Ghost in the Ring (Ghost Night Book 1)

by Jonathan Moeller

  There was no disagreement. Sophia and Seb lay down on opposite sides of the fire and soon fell asleep. Caina walked a few yards from the flames, watching the shadows of the trees. Kylon joined her, and they stood side-by-side in silence for a while. Caina leaned close to him and rested her head on his shoulder. She wondered what he sensed from her. Her love for him? Her fear of the situation, and the unease of learning that Laeria Amalas had possessed a large and powerful family? Her discomfort at the cold and hunger? Her wish that she was still in bed with him in Iramis?

  They stood like that for perhaps a quarter of an hour.

  “They’re asleep,” said Kylon at last in a quiet voice. He spoke in Kyracian, which Sophia would not understand, and Caina didn’t think Seb knew the language.

  Caina straightened up and looked at him. “You are well?” She also spoke in Kyracian.

  “As well as can be expected,” said Kylon, “given that I was plucked out of my bed on the night of our wedding and flung twelve hundred miles in the blink of an eye.”

  Caina let out a breath. “I’ve lived through a lot of strange things, but I’ve never had that happen before. I didn’t think such a thing was possible through sorcery.”

  “Neither did I,” said Kylon. He hesitated. “Though I wonder…”

  “What is it?” said Caina.

  “Your…newly discovered family,” said Kylon. Caina grimaced at that. “If you and Seb were both pulled to Sigilsoara, that suggests a blood link.”

  “You were summoned there as well,” said Caina.

  Kylon snorted. “I think that was only because you were on top of me at the time.” Caina smiled. “But if you and Seb are half-siblings, and your mother’s family is filled with sorcerers, I wondered if one of them summoned Sigilsoara.”

  “Summoned?” said Caina.

  “Sophia and Seb said that Sigilsoara sometimes connects with the material world,” said Kylon. “But the place was crawling with Adamant Guards, and you killed an Umbarian. That Morett necromancer was looking for a relic.” He took a deep breath. “I wonder if one of your mother’s relatives, one of the Umbarians, summoned Sigilsoara with a blood spell, and that spell happened to draw you and Seb along with it.”

  “I wondered that as well,” said Caina. “It makes sense. One of my mother’s Umbarian relatives wanted the relic from within Sigilsoara, summoned it, and sent the Adamant Guards in to retrieve it.”

  “At least they didn’t get the relic,” said Kylon.

  “Yes.” Caina paused for a moment. “About that.”

  Kylon sighed. “You’re about to surprise me unpleasantly, aren’t you?”

  “Well,” said Caina. “Yes.”

  She glanced back to make sure that Seb and Sophia were sleeping, reached into her pocket, and drew out the iron ring.

  Kylon stared at the ring for a moment, and then at her.

  “That’s what the Umbarians were after?” said Kylon.

  Caina nodded. “I’m pretty sure.”

  Kylon let out a long breath. “Gods. Not even married a day and you still astonish me.” Caina smiled again. “Was it a good idea to take it with us?”

  “Not in the least,” said Caina. “But leaving it behind would have been worse. I had to break down the wards on its vault to get away from a dozen Temnoti. If I had left the ring behind, one of the Adamant Guards could have picked it up.”

  “What is it?” said Kylon. “I can’t sense any arcane force from it.”

  “I think that’s because I’m holding it,” said Caina. “Give it a tap. But don’t pick it up.”

  Kylon nodded, tapped the ring with one finger, and jerked his hand back.

  “Gods of storm and brine,” he muttered. “That thing’s powerful. And dangerous. I don’t think you should let go of it. If you do, the aura will probably wake Seb and Sophia up, and draw the eye of every sorcerer for a dozen miles.”

  Caina nodded. “See why I didn’t want to leave it behind for the Umbarians?”

  “Aye.” Kylon peered at the ring, frowning. “That dragon sigil in the emerald. Is that…”

  “The same sigil we saw inside the castle?” said Caina. “It is. Did you see any statues of Rasarion Yagar in Sigilsoara?”

  “The ugly fellow with the mustache?” said Kylon.

  “That’s him,” said Caina. “In all his statues, he had this ring on his finger, with the same dragon sigil. I think this was his ring.”

  “What does it do?” said Kylon.

