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was swamp fever. But it took days for spirits to drive a person mad. And one could only contract swamp fever by drinking contaminated water or being bitten by the infected. The Seeking party had brought its own water, and any infected exiles would have died over the winter. The bard would come soon enough, and if he didn’t, then he must have returned with Tova and stayed in the village.

Five
    B y late afternoon, the Seeking party reached the marked site where exiles were abandoned . . . after their guards had led them there on a circuitous route so they’d think they were farther in. The guards left the exiles under the largest tree in the forest, but the Seeking party could not see it from the ground, and had to send a scout to scale trees as they walked.
    While the village volunteers stayed to make temporary camp, the governor waved for Ashyn and the guards to follow him. It was time for the Seeker to begin her work.
    With every step, Ashyn’s heart beat harder. Tova ought to be here. No matter what the governor said, the Hound of the Immortals was supposed to help the Seeker find the bodies. Now she was on her first Seeking, without her hound, and if she failed . . .
    I won’t fail. I must not.
    When the governor stopped walking, Ashyn continued past him. Twigs cracked behind her, and she turned to see Faiban following, sword in hand. She smiled at him, and he hurried to get in front of her, murmuring, “Just tell me where you want to go, my lady.”
    She pointed with another smile and he tripped over his feet to cut her a swath deeper into the forest. Ashyn followed slowly, letting her mind shift to the second world. Since entering the forest, she’d heard no whispers. The spirits of the ancestors stayed out. This was the domain of the damned.
    She was here to help them find peace. It sounded like an act of mercy. It was not. The unsettled dead who roamed the forest were dark, demented forces bent on blind revenge against every living thing. They drove the exiles mad, and they made the forest uninhabitable for man and beast. By giving them peace, the Seeker kept their number at bay.
    When Ashyn was far enough from the others, she asked Faiban to retreat a little. Once he’d backed down the path, she lowered herself to the ground. The earth was damp beneath her fingers, and she could feel the chill of it seep through her breeches. The air down here smelled fetid as the breeze blew off a nearby bog.
    Ignore that. Concentrate.
    Ashyn closed her eyes and reached out to the spirits. After a moment, she could feel them pulling at the edge of her consciousness. It wasn’t like the gentle plucks of the ancestral spirits; these were harsh, like needle jabs.
    She repeated the words Ellyn had taught her.
    “I’m here to give you peace,” she said. “You want peace.”
    No, they wanted revenge.
    The empire’s laws forbade execution, and this was supposed to be a kinder alternative. It wasn’t. She stopped herself from imagining what happened to the exiles. No. That isn’t right. She took a deep breath and instead let herself imagine it. Let herself feel their pain. Feel their rage.
    As she opened herself up to the spirits, she kept repeating her promises of peace. She needed to persuade them that they stood no chance of avenging themselves on those who’d exiled them here, and the best revenge would be the happiness they’d find in joining their ancestors.
    She could hear them now, grumbling and muttering. Their anger flared, like flames licking her face. Then their ghostly fingers reached into her mind, and she began to see images, as Ellyn had warned she would.
    She saw a man crouched by a stream, scooping water. Another came up behind him and slammed a rock down on the crouching man’s head. He fell face-first into the stream. The killer calmly took the dead man’s pack and left him there as the stream ran red with blood.
    “I see,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. That shouldn’t have happened to you.