man's face stared up, gray and still. Ayden could raise the dead. He had done it in warmer lands, whole ranks of them, enough to make lords bow. He meant to raise an army here too, march it into the shadow court below, and take the crown for himself. But his magic needed to touch bone, and every corpse in this valley lay sealed under a foot of solid ice. He had tried for three days. His pale fingers were cracked. His gray hair hung stiff with frost. He struck the ice with the runed scythe he carried, its purple blade glowing with cold magic. The blade bit deep, but the crack sealed over before he could reach the body. The ice fought him back. The cold would not yield to cold. Ayden knew that now. So he pulled the dark mantle from his pack and swung it over his shoulders. The regal cloth was heavy, stitched with ravens and silver thread. When it settled, his magic ran warm through his arms for the first time in days. The mantle drew the death-power up and let it burn. He spread both hands over the ice and pushed heat down into it. Steam hissed. The surface softened. He could feel the corpse below, close now, almost his. "Stop." A woman stood at the field's edge. Blond hair, a thin scar down one cheek, a cloak too big for her small frame. She held a shovel like a weapon. Ayden had heard of her. A widow who dug graves for coin and hunted the mages who stole her children. In Quartzrime, she was the only one who could break frozen ground. "You melt one grave," Elara said, "and the whole field floods. Then the water freezes again, worse. These bodies stay locked forever." Ayden did not lift his hands. "Then dig them out. I'll pay you." "With what? You're a stranger in a dead man's coat." "I raise the dead." He let the corpse below stir. Its fingers scraped the underside of the ice. Elara stepped back, her knuckles white on the shovel. "Help me free them, and I free the mages holding your children. An army opens any door." She stared at the moving shadow under the ice. Fear crossed her face, then something harder. Hope. She drove her shovel into the frozen earth beside him. The blade sank deep where his magic had softened it. They worked until dark. She dug, he thawed, and the ground gave up its first body. Ayden laid his hand on the cold skull. The corpse opened its eyes and stood. One soldier. The first of many. But Elara watched it rise with the shovel still in her grip, and Ayden saw her calculating what a man who commanded the dead might do once his army no longer needed her.