Princess Graves

  Leaving the main castle complex was rare for me. Behind us, the high stone walls looked so secure. I was baffled that we, the royal family, would willingly abandon the safety of our stronghold and walk into unknown danger.

  The air smelled of ash, and I could see smoke curling from the market district in the distance, which was our destination.

  I had to keep reminding myself that we were protected. My armor was the first layer. Then came my half-sisters, forming a protective wall around my father and me. Two ahead, two behind, one to each side. Beyond them were our regular guards.

  At the first bend out of the complex, a soldier came sprinting up behind us.

  Two of my half-sisters raised their bows in perfect sync, arrows nocked and aimed at his chest.

  He barely made it to the outer guards before they blocked his path.

  "Wait! Princess Graves!" he shouted.

  Yes, I was my father's daughter, but no one called me that. Inside the keep, I was always Princess Sidera.

  Did he work in one of the outer districts? His uniform had suggested otherwise.

  He must’ve been panicked?

  The guards moved fast. One stripped the weapon from his side while another patted him down. Then, after a quick nod between them, they stepped aside and let him through.

  Out of breath, the soldier said, “I was told to collect your ring. They said to tell you the undead are attracted to life, and bringing it would draw them to you.”

  I looked down at my hand and felt a jolt of gratitude. Of course, I knew the undead were drawn to both life and death. But I had forgotten I still wore that ring. I slid off the one with the pink gem and handed it over, leaving the others on my fingers.

  “My lord,” the soldier then addressed my father. “Do you wish for me to take your crown as well?”

  “No,” my father said with a shake of his head, barely sparing us a glance. He turned and continued marching, the guards moving with him.

  The soldier hesitated for a moment, clutching the ring, then gave a quick bow and jogged back to the keep. He had been in such a hurry that he had forgotten his sword. Was he truly that concerned about our situation?

  Realizing I was being left behind, I caught up to my father and asked, “Why didn’t you give him your crown? Its death enchantment will draw in the undead. It may not be as potent as my ring, but they will still swarm us.”

  He signed and then reluctantly said, “I guess it’s time you learned about your heritage. The crown I wear doesn’t have any death enchantments.”

  “But what about Grandfather…” I began.

  “When your grandfather conquered the continent, he did wear this crown. Many believed that, combined with his Attunement, it allowed him to control so many undead. But that’s not true.”

  “But his death? When his crown was stolen, the undead around him went into a frenzy and started killing everyone. The crown has to have some kind of death enchantment,” I argued.

  “This stays between you, me, and your future children,” my father said.

  I glanced sideways at my half-sisters, still keeping formation a short distance away. Even with the noise around us, I was sure they could hear parts of our conversation. Their loyalty only extended as long as my father remained alive, and I wasn’t sure they should be hearing whatever secret he was about to share. Nevertheless, their presence didn’t seem to concern my father in the slightest.

  “The crown holds a powerful spatial enchantment,” he continued. “It’s linked underground to a hidden pool of long-lost Titan blood.”

  “Titan blood?” I asked, and noticed one of my half-sisters’ faces twitch at the words.

  "Back when my father was just an enslaved miner…"

  I cut him off. “I thought Grandfather worked his way up from a grave digger to save the continent.”

  My father pinched the bridge of his nose and said, “Let me go further back. Long ago, a mine was discovered to be rich in mana shards. The king of the region, seeing great wealth under his feet, gathered all the poor and those with skills in digging, such as my father, who was indeed a gravedigger. As they dug deeper and deeper, they finally found the source of the mana. There was a pool of endless blood that was creating the mana density needed for the shards to form. They tested it on animals, and each one that drank the blood died and turned undead.”

  “That is the reason why there are so many undead coming out of the mine?” I asked.

  “Yes and no,” he replied as we continued moving toward the fighting in the distance. “There was a cave-in that trapped him and several others, but over time, no one came to rescue them. As they starved in the dark, the blood called to them. When the first person drank it, he died and was reborn as an undead. Only then did the others bash his brains in. My father was the third to drink the blood… but it didn’t kill him.”

  “Because he was Attuned?” I guessed.

  “Because he was Attuned,” he confirmed. “The next two who drank died and turned into undead, and he immediately bent them to his will. It wasn’t long before the others in that room drank from the blood too… and I don’t think it was by their choice. My father used the undead to dig a path to freedom and escape the mine.”

