A Dance of Ghosts

CHAPTER 27

Their travel back to Veldaren was somber, despite Delysia’s best attempts otherwise. It wasn’t as if Haern never laughed or smiled when she joked, or that he did not stay close to her come nightfall. With Thren no longer around, Haern was comfortable enough to remove his hood, and at one of the larger towns, he bought a plain shirt and breeches so he might appear as any other commoner during their walk. But the clothes never seemed to fit just right, and his smile was always temporary, his laugh an ephemeral thing. Whatever joy she’d known in him, it seemed to have left that night he’d spoken with his father.

“Are you all right?” she’d had the courage to ask him only once, after they’d crossed the rivers and into the land of Omn.

“I will be,” he said, and she trusted him enough to let the matter remain at that.

Every night, when she closed her eyes to sleep, she prayed that Haern would find a way to move on. And every night, she listened for the quiet footsteps she knew she’d never hear, those of Thren Felhorn sneaking into their camp to do away with the scars of his past. As week followed week, it seemed neither would come to pass.

They bought their rations at the trading towns they came across, ate them in quiet meals, and traveled the miles with comfortable silence. Sometimes, Haern left her to hunt, but not often. Their rations, wrapped cakes, were more than enough to last until the next town, and so long as they foraged whenever they came upon a patch of berries or fruit hanging from low branches, they managed to keep themselves from ever feeling hungry.

“It’s my turn this time,” Haern said as they prepared to set up camp for the night. “You tend the fire and let me scratch up my arms picking through the thorns.”

He referred to a patch of blackberries they’d passed only minutes before, a patch for which Delysia had insisted they sacrifice a few more hours of travel to pick for dinner.

“If you insist,” Delysia said, casting her eyes about in search for proper kindling. “I’m better at it than you, though.”

“Yes, but you have such delicate baby skin. A single scratch would be a great travesty.”

She rolled her eyes, and he laughed.

“Just don’t be long,” she said. “I’d hate for my pretty little head to start feeling worried during your absence.”

He bowed comically low, sweeping an invisible hat off his head while doing so. The simple gesture left her smiling. For the first time in quite awhile, Haern appeared to be himself again. Perhaps because they were so close to home, or he was finally free of his father’s gloomy presence, but the reason hardly mattered so long as he was smiling.

Delysia hummed to herself as she collected the slender twigs for the fire. They were not far off the well-traveled road to Veldaren, which was only forty miles away by Haern’s estimate, just enough so that when they built their fire, they might have some measure of privacy and safety from anyone who might be prowling about the night with ill intentions. All about were the widely spaced trees of a forest, casting comfortable shade and making it easy pickings for her firewood. The moment was so peaceful, so serene, she felt betrayed by the sound of another person’s voice.

“At last. I thought he’d never leave.”

The sound of that voice sparked a dozen memories, none of them good. Her heart leaped into her throat, and she turned, a bundle of twigs still in her arms. Standing there in the forest, between her and the road, was a specter from the past who should have been long dead. He towered before her, obsidian skin even darker in the shadows, his painted face seeming to glow. She remembered when he’d bound her while waiting to ambush Haern, how he’d mocked her as Senke bled out before her eyes. The only differences now were that his frame looked lankier, drained, and his face bore thick scars that seemed to meld with the very paint across his face.

“Hello, Delysia,” said Ghost.

“Stay back,” she said, dropping her bundle and lifting her hands before her. Defensive spells ran through her mind, and she nearly froze trying to pick one. His swords remained sheathed, and he stood there with an arm braced against a tree, supporting his weight. If he was to attack her, he certainly didn’t look ready for it.

“I’m not here to…” he said, then stopped. It seemed the very words caused him pain. His eyes closed as he grimaced, and she watched his arm sink into the wood of the tree, vanishing as if he were not real, only a memory.

Light shimmered across Delysia’s hands as she pulled power from Ashhur into her being. He may not seem ready to attack her, but the man was dangerous and clearly ill. His eyes were bloodshot, and when he pulled his hand from the tree, his skin seemed to shimmer like morning fog atop a lake.

