A Hold of Spectres
Part 2
Chapter 3
The voice had, indeed, disappeared after that, much to Rhaean's relief. Everyone knew Passing's End and Fire's Hearth were haunted. How many people had died in the rooms of the isolated fortresses? How many women had succumbed to childbirth? How many children had fallen ill and met their fates? Both fortresses had existed for centuries. So many lives had come into and left the world inside of those very walls.
She couldn't help but wonder why none of the spirits at Passing's End had ever reached out to her. While the magical hold on each of the fortresses was unique in their own way, Rhaean found it odd that, in all her years living at Passing's End, she had never once seen a ghost or heard a voice. And yet, after only a couple of years at Fire's Hearth, suddenly she had attracted the notice of a trickster spirit. Of all the places she could have been oppressed by voices of the dead, she would have thought it more likely to have such an experience at Passing's End. But she had not.
It was strange, too, that none of the other girls seemed to have had any similar experiences. She didn't know this for sure, of course, and she dared not ask them about it openly. She was already shunned enough as it was due to her mother's overbearing nature; she did not now need to add hearing the voices of oppressive spirits to the list of marks against her. But she did pay close attention to each of the others to see if she could find any indicators that they might also hear the voices of spirits. She looked for fatigue and exhaustion and other signs of little sleep; she looked for paranoia and skittish behaviors; she looked for a lack of focus and attention during their training, but she saw nothing to indicate that anyone else was suffering under the same force she had. Had she truly banished the spirit from Fire's Hearth altogether?
She wondered if magic had anything to do with it. Rhaean, Ygritte, and Sirnyth had been brought to Fire's Hearth, a fortress imbued with spells and incantations that would protect them as they each learned to harness the magic within. Only they had been here for two years and Rhaean still showed no signs of magical ability. She could see her mother's disappointment, her trepidation, and even her anger at various times. Kyndra was a woman who valued appearances as well as actual ability. It wasn't enough for Rhaean to have magical abilities if she couldn't access them, and since she was the only magically affluent Mother within The Order, it mattered a great deal that her daughter still bore no signs of arcane skills. It made Rhaean feel as though she wasn't good enough, never could be good enough, and that was why her mother loved The Order more than her. It was why she put the needs of The Order above the needs of her own flesh and blood.
It had been weeks since she had cast the spell, and in that time, nothing else suspicious had occurred. Rhaean sat at a table in the library, a textbook open, her mind relaxed and focused on the chapter. She was reading about a war that had taken place centuries before, one that had been fought over the line of succession in the early years of a united Utara. Before Utara was united, each of its regions had been ruled by their own royal house. But, as other countries united their regions and came under the rule of one primary royal house, the scattered Utaran kings saw the imminent threat of foreign interference. They could not fight such large countries with their individual armies. It was decided they needed to unite and become one country with one ruler.
Each of them wanted to be that ruler, though, and no one could decide on the proper way to choose which house would ascend the new throne. At first, each of the individual kings maintained their own right to the throne, but some of the smaller houses quickly saw the futility in that, and so began backing some of the larger houses. This only made the situation worse because, as one house's claim grew, so did the others. They had been close to all out war among themselves, which was precisely what uniting the kingdoms was supposed to avoid, and they could not find a solution. Many soldiers had already been slaughtered, and it was only when all out war seemed imminent that the kings decided to take a more practical approach. Within a fortnight, the first king of the united Utara was crowned. He was called King Norland. He had been of the Iron House. The solution had come through Norland's suggestion that, while there would be one primary ruler, all of the other kings would keep the rule of their own regions. They would not be kings, but they would not have to give up all of their power, either.
The history fascinated Rhaean. Only, even as she read the words on the page before her, she found herself unable to think of anything but the sheer amount of bloodshed that had taken place to ensure the king's ascension. There had not been all out war, but there had been many skirmishes and battles; thousands of soldiers had died before anyone thought to resolve the matter a different way. How anyone could see that much death and suffering and think something as fleeting as a throne was worth it, she could never understand.
"That's because you're weak," a voice whispered in her ear.
A chill went down her spine and she froze. It had been a trick of the mind, she told herself. Nothing more than the solitude once again playing with her. It wasn't the voice. It couldn't be. She had banished it.
"Did you really think that I was gone?" the voice asked, laughing as it circled her.
Rhaean's heart raced. It had been months since the voice had last come to her and she had, like a fool, believed that its taunting and teasing was over. She had grown comfortable in its absence. And yet here it was again, alive in her mind. It laughed, as though reading her thoughts, and continued to mutter things in her ears.
"If you understood the freedom that comes with power," the voice said, "you would understand why those kings were willing to sacrifice their men. You would also understand tthe very great potential that resides in you."
"You sound like my mother," she mumbled, closing the textbook and standing to leave the library.
"Or maybe your mother sounds like me?" it said, giggling intensely.
Rhaean stepped away from the table and made towards the library doors, but they slammed shut in her face and locked. She tried to keep herself calm, but she knew that it didn't matter anyway. The ghost or spirit or whatever it was that haunted her could sense her fear, her uncertainty. She could steel herself and play the confident one, the unafraid, and yet the spirit would know it was a farce.
"Leave me alone," she said, her voice low.
"What will you do if I don't?" the voice asked.
Rhaean had no answer. What could she do? Whomever the voice had been in its previous life, it was now tied to this place. It couldn't leave. Everyone else could. Rhaean closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. She couldn't let it get to her. She couldn't let it manipulate her, ruffle her feathers. She had to remain steadfast in her strength and her knowledge that it was just a ghost. However angry it was, however much it bothered her, that was all it could do.
The voice shrieked with laughter. "You don't really believe that, do you?" it asked. "Oh sweet thing, you really are naive!"
"The Mothers have wards and protection spells throughout the palace," Rhaean responded, raising her voice to sound confident.
"Their magic doesn't work on us," the voice said again, and Rhaean felt herself grow cold at the thought of multiple spirits preying on her mind. "But ours will work on you," it whispered, so close to her ear, Rhaean thought she felt breath on her skin.
Her hands began to tingle. She looked down at them and from within, they seemed to glow a kind of golden light, like the slowly dying embers of a fire clinging desperately to kindling. Rhaean shook her hands, but the light remained. She rubbed her eyes and blinked furiously, hoping it was just a trick, but the light remained. Her breathing quickened as the tingling moved up her arms and with it, so too did the light move, as though pushed through her body by her heavily beating heart.
"What did you do?" she shrieked.
The voice only laughed wickedly.
She couldn't take it anymore. She rushed out of the library and ran down the hall to her bed chamber. When she got there, she shut the door behind her and locked it. She was breathing heavily. She looked down at her hands and watched as the golden light faded. It took a moment, but the light did, indeed, fade to nothing. The tingling in her arms and hands faded, too, and Rhaean let out a sigh of relief. Whatever had happened in the library, it was over. Whatever the tingling and light had meant, they were both gone. She could rest easy.
Rhaean went to her bed and threw herself upon it, tears spilling from her eyes. What the voice had said was true: she was weak. She had no magic, no means of proving herself to her fellow recruits, no way of earning her mother's love back. And did she even want that? Her mother hardly noticed her own daughter any more. She either didn't see how miserable Rhaean was or she did not care, and neither explanation of her mother's distance did anything to make Rhaean feel better. She was lonelier than she had ever been. She had no friends. No allies.
"You have me," the voice whispered.
Tingling returned to her fingers and with it, the golden light. All Rhaean could do was cry.
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