by Lindsey Byrd
Kera angled her body to keep between him and her family. He might just be a boy, but he was also a ghost, and ghosts were perfectly capable of killing at a whim.
“I apologize for disturbing you, mi’ladies, but whatever are you doing out here?” He held out his hand in greeting. “There’s a Trent army not too far away.” Kera fixated on the accent. It was unsurprising considering their current location, as it was southern in nature, but there was a slight Ruugian tilt that implied time spent on the other side of the Great Sea. He’d been wealthy then, before his death. He’d gone to school in Ruug and been trained in their customs before returning to Absalon to fight.
Aurora had an arm around Faith’s body, her fingers tight on Aiden’s shoulder. Weeks ago, she’d warned Kera about death marches. Weeks ago, she’d told her not to talk to any more ghosts, and yet here they were.
Kera was the closest to the soldier, and if she ignored his hand any longer, it would seem rude. Already she was pushing the bounds of social convention by not taking it. They were past the point of being able to avoid interaction, and purposefully infuriating the soldier would only make things worse. Slowly, with Aurora whispering in protest at her back, Kera reached out and cupped his palm to hers.
He was not as cold as she had thought he would be. His skin was as warm as any normal man’s, though it continued to gives off the faint blue glow of the undead. She was grateful he wasn’t decaying like the wraith, or bleeding like the horror stories her older brothers had told her as a child. The morbidity of such a sight might have made this interaction far less cordial. Still, he didn’t seem offended when she released his palm a touch quicker than decency allowed.
If anything, his smile grew as he peered at Aurora and the children. “We’re . . . traveling,” Kera explained. She swallowed back her tension and tried to summon the least confrontational words in her arsenal. She was not sure what a ghost would find unpleasant, nor what could send one into a rage. But the soldier seemed polite enough for now. “Didn’t make it to the inn in time, I’m afraid.”
The soldier tilted his head a little, then glanced over his shoulder. Kera followed his gaze, and her breath froze in her chest. More soldiers were walking through the trees, hesitating on the edge of their encampment. The colonel met her eyes, frowning a little. “You need not be afraid, my lady, we’re not savages. We’ll not harm you or your children.”
Kera forced the muscles around her lips to pull her mouth into the best smile she could manage. She felt the corners of her eyes crinkle as she thanked him. The expression must have been less pleasant than she had intended; it made him laugh.
“Oh, don’t be like that. I swear on our honor. We’ve never harmed a lady, and we likely never will. The general would hang us all from the poplars if we did.”
“That’d be quite a feat,” Kera said. “They’re not known for their branches.”
The soldier laughed again, a great boisterous sound that was almost musical. Enchanting in the way operas and theatrical productions were on a warm summer night. She heard Aurora hissing her name, and Kera blinked rapidly as she tried to keep focus.
The man was dead. Enchanting or not, well-meaning or not, he and his men were a danger to them all. Horror stories of people being pulled into death marches, dying by the spectacle some even purposefully went to see, were not forgotten easily. “Please, my ladies, we’d be serving without honor if we didn’t escort you properly. Is there any place we could take you?”
“We’ll be fine,” Aurora said. “We don’t need your assistance.” The colonel’s face flickered in and out of focus, there and gone in a flash. He frowned, unhappy and discontented.
“Only, you’re so busy as it is,” Kera hastened to explain. “And your duties are far more important than caretaking us.” His expression didn’t lift in the slightest. If anything, it became suspicious.
“What were your names, again?” he asked them. Spies! Kera’s heart jolted as realization struck. He believed them to be spies. Women and children lost in the woods would never turn down such a guard, they should be thankful for the soldiers’ presence, not wary of their offer for help. More than that, this colonel was a true soldier, not some rascal in a blue coat. With his shiny buttons and well-maintained boots, he was a man (boy) of some importance. He had been well-bred and was loyal to his command. The soldiers that surrounded him, walking closer and closer with each passing second, continued to look to him for leadership and guidance. They trusted him. He wasn’t going to ignore the oddities of Kera and Aurora’s presence. He wasn’t going to be turned away with a few casual words.
