Winterveil by Jenna Burtenshaw Page B

intruders in their midst.
    Since she had seen Silas, Kate’s memories had burned into clarity like flames spreading through a forest. She could remember everything that had happened in her life: the loss of her home to the wardens’ flames, the experiments conducted upon her by the High Council, and her trial at the hands of the Skilled, who had rejected her even though she had gone to them for help. But worse than all the others, the one that made her wish she could forget everything all over again, was the memory of events that happened just before her journey across the sea.
    She remembered Dalliah’s influence spreading around her, stifling her: Silas Dane, weakened and injured but never broken, and her best friend, Edgar, stabbed by a Blackwatch officer and left to die. Under Dalliah’s influence, Kate had walked away from both of them, leaving them there. She had seen the building they were trapped in burn and blaze, sending thick black smoke into the sky. Silas had survived, but she had seen no sign of Edgar in the village. She could not escape the guilt of leaving him behind. No matter what had happened, she would never forgive herself for that.
    Kate’s hatred toward Dalliah seared inside her. She wanted to shout and rage at the woman who had torn Edgar away from her. She wanted to scream at her . . . make her pay for what she had done. But instead she stayed quiet. She had seen Dalliah’s cruelty at work and had already been overwhelmed by her once before. She needed to keep her mind clear. She needed to wait. If her time with Silas had taught her anything, it was patience.
    Dalliah slowed the horses at the base of a memorial tower that looked very different from the dozens of others they had already passed. Its basic structure was much the same—rounded walls of black stone punctuated with small windows—but this tower’s stones looked as if they were veined with silver. Fragments of what could have been metal reflected the moonlight in thin trails across them, but as Kate looked closer, she saw the truth. Ordinary people would never see anything unusual there. Those veins were threads of energy, invisible to all but the most Skilled of eyes. A dull ache of sadness permeated the air, and Kate could feel the watching presence of at least two souls that were bound to that place, unable to leave.
    Dalliah ordered Kate to dismount and stood with her hand against the tower’s solid door. “It has been a long time since I was last here.” The tower reacted immediately to her touch. The silvery glow faded back until it was barely visible at all, retreating from her hand like ripples on a lake.
    She pulled a key from a pouch on her belt and slid it into the lock. The door was stiff, and the air that belched from inside smelled dead and dry. Kate choked in the swirling dust, but Dalliah was unaffected. The two of them stepped into the forgotten building, and then Kate heard the voice.
    â€œ Do not go .”
    Dalliah showed no sign of having heard it, but to Kate the voice was soft and clear.
    â€œ Please .”
    Inside, the tower was unexpectedly bright. Light poured in through slitlike windows pierced into the walls alongside a curling staircase that rose from the vault below and led up to the levels above. Kate covered her nose with her sleeve to allow herself to breathe and spotted something slumped against the wall. It was a broken skeleton, its skull set crooked and empty eyed, its bony fingers hooked around the handle of a rusted blade.
    â€œHello, Ravik,” said Dalliah. She kicked the skeleton’s foot as she passed it, sending bones rattling across the floor. “You’ll be wanting this back, no doubt.” She dropped the key between the skeleton’s ribs, and something moved in the air above the steps. Kate looked just in time to see a pale apparition of a young man sinking into the wall.
    â€œIgnore him,” said Dalliah. “He was