7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Evengi

I shouldn't have made such a scene, but I can't find it in myself to regret that decision.

That dance was the most fun I've had in a long time. It has been a while since I've had a worthy partner.

I raise the glass to my lips and take a sip of the tart apple cider within, wishing all the while that the ghosts would be quiet so I can properly think. Or better yet, they would actually say something that might just help me to figure out what's going on here. But their murmurs and hisses remain incoherent, just a buzz of noise in my ear.

There are always ghosts around but never so many. Nor are they usually so loud and angry. This is a telltale sign of necromancy or some other desecration of the dead is happening. Given the history of this town the question is if I'm dealing with a living necromancer… or if this is still an aftershock of the battle that took place at the mass grave this town is built next to.

One hundred necromancers is an impressive number, so even if it happened five hundred years ago, I wouldn't be surprised if they still have the ability to affect the spirits today.

But then again this is more than an echo. It's almost as if the souls have been stirred up. The past battle might explain their numbers, but it doesn't explain why they are so instigated. They were always here but something newly got their attention and got them riled up like this. Which brings me back to my theory that there's a necromancer here. A living and actively practicing necromancer.

It makes sense that they would come here, this must be hallowed ground to them, a place full of so many remains of their own kind. If there's two things that necromancers love, it's dead things and a sense of superiority over their fellow necromancers.

They all want to be the best necromancer there ever was as if there's some sort of art to playing puppet master to dead things. And to display that power over other necromancers by reanimating the corpses of their rivals? It's perhaps a necromancer's favorite thing to do.

So no, I'm quite certain there's a necromancer here, and I need to find them and make them face the justice of the gods if I intend to get a moment's peace from these infernally loud ghosts.

I twitch my head slightly, a habit that I'd thought I'd broken but then I twitch my head again, my neck moving of its own accord as if I'm trying to shake the sound out of my ear.

I grimace as I look up to see Natasya watching me from where she is standing next to her fiancé Brom. I raise my glass slightly and smirk.

She rolls her eyes and looks away, but I catch her continue to watch me out of the corner of her eye. It seems as though I've managed to bewitch Brom's pretty little fiancée at least half as much as she has bewitched me.

I feel a slight pang of guilt when I remember that Brom is my friend, even though it was long ago, and he likely doesn't remember it. But I quickly assuage it when I remember that the only reason, I am interested in Natasya is that I'm suspicious of her. I don't know just what I suspect her of, perhaps she is even my necromancer, but one thing I know for certain is that she is not who she appears to be.

I know a false premise when I see one. After all, my life has been one false premise or the other since I became a ghost hunter.

I'm doing him a favor if I get her attention off of him. At best, she's just after his title and worst-case scenario, she is looking for a sacrifice for some dark ritual.

Either way, if I can draw her attention away from him then I can save my former friend some heartache and agony when he realizes that his lovely fiancée is not quite the woman she has led him to believe she is.

I glance around, taking in the people of Sunder Hollow. There's a small group of ladies who seem to keep edging nearer, looking at me as if they are contemplating devouring my soul or something. I stifle a shiver and glance to my right. I find a portly older woman standing off to the side clapping her hands along with the tune.

She seems a bit bored and looks the type to gossip so I step toward her. I clear my throat. "Care to dance?"

Her face breaks out in a wide grin, one that I cannot help but return. It seems that, despite my duplicitous nature and borderline betrayal of an old friend, I have still managed to make someone's night. Now I can only hope that she can help make mine by shedding some light on certain areas I'm having a hard time understanding.

"My name is Evengi," I say as I pull her into a dance position and begin moving to time with the fiddle players.

"Oh, I know who you are," she says smiling up at me. I believe that she intends to sound coy, but her response is just a bit unsettling.

"You seem like the type of woman who is well informed," I say smoothly, determined to not allow the conversation to get derailed. I was not as successful as I would have liked with Natasya, and I intend to not make the same mistake twice.

"Indeed," she replies with a titter. "I can tell you anything you want to know about Sunder Hollow. Why, I've lived here my whole life and known most everyone here for just as long."

I smile down at her. "That must be nice."

I've traveled across all the land of Ruskhazar, seen so many people that their faces have begun to blur, witnessed so many sights that it all becomes the same. Once I would have scoffed at the narrow view of an individual who has never left their small town, but now I just feel weary. I can never have the experience she described. That sort of familiarity sounds appealing after so many years spent on the road, hopping from one inn to the next and never knowing where I'll lay my head for the night.

I've spent so long away from home that it doesn't feel like mine anymore.

Sometimes, I feel like a leaf blowing in the wind. I haven't the control of where I'll end up, all I know is that I don't belong with the oak I fell from.

"And you feel safe in Sunder Hollow?" I ask as I move us in a circle.

She rolls her eyes, waving away my words. "Oh, it's just superstition that makes people think that old graveyard is trouble. No necromancers come here, not with Brom the Bones as our leader, he carries his ancestor's legacy."

"You speak of Brom with great admiration."

"I've heard mighty awful things said about Lower Elves, how they see themselves better than the rest of us, but the Bones has never put on airs he didn't deserve. And while he is aloof sure, I've never gotten the impression that he believed himself better than us. Indeed, the girls here, myself included, were all so disappointed he decided to marry that merchant's daughter from out of town instead of one of us. That disappointment didn't last long though because then you arrived." The woman leans forward, resting her head against my chest. I quickly turn her in a spin to move her away.

I glance over in the direction of Brom, but he is no longer watching me, seemingly appeased now that I'm dancing with someone other than his fiancée. Natasya, however, is staring at me with such intensity that it feels as though she is trying to bore her gaze into me.

"So, you don't approve of his fiancée?" I ask as I bring the woman back around.

She presses her lips together, clearly not relishing my asking about Natasya. "I'm sure she's a nice enough girl. Heard her father is filthy rich too, a powerful landowner as well as a merchant, but she could have had her pick of any man in Ruskhazar. Why would she come here for Brom? I think she is title hunting. It's the one thing her father dearest couldn't provide her with."

I feel my eyebrows raise. There would be many lords in Reglagrad willing to throw their titles her way just to get a smile from a girl as pretty as that. I should know, before I became a ghost hunter, I would have been the first in that line.

Natasya is beautiful and young lords lack ambition and the purpose I found in my service to the goddess Neltruna. She could have had her pick, easily. Especially if she is as rich as this woman claims, many of the older nobility are not as wealthy as they would like, especially with the businessmen with the newer money that keep popping up.

She didn't need to come all the way out to Sunder Hollow if all she wanted was a title.

No, this woman is right to ask it… why Brom?