Wyll was ready when Luther arrived in his chambers to dress. Eira and Rhosyn had followed their maids to theirs. Maids who could not stop blushing when they looked at Luther, who wore a towel around his waist between rooms. It wasn’t proper, but it didn’t last long as Eira and Rhosyn led the way into their rooms, and the maids followed after a lingering moment of hesitation.
Wyll helped him dress. Stylish black leather boots, black trousers with silver buttons, a white dress shirt, a burgundy vest, and a black tailcoat with silver underlining comprised the ensemble. Luther checked the fit in the mirror, twisting and stretching at the tight clothes. He frowned. They looked stylish in the mirror, but felt as unnatural as if he were dressing to pretend he was someone else.
“The fit looks marvelous, my lord. The tailor did their duty well,” Wyll said, trying to be encouraging.
“Did they?” Luther asked, adjusting his tailcoat. “I suppose they must have, but it still feels like wearing a costume.”
“You’ll get used to it, my lord. You’re an accomplished nobleman now. I’ve no doubt the dinner invitations will drown poor Wulfric soon. I wish I had a fraction of your talent with the ladies,” Wyll said with an encouraging smile at Luther’s reflection. “Your father was a bit of a recluse among his peers, but you were quite popular at the Castle Beaudivere.”
Luther sobered at the thought, but appreciated that Wyll meant well. His father was a recluse, it was true, and Luther envied that reputation. He’d like to establish it for himself, if it weren’t too late. His arcanum was public knowledge now. Every sunrise would increase the number of people who knew, when a few short days ago, he hadn’t even known himself.
The valley would be different for it, but he still hoped to continue improving it, as his father would have wanted. He patted his chest, then his stomach, adjusted his silk cravat, and sat so Wyll could comb his hair. “I still feel as though I should do this myself.”
“If you like, my lord, but I’d wager I’m better at this than you,” Wyll said, taking the liberty of snipping a stray hair from Luther’s head. He combed the rest of his hair into place and made certain Luther was presentable before stepping back to allow Luther to rise.
“Thank you,” Luther said, rising from the chair and adjusting his clothing.
“Of course, my lord,” Wyll said, bowing. “Should I tell Wulfric you’ll be down to dinner shortly?”
“Yes, I just have to stop in the library first,” Luther said.
Wulfric nodded and left Luther with his reflection.
Luther stared at himself in the mirror, marveling at the change between the young man who left home to wander the world and the lord standing before him. The face was older, wiser, and the eyes were sharp and battle-ready. The kindness of his features left with the softness of youth, and what remained more than a decade later was a man out of his depth, playing the games of imperial nobility when weeks ago he’d been a common mercenary paying a teleportation mage to send him home in time for his father’s funeral.
If only he’d known then what he knew now, he’d have stopped them from burning his father’s corpse, but it was too late now. The old man was gone now, and Luther stood where he should have, enjoying the fruits of his father’s labor.
Luther swallowed and turned away from the mirror. The others were still dressing, and Luther saw no reason to disturb them. He tread the path through the halls, down the stairs, and into the library with friendly nods and greetings to the servants as he passed them. Each returned the gestures, happy for the acknowledgement of their existence and work when most nobles would have ignored them.
The library doors were just as heavy and imposing as before, but Luther opened and closed them behind him, stepping in and releasing a sigh.
“Hello?” He called, just to be sure they were alone. No answer came, and he checked the chairs to be sure Emily wasn’t hiding in some row or cranny. Fortunately, there was only Criella, who appeared from between two shelves.
Seeing her ghostly form in the crystalline light took some getting used to, but Luther was looking forward to trying. Her naked form looked solid enough to touch, but his hand passed through her any time he tried to caress her flawless red skin or tug her swaying tail to get her attention. She looked at him, her stoic expression shifting ever so slightly that he might have imagined it. He gestured to the desk, and she nodded.
He walked to it and sat down, flinging the tails of his coat out behind him so he didn’t sit on them. She stood beside him, looking at the blank piece of paper. He dipped the quill into the ink and wrote his messages to her.
“I have avenged you. Lucas and Branan are dead. The Feothe clan is no more, and we were victorious without any deaths on our side.”
Criella nodded her approval with a sharp nod of her jaw and a gesture he’d seen her make a few times before, slowly lifting her horns.
“Next, we will venture into the mountains. It will take us time to prepare for the journey, and we’ll have to make arrangements, but we know the location of the Fey Lord’s tomb, and hopefully, we can discover how to reunite you with your body.”