“Haern killed you,” she said as he stood there, unmoving. “How did you survive?”

“Not now,” Ghost said. His voice was heavy, and so very tired. “I don’t have time for that, Delysia. That I’m here … I can hardly believe it, either. It’s been so long waiting … so long…”

Delysia looked beyond him to the road, and she wondered how long Haern might be. If only he could come back and find her, perhaps help her subdue Ghost before he drew his blades. As she watched, the giant man took a single step, pushing himself away from the tree. As he did, the skin of his face began to bubble beneath the white paint, and all across his arms she watched burn marks appear without reason.

“Waiting?” she said, trying to stall, to keep the man talking. “Well, you’ve waited, and here I am. If you have something to say, then say it.”

“I’m sorry.”

That was it. He said it with such finality, such weight, she found herself speechless. Her head tilted to one side, and she looked at him as if he’d tricked her.

“Sorry?” she asked. “Sorry for what? For murdering my friend?”

Another step.

“Yes,” he said. “For causing you pain. I did it out of pride … out of weakness … and it cost me everything. You only wanted to help him, didn’t you? I can sense it … That’s who you are. Who you’ve always been. I used to think I was better than that. Stupid. So stupid.”

Whatever fear she’d felt of him was long gone. That he was conscious at all appeared a miracle. The burns on his arms were worsening, and she saw several more spreading across his neck. Sweat poured down his face, and his eyes were nearly a solid red from angry veins. Every word he spoke was labored, a clear struggle to remain coherent. She tried to reconcile the wretched sight before her with the cool, confident man that had battled her and her friends with such ease, the man who had stabbed an unaware Senke in the back, yet she could not. The passing years had been unkind to him, to say the least.

“Ghost,” she asked. “What’s wrong with your body?”

With his left hand, he scratched at the paint on his face, and she saw that it was no longer paint. His skin had assumed the color, and instead of peeling it away, he drew blood that dripped down along his skin in crimson trails. On a hunch, she cast a spell over her eyes, granting her sight into a realm not of magic, not of flesh and stone, but of gods. It seemed all the land darkened, including Ghost before her, but surrounding him, swirling like fire made of shadow, were over a hundred chains. She could see but the faintest hint of his being beneath, imprisoned, condemned.

A curse, she thought. But for what? And why?

“I want to know,” Ghost said as she ended the spell, the chains vanishing, revealing only the tired, bleeding man. “I mean, I know the answer, but I’m asking anyway, while I still can. Delysia … do you think you could forgive me?”

Delysia swallowed, her mouth and throat suddenly dry.

“For what?” she asked, even though she knew. But she wanted to hear him say it. She wanted to know for sure.

“For killing your friend,” he said. “For hurting you, your brother. For enjoying it all. Do you think … do you think you could? I’ll die alone and having hurt so many. But you … someone like you … I don’t want to die with you hating me.”

He was desperate, she saw, lost and hopeless. She had a feeling he would not have been able to explain, even to himself, why he’d come.

“For so long, I had only my brother,” Delysia said, her hands curling into fists at her side. “But then Senke joined us. He was part of our family, someone who would listen, who would be there. I loved him, Ghost, and you cut him down … for what? For your pride?”

His eyes remained on the dirt, and he nodded.

“I was the better killer,” he said. “That was reason enough.”

Blood had begun to drip from the burns, oozing down his arms to his fingers to collect like raindrops.

“You want to hear me say it?” she asked. “You want me to say I forgive you, that I no longer hate you? What then, Ghost? If I say it, if I give you your absolution, then what happens?”

He looked up, and his shoulders sagged, his eyes filling with tears.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Because I know you’ll never say it. So kill me, Delysia. Burn me away and free me of this curse.”

He spread his arms out to the side, as if inviting an old friend. Delysia tried to push aside the confusion in her mind, all the hurt memories of Senke, his smile, his laugh, the way he’d bled on their floor while she’d been tied to a chair. The way Tarlak had looked at her when he came back to their home that horrible night, blood all over his yellow robes. The way he’d been unable to answer when she asked if Senke was all right.

