Even as they approached the castle ruins, dead still lined the roads, forcing the knight to weave through them. These ruins were nearly as complete as the church. Vines crawled up the stairs and into the castle entrance.

  “Why have you brought me here?” the knight asked.

  They entered, joining the vines that stretched ever inward.

  “You needed aid,” the Question replied.

  “And what aid will an abandoned kingdom hold for a knight?”

  “Not for a knight,” the Question said. “For a king.”

  “I am no king,” the knight said, turning his gaze down to his weary feet.

  “No,” the Question said as he stopped at a large doorway, overgrown with thorn-covered vines. “But you may choose to be.”

  The knight stepped forward and looked into the room.

  A throne sat at the end, elevated above all else, wrapped in a tangle of vines. The knight stepped across the overgrowth at the entrance and wandered in. It was smaller than his king’s, but regal still. A hole in the high ceiling dripped wet from the hanging moss. A solemn wind whispered through.

  The knight looked at the Question.

  “Sitting on an empty throne does not make a king.”

  “No,” the Question replied. “Bodies willing to serve make a king.”

  “Divine right makes a king,” the knight argued. “Noble birth.”

  “Birth is as common as death,” the Question said, moving toward the throne. “If you sit, they will serve.”

  “Who? The only thing left of this kingdom is death.”

  “And it is yours to claim,” it said, gesturing toward the throne.

  The knight approached the throne. Some dead that lingered within the tangle of vines twitched at his approach. Lifeless eyes looked at him, waiting. When he reached it, he noticed the vines that wrapped it had their thorns pointed outward except for two. Dried blood coated the needle-like barbs that protruded from the ends of the armrests.

  As he stood before it, the surrounding air settled, and the distant dripping of water, the lonely breeze—even the emptiness in his chest—all fell silent.

  He felt watched—not by eyes, but by something that measured time.

  Looking for the source, the knight noticed the hole in the ceiling was a window, the tangle of vines was precisely arranged as though placed intentionally, and the heaviness that pressed down on this place had lifted.

  “What will it take from me?” he asked, running a curious hand over the back of the seat.

  “What is taken from kings?” the Question asked.

  “Nothing,” the knight replied, with an edge to his voice.

  “All life is taken from.”

  The knight circled, examining it apprehensively. He realized that such a throne was not meant to be sat on for long. He wondered how long ago the mage had taken it. Had it taken his mind?

  “Did you not ask for aid?” the Question asked. “Would bodies laid before you not ease your suffering? Had you been king, would you have been made to rot?”

  The words nearly held his hands, leading him to sit. Had he been, the princess would be sitting beside him. They’d be raising an heir. Sir Draven would be there with them, putting action to their will. The images pushed their way into his mind the second the Question spoke, like they had been waiting to show themselves—a fantasy waiting for reason.

  Any reason.

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  “The dead,” the knight spoke low, “did not consent to serve. They do not wish to lie before my suffering. They did not ask to be ruled.”

  “Did you?” the Question asked. “Does anyone? These souls are lost. They feel nothing.”

  He reached for the thorns and felt his blood pool in his fingers immediately. The dead convulsed in unison.

  He recoiled.

  “I’m sure the mage felt the same,” the knight said. The anger pulsing through the dead resonated within him.

  The Question nodded as it approached, standing opposite him beside the throne. It gestured to the armrest.

  “But the dead grow restless,” it said. “Sit and give them purpose. Let the throne take its blood and give the dead a king. This is a throne that remembers, and the dead do not forget. Their king is vanquished by your hand. If you will not bleed for this throne, then you will bleed for them.”

  The Question gestured toward the bodies. They jerked again, and the knight thought he may have even heard them groan.

  “Will you lead them, or will you end them?” it asked. The surrounding dead twitched and cracked, some sitting up and facing him. “Be their king or be their reprisal.”

  The knight stepped before the throne and turned his back on it. He looked at the Question as he sat.

  “You’ve led me to a trap,” he said. “And you will pay.”

  The Question replied, satisfaction in his voice, “We are bound.”

  The knight set down his sword—his soul.

  His heart raced as he sat. The anger, the disgust, the betrayal—it all trembled in his hands as he held them above the thorns. A faint lightheadedness found him as his blood rushed to his palms. He felt them swell with it.

  “I will not become him,” he said, pressing his hands down.

  The pain was dull, and the blood was sudden. It poured out of him, running down the vines. They stretched as if waking after a deep slumber. The thorns in his hands grew, pressing against the edges of his wounds. Warmth moved through him where he expected cold. Memories that didn’t belong to him attempted to burrow. He pulled his hands up and away.

  The dead followed, rising like puppets.

  His heart sank. He held his hands in his lap, palms up, and looked at his wounds, waiting for them to heal.

  They did not.

  “Curious,” the Question said.

  “What have you done?” the knight asked, his voice trembling. He held his hands out and nearly shouted. “We are bound! You’ve broken our contract!”

  The dead marched toward the Question, converging behind the knight.

  “You will live to find your answers. I am bound.”

  “And for how long will I bleed?” the knight asked.

  “Until you can no longer,” the Question said.

  The knight calmed, then understood. The mage. The swords. Souls stolen to replenish his own.

  The knight looked at the throne room and the patient dead.

  They knelt.

  He felt small.

  He grabbed his sword, holding it in his weakened grip.

  “I no longer wish to be here.”

  The Question gestured to the door with a bow and said, “Your highness.”

  There was no mockery in his voice, but still the knight did not care for it. He marched past, and the dead followed, floating behind him.

  By the time he’d made it out, nearly one hundred dead had fallen in line behind him. Outside, the vast army hung lifeless and waiting—their toes gently brushing the ground. They covered the ruined kingdom like moss covered the land.

  “Which way?” the knight asked.

  “Follow,” the Question answered.

  He did, with his army floating silently at his back.

  They hadn’t gone far, only to where the structures lost their form and moss strangled the world, when the army slowed.

  Then it stopped.

  The knight felt it before he saw it—a drag in his chest, a resistance in the blood that still ran from his palms. The dead wavered, some drifting forward a pace before settling back, as if pulled in two directions at once.

  He turned to find them looking not only behind them, but at him.

  “Have they gone too far?” the knight asked.

  “No,” the Question said.

  “Have they all stopped?”

  The Question flew up and hovered for a moment. It came back down and answered, “Yes.”

  “If they do not wish to follow, then I will not force them,” the knight said, turning to continue onward.

  “Wait,” the Question said. “I hear something.”

  The knight grew still, listening to the path behind them. At first, there was nothing.

  Then came the splashing.

  Fast. Careless. Human.

  The knight’s grip tightened. He thought of Sir Draven. Of prisoners who had fled. Of survivors who did not yet know better than to run toward death.

  Before he could raise his sword, he saw him.

  A man ran through the moss, naked, wet, and new, his skin pink as exposed flesh. He moved through the ranks of the dormant dead as though they were not there at all. He held an ordinary blade. They did not recoil. They did not reach for him. They regarded him as they regarded the knight—as a dog would its master.

  The knight did not recognize him—not until he stood before him.

  The knight knew him before he understood why.

  It was himself.

  The Double stepped forward.

  No hesitation. No hatred.

  Only purpose.

  The knight saw a blade rise.

  Then nothing.