Wraithblade (The Wraithblade Saga Book 1), page 62
His mind buzzed, hot and heady. He coughed to clear his throat, but the burn remained.
“A mission went wrong,” He rubbed the back of his head and let out a frustrated sigh. “A lot of good men died, and I took the blame.”
Connor didn’t respond. In the silence, the gurgle of the brook drowned out even the rush of the southern wind through the trees. By now, Murdoc had thrown back just enough whiskey to numb the pain. He could relive the past, now—but only some of it.
“I was in the Blackguards from a young age.” He patted the disgraced mark on his chest. “Inked at fourteen, if you’d believe it. Never been prouder. Worked my way up to Second Lieutenant and was given a new unit. Our first two missions were easy. They went fine. But the third sent us to a town up the northern road called Norbury. We had to dispatch a sheriff who’d gotten greedy. Taxing people to starvation and only giving a portion to the crown. Raiding homes. People going missing in the night. The town was dying, and the king didn’t care.”
He rubbed his face as his men’s haunting screams rang through his mind, but he shoved the memories down deep.
“My unit was young, a lot of sons and nephews of the higher ranks. All of us were eager to prove ourselves. We were the chosen, the next generation of Blackguards setting out to show that we were ready to take the helm.”
The meaty thud of a head plopping lifelessly to the dirt echoed through his memory, and he shut his eyes to block it out.
Murdoc rubbed his face as he braced himself. “When we got to Norbury, the governor had a necromancer for a bodyguard. One of your lot.” He pointed a finger at Sophia, who frowned. “An elite. He was a bitch to kill, but we managed. We did what we’d set out to do, and we hadn’t even lost a single man. A few lost an eye or a hand, but that comes with the job.”
A jolt of pain shot through his palm, and he grimaced as he curled his hand into a tight fist. A joint in his wrist popped from the strain, but he barely noticed. In the year since it had happened, he still couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. Even when telling his General what had happened, he’d left so much out.
“They ambushed you,” Sophia said for him. “The elite.”
He grimaced and set his hand over his face to quell the tide of self-loathing that churned beneath the drunken numbness.
“I can guess how this ends,” Sophia said under her breath. “After a slight like that, Nyx would’ve sent an army. Twenty? Maybe thirty other elite?”
“Forty,” he whispered, his voice catching.
Her brow creased with surprise. “Curse the Fates, forty? She wanted you to learn a lesson.”
He pinched his eyes shut. “They slaughtered us. One by one, I watched my men die. Burned to death. Cut in half from head to toe. Frozen with—” He cleared his throat, unable to finish as his gaze darted toward Sophia.
Unable to hold his eye, she shifted uncomfortably and instead studied the river as it bustled past them.
“They left me alive.” Murdoc shrugged. “They sent me back as a warning to the others not to interfere. For weeks afterward, boxes with the fallen soldiers’ heads kept appearing at their parents’ homes.”
Connor grimaced in disgust and walked away. Water splashed against his legs, and his head shook as he turned his back on them both.
“You want to know why they made me leave, Captain?” Murdoc scratched his beard. “The general blamed me, that’s why. They all did. A leader should’ve known to call in reinforcements, they said. To shift focus. They said I could’ve saved lives if I’d been better prepared. If I’d called off the attack. If I’d gone against my own and let the town die, their sons would still be alive.”
He drank again from the flask, wondering how much whiskey could’ve even been left. He hated this humiliation, this second chance at life he hadn’t earned, and he wondered when death would take him already. It had certainly taken its sweet time.
Perhaps that was his ultimate punishment—to wait. To live with the self-hatred a little while longer.
A hand grabbed his shoulder, and he flinched as he looked wildly around. Connor stood beside him, silent as a ghost on his way over—but that shouldn’t have surprised Murdoc, not at this point.
In the sober hush that followed, his new Captain simply watched him. His grip on Murdoc’s shoulder tightened ever so slightly as he let the silence say what didn’t need to be said. Connor’s face relaxed, and Murdoc had seen that look once or twice before.
Forgiveness.