“I blamed myself,” she said, a knot in her throat. “Did you know that?”

His head hung low, and she heard his labored, raspy breaths.

“Your brother told me,” he said. “Now do it. You know what I am. I’m a monster, Delysia, a horrible fucking monster. I don’t even know my own name anymore. Whatever it was, it’s gone. I’m a ghost, a demon, and there’s only one fate for things like me. We burn.”

She felt her own tears building, and she looked at the rotting wretch before her, saw a man mired only in misery. She knew the rage she should feel, felt the sorrow, but it wasn’t right. It wasn’t her. The man wanted to find some sort of cleansing death. Appearing to her, giving her a chance to slay him … it was a gift, the only one he knew to offer. To be so broken, to think the sorrow she’d known could be made pure by the taking of a life …

“I cried my tears long ago,” she said. “And no, I don’t hate you. You were a broken man long before you came into our lives, and I only pity the life you led that carried you to such a place.”

Ghost wiped at his eyes, smearing blood across his white-scarred face.

“My road,” he said. “My choices. Don’t you dare pity me.”

“You wanted my forgiveness, and now you have it. What more can you ask of me, Ghost?”

He tried to answer, but instead, he took several steps backward and clutched at his head. His face was the purest expression of pain Delysia had ever seen. Doubled over, Ghost let out a scream, and his fingers scratched deep grooves into the sides of his neck.

“Not yet,” he screamed. “Not yet!”

And then it was over. Ghost stood there, tired, bleeding, but acting as if it’d never happened.

“I was given a task,” he said, and he seemed a bit more coherent than before. “Three jobs, that’s it. You Eschaton, the Watcher, and Alyssa’s faceless woman. Karak wants you dead. That’s what they told me.”

“Who told you?”

He chuckled, shook his head.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s simple, so simple. If I didn’t kill you, if I failed my task, then my life was the price of my failure.”

Ghost drew both his swords, but she remained where she stood, defiant, unafraid. There was no malice in him. No danger, only regret. The giant man fell to his knees, and he stabbed both swords deep into the dirt of the forest. The act done, his entire body racked with shivers, and it seemed he would soon pass out.

“Ghost?” she asked, feeling the first edges of panic tingling up her spine. “Ghost, what are you doing?”

He looked up at her, and for the first time, he smiled.

“I’m failing.”

Blood dripped from his mouth. His arms were nothing but burned scars, and she saw thin trails of smoke rising into the air. His obsidian skin paled, as if all color within him were draining away. His hands gripped his swords hard enough to turn his knuckles white. Eyes closed against the pain, she watched him as he gasped, waves of agony overwhelming him, striking him down, tensing the muscles in his back and ripping gashes across the front of his neck.

Dying for her, she realized.

She stepped toward him, hand outstretched, palm pressing against the very center of his white face. The heat of his skin was incredible, the paint burning her like fire.

“No,” she said, and with her words she released all the power she’d built up inside her. Channeling it through her hand, she poured it into Ghost. She imagined the shadowy chains, and she smashed them. She saw his burns, and she flooded them with light. The color returned to his flesh, his mouth opened to scream. As she watched, the paint upon his face hardened, peeled away, and then fell to the ground like scales. His head snapped back, and it was as if his entire body were smashed with an invisible force. Delysia felt the wretched presence of Karak, and she prayed it away, denying it with every last shred of her being. In her ears she heard a constant ringing, intensifying as her spell reached its end.

She pulled back her hand, and Ghost knelt before her, his eyes wide, mouth open amid his bewilderment. His burns were gone. For the first time ever, she saw his face without the paint, saw how handsome he was. He looked up at her, tears running down his cheeks.

“Delysia,” he said, and he reached out a hand.

She reached back, a smile forming on her lips, a smile that died the moment she saw the blur of cloak racing toward Ghost.

“Haern, no!” she screamed, fearing it was already too late.