The cloak went taut across his shoulders. Halvor’s hand closed about his wrist. His precarious balance shattered, Kurkas realised with ironclad certainty that he was going to fall. Outward or inward were his only choices.

With his last strength, he pushed off. Halvor cried out in alarm as his weight dragged her over the crest. The thorn-laden flowers of the gardens reached up, tearing at his clothes and flesh.

Darkness rushed in.

Fifty

Fifty

The chapel cellar had gone undisturbed since Nikros’ judgement. The bloodstained blankets lay piled at the foot of the bed, the bright stains soured to murky browns. Her nose wrinkling in disgust, Apara gave the bed a wide berth and crossed to the back wall. The heel-marks still marred the dust, as did Apara’s own footsteps from that awful night. The elder cousins had left no sign of their presence. They never did.

She laid a hand on the wall and drew strength from the roughness of cracked plaster and brick. Tangible. Real. A world away from raven-cloaks and elder cousins. From the path she had to tread. She wanted to turn back. Wanted it so badly she feared her heart might give out. But she was a kernclaw. She had duties to her cousins. If she left them unfulfilled . . .

Apara took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the musty air, and roused the spark of magic that was the Raven’s gift. It rippled through her, ecstatic and foreboding. The wall fell away into a mist-wreathed arch.

She snatched back her hand. The world beyond the archway was different: gone was the ornate tomb and the ominous black walls, replaced by a narrow street whose upper storeys vanished into skies dancing with viridian light.

More importantly, there was no sign of him. She couldn’t have gone through with it otherwise – would sooner have made a daylight assault on the Essamere chapterhouse than tread the mists with the Raven at her side. Bad enough that the washed-out streets were thick with the spirits of the dead. The chill air of the place that was no place shortened her breath even from beyond the arch.

Otherworld was no place for the living, not even for a kernclaw – much less a reluctant one. Time flowed strangely within, hours passing like minutes, or minutes like days. And the pathways were treacherous. Though the entrances to Otherworld were fixed – determined by where the walls between worlds ran thin – it was easy to run astray, lured from the path by temptation or fear. All vranakin knew that. It was the stuff of harrowing legend. But turning back meant failure. And the stark scrape of heels across the dusty floor laid bare those consequences.

Drawing the raven-cloak close, Apara stepped through the arch.