The tension in Connor’s body had long since faded, and with that subtle gesture, all was pardoned. He took a deep breath and patted Murdoc’s back before he walked downstream.
Murdoc stared after his captain. “Huh.”
Apparently, he wouldn’t lose his ragtag family today, after all.
“You’re not the only one keeping secrets,” Connor admitted over his shoulder.
Sophia sucked in a tiny breath of disbelief, and her head pivoted toward him.
“Let’s get out of this water.” The man climbed the riverbank. “Besides, Murdoc, you should sit down for this.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Connor
As Connor leaned his back against a trunk, the wet ends of his pants clung to his shins. A chill snaked through the cold spring night, but the longer he spent with the wraith, the hotter his body burned. Unaffected by the cold, he slipped his thumb through one of his belt loops and studied the two people he’d traveled through the Ancient Woods with thus far.
Sophia shivered as she sat on a fallen tree beside Murdoc. The dead oak’s mangled roots stabbed at the air, clumps of dirt still stuck to them long after it had toppled. Whether by a storm or a blightwolf, something big had taken it down in its prime.
Beside Sophia, the former Blackguard stared at the ground, his face pale as the moon. His chest stilled, and his eyes widened with disbelief. A moment later, he sucked in a greedy breath.
In his shock, the man had forgotten to even breathe.
Connor had explained everything, and he’d left nothing out. Now, he simply had to wait and see how Murdoc would react.
After all, he was the darkness Murdoc had been trained from a young age to kill.
In the lingering hush, he braced himself for the inevitable chorus of steel against leather. A battle would inevitably follow, and he would try his best to merely injure Murdoc. Even if the man wanted an honorable death, he wouldn’t get it from Connor.
This traveling band of theirs couldn’t last. With Sophia’s constant secrets and surprises, Connor didn’t want to wake up one day to find a Beaumont in his camp or a necromancer’s blade at his throat. Now that Murdoc knew the truth, he wouldn’t want to stay.
Yet again, Connor would be on his own. Perhaps it was for the best. At least alone, he knew what to expect from the world—nothing.
Still frozen in place and unable to move, Murdoc’s gaze finally drifted to Connor. “You’re the Wraithblade.”
“I am.”
“That ghoul is the Wraith King.”
“He is.”
“King Henry is dead.”
“Yes.”
“There are two daggers out there that can kill you and the wraith.”
“That’s right.”
Murdoc rubbed his beard, his eyes glossing over as he sifted through it all. He fumbled for the flask he’d set on the log beside him. When his hand merely scraped against the dead bark, he absently turned his head to find it lying just out of reach. He grabbed it and tossed his head back as he took a long swig.
He coughed and sputtered. As he leaned his elbows on his knees, the last of the whiskey poured onto the ground. If he noticed, he didn’t react.
“Fuck,” Murdoc said under his breath.
Connor nodded. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
As the moments slipped by, he leaned his head against the bark behind him and waited for the unavoidable duel to start.
Above, the twin moons shone through a hole in the trees. A cloud crept in front of one of them and, backlit by the moons, the cloud’s misty edges glowed silver. It reminded him of moonlight gleaming off the ocean waves, and a pang of nostalgia gutted him.
Life takes work, son, his father had told him one night as they’d rowed out into the sea. Your mother doesn’t like what I’m doing—what I’ve asked you to help me do—and that’s why you heard her crying in the kitchen. That’s why she slammed the door as we left. But that’s life, son. You don’t always get your way. You’ll upset people, you’ll hurt people, and you’ll make mistakes. If you care about them, if the relationship is worth it, you work through the hurt.
His father and mother had worked through the hurt of that night. She had forgiven him, agreed with him even, within weeks of their fight in the kitchen.
Despite her cold fury, despite the moments of terrifying silence as she refused to even speak to him, his father had persisted—because she mattered to him.
Connor rubbed his neck as he shifted his attention to Sophia and Murdoc. The two of them stared at the ground, shoulders slumped.
Defeated. Just like he’d been when he left Kirkwall.
