Yechvan woke, temples pounding, ears ringing, teeth clenched. Gru.

  Ysla lay next to him in her feather bed, watching and worrying as he buried his face in his hands. She sat up and asked if he needed help.

  “This has happened a few times since I hit my head. I just need a minute.” He sank into the silk pillow and covered his sensitive eyes with his forearm to block out the swirling lights, fighting to calm his roiling stomach. Gru.

  Ysla opened the shutters to let in the crisp night air. She shuffled around in a drawer and returned to the bed with a fan. Yechvan pulled his arm from his face when the smoke from the extinguished incense tickled his nose. The room was dark, lit only by a soft glimmer from the torches that hung below the open window outside Madame Sho’s establishment. Ysla’s body glowed with a light sheen of oil, even after their coupling under the sheets a few hours earlier. Her silhouette rocked as she fanned him, the movement exacerbating his queasiness. He closed his eyes again and focused on his breathing. He’d paid to stay with her all night, more out of reluctance to be alone than for her services.

  A few days after the ritual, Yechvan began to suffer from headaches. The pain would start as a burgeoning, dull ache in his neck and shoulders, where the muscles were knotted and tense. Then, it would drive up into his head and overload his senses. The slightest sound or light might send him running to hide in a dark, quiet hole until it passed. He’d also noticed his temper flaring with his companions, though he knew not why. They would make an innocuous comment, and Yechvan would bite back with unjustified anger.

  Most worrying of all, he was forgetting things: names, words, what he’d wanted to say, what someone else had just said to him, details he knew were important but couldn’t remember why. He struggled to focus, his attention flitting from thought to thought like a butterfly searching for nectar in the qish’s lush gardens.

  When Yechvan first mentioned the lapses in his memory, Zu had laughed it off, joking that they were getting old. But the next time Zu noticed Yechvan struggling for words, he suggested perhaps it was temporary, and once his head was healed, he would be healthy as a harp. Zu’s insouciance might have been comforting if Yechvan had been brave enough to divulge the intensity of the pain, the blackouts, the headaches, or the frequency and speed with which those slippery details fled.

  “Is this better?” Ysla said. “What can I do for you?”

  The throbbing intensified in the broken silence. “Just whisper, please.”

  “Yes, of course, as you wish,” she murmured in his ear, her voice as exotic as her body. “What can I do for you?”

  “Keep fanning, please. Tell me something to distract me; tell me about where you grew up.”

  “I was born in Parallax to the north,” she continued in an inviting whisper. She spoke of her parents. Her father was a silversmith; mother, the daughter of a miller. Her family had been forced to leave the small, secluded country—though she didn’t specify why—and had made a new home in Banx, near the northwestern border in a town called Holden. She had two younger sisters, but she hadn’t seen them in a few years. When she was ten, the family had taken a trip to Brogh and Banton, the sister cities on the lake, so her father could request a license to practice with the silversmith’s guild. As she often did, Ysla had wandered away from her mother at the market and lost herself in the narrow, twisting alleys of the city. It was none other than Madame Sho who’d found her, brought her inside and given her a meal and a place to sleep. But, curious as a cat, Ysla snuck away from her quarters to wander the building at night. The life had mesmerized her. The exotic scents, steaming baths, spiced cuisine, expensive silks, lavish decor. She was eventually reunited with her parents and returned home, but she’d been entranced by Madame Sho and her glorious establishment. It had taken years, but as soon as Ysla had saved enough money to return to Brogh, she had.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  “This is all fascinating,” a rancorous voice spat, causing Yechvan to start. “She can beguile you with that silver tongue of hers, but no matter the web she weaves, she’s still a whore.” Soni towered over Yechvan, a mocking grimace splitting crimson lips. Blood spilled out of her torn skin. She lowered herself onto the chair beside the bed with a wet squelching.