Criella nodded her approval, then crooked her finger, beckoning him to follow her. He rose from the desk and followed as she led him across the way to a shelf full of linguistic manuals. She pointed to one repeatedly, and he pulled it from the shelf.
The hardbound book was handwritten in imperial runes and illustrated with sketches. He read the title page aloud, despite Criella being unable to hear him. “The Silent Tongue: Being a manual of the language used within the Silent City.”
The Silent City. Luther recalled a mention of the place from one of his father’s stories. A brief synopsis was in the author’s runes at the front of the book.
“Long ago, before the first emperor sat upon the first throne, there was a queen regent who fled from a usurper with her babe, the prince, in her arms. Yet the prince, who’d seen his father’s murder, would not settle or be quiet, but cried whenever he woke, so the queen could not hide or protect him for long. She fled into the wilderness, where the prince’s wails disturbed the fauna, and the huntsmen her enemies sent after her trailed her easily.
Until finally, she came to a place where the stone drank the sound from the air. No matter how the babe cried, no sound escaped its lips or reached any nearby ear, and the queen hid, nestled against the safety of the mountain. She built a home there, a fortress to protect herself and her babe, until he was strong enough to fight his enemies. But when the time came, he did not wish to retake his throne. Instead, he built their home into a city and took in any refugee who needed the peaceful sanctuary of the Silent City.”
Luther flipped the pages of the manual, scanning its contents as it depicted hand motions, facial expressions, and arm movements, each of which was assigned a meaning and implications in the runes beneath it. The first half explained the rules of the language and how to use it, while the second half acted as a glossary, a dictionary of vocabulary and potential combinations. The final pages were a sketch of a poem he couldn’t interpret, illustrations of a dance that demonstrated the physical beauty of the language.
Luther realized the implications immediately, and he smiled, flipping the pages until he found the illustration for ‘Learn’ and then ‘Together.’
Criella nodded, smiling at him with a genuine smile so reminiscent of how she was in life.
Luther nearly leapt for joy as he flipped pages again. I, Love, and You, in that order. Criella noticed the pages and nodded, forming the combination of the gestures as clumsily as Luther did.
Death be damned, love remained triumphant.
“I’ll teach the rest of the union as well,” Luther said. “I’m sure they’ll want to speak with you nearly as much as I do, and no one can claim this to be necromancy.”
He closed the manual and brought it to one of the central tables. He laid it out, but only had a few minutes of reading, with Criella reading over his shoulder, before the library door opened.
Luther looked up at the sound of the door, and flinched as the scream reached his ears. Emily stood at the open door, her eyes wide in terror, staring straight at Criella. Criella looked at Luther, then at Emily, and gestured for Emily to calm down as she raised her hands.
Emily’s scream faded, but only as she fell. Luther dashed forward to catch her, as did Criella, but both were too far away. If it weren’t for Luther using Criella’s arcanum, Emily might have smacked her head on the stone and been grievously injured. As it was, Luther appeared behind her and caught her in his arms, letting her lean against him as she clutched at him.
“Luther…” Emily said, her eyes moving rapidly between him and Criella’s ghost. “What?”
She couldn’t form the question, and Luther didn’t blame her. Each reaction to Criella was their own, and Emily had probably read too many ghost stories to take her existence for anything but malice.
“It’s okay,” Luther assured her. “We’re okay!” Luther cried as servants rushed into the hall. He needed to keep Criella hidden, but doing so was tricky when she couldn’t hear anyone approach, nor could they hear her.
“How is she… alive?” Emily asked, gasping for breath and looking into Luther’s eyes.
“Well,” Luther hesitated, gesturing for the servants to leave them before they looked through the door and saw Criella themselves. The servants obeyed him, confused and concerned, but giving him the benefit of the doubt. He helped Emily to her feet and closed the library door behind them. “She isn’t, yet.”
Emily looked at him, agape. “Necromancy.”
“No,” Luther protested. “Love.”
Emily’s horrified expression shifted, softening as she looked at Luther. “What?”
“My love for her, my connection to her, is too strong to let death come between us. She remains an incorporeal spirit, until I find a way to bring her back to life,” Luther explained. “Which I intend to do.”
Emily’s eyes looked into the middle distance between them, as if she were searching out the answers there. “I don’t–I can’t understand. Is this a side effect of your arcanum? Is this what happens when someone you’re connected to dies?”
