The Usurper's Crown by Sarah Zettel Page B

hemlock, her makeshift bandages still swaddling his hands. Even with nothing but fire and starlight she could see he was far too pale.
    “You are not well. You should not have come.”
    “I fear I could not help myself,” he said ruefully. “Bring the net. It is time.”
    Ingrid retrieved the net from its hasty hiding place. As she brought the bundle to the edge of the water, she watched Avan walk in a widdershins circle around Grace. He seemed to be struggling under some great burden. She could hear his rasping breath even over the sound of the wind in the trees.
    “Now, Ingrid. Now!”
    With all her strength, Ingrid cast the net into the water. It spun into the air, fanning open to display its whirl of patterned snowflakes. It dropped onto the black water where it floated for a moment among the flecks of moonlight, and then sank from sight.
    At that same moment, the ghost rose.
    He shined like the stars and the white coals of Ingrid’s fire. He should have been magnificent, but loneliness rolled from his presence in choking waves. He huddled frightened in the midst of his own light and it was all Ingrid could do to stand where she was and watch him, balanced on the lake’s tiny, night black waves. Abandoned, abandoned by God to the cold of the lake, and all he wanted was some small warmth. That was all. Surely, that was not too much.
    Grace climbed to her feet. “I am here. I am yours, as I promised.”
    “No.” Avan spoke the word in a whisper, but nonetheless it carried across the water, and Ingrid knew the ghost heard it as clearly as she did. “She is not yours.”
    “You cannot keep her from me,” replied the ghost, lifting his dripping head. The holes where his eyes should have been were as black as the waves, and without any trace of moonlight in them.
    “I have drawn my circle about Grace Hulda Loftfield,” said Avan heavily, and Ingrid had presence of mind enough left to think this a strange reply. “I have walked five times around her and each circle is a wall of stone and locked with an iron key. The key is hidden in the egg of a duck, in the bottom of the spring, beneath the white stone, at the roots of the tree, on the Isle of Shukerepia, in the river of Zagovory, at the end of the world, on the shores of the Land of Death and Spirit.” Avan’s voice faltered, but he straightened and began again. “I have drawn my circle …”
    “Grace!” cried the ghost. “He cannot hold you. Come to me, my own! Come here now.”
    Grace screamed as if she was being torn in two. Avan’s voice droned on and on in his strange recitation. Ingrid felt as if all the air had become a riptide drawing her forward, and it was all she could do to stand against it. She didn’t dare move to put her arms around Grace, because if she did, she might break the circle. But Grace screamed and screamed and would not stop, and the ghost called and Avan called and there was not enough air in the whole world to breathe because of the weight of their calling.
    Then, the lake began to churn white with foam, and, impossibly, the net she had cast out rose again, something bulky tangled in its rope. Ingrid added her own cry to the cacophony and launched herself forward, grabbing the net and hauling it to shore. Bones, gray with rot, heavy with water and despair, clacked dully against each other.
    All the world fell suddenly silent, and it seemed that all light vanished. Ingrid gasped and clutched at the net. The bones clacked again, and she saw the flicker of her fire on the beach. How had it gotten so far away?
    “Where do you go with my bones, woman?” asked a voice from the darkness.
    “Away from here.” Ingrid grit her teeth and struggled toward the fire. The bones were so waterlogged she felt like she must be pulling half the lake behind her.
    “You have no right.”
    “I have every right. She’s my sister.”
    “Don’t answer him,” said another voice, a tired voice, a weak voice, but compelling nonetheless.