  “I have no idea,” said Caina. “Nothing good, I expect, if even half the stories about this Yagar are true…and the appearance of Sigilsoara suggests that quite a few of those stories were true.”

  Kylon sighed. “Then an Umbarian magus was looking for the ancient relic of some long-dead sorcerer-king?”

  “It would seem so.”

  Kylon cursed softly. “Just like Cassander Nilas and the Throne of Corazain all over again.”

  “Yes,” said Caina. “We did defeat him in the end.”

  But it had been a very close thing. Cassander had almost killed them both, and he had come within a hair’s breadth of killing nearly a million people. Caina still remembered the pyromantic sorcery radiating from the Throne of Corazain, remembered Cassander’s scarred face turning towards her as he cast a spell to strike her down.

  “So, what do we do with the damned thing?” said Kylon. "I assume the valikons won't touch it?"

  “I already tried. The ring just regenerates its spells. But the solution is simple,” said Caina. “We take it back with us to Iramis and give it to the loremasters. They’ll lock it up in the Towers of Lore, and it will never hurt anyone.”

  “That seems reasonable,” said Kylon.

  Caina hesitated. “I think we should take Sophia with us as well. Or at least give her the chance to accompany us to Iramis.”

  “Because of her arcane talent?” said Kylon.

  Caina nodded. “It’s still latent. I suspect she knows that she has sorcery, but she’s only using it on an intuitive level. She doesn’t really understand what she’s doing or how she’s doing it…”

  “And if she keeps on like that,” said Kylon, glancing at the sleeping girl, “she’s going to hurt herself.”

  “Or the Magisterium will forcibly enroll her as an initiate,” said Caina. “Or, worse, the Umbarians.”

  “Do you believe her story?” said Kylon.

  “No,” said Caina. “It’s obvious that she’s lying to us…but I think she’s telling the truth that the boyar will kill her if she returns to Kostiv.” She shrugged. “If I had to guess, I would say that the boyar or one of his men, one of his szlachts, decided that they wanted her. Based on what Seb said, a petty rural noble like Boyar Razdan Nagrach would be used to doing whatever he wanted…”

  “And doing whatever he wished with his people,” said Kylon

  “So Sophia ran,” said Caina.

  “Brave of her.”

  “Brave and foolish,” said Caina. “One of the Temnoti was about to capture her when I found her. I don’t know what the Temnoti would have done with her, but it couldn’t have been good.”

  They stood in silence for a moment.

  “Do you believe Seb’s story?” said Kylon.

  Caina let out a long breath. “Yes. I’m afraid I do. If he is lying, he has put in his work.”

  “He looks like you,” said Kylon.

  “He looks like my mother,” said Caina. She sighed. “And I look like my mother. He is my half-brother, Kylon, much as I might not wish to face that fact. And abandoning her first marriage and children was exactly the sort of thing that Laeria Amalas would have done. She probably told my father that she was an unmarried virgin when she met him.” She sighed once more. “My father was a good man, but he was not the kind of man would have been able to tell if my mother was a virgin or not.”

  “I am sorry,” said Kylon. “I regret that I never got the chance to meet him.”

  “I regret that, too,” said Caina. Sh
e tried to smile. “I wonder what he would have thought of you. I doubt he thought his daughter would marry a Kyracian lord.”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Kylon. “Do you trust Seb?”

  Caina opened her mouth, closed it again. Sebastian Scorneus, by his simple presence, had brought a half-dozen competing emotions into her mind. His resemblance to Laeria Amalas had inspired an immediate dislike, and she liked the news of Laeria’s family even less. And yet Seb himself had done nothing to warrant distrust. He had fought alongside Caina and Kylon as they escaped from Sigilsoara, and he had agreed to work with them until they reached Artifel.

  “I…I don’t know,” said Caina at last. “We should not tell him about the ring.”

  “Of course not,” said Kylon.

  “But what do you think of him?” said Caina. She took Kylon’s hand. “I cannot be rational about him, not yet. He reminds me of my mother, and I hated her more than anyone.”

  “I think,” said Kylon, “that we can likely trust him.”

  Caina waited.

  “He is not a coward,” said Kylon. “He didn’t flinch from fighting the undead and the Temnoti. And he did not suggest that we abandon you and Sophia at Sigilsoara. He could have – both he and I can run faster than you in a straight line.”

