Luther's Pride Part 48

Luther, his wives, and the servants fell silent as the priestess sang her song. Jowangshin, Helena, Luther, Eira, and Rhosyn stood behind the crowd of servants on a raised slope toward the manor behind them. The pyre burned. Its sparks danced in the air, rising with the column of smoke that reached toward the heavens. The thick black smoke became more imposing in the bright, late-morning sunlight. They were supposed to reflect on their memories of the people burning, the bodies, the empty husks that used to be their loved ones. 

Luther couldn’t keep his focus on what was supposed to be Criella’s body when her spirit remained. Should it still be there? No, it wasn’t like he knew how his arcanum worked, though. He had no manual to consult, and the stories he had heard of the ancient king who wielded his power lacked details. 

Could he communicate with her? Would burning her actual body, and not a magical simulacrum, destroy that connection? Was she still here on earth and not in heaven? 

He closed his eyes and calmed his thoughts, stilling himself into the placid, relaxed form her spirit took in his imagined space. The pool of magic in his mind, the spirits of his wives—he didn’t know how much of it was real or how much of it was his own creation. It didn’t seem to matter. Results mattered, and they proved genuine every time he used his arcanum. 

It took time to calm himself, to reach the true peace that Criella’s spirit exhibited. Luckily, he had time. The priestesses’ funeral songs lasted for hours. Overhead, the sun met its zenith, hiding every shadow beneath its source. 

Criella’s black pillar of smoke rose from the flaming pyre to the blue sky above. Cloudless blue domed the world, stretching to each horizon. A dark bird winged its way across the bright sky and perched on the stable roof. The noble building housed the horses that Luther’s estate kept. The horses milled about in the fields, grazing on the verdant grass in patches of brown. 

Helena’s arm brushed his and remained against him, letting him know she was there. Eira pressed against his other side, holding him in one arm. The cloth of his jacket rustled, the interior silk smooth against his arms. The earth stood resolute beneath his feet, steadying him through his roots and keeping him centered. 

Crackling and breaking wood punctuated the slow, lilting melody of the funeral song as the pyre burned. The ritual’s words remained in that ancient language, but Luther didn’t bother translating them. Birds chirped nearby and flitted through the trees, signaling to one another. Luther nearly let them distract him. Instead, he allowed his ears to wander closer to himself, listening to the soft sobs of those who knew her and mourned their loss. 

The wind changed, moving in from the fields across the way to wash against the side of the manor, bringing the reedy smell of long grass. It overwhelmed the odor of the burning wood, giving the gathered folk a brief reprieve. Both worked together to cover the stench of the stables, which had the decency to move away from them on the wind. 

Luther tasted the pine on the wind and closed his eyes and mouth. He took a deep breath through his nose and released the world around him. No thoughts of vengeance filled his head, no reality. The world fell away until it was only his spirit drifting through the void. 

He saw the pool of Criella’s spirit lying before him. He reached out and took her hand, holding it as he stepped into her, mingling her spirit with his. The placid spirit awoke, and he shivered. The sensation of pleasure that afflicted his nerves when he activated his arcanum with the others became a shock instead. 

He’d experienced the sensation only once before, when he fell through the ice in the far frozen North. The bitter pain proved momentary, followed by acclimation and peace. 

He opened his eyes and, to his surprise, found that the world had shifted. His surprise shook him loose from Criella’s spirit, and he staggered a step, not knowing where he was at first. Had he thought of a place to arrive? No, his mind had been thinking only of her.

Luther stood in his father’s library alone, but not alone. He felt eyes upon him and turned around to see no one there. He closed his eyes. None of his five senses detected anyone or anything beside him except for pages, books, ink, wood, stone, and crystal. Yet he felt the familiar, comforting presence of Criella as if she were standing before him in the aisle. 

Luther opened his eyes once more, staring straight ahead at the shelf. Criella’s favorite book was there, the spine staring at him as if waiting for him to pull it away. He lifted the book from the shelf and carried it to the nearby table. Luther stopped when he reached the central aisle and saw a familiar tail sweep through the crystal light. 