“A gentleman would do well to introduce himself first,” Kera bargained. She tried to recall every soldier Mori had mentioned. Faces and names blurred. Too many died during the war and the only man she could think of was—
“John Sarren, my lady. And you?”
“Kera,” Aurora snapped. “No—”
“I know him!” Kera said, looking back at her partner just for a moment, before focusing back on John.
“Know me?” he asked, too startled to say much else.
“Kera, get away from him; it’s not safe!”
But Kera didn’t listen. She soaked in the image of John’s face. His eyes, his nose, his cheeks. He was handsome. Handsome and boyish, and oh! They had been this young once. She and Mori had been this young at some point or another. The dashing young soldier with his lady. She remembered how they’d appeared in the years of her story’s prologue. She yanked a memory of Mori at twenty-one years old and slotted him right alongside this dreamlike portrait from their past. They had stood side by side once, grinning and teasing. The best of friends who brought out the worst in each other.
“Madam,” John stumbled, blinking so quickly she almost laughed at his shock. “I’m sure I would have recalled meeting such a lovely—”
“My name is Kerryn Montgomery.” John’s eyes widened. Horror washed across his features before being rapidly replaced by an enthusiastic smile that hinged on the edge of hysteria. He clung to her hand.
“I had known Mori married a lady,” John said, sounding perfectly content despite his false start. “But I must confess, he did not impress how tragically beautiful his lady was.”
The flattery was old and familiar, words misplaced by decades. She’d heard that turn of phrase before, and was struck by a sudden sight of John leaning over Mori’s shoulder as Mori penned out her letters. Perhaps he’d even cackled boisterously as Mori grew more excited with his euphemisms. She caught the twinkle in John’s eye, the way he shifted his posture from military perfection into something more suave and inviting. A conscious choice to seem less threatening than he was. “And yet you, Lieutenant Colonel,” she drawled carefully, “are precisely the scoundrel he described.”
Another man might have taken offense, but John laughed again. He threw his body into the motion, delight ringing through the trees. When his guffaws finally ceased, he released Kera’s hand. He hurried toward Aiden and looked him over. “Is this . . .?” he asked Kera, eyes growing wide even as his skin seemed to turn more pale. Aurora had pulled Aiden close to her side, her terror obvious for all to see.
But even as Kera was scrambling to find a way to defuse the situation, she heard her husband’s voice whispering from a memory long forgotten. “I wish he could have known our children.” And though it was a memory, she could have sworn she’d heard him speak it aloud, whispering his intentions on the wind. Najah had told her not to give her heart to anyone while she still cared so deeply for her husband, but divorcing herself from those emotions seemed impossible. For all her anger and resentment, she still loved him. Still had shared a lifetime with him. His heartbreak still felt like hers. His wishes still colored her desires. Maybe Najah had been right. Maybe she wasn’t ready to move on.
“Yes,” she said, opening her eyes and trying not to let the pain show. Trying not to look at Aurora as the pain only seemed to grow worse. “Yes, this is Aiden.” John’s face was a
light with wonder. He leaned down over Aiden and smiled at the boy. He lifted a hand to touch his cheek and was immediately slapped for it.
Aurora was shameless. She pulled Aiden away and the colonel recoiled like a scolded dog. His nose scrunched up, and Kera felt the temperature of the wood start to drop low. The hazy blue of the dead army brightened.
“Aurora . . .” Kera warned. John was glaring. Disposition inverted in a moment.
“He’s sick,” Aurora excused. She didn’t bother mollifying her tone. She glared without remorse. “We wouldn’t want you or your men to . . . become afflicted.”
If she thought the words would calm John, she was mistaken. He dismissed her and looked at Kera for permission. It was like seeing Morpheus again, as he used to be. Fiery and vibrant. Emotions in all directions. The worst of each other . . .
