Tanag woke as light broke into his resting place. He didn’t know how long he’d been dead, only that he’d been murdered and was still angry about it. His best friend had betrayed him, had chosen his family’s ambitions over loyalty and friendship, after all.

  Tanag had made a serious misjudgment of character, and he worried that it had cost his family their lives.

  Careful, lest he should be destroyed before he’d woken, Tanag lay still. His sword lay in its sheath—Arrin had given him no time to draw it, plunging the weapon he’d taken from the yellowthorn thicket deep into Tanag’s kidney and holding his friend, his prince, while he made sure Tanag died of the injury and the poison in the yellow thorn’s sting.

  Tanag remembered the pain, so great he hadn’t been able to make a sound, but not as great as the pain in his heart. Arrin had gone to great lengths to ensure Tanag’s murder remained undiscovered, bringing down the cave roof with a magical ability Tanag had not suspected.

  The wielding had brought about a distinctive stench, and the prince wondered just how long Arrin had consorted with demons, or when he’d found the time. Arrin had spent his off-hours, and many stolen moments, in the arms of dark-eyed, dark haired Lannara.

  Rocks tumbled, metal gauntlets scraped against stone and the light grew stronger. Tanag tried to resist the urge to squint against the light, and registered that he had no eyes…and no eyelids. He started to raise a hand to feel his face, but the first twitch of his fingers brought a startled shout to ears that were no longer there.

  Retribution was swift, even though he’d stilled his hand. A sword was driven through his ribs. There was pain, but not the kind of pain Tanag expected. This time it was no effort to keep himself still.

  Magic bound him together… Why would magic bind his bones together when his flesh was clearly gone? He had known he was dead, but this? Why?

  Laughter interrupted his thoughts.

  “The great knight Devas, frightened by a pile of empty bones.” Mockery.

  “I swear I saw it move.”

  “Well, it’s not moving now. Who was it, do you think?”

  Tanag listened to them try to work out who he’d been. Not a single word was close. He did not protest when they took the sword, well-preserved by its sheath, nor did he make a sound when they rifled through the trinkets and coins that had fallen into his remains when his pockets had rotted away.

  He did not try to stop them scattering his bones when they noted the glint of gold that had once adorned his fingers, or the entwined gold and solid medallion that he’d worn around his throat. None of that mattered.

  What mattered to him now, was to work out why he lived beyond death—a death unfairly given, certainly, but an ending none-the-less. As the big man in plate mail and his trio of less well-protected companions made their way further into the cavern complex, Tanag wished them luck.

  He’d lain here long enough to know there were creatures roaming the complex depths that no-one should disturb. The same creatures had feasted on his still cooling flesh, long after he could form the words to protest. If Tanag still possessed a stomach, the thought would have made him ill.

  Turning his mind as to why he might still live, Tanag thought on all the reasons one might carry on after death, instead of crossing to whatever existence lay ahead. Unfinished business was one, but all who died had a degree of that, and the truth was that he had left nothing undone that would tie him to this realm.

  Vengeance—well, he could see how he might feel vengeful, but getting back at Arrin wasn’t strong enough to drive him. After all, Arrin had only taken him; his friend had not harmed his family, at least, not that he knew of.

  Arrin had loved the princesses, and almost lost his life saving Chelea, jokingly swearing he would gladly bear the burden of two wives so that he didn’t have to choose between Lannara and honey-eyed Maietta, Tanag’s nearest sibling and a year their junior.

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  Maietta!

  Tanag’s soul resonated with anxiety for her. It quivered with rage and outrage. And now, Tanag remembered.

  He had sworn to kill Arrin should his once-friend harm Maietta, and oaths were the other thing that could keep a man alive after death. Vengeance did play a part, after all, for Arrin had hurt Maietta, and Tanag had sworn he would not let it pass.

  “Maietta,” he whispered, and gave a sigh.

  He was going to need his sword after all.

  Slowly, Tanag drew his bones together, feeling the stretch and pull each one made on the magic holding him together. An oath of vengeance…against his best friend.