He blinked, shaking his head and turning this way and that as if he’d dreamed it. No servants remained in the house. Everyone was outside. The eerie silence made him feel as if he were trespassing. Yet, despite knowing he was alone, he didn’t feel lonely. 

Cerebrion, his father, might turn the corner and ask him what he was searching for, except his father would never be in this library again. Criella might turn into the aisle or suddenly appear behind him and yell at him for leaving her pyre, except Criella wouldn’t yell at him again. Wulfric might enter the library and berate him for abandoning his guests, except, well, that one was at least possible. 

Still, Criella remained on his mind. He’d swear he kept seeing her in the corner of his vision, but when he turned, she was gone. She couldn’t be there, but it kept happening as he wandered past the shelves. A spade-tipped tail curled around the shelf, and her foot stepped into the central aisle. His brain refused to look at the sight, but she was there, in the corner of his eye, beneath the light of the magic crystals his father placed throughout the mansion. 

He calmed himself, closing and opening his eyes one more time. 

Criella stood beside the shelves. He stared at her, waiting for her to vanish, but she didn’t. She moved to the table and sat on it. Her flesh was on full display, making him assume it was his imagination. He pictured her as naked as she’d been during their wedding ceremony. No scrap of clothing held her black hair back. It fell behind her, onto the larger section of her back. 

Her skin was unburned, unblemished, and clean as if no dirt had ever touched her or could ever touch her. Her black nails drummed on the table in her habitual way, but Luther heard no sound. He expected the tap of her nails against the wood with each strike, but only silence hung around him. 

“Am I dreaming, Criella? Or is this real? Is this the result of an overactive, hopeful imagination? Did I use your arcanum? Are you sitting on the table before me, or am I going mad?” 

He met her eyes with the last question, and though she hadn’t reacted to his other words, she stilled when he met her eyes. Her tail stopped mid-swish, and she tilted her head, as if curious. 

He tilted his head to match. 

Her eyes flew wide, and she fell backward, falling through the table and scrambling across the floor. 

Luther moved forward to help her, and she scrambled further, then stopped. He offered her his hand to help her to her feet. She stared at him, reaching for it and closing her fingers over his hand. Her fingers passed through his as though they weren’t there. He saw it happen, but he still didn’t believe it. 

Why was this happening? The crystal lights? His sensitivity to the spirits of his bonded partners? Both? Neither? He had no idea, but there was no hope for it. Was she an illusion of some kind? A cruel trick? 

He prayed it wasn’t a trick. Anyone cruel enough to perform such a joke at his expense would die in the most brutal way he could imagine, and he’d seen many ways for a person to die. 

Criella frowned, then stood on her own power, brushing herself off. No dirt had clung to her, but living habits died hard.

“Can you hear me?” Luther asked. 

Criella didn’t respond, but she hadn’t been looking at him when he asked her. She’d been looking at her body as if confused.

He waved at her, and she looked up. Slowly, she waved back at him. Looking around, Luther ran to the nearest desk. He pulled blank paper from the drawer. His fingers shook as he opened the ink bottle, and he penned his question with an unsteady hand. 

“Are you real?” 

Criella read it, stared at him, and shrugged. 

“And you can’t hear me?” 

Criella shook her head. 

Luther’s mind whirred through the possibilities at a gallop. The stories he’d heard since childhood, the accounts recorded in his father’s books, the strange tales recited around campfires outside the empire, and his study of everything arcane swirled together. The storm produced nothing concrete but provided some fictional references for his current experience. It did nothing to steady his nerves that the heroes of those tales typically met their final fates by the end of the story.

“I can’t hear you either. Why can I see you? If I see you, you should be present enough to interact with things other than light. Can you move the books or anything else?” 

Criella shook her head and turned her hands up. She had no answer for him. 

“Is my father with you?” 

Criella shook her head no. 

“Is anyone or anything with you?” 

Criella shook her head no. 