  “And the King didn’t execute him and the undead?” I asked, incredulous. I would have never allowed someone with that kind of power to grow under my rule. Clearly, letting him live had been the wrong choice, as he ended up liberating the entire continent.

  “Yes, but my father was banished back to the mines. You have to see it from that King’s perspective.”

  My father always did this when talking about rulers. He wanted me to understand people’s motivations because if you understood those, you could predict their next move.

  “That King only had to feed one man,” my father explained, “and in return, he’d get a group of workers who didn’t need rest and could mine wealth for him day and night.”

  “Even so, I would have limited the growth of his workforce.”

  He patted my head, messing up my hair as he smiled. “Of course you would. But he didn’t, out of sheer greed. They had originally pulled the able-bodied poor to work the mine, but with your grandfather, they could now send him the infirm. Those no longer useful to society, he would turn them into undead miners. Eventually, he and his undead were the only ones working on the project. That is… until the war broke out.”

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  “War?” I asked, unsure what he meant. The war, as we had been taught, referred to Grandfather’s liberation of the continent. But there had been plenty of wars before that.

  “The neighboring kingdom, which they had been selling the majority of the mana shards to, decided it would be cheaper to invade rather than continue buying them. That moved my father out of the mines and into the army. I know that seems stupid to you, but it was either let him fight for you and gain strength or let another kingdom come and kill you. It was the obvious choice.”

  From there, I knew the story. My grandfather took control of this region, established his authority, and then moved from region to region, spreading peace and stability.

  “That doesn't explain the crown, or how, when it was stolen, the undead went into a frenzy,” I prodded.

  “Well, what happens when someone becomes undead?” he asked. This was so like him. Even in a time of chaos, he refused to give me answers I could reasonably deduce. I didn’t know why he had spent so much time teaching me to be a ruler. He aged so much slower than I did that even any child I had would still die before him.

  “When someone dies and the undead curse still infects them, they slowly start losing all their memories. Even soul bonds are weakened if they aren’t in contact with it.”

  “And after that?” he asked.

  “Over time, they start creating new memories. Almost like a newborn, but with all the muscle memory and general knowledge of an adult,” I replied, not entirely sure if that was what he was asking for.

  “Exactly!” he exclaimed. “After drinking the blood, my father received a potent spell to suppress their ability to form new memories and replace it with his will, fed directly through the blood that binds them. It only worked as long as they remained within the blood’s range, which surprisingly stretches quite far.”

  We began ascending the stairs toward the wall that overlooked the market. The smoke was getting thicker, and as we climbed into it, it started to sting my eyes.

  “That’s where the crown comes into play,” my father continued as he gestured to his head. “He tied it to the pool of blood, creating a link. When the crown was stolen, that link broke, and the undead went into a frenzy. They killed him, each other, and anything else nearby. It was a good thing they did, because if not, they would have spread across the continent like an unstoppable plague.”

  An unstoppable plague was right. As we crested the last of the stairs and looked out over the market district, everything around us was chaos.

  From my position atop the city wall, I could see the entire market churning like a river caught in a violent storm. The crowd stampeded over the store stalls, people tumbling over each other in their frantic attempts to escape. Brightly colored fabrics spilled across the ground, mingling with crushed fruit and overturned baskets. Chickens darted wildly, squawking as they were kicked aside or brutally trampled underfoot.

  The undead poured through the narrow streets, an endless wave of bodies pushing relentlessly forward. I could hear screams rising above the city's frantic bells. Guards fought desperately, their blades flashing under the afternoon sun, but for every undead they felled, two more crawled over the fallen, dragging themselves forward even if their limbs were broken and their muscles were torn.

  A handful of soldiers were already stationed along the wall, loosing arrows into the horde below. Most shots barely slowed the undead, the arrows sticking uselessly into flesh that no longer cared. One of the soldiers, a lieutenant by the look of his armor, lowered his bow and turned toward us.

  “My lord,” he said, breath uneven, “you shouldn’t be here. The wall won’t hold if they reach the base in force.”

  My father waved him off. “I know the risk. We plan to join the forces below.”

  “But my king,” he started, but paused, not wanting to argue. He gulped, then shifted his words. “I only have archers up here. If you give me more time, I can gather some more men to reinforce your guard.”

  Seeing how small our force was compared to the swarms below, and how this man couldn’t press the issue the way I could, I chose to step in. “Father, I agree. If we’re going to make a push, we should go in force.”