It was exhausting. All of it was exhausting. Mori and John and all the history of what could have been but what wasn’t real. Kera wished, suddenly, that it could all just stop. That things could be simple and easy. That she could just move on without being reminded constantly of the past. A past that was familiar. The safety the past provided was coddling in its embrace. She understood this past. She could negotiate with this past and keep it from causing any undue harm.
Knowing Aurora would hate her for it, Kera slipped around John. She stood between him and Aurora, leaning in close and keeping her voice as low as she could. “He doesn’t understand,” she said. “He’s just . . . a child who wants to meet his best friend’s son.”
“He’s dead, Kera. And so is that best friend of his.”
“He doesn’t know that.” Kera reached for her child, not surprised when Aurora struggled to hand him over. “Please . . . I know how to talk to him.”
“You were lucky with that ghost back in Doleystown . . .”
“It’s not that. It’s . . . He’s exactly like Mori.” Aurora’s grip slackened and Kera adjusted it so Aiden was resting up against her own hip.
“Kera . . .”
“I know,” she muttered, energy draining from her like through a sieve. “I know. But . . . even if they’re both dead and it doesn’t matter . . . they deserved this. He deserves this. If only for a little while.” Aiden mewled miserably in her arms. He rubbed at his eyes as he looked around them, whining at the sight of the blue man that hovered so very near.
But Kera formed a pretty smile on her face and presented her son for John’s inspection, cooing at her boy to keep him calm. Strangely, John hadn’t walked any closer as she spoke with Aurora. Instead, he’d stayed back and pretended he wasn’t interested. One of his hands rested on the pommel of his gilded sword, the other tucked behind his back. He almost looked aloof, though the display was ruined when his gaze snapped back into focus as she approached. He’d been polite in his patience, but Kera doubted he’d let his attention waver even once. Regardless of his own reasons, Kera was simply pleased he’d given her room to smooth Aurora’s rough edges. There was nothing they could do but let this play out, and Kera knew how to handle her husband. She was confident she could handle John.
Holding Aiden close enough for John to see, she said, “He’s named after my father.” And her first Aiden had been. It was something John should have known, and he reacted as expected. A tangible bit of tension left their party like the crack of a whip as John leaned over her son.
He smiled down at her boy and said, “He’s a beautiful child,” in a warm tone that sent shivers down her spine.
“Thank you.” She meant it. “Mori always wanted you to meet him . . .”
“I was never stationed north enough to have the time to stop by. But with the war ending soon . . . I’m so glad I had the chance to meet him.” Something felt off about the phrasing, but before Kera could think on it, he went on, asking, “You said he was ill?”
“Yes, a sickness that’s nigh incurable. We’re looking for the griffons in hopes that they can help.”
Some of the other soldiers started to talk amongst themselves. But John silenced them with a look. “The griffons live over in the Long Lakes,” he told her without pause.
“You know about them?” Faith asked, shifting at her mother’s side. Aurora hushed her immediately, squeezing her arm tight around her body, but she seemed just as startled as her daughter.
“Yes,” he said, tucking his braid behind his ear. “I know them. The lakes were part of my father’s property. I saw them often when I was a child and used to collect their feathers for talismans.”
Sloping letters along the margins of the Bestiary. Thorough notes on size and mating patterns. Detailed drawings slid in-between pages, glorious in their beauty. “Oh . . . oh!” Kera lowered Aiden so he was on his feet, then hurried toward her husband’s book. Snatching it up off the ground, she held it out for John to see. “You’re the one who wrote the notes in Mori’s book!”
It was John’s turn to flush, and he tucked his head as if he’d been caught filching sweets. Still, when he took the book his hands were gentle. His touch, reverent. “I’m surprised he managed to keep this in one piece after I left,” he said softly. “Has it been of use to you?”
“With all this travel, I admit the Bestiary lacks on the nightwalkers more than we’d prefer,” Kera said.