  Tanag grieved, and not just for a brother lost. For Arrin to have been able to harm Maietta, he would have had to remove the rest of the family and protectors from around her, and that meant Tanag had lost more than just a kingdom; he’d lost everything he’d once held dear.

  When he was sure he would hold together, Tanag stood, hearing his bones clatter where they joined, and listening to them rattle against the floor. He remembered how he’d complained his riding boots were too noisy against the rock underfoot, remembered that Arrin’s boots had made no sound as he’d crept rapidly in behind him. There’d been no warning, just the flaring pain as Arrin ended him.

  Tanag wondered briefly if Maietta were still alive, and then realized he couldn’t rely on that, either. Regardless of if she still suffered, Maietta had been harmed by Arrin, and it was Arrin’s continued life that kept Tanag bound to this plane—and, if Tanag’s mortal remains were in such fleshless estate, then Arrin had either aged, or preserved his life through some other means.

  Tanag remembered the scent that had accompanied Arrin’s casting. He sifted through living memories that no longer felt real, and found the one he sought—hot earth, sulphur, and rotting vegetation, all laced with a soft perfume that called to the nose and stirred the loins.

  They had driven her off together. Granted, they’d had to kill her human consort, sending him screaming to the hells he’d earnt through his pleasure, but they had driven the demoness away, defeated, and vowing vengeance. She had been angrier with Tanag than his best friend and bodyguard.

  “You will rue the day you stood between me and that which I desired to accomplish.” She had sworn it, as they lunged for her, blades searching, bodies aching at her voice. She had vanished before their blades could strike.

  Their victory had been considered notable because of their youth, and their fathers had berated them well for the reckless bravado they’d shown. There had been training with the priests and paladins of Staravan, hours in the sun and the dark, hours more in the classroom, learning what they had been blissfully unaware of. They’d been more than lucky to live past the encounter and see their nineteenth year.

  The demoness had taken three years to return, and neither of them had known it. Well, Tanag, with the clarity of hindsight, knew it now. Lannara with her fiery eyes, her long dark hair and, so Arrin claimed, a body to die for.

  It had been Lannara, who had disliked Tanag on sight, and for whom Arrin had made laughing excuses whenever she’d declined an invite from the prince. The very woman, whose scent matched the perfume beneath the sulphureous rot he remembered, the one Arrin had threatened to take as his wife while simultaneously wifing Tanag’s sister.

  Tanag was going to kill them both—Arrin and Lannara. They’d brought Maietta harm.

  Once he’d avenged her, he’d rest.

  Decision made, Tanag followed the route taken by the adventurers who had confiscated his sword and medallion. He wondered if he could somehow garner their help. He marveled, also, that he knew which way they had taken, and could sense their life force growing stronger as he neared. He despaired as each living flame vanished from his senses, and followed their fading presence to a broadening cavern.

  The question of garnering their help had been answered with a resounding ‘No.’ His visitors had found the creatures living within the cavern complex. They had found the temple, a little larger than a shrine, hidden behind the yellowthorn, under the hill. The beasts guarding it had defeated, and were devouring, them.

  Tanag watched, remembering how those teeth had felt tearing into his flesh, crunching down on his bones until the marrow could be reached by a single caress of the beasts’ long, hard-edged tongues. Even as a skeleton, Tanag shuddered.

  The beasts ignored him. They had cracked his bones already. It was why the magic held him together, now—the magic in their saliva, and the oath.

  “Maietta,” he said, and the beasts looked up from their meals. “I need my sword to fulfill my oath.”

  The beasts went back to tearing muscle from bone, pulling entrails through the rents they’d made in their victims’ skins. Taking their disinterest as permission, Tanag advanced. His sword had been adopted by the knight, not surprising, since it was a better blade than the one Devas had driven between his ribs.

  Tanag took it from the ground, pulled its belt and scabbard from beneath the warrior’s body, causing the beast feeding on him to growl as the body rocked. Tanag growled back, and the beast rose from its crouch. In the light of the tumbled lantern, Tanag could see it properly for the first time.