8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Natasya

D espite its exciting start, the rest of the evening is quite dull. Brom, in his jealousy won't let me leave his side, so I have to stand here and listen to him discuss how pumpkin and corn harvest is going and arranging trade avenues with the farmers who grow crops for him.

All the while, I am forced to watch the women of Sunder Hollow fawn over Evengi like they are a murder of crows and he's a shiny new trinket they all want to claim for their own.

I narrow my eyes as one of the women, a pretty golden-haired lass who once told me that she and Brom were the closest of friends even though he has never mentioned her, caresses Evengi's arm.

"How in Skyhold has he managed to charm all of Sunder Hollow?" Brom asks, and I startle realizing that he has ended his conversation and has now followed my gaze. "He isn't even that handsome, and I certainly have yet to hear him say a single intelligent thing."

I reach out, patting his arm. "No one is saying that he should take your place as the lord of this village."

He harrumphs. Brom has many qualities, but modesty isn't one of them. He would never be able to share his position as the greatest and best and most admired of Sunder Hollow.

He steps forward, resting his foot on a bale of hay. "Gather close, my good people. I have a ghost story to tell," Brom says, commanding the people of Sunder Hollow just as I've seen him do on many occasions. They all seem to hang off his words.

I take this as an opportunity to finally break away from his side. I move through the crowd that gathers around Brom ready to hear the tale. I sidle up next to Evengi, bumping the pretty little golden-haired girl with my hip. "You simply must hear Brom spin a tale, he has such a way about it."

Evengi glances at me raising his eyebrow. "Oh, really?"

"Yes, even though most stories he tells are already folk tales that everyone here knows, he tells it in such a way that it makes it seem almost new."

"That's quite a talent," Evengi says. "It's a pity that being a bard doesn't pay as well as being a lord. Your fiancé may have missed his calling."

I titter a small laugh as the golden-haired girl throws me a dark look, and Brom begins his story.

"As we all know, many years ago there was a battle. The battle was waged in Sunder Hollow, but it was for the future of all Ruskhazar."

Brom unhooks his spellbook and opens it. His mouth moves as he silently utters a spell from within. A dark mist forms in front of him, taking on the shapes of men.

As Brom speaks he waves his arm out. "The enemy numbers were great indeed, a hundred necromancers terrible and able, and on the side of good there was but one. However, this was no mere warrior. The lone bastion against this evil was Borus the Conjurer, one of four founders of the Academy of Magickers, and he was not going to allow the evil to win without a fight. Not on that night."

I fold my arms feeling a tiny stab of ire at Brom's description of necromancy. I know that his whole family legacy is built off that defeat of those necromancers, but it still wounds me that my future husband will never be able to accept that part of me.

There are precious few in Ruskhazar who would. My father was fortunate indeed to find my mother, a woman who would love him as he is—necromancy and all. Of course, she was a smuggler, so she was already well acquainted with the shadowy underbelly of Ruskhazar.

It's like they were a match made in Skyhold.

And Bronwyn found a vampire who could not find acceptance anywhere else.

But I doubt the gods would make a match for the likes of me. After all, at the end of the day I'm just a girl who desecrates her father's bones. That's the kind of thing that the gods detest.

Evengi glances at me out of the corner of his eye, and I quickly relax my stance. I don't know what it is about Evengi, but his eyes seem to take in more than I'd want anyone to notice. Not with me living a duplicitous life here.

The images begin fighting one lone figure, this one is represented by a glowing mist, as Brom goes on to describe the battle in great detail. I know the story well, Borus created more magical constructs than any magicker has been able to create before or since. With nothing but his faith in Meruna and his spellbook, he made a whole army out of magic and with it defeated the army of necromancers. It's why I'm so set on getting my hands on that spellbook.

That spellbook is capable of defeating an army of necromancers in the right hands.

Even in the wrong hands it is powerful. If someone as ill versed in magic as Brom can use this spellbook to create a story out of the air, then there's no knowing what sort of powers this spellbook would hold in the hands of someone who would actually be able to use it.

My sister Bronwyn is the designated magicker in the family, and I know for a fact that she would dedicate the better part of eternity to unraveling every spell within until she knows them better than the man who wrote them. And finally, that spellbook can be used for more than just cheap parlor tricks.

It can be used to further my father's empire.

With the power scrawled out on those pages, my father will consolidate his role as the most powerful man in all of Ruskhazar.

"Borus buried the bodies of those necromancers in Heretic's Rest and then went on to build Sunder Hollow at the site of his greatest victory," Brom says. "But one should always be wary where necromancers are involved. Living or dead."

Brom smiles as the mist takes on the form of a burial mound which a hand shoots out of it. Someone in the crowd gasps. "It was once said that the end of the world will come with the rising of the dead. Some would even say that the end has already begun, but I say that can't be. Because when that end comes, we here at Sunder Hollow will be the first to know." Brom leans over the crowd grinning darkly. "Because we will be the first to fall to the vengeance of the necromancers. You can feel it in the Autumn wind, the fury of the spirits of Sunder Hollow who hate all the living and wish to make us become like them."

Brom snaps the book shut and the mist dissolves to the sound of applause. Brom looks at the crowd grinning fondly his ill-humor displaced.

"What a macabre tale," Evengi says with a little shudder.

"It's just a story." I laugh lightly. "Don't tell me that you're scared of ghosts, Mr. Ichabod."

"Aren't you?" he asks arching his brow. "They are not harmless."

I let out a titter that I perfected while Brom was courting me. "The fact that you believe in them at all!"

"There are too many witnesses of hauntings for me to ever discredit the existence of ghosts." Evengi tilts his head as he steps away. "Oh, I can assure you that ghosts are very much real, and the dead do rise. And the end of the world? It began at the dawn of the third era."