John’s eyes glimmered when he was amused. Kera wondered if that glimmer had been there before he died. Or perhaps it was new? A strange castoff from the blue glow that wrapped about him like a shroud. John produced a formal bow. “My dear Mrs. Montgomery, you must permit me the honor of escorting you to the Long Lakes.” And Kera suppressed the desire to wilt.
He couldn’t travel with them to the Long Lakes . . . he wouldn’t even be able to leave this wood. John was going to die, just as he’d died the night before. And the night before that. He would relive his steps and his memories for all eternity, and they couldn’t break his death march. Not without turning him into something far worse than this.
“No,” Aurora answered for her. John’s face twisted into something offended. “No, we’re not traveling with you.”
“And who are you, again?” he asked, a touch of temper flaring across his tone.
Aurora’s eyes narrowed. She spat out her first name as if daring him to comment on her lack of patronym, but John didn’t so much as blink. He’d never cared that Mori came from nothing and was no one. If he could manage that, he shouldn’t care about Aurora’s lack of status. He didn’t press for details, but instead lathered his voice into a sickly sweet tone that implored in such a distasteful way that Kera’s nose began to twitch. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, Miss Aurora, but the country is at war. Anyone could happen upon you, and I’d be remiss in my duties if I let you go unattended.”
The Travers family bankers came to mind in an instant. Don’t you worry your little head, miss, just trust we know best. Kera almost chastised John herself, but Aurora was too quick for her.
She mimicked his haughty southern drawl with no small amount of contempt. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Lieutenant Colonel, but we’ve traveled from Ship’s Landing to Alilaaniwa without your help. We certainly don’t need it now.”
But, as it turned out, the practicality of their situation had gone over John’s head. He twisted toward Kera. “You’ve truly been alone all this time? You’re a lady! Surely you must have some form of escort?”
“I didn’t need one,” Kera said, shocking herself with her force. He gaped at her, mouth floundering. “And . . .” She swallowed. “There was quite a lot happening at the time.”
“It must have been quite a lot indeed if your husband did not take this journey himself. A letter could have been posted to me, and I would have fetched your needs for you had I known.”
“There wasn’t enough time, good sir. The children fell ill only weeks ago. By the time you received the missive, we feared it would be too late.”
Eyes wide with wonder, John looked back at Aiden. “Does Mori not know you are traveling, my lady?” he asked, falli
ng back on conventions even as his imagination took hold.
“Not . . . as such . . .” she admitted. It was as close as the truth as she could manage. If Mori’s spirit did know what had been occurring, he hadn’t made an effort to commune with them.
“Then it is my sworn duty to serve you, Mrs. Montgomery. Mori would not permit me to act otherwise. I’d lose my honor, if not my friend, should I allow you on your own.” Any chance they had in convincing John to let them go sans chaperone seemed dashed. He’d been raised to assist women in need, and General Zakaria wouldn’t have held him in such esteem if John wasn’t capable of good manners.
“We cannot keep you from your war, Colonel,” Kera tried one last time. Words, words, words! Which ones would work?
“Nonsense, I already told you, the war is almost won!” John grinned, and Kera couldn’t tell if he was teasing or if he truly believed that. She let her eyes slide back to his soldiers, all waiting at attention and prepared to follow whatever course of action John set forth.
Reckless, Zakaria had called John. He’d never had any other ill words to say about the man, finding him to be of fine upstanding moral character, but he’d always said that John was reckless to the point of distraction.
She raised a brow at him. Adopting an expression she used with her children after she caught them scheming, she asked, “You just want to fight a griffon, don’t you?” If possible, his grin became resplendent with delight.
“Oh yes, you are the perfect match for Mori. I am so pleased.” Closing the Bestiary, he waved his hand toward their horses. “Well, if there are no more complaints”—he squinted at Aurora without giving her a chance to voice anything—“then come along! If we leave now, we can reach the edge of the wood by sundown. There’s a clearing just on the other side that’s very defensible. A good creek for water as well.” No need to tell him it was already the dead of night. That they had set up camp and had little notion of whether he would be leading them in the right direction or not.