Azria Evermoore's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

The graves opened around her, and Azria's necklace screamed. She knelt over the flat stone with the maker's mark, but she couldn't dig alone. Ash's dull chip gave him nothing. Only one man here knew this ground. She turned toward the gate, where the old gravedigger stood frozen with his shovel raised. "Mortimer," she called. "Help me open this grave. You know what's under it." Mortimer Graves didn't move. He'd tended this cemetery longer than he could count, and now his tired eyes swept the loosening soil. "I know what sleeps there," he said. "That's why I won't dig it." His grip tightened. "You want it open, you tell me why. The maker's grave stays shut for a reason." A hand pushed up from the nearest mound. Gray fingers spread the dirt. Azria's stone burned against her ribs. She had no time to argue, so she gave him the truth. "He built this," she said. She pulled the obsidian free of her collar and held it up. It shrieked in her fist. "Twenty years it's warned me of the dead. I never asked for it. I never knew why." She pointed at the buried mark. "He left me a letter. He led me to you. Whatever's under this stone, he wanted me to find it. I'm not robbing a grave. I'm answering him." Mortimer stared at the black rock crying in her hand. Something shifted in his face. "That sound," he muttered. "The man who came before wore the same stone. It sang like that when he buried his box." The corpse behind Azria dragged a knee onto open air. Mortimer swore and moved. He crossed the yard fast for a heavy man. His shovel bit the earth beside the flat stone. "Then dig," he barked. "Ash, mind the dead. Girl, throw the dirt clear." Ash drew his blade and met the first corpse rising. Steel cracked bone. Azria clawed soil with her hands while Mortimer drove the shovel deep. The hole widened. A second body lurched toward them, and Ash cut it down. The necklace's cry filled Azria's skull. Mortimer's shovel struck wood. "Here," he grunted. They scraped away the last dirt. A small iron chest sat in the grave, chained shut, the maker's symbol stamped in the lid. Azria's stone pressed toward it, hot and alive. She lifted the chest into her arms. The moment it left the ground, the necklace's scream died to a low hum. Across the yard, the risen corpses sagged. They folded back into their open graves and lay still. Mortimer leaned on his shovel, breathing hard. "He warded the ground with that box," he said. "You've pulled the plug. This place won't hold at all now." He looked at the chained lid. "Whatever he locked in there, it's yours to open. And I want you gone before you do it." Azria held the chest against her chest. The chain was cold. The maker had left her one more locked thing to break.