My steps were leaden and my face drawn as I followed the lich through the once bright home of the Sun King. The halls and gathering places of the grand building had been transformed into a grim reflection of my current state: a place utterly gutted of its previous purpose. A single, heinous Spell had made it this way, one cast by the lich herself before the mixed group of demons and undead entered the Palace proper.

  Bodies littered our path, keeled over steps or collapsed in the middle of hallways, their vacant eyes catching mine. Half a day ago I would have found such sights horrific, but the me who existed now, the one who hate held upright, barely registered them. If anything, seeing the prone forms gave me a flutter of relief: if all that existed in this building were my enemies, then I could burn it to the ground without need for hesitation when the opportunity arose.

  As we traveled farther, I discovered that not everyone here had ended like those previous poor folk. I saw a few splatters of blood and once heard a shout down a corridor, evidence that a few carded defenders were making efforts at a last stand. I didn’t hold out hope that they would succeed. Hull’s mother had sent some particularly nasty looking demons in before her, and the lich had done the same with her vampires – my fists balled at my sides. Even thinking of the broad-shouldered beast who had so casually claimed Esmi’s murder and card made me want to do unspeakable things. It was an effort to loosen my fingers and pull back from the blind rage that threatened to overtake me. The direct assault I had attempted against Esmi’s killer had yielded me nothing except information, and I would not make the same mistake again. The next time I struck, it would be when I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had enough power to obliterate my foes.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked, my words sounding just as dead as those around me to my ears. Hull’s mother had made an offhand comment that this lich – Felstrife, they had called her – liked to level her prey before taking their soul ability, and I desperately needed that to be true. Distantly, I knew there were other things I should be worrying about as well: Hull, my family and friends, and everyone else who still drew breath in Treledyne. There was also the very real possibility that Felstrife might simply be looking for a good place to take my soul as it was, denying me any hope of vengeance. But something else in me knew that if I let myself linger on such thoughts I would be reduced to little more than a useless ball of tears, and I was so very done with being useless. My jaw clenched tightly, just like my fists had a moment ago, and it was an effort to open my mouth again to speak. “If you let me know, perhaps I can help you find it.”

  The lich ignored me as thoroughly as she did the bodies she floated over, her unhesitating path through the Palace making it seem like she had been born here – and perhaps she had; I could only guess at how many centuries her blue-tinged bones had weathered.

  We came to a large room, a ballroom by the look of it, with tall mirrors running down the sides and unlit chandeliers above. Felstrife let out a hiss that might have been one of satisfaction as she yanked me to the center of the room, her boney fingers grasping the meat of my upper arm tightly when I didn’t move fast enough. When we reached the center, she whipped me around to face her, her other hand grabbing me by the chin and tilting my face up so that she could peer down at me. Her eye sockets were like black caves and yet something alive pulsed in their depths as she leaned over me.

  My soul card, I realized. She was trying to see what abilities I possessed, which meant her own ability was only one of detection, not information gathering. I filed that nugget of knowledge away in case it proved useful at some point. Azure had mentioned that a girl had been captured by this lich, saved from the destruction of her town so that her ability could be taken – something about plants if I recalled correctly. Where was she, I wondered? In the process of leveling, or already discarded? If I knew how long such a thing took or to what level the lich preferred to elevate a person, it would be a great help to my planning. Surely lifting me to Epic, even if a workaround existed, would require months, would it not?

  Felstrife released me without warning, and I nearly fell, not realizing how much her grip was holding me up. I righted myself quickly, refusing to show weakness to these invaders. While she was not as high on my list as the suited vampire, I would destroy her too if I could. She had killed dozens of my countrymen and women, if not hundreds, and deserved no less.

  “Felstrife?” an oily voice said from the adjoining hall and not long after a hooded figure ducked into the room. The face under the dark cowl was an aged man, and for a moment I thought he might be a prisoner like me. But then I saw that his dark robe was finely cut, the cuffs and neck lined with ermine. Bones hung from his belt, some clearly human in size, and a book strapped to his side was equally festooned: teeth worked like tiled mosaic covering the front and spine. “Is this the room you have chosen for your workshop?” he asked skeptically, and I could understand why – the space was much too large for that, built to host a great many souls.

  She didn’t respond, but the man took it well in stride, using that oil in his voice to grease a quick change in topic. “The collection of the dead has gone well, despite the interference of the demons – feckless brutes – and without the aid of the vampire cadre, I might add. The wights are doing their part, pushing any resistance back to the walls, but without sustained support, their efforts will eventually stall.” He grinned, a horrid thing to behold, his pale gums so receded there were deep gaps between his too long teeth. “My necromancers are at the ready, of course, sorting the flesh and preparing the necessary rituals.”

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  Despite my current state, it was chilling to hear that our dead were being treated so, but it also made perfect sense. Of course the undead army would collect our fallen to use against us. All those people I had seen on my way here, from the messengers to maids, would walk again, reborn to kill the humans who had survived thus far. How would the necromancers do it? I wondered. Did they have Spell cards that animated the dead, or were these “rituals” something that captured the dead into cards, creating new Zombie and similar Soul cards? It was an idle, dark curiosity that captured my attention for a moment, but more importantly, I noticed that the man hadn’t mentioned the orcs, which was the barest lining of silver. If the Twins had any love for Treledyne left, perhaps the chaotic creatures had fled after our king had defeated their leader.