  “True,” said Caina. “He also saw you kiss me. Perhaps he realized that you would make a valuable ally and that abandoning me would alienate you.”

  “Maybe,” said Kylon. “If he could calculate like that in the heat of the moment, he would be a cold man indeed.”

  Caina stared into the forest. “I can calculate like that in the heat of the moment.”

  To her surprise, Kylon smiled. “True, but you forget. I can sense your emotions, at least when I am touching you, and I can sense his.”

  “So what do you sense?”

  “As far as I can tell, he’s telling the truth,” said Kylon. “He’s alarmed at our situation, but we all are. He’s impressed by me, sympathetic for Sophia, and doesn’t know what to make of you.”

  Caina laughed. “And I’m not sure what to make of him. We have that in common, at least.”

  “And he is…” Kylon thought for a moment. “Grieving, I think. I suspect he lost someone he loved recently.”

  Caina considered that. “Well, if we can all work together long enough to get out of Ulkaar, I suppose that is the most important thing.”

  “I think so,” said Kylon. “And his hatred of your mother…his mother…was genuine. He also hates the Umbarians.”

  “That’s a good quality in a man.”

  “I can take the watch if you need to rest,” said Kylon.

  “Thank you,” said Caina, “but I’m too wound up to sleep. And I need to think for a while anyway.”

  “About Seb?” said Kylon.

  “Mostly about what we’re going to do when we get to Kostiv,” said Caina. Though she supposed her thoughts would turn to Seb and her mother’s family anyway. “Not that it matters. I won’t be able to make a good plan until I see Kostiv firsthand.”

  “You’ll think of something,” said Kylon. He kissed her, wrapped himself in his cloak, lay down by the fire, and went to sleep.

  For the next hour or so Caina kept watch, her eyes scanning the shadows of the forest. She was tired, but as she had told Kylon, she was too wound up to sleep. Her mind considered all the things she had seen – Sigilsoara, Sophia’s terror and lies, Seb’s tale, the history of Ulkaar. The Empire and the Umbarian Order were at war. Istarinmul had been pulled into that fight and nearly destroyed, and perhaps the same thing was happening to Ulkaar.

  She felt the weight of the iron ring in her pocket. The metal always seemed cold, no matter how long she held it. Yes, the sooner she got the thing to Iramis, the better…

  A rustling noise caught her attention.

  Caina turned her head to see Sophia standing and looking around.

  “Is everything all right?” said Caina in a soft voice.

  “Um.” Sophia edged closer and bit her lip. “I have to…relieve myself, and I don’t…” She looked at Kylon and Seb. “I don’t want anyone to see.”

  “Go behind that tree,” said Caina, pointing. “None of us will be able to see, and if there are any dangers, you can get back here quickly.”

  Relief went over Sophia’s face, and she hastened to the tree. A few moments later she returned, tugging at her belt and adjusting her heavy coat and cloak.

  “By the Divine, it is cold out,” said Sophia. “I thought my legs would freeze off.”

  Caina nodded. “I’ve never wanted to be a man, but I imagine there are times when it is convenient.”

  Sophia blinked, looked confused, and then her brown eyes went wide, and her hand shot to her mouth to muffle a laugh.

  “I never thought of it like that,” said Sophia. She hesitated. “Can…can I ask you something?”

  “Certainly,” said Caina.

  Sophia looked away. “It…is kind of an impertinent question.”

  “Then I’ll just give you an impertinent answer.”

  Sophia almost smiled, but that mixture of hesitation and fear returned. “When…when you were brought to Sigilsoara, you and Lord Kylon…it was your wedding night?”

  “That’s right,” said Caina, wondering why Sophia wanted to know.

  “Then you were…you were…”

  “In the midst of the consummation, to put it delicately,” said Caina.

  “Was that your first time?” said Sophia. “With Lord Kylon? I mean, Brother Valexis says that both the man and the woman should wait until they are married, but I know it doesn’t always work that way. I’m not a child.”

  She looked very young as she asked it.

  Young, and very, very frightened.

  Caina considered her answer for a moment. “No. It wasn’t the first time for either of us. Lord Kylon was married before, but his wife died. And I’m afraid I knew men before Lord Kylon. But I don’t think that’s what you really want to ask, is it?”

  Sophia took a deep breath. “Does…does it hurt? The first time, I mean?”

