Chapter Three Kasu
It wasn’t POSSIBLE. Living humans couldn’t enter Ghost City; the red gates of the under-realm only opened for the demonic or the damned.
The smell of burnt sugar and fresh bread wafted from the human, as if he were the most delicious thing in all the three realms. It made Kasu’s head spin and her mouth water.
She wanted to cover her nose, but knew that it would do no good.
It wasn’t really a scent that she was reacting to but the stranger’s aura – the irresistible pull of his mortality that made her want to consume him whole.
Do not eat the human! Do not eat the human! Do not eat the human! Her stomach was growling. She was starting to drool. How humiliating. How could she call herself a follower of the Heavenly Principles if she could not leash her appetites and control her ghostly nature?
Once he seemed convinced that Kasu wouldn’t scream, the mortal moved his hand away from her mouth. As he leaned back, the light from the window caught the curve of his face.
He appeared to be roughly the same age as her, give or take a few years: too young to grow anything more than a wisp of a beard, but old enough to wield the sword at his hip.
He was dressed in clothes Kasu didn’t recognize – a dark blue tunic that reached his knees, belted around his waist with a golden sash, above horsehide trousers and dark leather boots.
A living human. Something strange flitted inside Kasu’s chest as she gazed at him – a tight, uncomfortable irritation like an itch beneath her skin.
This could only end badly.
“Y–you’re a human. And alive.”
“And you’re … surprisingly solid for a ghost. No, maybe you’re not a ghost. Are you a demon?” The young man’s voice was tired and rough, like he had not slept in several days.
Rather than answer his question, Kasu wriggled free and retreated to the corner of the room, as far away from him as possible.
“How did you enter Ghost City?” she demanded. “Why would you want to come here? Who are you?”
The stranger opened his mouth to say something when the sound of footsteps alerted them both to someone approaching the room. Without a second’s hesitation he vaulted out of the dormitory window, dropping all of two storeys to the stony ground below.
“Wait!” Kasu threw herself against the sill and watched as the stranger ran away from Camellia House. With a hiss of frustration, she dashed back out of the room just as a fellow ghost in green robes reached the top of the stairs.
“Oh, Kasu, have you seen—”
“Apologies, I have to go.” She bobbed her head in a brief bow, as quick yet polite as she could manage, and ran down the stairs, out of the dormitory and around the side of the building until she reached the spot where she had seen the human disappear.
Into the shadow forest.
Kasu had not been in the under-realm long enough to remember when the forest had been cut back to make way for Camellia House and the servant dormitory, but she had the distinct impression that the trees did.
They crowded against the back of the building, as though trying to reclaim the land they had once lost. On stormy nights, Kasu could hear the branches tap, tap, tapping against the roof as if asking for entry.
There were not many places in Ghost City where nature still ruled and the darkness was overwhelming, but the shadow forest was one of them.
You could get lost for ever beneath its boughs.
Or at least until your form faded away into nothingness.
If the forest was dangerous for ghosts and demons, Kasu could only imagine how deadly it would be for a human.
She had to find him. It was her duty. Heavenly Principle number thirty-one: Show care and consideration to those weaker than you.
Number fifty-six: Protect the living, for all life is sacred.
Nowhere in the Heavenly Principles did it say to abandon innocent mortals if they ran into scary, dark forests. Besides, she had to know how a living human had entered Ghost City in the first place.
Gathering all her courage, Kasu stepped between the trees.