23. Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Three
Evengi
I t’s finally over, and yet I can’t help but feel that perhaps beginning is the best way to describe this moment.
“You did it.” I startle, whirling at the voice to see Brom standing behind me. His loose hair floats in a wind that is not here, and a small smile pulls at his lips. He has his hands clasped behind his back, looking far more relaxed than he had been the last time I saw him.
I know that look. There’s a certain peace that most spirits find when they know that their killers will not harm anyone else.
He is studying Natasya who is kneeling at the burial mound, saying a final farewell to her father’s bones and to Brom. He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Please don’t make a sound. I don’t want her to know that I’m here. She would want me to come over back into this realm so she can see me, and I don’t want a messy goodbye.”
I nod.
“I think I found that peace you were speaking of,” he says with a sigh. “There’s just one last bit of unfinished business.”
I raise my eyebrows in a silent question.
“Her,” Brom says with a nod to Natasya. “I did love her, you know. Even if she is a necromancer, I still want to see her happy, but that happiness is not something she will find on her current path or with her family.” He turns to me, his dark eyes holding me spellbound. “Please promise me you will take care of her. Help her to realize that she doesn’t have to be the monster her circumstances have forced her to become.”
I flick my gaze to Natasya as she bows her head. Her shoulders shake slightly, and I wonder if she is crying silently. Just as I am having a silent conversation.
“Take care of her because I cannot anymore. I long for peace, I long for Skyhold, and to see my ancestors, but I cannot do that unless I know she will be all right. That you both will be.”
I hesitate only a second before I give a firm nod. I pray that my eyes convey what my mouth cannot. I swear .
I mean it with every fiber of my being. I know that I cannot just go back to my life knowing that she is out there drowning in darkness. As a priest of Neltruna, it is my duty to defeat monsters and drive away darkness. How can I go back to simply hunting for ghosts when my greatest challenge lies ahead of me?
To defeat Natasya’s inner monsters and drive away the ghosts that haunt her every step.
Even if it takes my whole life, even if it destroys me, I will fight for Natasya and the goodness inside of her. I’ve seen it for myself now. She is selfless in a way I have not seen in many. She is clever and witty, and it isn’t fair that she should be a demigod’s pawn. I will get her away from her father and all others who would attempt to stain and mar her soul.
I’ll save her from herself.
Not just for her or for Brom, but for me. I cannot allow this woman that I have come to care for, perhaps even love, to fall prey to the very thing I’m sworn to destroy.
“Thank you,” Brom says exhaling in relief. He glances toward Natasya again. “Live a long, good life, Ivan, the both of you. Be happy, be in love, be everything I had taken from me by my untimely death.”
I nod once again as Brom fades away. As he disappears, it is as if the air clears a little bit, like a presence in it has departed. He’s gone, for good this time. I pray that he finds his peace in Skyhold.
I only wish that I could be rid of her father so easily. I turn to where he is there, always lingering on the sidelines. “So, you’ll continue to be a part of her life,” he murmurs. “ Good .”
I roll my eyes and do my best to ignore him just as I am quickly growing accustomed to.
“I will haunt you, boy, for the rest of your miserable life. And with my daughter you will be miserable.” I take a step toward her but draw up short when he materializes in front of me, his eyes crazed. “I’ll drive you mad until you have no recourse but to finally kill her just to be free of me.”
I draw in a deep breath and force myself to walk through her father’s spirit. He lets out an indignant cry, but if he is speaking the truth, and he intends to haunt me until I kill Natasya then he will be haunting me for a very long time. I’ll just have to get used to it and practice the art of drowning him out.
I raise my shoulder, rubbing it against my ear as I turn toward Natasya. I step forward and drop to my knees beside her. She reaches up, swiping at her eyes proving that she had indeed been crying, but she seems to wish to hide it, so I respect her wishes and pretend that I didn’t see it. I instead rest a hand on her shoulder.
“I should never have come to Sunder Hollow,” she whispers as she stares into the crypt to the shattered skull resting in the center of it with the flowers in its remaining eye socket. Brom’s body is long gone, burned up with the rest. “If I hadn’t none of this would have happened. Brom wouldn’t have…” she trails off, unable to finish the sentence. She tightens her hold on the spellbook clutched in her hands. I still don’t know all her reasoning for coming in the first place, but I’ve figured out enough that she was sent by her father and that spellbook had something to do with it.
As long as she is around her father, she will never be able to make a choice like the one that would have kept her from coming to Sunder Hollow. Because she is caught too deep in her father’s snares. She would do anything that he asks of her, even put herself in danger just for a book of spells that she can’t even use.
I clench my jaw but don’t say what I am thinking out loud. Instead, I squeeze her shoulder gently. “It wasn’t your fault. He loved you; you know?”
She reaches up quickly swiping her eye. “We never had the chance to be wed, our spirits will not be joined in my death.”
“Would you have rather you were?” I ask, my heart caught in my throat. It’s true the belief is that marriage exists even into death, that if one spouse dies, they will someday be rejoined with their lover in Skyhold to be together forever. Due to this belief, many who are widowed do not remarry because to do so is to break the ties with their former spouse and to give up an eternity with them.
Did she truly love him enough to wish to be with him for all eternity? If so, I’m not certain I have any chance with her if her heart truly burned with Brom.
“No, I suppose not,” she says in a small voice, and with those four simple words I’m suddenly filled with hope. “But I do wish for some way to feel connected with him.”
“You have his spellbook,” I say resting my hand on the book clutched to her chest.
She draws in a deep shaky breath. “I lost a fiancé and a father all in one day.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Evengi,” she whispers glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. “I mean Ivan,” she hurriedly corrects.
“What is it?” I ask gently.
She fingers the book, glancing at the ground. “There is something I need to tell you although I don’t know if I have the heart for it.
“I will have the heart for the both of us,” I promise, shifting in the dirt to lean toward her.
Her eyes fill with tears at my words. “Then my heart will wind up broken all the same.”
“What is it?” I ask, raising my hand to cup her cheek. She blinks and a tear spills over her lid, coursing down her cheek.
“It’s your family, Ivan. I have heard the Fyodorov name before. My father was paying special attention to them because they had just secured a marriage alliance with the crown prince. He wanted to know more about the woman who would one day be queen.”
I pull back in surprise. Alya is to be wed? To the crown prince? Indeed, I have missed much during my journeys as a lowly priest if that happened. I’m surprised my sister would ever allow such a thing, but I’m not sure why Natasya seems so upset over this news. It is startling, yes, but hardly the tragedy she is making it out to be.
“They were killed,” she gasps out. “Assassinated.”
I’m on my feet, stumbling back, but it’s as if my head has become disconnected from my body as I listen to her words. Natasya crawls forward, clasping my leg which she rests her head against as if she isn’t strong enough to hold it up. “It wasn’t my father, I swear. It was an assassin group that operates outside of his jurisdiction, one specifically utilized by the Circle of Notability. The honor killers of the Order of the Bloody hand.”
Her words are falling on deaf ears.
My family is dead.
Here I was, wandering over hills and across mountains, hunting ghosts and serving the goddess of monsters under a fake name, and all the while I was unreachable to my family. They were killed and I wasn’t there for them.
I wasn’t there to share their fate.
I didn’t even know.
Oh, gods, my family is gone.