  Kylon’s suspicion that Sophia had fled from the boyar and his szlachts flashed through Caina’s mind.

  “It can,” said Caina. “It depends on the woman, and it depends on the man. My first time…well, it didn’t hurt. It started out a little uncomfortable, yes, but I enjoyed it a great deal. Granted, it was a mistake to sleep with him, and I shouldn’t have done it.” She remembered poor Alastair Corus and his strange mixture of gallantry and resigned apathy. He hadn’t deserved his death at the hands of Maglarion.

  “Oh,” said Sophia. “Weren’t you worried about getting with child?”

  “I wish I did,” said Caina. “I was injured when I was a few years younger than you are. I can’t have children.”

  Though “injured” was a delicate way to put it. But Caina would not burden Sophia with the true account of how she had lost her ability to bear children, how Maglarion had harvested her blood to build his great bloodcrystal.

  “I’m sorry,” said Sophia. “That must be both awful and a tremendous relief at the same time.”

  “It depends on the day,” said Caina, though mostly the thought now brought her a resigned sadness. She had wanted children more than anything, but if she had not set upon the path of the Ghosts, then a lot of people would have died. “But I don’t think that’s what you really wanted to ask me, Sophia.”

  The girl frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I think you wanted to tell me something,” said Caina. “I think you wanted to tell me the real reason you left Kostiv. It wasn’t about the sunstone.”

  Sophia opened her mouth, closed it again, and finally started to speak. “It was said of old that no one could speak a lie to an Arvaltyr.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Caina. “But I do know that sunstone isn’t why you fled Kostiv. I know that you’re frightened. I know that you’ve been very brave, maybe for a long time, but the fear is
still there.” Sophia swallowed, her eyes starting to glitter. “And I know that I might be able to help you.”

  For a long time, they stood in silence.

  “No one can help me,” whispered Sophia at last, trying to hold the tears back.

  “Maybe,” said Caina. “And maybe I really am a valikarion, an Arvaltyr.”

  “You haven’t ever met anyone as horrible as the boyar,” said Sophia.

  “I very much doubt that,” said Caina.

  “He says that he’s bringing back the old ways,” said Sophia. “Brother Valexis and Uncle Ivan both told me to run, that there was no one I can trust in Kostiv. But I can’t get away from Kostiv. I can’t get away from the boyar and his hunt.”

  “His hunt?” said Caina, frowning. She had been expecting to hear the story of an arranged marriage, or that the boyar was the sort of man who snatched pretty girls from the street and imprisoned them for his own amusement.

  But a hunt?

  “He says that the war with the sorcerers is a sign,” said Sophia. “The Warmaiden banned the hunt, and so does the Temple, but the boyar says the old ways are coming back.” The words tumbled out of her faster and faster, her accent becoming thicker in the process, her Caerish harder to understand. “They told me to run, and I…and I…”

  There was a flare of green light in the trees.

  Caina went stiff, calling her valikon to her hand, and Sophia fell silent.

  “What is it?” said Sophia.

  “Go wake the others right now,” said Caina. “The undead are coming.”

  Chapter 8: The Wraith

  Sebastian Scorneus was not entirely certain of what to make of Caina.

  She looked like the rest of the women of House Scorneus. Caina had the same cold blue eyes, the same sharp features, the same thick black hair that would turn the color of hard iron as she aged. She looked like Aunt Talmania, who Seb hated, and Aunt Ariadne, who Seb loved, and Aunt Rania, who Seb feared. Caina also resembled Seb’s twin sister Calvia, which made sense, since they were half-sisters.

  It was nonetheless shocking that the Balarigar was not only a member of House Scorneus but Seb’s half-sister.

  He had heard the rumors about Caina Amalas, of course, the whispered tales about the Balarigar who had changed the course of the Empire. Some of the tales said she was a remorseless assassin, deadlier than the Kindred and a thousand times as cunning. Others claimed that she was a seductress, so beautiful that no man could resist her lures. Those rumors said she had seduced and murdered Aidan Maraeus, and Aidan’s father Lord Corbould Maraeus still sought her death should Caina ever return to the Empire. The tales that had come out of Istarinmul had been even wilder – stories that she had destroyed the Slavers’ Brotherhood, or deposed the Padishah and seduced his son, or convinced Istarinmul to turn against the Umbarian Order.