Page 26 of Tree of Ash (The Runic Saga #2)

Ghost Stories

Larissa

The giant ash tree stood before her, blocking out the sun and sky and casting half of the clearing in shadow.

At the base of the tree, standing between the three massive roots, the small goddess beckoned Larissa forward.

Her feet carried her of their own accord, having walked this path before.

Larissa couldn’t have stopped them if she tried.

And she had tried, in so many past dreams.

“You called?” she asked, resignation seeping through her words.

“Didn’t you miss me?” Vereandi asked, all smiles as she hopped up onto the rim of the stone well. “You used to spend so much time with me.”

Larissa sighed, never knowing how to respond to the child-goddess who nearly radiated with massive amounts of galdr and yet seemed so delicate. “I need sleep, Vereandi.”

The goddess nodded serenely. “Halla’s waiting for you.”

Larissa stiffened. “Is she alright?” Larissa’s eyes glanced at the shimmering surface of the well. “Have you seen her?”

Vereandi giggled and gestured Larissa forward with her hands. “See for yourself.”

As eager as Larissa was to see Halla, her steps forward were tentative. She hadn’t forgotten the last time she’d looked into the well, before she’d remembered her past, and been consumed by the light within. But the temptation of seeing Halla overrode her caution.

Grasping the cold stones, Larissa peered into the swirling waters that settled onto a familiar face.

Although the image only captured a portion of the girl’s face, the rest shrouded in darkness, Larissa would have recognized Halla’s freckled nose anywhere.

A sharp gasp escaped her lips at the sight of Halla’s hair, cut short around her ears and neck. The water rippled, and she was gone.

“No,” Larissa cried, “bring her back!”

Vereandi knelt on the sides of the well and dipped a small hand into the waters, stilling them at her touch until the surface shimmered like a mirror.

Larissa stared, willing Halla to reappear.

Only her reflection stared back, but there was something wrong with it.

Larissa’s eyes darkened, her face narrowed, and her white hair turned coal black.

Empress Shiko glared back at her from within the well.

Larissa’s shaking hand touched her cheek, and the reflection did the same.

“Stop it,” Larissa snapped, but she couldn’t look away.

Shiko’s reflection sank into the waters, replaced by images of a city laid out before her with canals of water and overflowing trees winding through the buildings that glowed with light.

There was a palace set in the middle of the city, surrounded by gardens and ponds.

The curved architecture of the building was familiar, and an old memory spoke to Larissa.

“Why are you showing me Smaragd?” Larissa asked.

“Once you have Halla, once you have your kingdom, you must come to us,” Vereandi ordered.

“I don’t know how to find you.”

“That is why you must travel to Smaragd. Someone there will show you the way.”

Larissa nearly groaned in frustration. “Why can’t you just show me the way? Why can’t you just tell me whatever it is you need to say?”

Vereandi let her fingers dance. The images changed rapidly at her touch: Darien’s face, then Anara’s, then more faces she did not recognize flashed across the surface of the water. “It is not only your thread that must intertwine with ours.”

Larissa swayed as the cargo truck rumbled beneath her.

Her body protested against the hard wooden bench, but at least the truck bed was covered by a large canvas roof protecting her skin from the sun.

It’d been hours since they left the Vienám—hours since Larissa’s latest vision, but she couldn’t shake the images from the well.

She’d wanted to talk to Darien, but privacy was not a luxury they had.

While Haki and Jari took turns driving toward Lystheim, Halvor, Darien, and Larissa rode along in the back.

Halvor sat on the opposing bench with his head tucked into his chest. Anara and Ishaan scouted the road from the skies, though Ishaan would occasionally be forced to rest alongside the others.

His galdr was not as expansive as Anara’s, who remained airborne throughout the day.

There had been little talk at the beginning—reviewing their plan—but conversation had died out, leaving only the hum of the truck.

Even without talking, Larissa was hyper aware of Darien’s presence.

He sat beside her with his eyes closed and his head leaned back against the canvas covering.

His shallow beard clung to his sharp jawline, and a black curl fell over his eyes.

She could see the pulse beneath the muscles in his neck.

“Like what you see?” Darien asked, the brilliant blue peeking through one of his eyes.

The blush colored Larissa’s cheeks, but flapping wings saved her from responding as Anara soared into the truck bed through the rear opening. She shed her transformation and landed on her feet with the ruby sparkling at her neck. The truck slowed beneath them.