An interesting hypothesis, posing a question that Luther didn’t know the answer to. Perhaps if Jowangshin had left Lucas’ corpse parts unburned, he might have discovered if other spirits formed ghosts after death. As far as he knew, Criella was the only ghost he’d met.
“I don’t know,” Luther said, deciding honesty was his best hope of bringing Emily to his side of the matter. He knew necromancy was unlikely to win her approval, but love? She was a self-confessed romantic, and his and Criella’s love was more real than any she might find in a novel or storybook.
“What I do know is that Criella and I love one another,” Luther explained. “When she died, it broke me, but her continuance has given me hope. I myself am proof that our knowledge of magic is not complete. We do not know everything that is possible, and if there is a way to bring her back, I intend to discover it and use it to reunite with my love.”
Emily’s eyes softened as she met his determined gaze. Hope filled her eyes with his, and she smiled softly as she reached up and caressed his cheek. Luther became aware that he was holding her, supporting her from a kneeling position as she rested in his arms, looking up at him.
He stood, bringing her to her feet. She turned, looking for Criella, but Criella had gone. She turned back toward Luther, clasping his forearms in her hands. “Would you do the same for any of the wives in your union?”
“Yes,” Luther said. “They are mine, and I love them too dearly.”
Emily wet her lips.
“But we need to keep this a secret until the time is right,” Luther said, urging her silence without asking for it. “The servants do not know, only myself, my wives, and now you.”
Emily nodded, understanding. “Of course, I will keep your secrets, my lord.”
“Will you?” Luther asked, evaluating her expression. “Why?”
“Out of respect for your love,” Emily answered. “And hope that one day I might endure so unyielding a love as yours that it conquers death itself.”
Luther smiled, releasing his grip on her elbows as she blushed and stepped away from the proximity between them. If he were an unmarried man, he would have kissed her, but in his union, he could not risk further angering his wives by pursuing another romance. If Emily wished to join the union, they would have to court her as a clan and do things properly.
“Such a love might yet be between us,” Luther said, gesturing between them. “If you find me suitable?”
Emily blushed and looked away. “You are a flirt, sir.”
“A romantic,” Luther said, smiling. “But I presume flirting with me is not what brought you to the library?”
“Hm?” Emily asked, as if forgetting where they stood until she looked around and verified the world around them. “Oh, no, I came to fetch you for dinner.”
“I see, go on, tell the others I’ll be in shortly. Has Jowangshin come in from outside?” Luther asked.
“She’s changing for dinner now,” Emily said. “She’ll be late in joining us.”
“I understand,” Luther said, guiding her toward the door. He opened it for her, and she left without protest, smiling a soft smile as she tread the hallway toward the dining hall.
Luther closed the door behind her and sighed. Flirtation had always come naturally to him, and he had his charms, but he’d never expected them to be what separated him from life and the emperor’s executioner. Charges of necromancy could not spread, no matter what happened. He returned to the desk, where the page lay, and he re-inked the quill.
“Do you trust Emily?”
He took the page to Criella, who read it, and measured her hands in balance on either side of her. Luther repeated the question by tapping the page. He needed an answer.
Criella nodded her yes. She trusted Emily. Luther felt as though he did, too. Still, there was much he didn’t know about her, knowledge he could gain through courtship, if the union was willing to entertain the idea. Some had been opposed to the concept of courting her since she refused to join the union before the battle with the Feothes, but Luther couldn’t hold that against her. Lucas was her brother and her abuser. She feared him and couldn’t bring herself to face him on the battlefield. Now that Lucas was no longer an obstacle, he didn’t doubt she’d be brave enough to join the fight in whichever capacity her arcanum allowed.
“She won’t betray us. She might even join us.”
Criella’s eyebrows rose, but she nodded her approval.
Luther held out his hand, and Criella slipped hers into it, or over it, since he could not feel her touch. One day, she’d have her body again, and they’d reunite. Until then, this was their relationship, and they were going to have to make it work. Theirs had always been a more spiritual connection, anyway, and soon they would learn to speak to one another without writing.
She pressed her lips to his, a fleeting kiss without taste or pressure, then left to read.
Luther left the page in the manual open to the beginning instructions of the first phrases, a series of greetings, and bid Criella farewell with a bow. She inclined her horns as an acceptance, and he left the library behind, joining the others in the dining hall.