“Everything in me says this is the honorable death I’ve been waiting for,” Murdoc admitted as he stared off into the forest. “That it’s my duty to run you through with my sword or die trying.”
Connor stiffened.
Here it comes, the wraith warned. As I expected it would. At least give me a little blood, will you? Even if you are too soft to kill him properly.
As Connor did his best to ignore the stupid ghost, Murdoc shook his head in disbelief. “I should draw my sword, I suppose, but I’ve seen the man you are, Captain. Underneath all that power, you have a good heart. I respect that too much to try—and fail, might I add—to kill you.”
The wraith groaned in annoyance, his bloodlust unfulfilled.
With a quiet sigh of relief, Connor relaxed into the tree behind him. Though admittedly grateful he wouldn’t have to kill Murdoc tonight, he didn’t know how to respond to that.
The former Blackguard rubbed his eyes and let out a frustrated groan. “You’ve got a world of pain coming for you, Captain. The Lightseers and Starlings want you, sure, and now we have the Beaumonts to contend with.” He added with a gesture toward Sophia, who didn’t even acknowledge him. “The Blackguards won’t care if you’re a good man. They’ll come, but I would fight my former brothers to defend you. Wherever this road takes us, I’m at your side. Debt or no.”
A smile tugged at the corner of Connor’s mouth, and he simply nodded in gratitude.
“But you’re buying me more whiskey,” Murdoc warned. “Loads more.”
He laughed. “Fair enough.”
Murdoc stood and offered his hand. Connor took it, and they shook.
“And me?” Sophia asked.
Connor frowned and set his hands on his waist. She leaned subtly forward, and the line of her cleavage deepened.
“I understand why you did it,” he admitted. “I hid who I was from Murdoc, same as you hid your Beaumont heritage from us both. You’re powerful, Sophia, but I want you to listen closely to what I’m about to say.”
The dark temptress waited, her lips pressed tightly together while the wind meandered through the leaves above them.
“I’ve seen the way you look at the wraith.” His eyes narrowed in warning. “I’ve seen that greed. That envy. I know you want him for yourself.”
She didn’t reply.
He stalked toward her, calm and steady, and her eyes darted toward him. She leaned back as he neared, and he only stopped when he stood right in front of her. The banished Beaumont craned her neck as she tried to meet his eye.
“You’ve been through hell and back.” He shook his head, impressed that anyone could’ve survived what she had endured. “I don’t blame you for your bitterness. But if I so much as catch a hint that you might try to kill me, I will gut you. I won’t leave enough time for you to heal like I did for the Starling woman. Do you understand?”
Despite the death threat, Sophia didn’t flinch. In the brewing wind above them, she kept his gaze and merely nodded.
“In that case, you can stay,” he said.
Don’t be a fool, the wraith chided.
Connor ignored the ghost. He’d already tried the drifter’s life, and now he finally had a team. While he still didn’t know if he’d end up killing Sophia or not, she had proved immensely useful thus far.
You cannot keep them, the wraith insisted. They are a distraction. They make you weak.
“Stop talking,” he warned the ghoul.
Magnuson, the specter snapped, still invisible in the night air. Send them off this instant. They’ve both served you well, but you no longer need them.
He grimaced, too tired to deal with the ghoul’s arrogance. After the night they’d had, he needed sleep.
Magnuson, answer me!
Connor growled with annoyance. “The worst part of you being loud and irritating is that I’m the only one who can hear you!”
“What?” Murdoc asked.
Exactly.
The wraith materialized in a cloud of black smoke before him. Murdoc and Sophia flinched and leaned away in their surprise, but Connor met the old ghost’s gaze. The gleaming soulless skull hovered inches from his face.
You and I are linked, Magnuson. When Zacharias brought me back, he thought he’d tricked me into a life of servitude, and his pride cost him dearly. I knew that whatever poor soul I fused with would cave to my will eventually—even him. Even you.
The phantom drew his sword and lifted it to Connor’s throat. The blade hovered a breath away from his skin, but he didn’t care. In his periphery, Murdoc drew his sword to the familiar swish of leather and steel.