“Am I the first person to see you?” 

Criella nodded her head yes.  

“Gods above,” Luther said aloud. “How am I supposed to tell if this is real or not? Maybe your death has driven me mad, or maybe we’re both dead, and this is hell.” 

“Luther?” Rhosyn’s voice filled his mind so loudly that he thought she was behind him. He spun, but no one stood behind him either. “You can just think your answers to me, but where are you? One moment you were here, and the next, you were gone! Are you returning? The servants haven’t noticed you’re gone yet since we were in the back, but if they do, you’ll have a lot of explaining to do.” 

“I’m in the library,” Luther thought back to Rhosyn. “And it would appear I still have access to Criella’s arcanum, and maybe more than that. She’s standing right in front of me.” 

Silence. 

“Um, Luther, I don’t think that’s—” 

“Rhosyn, I know how it sounds, but I’m telling you. I am looking at her right now. At her spirit. Her ghost. I’m in the library. Can you come to me?” 

“It’d be obscene for any of us to leave the ceremony.” Rhosyn thought what he already knew. The people who cared about Criella would consider it a deep insult. If one of his servants had stood at Criella’s pyre and left partway through? They likely wouldn’t have had a job to return to after their time off. 

“Okay, I’m coming back to you, but as soon as the rites finish, we’re meeting in the library.” Luther thought toward her. Then he flipped over the piece of paper and wrote on it again. He held it up to Criella. 

“I have to go back to your funeral, but I’ll be back with the others after the ceremony, okay?” 

Criella suddenly looked afraid. Luther knew that look. It was the same look she’d given him when he told her he was leaving for university those many years ago. Her expression broke his heart. Should he care what the servants thought? 

No, probably not. Let them think he was overwhelmed by emotion and had to retreat to his father’s sanctuary. Let them think what they wanted. 

“Rhosyn, are you still listening?” Luther asked. 

“Yes, but I need to end the spell soon.” 

Luther could feel the slow but steady drain on their pool of power, which Criella’s heavy use had lessened. 

“What is the spell for speaking mind to mind like we are now? I need to know it,” Luther explained. 

“It’s too complicated to explain this way, and definitely way too complex for your first psychomancy spell. That’s like starting geomancy training with mountain raising.” 

“Then I need you to perform it on Criella. See if you can still speak to her mind.” 

“Luther, please, we’re all really worried about you. Just come back to us. I don’t know what it means that you can still access Criella’s arcanum, but I don’t think—” 

“JUST DO IT!” Luther shouted the words aloud. They echoed through the library. 

Rhosyn’s voice in his mind was small, quiet, sad, and broken when she answered him, long after his shout had faded. 

“No. Please don’t ask me again.” 

The magic stopped draining, and Rhosyn was gone from his mind. Luther took a deep breath. He needed to hear Criella’s voice again. She was right in front of him, somehow, and he couldn’t stand to communicate with her through body language and one-way writing. 

He cast his spell, sliding along the stream of power to the pool, then along Rhosyn’s stream. Her spirit was a foggy mist of rainy vapors. Sorrow more profound than any joy he’d known radiated from her as he drew close. To match his spirit to hers would crush him, but what of that? What would he not sacrifice to hear Criella’s voice again? 

He dove into the depths of his soul, opening long-scabbed wounds of memory deep within himself, experiencing loss after loss over again as he matched his spirit to Rhosyn’s. He floated into her, like droplets from two fogs melding into an opaque web. Pleasure flowed through him, soothing his sorrow, as the same sensation soothed her spirit. 

He used her magic, not casting a spell the way an educated mage should, but using it on an instinctual level to reach toward Criella’s spirit. 

Pain spiked through him. Fury rose in his chest with the speed of a viper and nearly choked him, then that viper struck. His world went dark, and the last thing he remembered was the sensation of falling forward and passing through Criella’s intangible arms as she tried to catch him. 

He brought his arms under him to break his fall, but he didn’t know if he had managed it. He knew nothing, not for another few hours.