  The man continued his report, seeming to not mind that Felstrife never said anything in reply. Who exactly was he to her? Some sort of council? An advisor? The more I knew about how the enemy functioned, the easier it would be for me to hinder their efforts. Such was my line of thinking until he circled back to the many corpses they were gathering, some from beyond the walls.

  “Are you collecting bodies from outside the main gate as well?” I blurted. “All of them?”

  The man’s lip pulled up in disgust. “How dare you address me, filth? Me, one of the High Epics of the Grand Legion and Master to the necromancers. I should have my apprentices sew your lips shut.”

  For all his bluster, the desiccated, half-dead man didn’t intimidate me, but if he could get me what I wanted, there was no reason for me to make an enemy of him. “I meant no disrespect, High Epic,” I said, using the title since I was unaware of what else to call him. I also inclined my head toward him. “Pardon the intrusion.”

  The man sniffed, eyeing me narrowly, appearing somewhat mollified. “As I was saying, the raising of the newest horde using bodies from within the Palace will be complete at dusk, at which point you can direct them. Unless you would like to provide me with those specifics, or if not, I have some suggestions as to how we may employ –”

  “Go,” Felstrife hissed, the single word managing to fill the wide room.

  The necromancer flinched and then glared at me, probably hating that a mere prisoner of war had seen him dismissed mid-sentence. I looked back at him neutrally, as if I had no clue what the interaction meant. This was not how the rage within me wanted me to act. It wanted me to break all of these despoilers with my bare hands, to feel their bones snap in my grasp. But I was not Hull. I would need to do as Azure had said to me and embrace who I was, using that to defeat my enemies. I was a noble who had seen dances of power like this before; I could play this game.

  “As you command, Mistress,” the man said to her but then eyed me with a yellowish gaze. His skills in such things were not so refined, probably from dealing with folk who rarely spoke. That look informed me clear as day that he was still deciding how best to use me, which I didn’t mind at all, as long as I got what I wished in return. I nodded to him, hoping it would be encouragement enough for him to seek me out again, though he gave no reaction before departing.

  When he was gone, Felstrife slowly turned in my direction, the way she floated in the air making it seem like she pirouetted with the grace of a dancer. “How did you elevate your soul?” she rasped.

  The number of words she spoke in succession was a surprise to me after she had been so reticent with one of her Epics. “Why?” I asked in return. “Is it true that you plan to level me and then take my abilities for your own?” It was a calculated risk, revealing that I knew as much about her as I did. Even so, I believed the result of the question would either gain me information or have no significant effect on our dealings. In characteristic fashion, Felstrife stared silently back at me, and I matched her stare for a good few minutes – until it became obvious that her patience far outstripped my own. “Memorizing cards in my family’s library,” I said neutrally, as if I had simply needed time to remember.

  “What else?”

  I narrowed my eyes at the ancient being who hovered before me. How many years had she studied such things to so effortlessly deduce that my Mindtrap and Seersight wouldn’t have come from the same source? “Participating in duels, as near as I can tell.”

  Instead of asking another question, she reached to the side. To my great shock, her bony hand vanished into a smokey shadow that had twisted into existence, followed by her forearm as she reached deeper into the hazy portal.

  “What in the Twelve…?” I began, but before I could finish my question, she had extracted her hand, holding in it a chunky, round helmet. The shadows spiraled away as if they had never been, leaving me to consider instead what she held. The metal of the piece had been worked in such a way that there were odd dips and swoops instead of a smooth sphere, and there were some dark gems embedded on one side.

  What I had just witnessed very likely mean that Felstrife had an ability similar to Afi’s, one that allowed her to access things from a separate, intangible space, and I could only imagine that what she had pulled from there was some sort of Artifact, similar to the marriage earrings I still carried in my pocket. Esmi, my heart, my sweet love, my forever. What did they do to you? I felt my whole core tremble at the thought of my beloved and the small, beautifully worked pieces I had dreamed of us sharing, happily wearing even once our ears were oversized and wrinkled. I breathed hard out of my nose, my entire body so tense it was painful. Yes, if I let myself focus on such things, I would indeed become unraveled. But then I couldn’t make them suffer.

  And they needed to suffer.

  While I mastered myself, Felstrife floated nearer, fitting the strange helmet onto my head. It was heavier than expected, and as the lich danced her fingers along the side, it buzzed to life.

  Suddenly, my vision was filled with flickering images of copper, silver, gold, and more, all of them rushing past like a cascade of glittering jewels. There were so many of them and they moved so quickly I could barely distinguish one from the other, and yet my lack didn’t slow their arrival, each streaming by, one after the next, after the next, after the next –

  The flood of imagery stopped, and I found myself on my hands and knees on the polished wood floor, struggling to gulp in breath. “What…was…that?”

  “Every card I’ve ever come across,” Felstrife’s said from above me, her wheezing voice sounding like the last hitch of breath as someone died. “There are thousands upon thousands of them.”

  Though I thought the effort might cause me to retch, I looked up and saw that she held one finger to her temple. On it was a ring fitted with a large amber gem that was gradually darkening.

  “And you will learn them all.”