“You can’t kill me,” Connor reminded the ghost.
I can’t, the wraith confirmed. But I can kill them.
“Don’t you dare—”
The skull disappeared, and the thick black fog blocked Connor’s view of the forest around him. He waved his hand through it to clear it away, and as it dispersed, a ribbon of dread slithered through the trees.
The wraith now waited behind Murdoc, his blade lifted to the former Blackguard’s throat. Murdoc impulsively leaned his head back as the steel pressed against his neck. The ghoul’s bony hand gripped the man’s shoulder tightly, and Murdoc winced with pain.
Sophia stood, her eyes narrowed with anger. At her side, the fingers on both her hands spread wide as another chill rolled through the woods. A thick layer of frost coated her palm in a silent warning for the wraith to let Murdoc go.
Connor’s knuckles cracked as he curled his hand into a fist. He pointed at the wraith’s sword. “Release him immediately.”
The ghoul shook his head, though the hood over his skull cast a long shadow that hid the sockets where his eyes used to be. Your team is your weakness. You care too much. I have tried and failed to control you, but now I see they are leverage that anyone—not just me—can use against you. You will send them away, or I will end them both.
“Stop this before you do something you can’t take back.” His shoulders stiffened, and his biceps flexed as he prepared to test what sort of damage he could do to the ghoul. “Drop your sword immediately.”
The wraith laughed, the sound as harsh and grating as a creature’s dying breath. And why would I do that, Magnuson?
“Because you’re better than this.”
Sophia snorted derisively.
I’m really not, Magnuson. Yet again, you think too much of others.
“You have a bit of humanity left in you.” Connor straightened his back as he stared the ghost down. “I’ve seen bits of your human side that you thought were dead. I’ve seen you care. You’re not a heartless monster. Not anymore, anyway. You say my team is weakness, but you’re part of it—even if you are a royal asshat.”
“Hey, Captain?” Murdoc’s Adam’s apple bobbed against the wraith’s sword. “Maybe don’t insult the brutal dictator’s ghost, huh?”
“I hated you at first,” Connor confessed, ignoring Murdoc as he focused on the wraith about to kill his friend. “I thought you were a nuisance to control and tame, but I was wrong. You’ve shown me I was wrong. All I want now is for you to work with me instead of making things so damned difficult all the time.”
The wraith went still as he listened, though his grip tightened on Murdoc’s shoulder. The man winced again, and his body tilted toward the bony hand as it threatened to break his bones.
“This, right here?” Connor gestured between the four of them. “This is the life you never got. This is a second chance at the good things you say you’ve forgotten about the world. The things you never even had to begin with. Let yourself have them now.”
The Wraith King didn’t answer. For several moments, nothing but the canopy shifted around them. The forest night sang with the chorus of insects in the darkness, and the rush of water over rocks gushed from the river nearby.
Inch by inch, the blade lowered from Murdoc’s throat.
Magnuson, I’m impressed. You have done what none before you has managed.
He tensed, sensing a trap. “And what’s that?”
The ghoul sheathed his sword, and Murdoc let out a low sigh of relief as he stumbled across the forest floor toward Sophia. He sat on the log and gulped in breath after breath. Beside him, the necromancer dismissed the ice from her hands.
You have earned my respect, the ghoul admitted.
Connor’s eyebrows shot up his head, and he stood there for a moment in surprise.
You wanted to know all of the skills you acquired through your connection to me. It’s partly why you sought the book, yes?
He nodded.
In that case, you already know.
His eyes narrowed in suspicion as he tried to figure out the wraith’s riddle. As he sat with it, however, the truth dawned on him like the sun over a mountain.
You discovered most of them on your own, the phantom admitted. The rest, you earned. There’s nothing more the Deathdread can teach you about me, but you should still find it when the time is right. The other simmering souls are out there, my brothers, and they will give you the strength to face what lies ahead. You may have been born a peasant, Magnuson, but you have the soul of a king. Fates willing, I will ensure that when Death eventually comes for you, you will go to Him as an emperor.