Halvor raised his head, pushing back his crescent shaped glasses. “Why are we pulling off the main road?”

“We’re well inside Perlian territory,” Anara explained. “The nearest farm is only a couple miles out.”

Another set of flapping wings announced Ishaan’s return to the group, which tightened Anara’s entire posture. Curiosity and concern rose up within Larissa at Anara’s response. She intended to find out exactly why Anara seemed to hate the other shifter.

“Night will fall in an hour,” Anara continued as the cargo truck crawled to a stop beneath them. “It’s best for us to rest here tonight and wait until we know the first wave of the Vienám is closer before approaching the farmers.”

“We should go now, your Highnesses,” Ishaan countered. “It gives us the time to meet with more potential allies.”

“And if we have farmers opposed to the plan?” Anara didn’t hide the scorn in her voice.

A vein throbbed in Ishaan’s forehead. “We commandeer their trucks and hold them until we depart for the Outer Wall as King Torsten decided.”

“And if we have more farmers against our plan than for it, General?” Anara snapped. “There are not enough of us to manage multiple farms. We would risk detection of an Empress sympathizer getting past us and reporting us to the sentries.”

“Not if we tie them up. Knock them out. Incapacitate them however we see necessary.”

“We are not incapacitating innocent families against their will.” Darien’s voice was as tight as Anara’s.

“We’ll wait here for the night,” Halvor announced. “Princess Anara is correct. We’ll approach the farmers tomorrow, and only enough to get us inside the Wall without detection. No more. We’re not recruiting soldiers.”

Ishaan ground his teeth. “Then I will make sure the area is secure.”

At that, he took flight, his wings nearly clipping Haki’s head as the twins rounded the back of the cargo truck.

Halvor relayed their plans, and the twins hurried to set up camp further within the trees.

Halvor hopped down after them, but Larissa grabbed Darien’s and Anara’s arms before they could follow.

“Anara, who is Ishaan?” she asked once the others had walked outside of earshot.

Anara’s eyebrows raised with exaggerated innocence. “General of Rubin, remember?”

“She means who is he to you ?” Darien asked, crossing his arms and moving next to Larissa to block the tailgate of the truck.

Anara smirked, as if amused. “I’ve beaten draugr s before you know? I can get past you two without even shifting.”

“Probably,” Larissa agreed. “And we can’t make you tell us anything, but we’d like to know just how much we should hate this guy.”

“What?” she asked.

“On a scale of putting dirt in his coffee”—Darien mimicked sprinkling something in an imaginary cup—“or dropping him in the ocean as a sacrifice to Jormungandr?”

“Didn’t Jormungandr die during Ragnarok ?” Anara asked.

“You’re kind of missing the point,” Darien argued.

“The point is,” Larissa cut in, “we’re your friends, and you can tell us.”

Anara shrugged, sitting on the bench. “I never liked him, even when we were kids.”

“Kids?” Darien interrupted. “He looks old enough to be your father.”

“He’s younger than me actually,” she said with a smirk, “but my galdr is stronger. Are you forgetting that I wasn’t frozen in time with you for fifty years?”

Darien shifted. “Oh, right.”

If Larissa was being honest, she’d often forgotten it as well. Anara looked only a few years older than herself, a side effect of her constant use of galdr that slowed the aging of her physical body.

“He was rude and arrogant. His family had galdr due to some marriages within the royal bloodline further back in his family tree. He thought that made him better than everyone else who didn’t have galdr .

” Anara shook her head. “When we first joined the Vienám, he and I were the only remaining shifters that we knew of that hadn’t been tainted by Shiko’s curse.

At first, it was a relief to not be alone, but as time passed, he became ruthless, power-hungry, and cruel.

He took the missions I wouldn’t because there was no line he wouldn’t cross. ”

Larissa noticed the way Darien’s face tightened. Did he wonder what missions Torsten had approved that Anara had denied?

Anara fiddled with the ruby pendant around her neck. “He sees himself as my advisor, as his ancestors were for my father, and makes it clear regularly that I am failing my people. A better Queen would put her own people first. A better Queen would not serve another Queen.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Larissa spluttered. “You don’t serve me.”

“You asked who he is,” Anara repeated. “He is the ghost of Rubin, sent to haunt me until I pay for my people’s sins in siding with Shiko and restore them to their former glory.”

Larissa leaned over, her hand on Anara’s arm. “We will.”