Ward Against Darkness (Chronicles of a Reluctant Necromancer) by Card Melanie

Author:Card, Melanie [Card, Melanie]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Melanie Card, Chronicles of a Necromancer, YA, fantasy, Entangled Teen, Ward Against Death
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Published: 2013-07-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Red colored the horizon as Ward climbed out his bedchamber window. He dropped to the ground into the rose bushes, fought his way out of the scratching thorns, and hustled to the stables. There, he found a shovel in a small room containing every tool imaginable for the maintenance of an estate. He hid his rucksack behind a dirt-encrusted saddle tossed in a corner with a handful of filthy rags and, with shovel in one hand and locket in the other, headed to the oak.

Assuming Habil had buried the reliquary with Ita was a long shot, but at some point, his luck had to change. Although, he’d rather his stealing the grimoires be that particular moment.

The hot summer breeze swept over the meadow, undulating the grass into giant, green waves. Stars dotted the darkening sky and, to the north, the Goddess star shimmered bright. True north had never seemed so uncertain even though She pointed the way with Her star. One little wake spell on Celia, and everything had changed.

When Celia and he had left Brawenal City, he’d thought he’d find peace and answers in the Holy City, Gyja. But Bakmeire, the Dominus’s right-hand man who’d plotted his death and was now in charge of the Gentilica, had set a hefty bounty on them to avoid any suspicion among his fellow criminals. The bounty hunters had attacked within a day of their leaving, and they’d been on the run ever since. Now, he wasn’t sure even Gyja held the solution to his morally murky problems.

Ward crested the hill. Before him towered the oak, its massive branches stretching high. It stood sentinel by a wrought-iron gate attached to the crumbling ruins of a chest-high stone fence—at least the highest remaining point was chest high. A wild white rose bush covered the wall in a profusion of blooms, leaves, and thorns. It twisted over stone, coiling around the gate, and crept up the side of the oak. As he stared, a bud pulsed with white light, once…twice…then unfurled.

Pain bit into his palm, the one curled around the locket. He yelped and dropped it. One quick burst of light flared from it, leaving the after-image burned across his vision.

More buds pulsed and unfurled into full bloom. The rose bush crackled and hissed. Thorns scraped against stone. The bush was alive and moving. Branches grew, curling around the wrought-iron fence. They crept up the oak’s trunk and slid along the lowest hanging branches.

Light flared from the locket again but not as intensely as the first time. Another flare and another. Then it settled into a steady, gentle pulse, like a heartbeat.

A petal floated from a rose hanging in the branches. It glided, suspended by a breeze Ward couldn’t feel, and landed a few feet from the locket. Another dropped from the bloom, landing on top of the first.

Nazarius had said the locket would reveal the location. Maybe the assumption the reliquary was buried beneath the oak wasn’t so wild after all.

Ward pocketed the glowing locket and pushed his shovel into the ground where the rose petals lay.

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