  My father placed a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll be leaving our outer guard here, and you and my other daughters will be coming down with me.” At my frown, he added, “Don’t worry, child. The undead won’t hurt us unless we attack them first.”

  We all looked at him skeptically, but it was one of my inhumanly tall half-sisters who finally spoke. “You stay here while I test it.”

  No one ordered my father around, and yet that was precisely what she did. And he let her.

  There wasn’t much he could do about it anyway, not once she was already sprinting to the edge of the wall and leaping off. She landed with a sharp crack and kept moving, charging straight toward the line of guards struggling against the undead.

  I shifted closer to my father. “So the whole reason we came here is so we can go down there, drink the blood, and get the spell to control these things?” It was the only thing that made sense, as my father and I were the only ones with a Death Attunement.

  That was when my half-sister vaulted over the line of fighting soldiers and undead. She landed in the open space behind them and rose without drawing her bow, arms outstretched, waiting for one of the undead to come and kill her.

  She had made her choice to test my father’s theory in person, with her life. I knew why she did it. On the off chance that he was wrong and could be killed, she was willing to be the one to find out. For all my sisters and me, that was a better outcome than his dying. Just… for very different reasons.

  But as time crawled by, the undead ignored her. She stood motionless, arms still raised, as they moved past her like she was one of their own.

  Did that mean they were Death Attuned as well? Or was it simply the blood we shared?

  “Drinking the blood is not an option,” my father said, shaking his head. “The blood grants incredible power, but it also warps the mind.” Then he leaned in, whispering so softly it was hard to hear over the commotion. “My father was not the savior of this continent. He was borderline insane.”

  He turned and stepped forward, preparing to jump off the wall and reunite with his daughter standing in the midst of the undead horde. They still ignored her, rushing past as they charged the line of soldiers beyond. She didn’t lift a hand to help, as any action would risk being seen as a threat. That was the only thing my father had warned would make them hostile. But I hadn’t been thinking about that.

  I had stopped cold. His words had rocked my world. Everything else could have been true… except that.

  I had seen the statues carved in my grandfather’s honor. He was the first king who brought peace to the continent. Every class I had ever taken praised his selflessness. I was proud to be his granddaughter, proud to carry his legacy. I had hoped that one day I would be just as meaningful to our people.

  Noticing I wasn’t following, he turned back, and when he saw my face, he paused. Surrounded by other soldiers, he chose his words carefully. “I know what you are thinking, but take a look at the undead below. Why would anyone set up a trap that would destroy the city if the seal were broken? Think about the kind of person who would do that.”

  Having undead guard the source of his power made perfect sense. I would’ve done the same, as I wouldn’t want anyone else to have that kind of power. And even tying a consequence to breaking the seal wasn’t unreasonable. But would I have ordered them to attack the entire city if it were broken? I didn’t know.

  That was the heartless part. It wasn’t just about defending the blood but about punishing everyone. So many people died because some idiot triggered the seal. It was a wise precaution to make sure no one could chip away at his forces by slowly picking them off. But still, a brutal one.

  Did that make my grandfather insane?

  “If you’re still wondering if what I told you is true,” my father said, “take a close look at the undead around us. You’re a smart girl. You’ll notice it.”

  Then I realized what my father was trying to show me. The horde wasn’t made up of undead soldiers. What had been behind the seal and guarding the origin of my grandfather’s powers was undead civilians.

  The horde consisted of women, children, and the elderly.

  How had he gotten children into his army?

  I didn’t want to know.

  “What can we do if we can’t drink the blood?” I asked, still holding my ground.

  My father extended a hand toward me. “We need to seal the passage to the blood. The undead are dragging more people down as we speak. If they use the blood on them, they’ll not only become more powerful, but they’ll also change instantly. If we don’t stop the transformations, we’ll keep losing soldiers while the undead gain more. This city will fall.”

  I could see what he meant. Civilians were being beaten, bitten, and dragged underground. At that moment, the only reason the city stood was because our soldiers, even the ones that had turned undead, were fighting for our side. Even after they had transformed, they retained their memories and a primal instinct to carry out their duty to defend the city. They would keep fighting until they lost enough memories to forget which side they were on.

  And once the soldiers lost their memories and enough undead civilians rose against us, we would lose.

  I grabbed my father’s hand. “Let’s go.”