  Yechvan wanted to respond, but he didn’t want Ysla to figure out how crazy he was. She was still talking, but he could no longer hear her whispers over Soni’s blathering. He turned to Ysla, wishing the spirit away. She stopped fanning and admired him with a soft, kind smile before kissing him gently on the brow, the nose, the lips.

  Why was Soni here? The war was over and Banx’s future secure. The ghosts should have faded back to their realm; they should have quieted. Instead, a mere half turn since his visit from Dorin Sen, not only was a belligerent and bellicose Soni in his face, but scores of restless spirits swirled about the room. Why couldn’t they give him a moment of peace?

  Soni had been a medic, killed trying to stop a boy from deserting after the Battle of Shuju Pass. When she confronted him, he had rushed her, knocking her off balance. She’d fallen back, tumbled into the canyon, smashing into the sharp rocks along the cliff face and splitting her belly open on the way. She died slowly, painfully. And for what? One quivering boy would have made no difference on the field, but Soni’s skills were sorely missed. Yechvan had climbed down to help her, to save her, but he’d been too late. With a heavy heart, he granted her dying wish and cut her throat himself to hasten her departure. The last words she mouthed to him had been, “Thank you.”

  “She is beautiful, I grant you,” Soni said. A twinge of jealousy lurked behind her spite. “But you are far too good for her.”

  Ysla was now talking about her time at Madame Sho’s. She’d arrived two years ago and spent most of the first five seasons behind the curtains while she learned the tricks of the trade. “It might seem odd,” she explained, “that someone would need to learn to have sex, but all the men and women who work here must be experts at pleasing their customers, whatever their fancy.”

  “She sure does yap a lot.” Soni jabbed an accusatory finger at Ysla. “I thought a whore was supposed to do something else with that mouth.”

  “Thank you, Ysla, I am feeling a bit better,” Yechvan said, though his head still swam in fog. Hundreds of figures—large and small, male and female, friend and stranger—floated at the fringes of his vision. Several crowded around the bed, looming uncomfortably close: the bleeders, disemboweled, frostbitten, dismembered and charred. The beheaded, with their heads tucked under their arms. The eviscerated, scrabbling across the wooden floor, leaving a trail of gore in their wake. The horrific sights and sounds conjured the smell of death. Bile rose in Yechvan’s throat.

  Ysla watched his eyes dart back and forth, following his gaze and seeing nothing but darkness in the room. “Do you want me to close the window?” she asked with an edge of concern.

  “No, no.” Yechvan squeezed his eyes shut to prevent another fit of dizziness. “Come here.”

  She nestled into him, warm skin sliding against his, firm breasts pressed against his chest, minty cool breath mingling with the aroma of her fruit oil. She wrapped her leg around his and kissed his neck, whispered in his ear, inaudible but gentle and sweet.

  “Oh, she cares. Truly,” Soni mocked. The spirit belted a wild cackle.

  Yechvan jerked, triggering the pounding of drums. In life, Soni had been soft-spoken but direct, sympathetic but honest. Strong, proud, careful with her words. This woman who hurled insults at him was cruel, spiteful, wretched.

  “A whore who cares! Now I’ve seen it all.”

  “Stop saying that.” Yechvan leapt from the bed and yanked the chair out from under her. He smashed it against the wall, reducing it to splinters. But the ghosts were never so easily banished. “Just shut up!”

  “Yechvan, what are you doing?” Ysla cried, retreating to the opposite side of the room.

  He punched the nearest ghost, a smirking little shite he didn’t recognize. His hand passed through the man, and the blow landed on the wall. The force split his knuckles, smearing the wood with blood, but Yechvan was undeterred. “To the thirteen hells, all of you. Can’t you just leave me alone?” he screamed, directing his barrage at the next spirit, a seasoned Five Nations man, and the next, Soni herself, each unfazed by his pummeling. “Leave me the hell alone!”

  Zu rushed him then, flying through the door. With raw power, he deflected Yechvan’s wild jab and wrapped him in a mighty bear hug. A woman followed in Zu’s wake, hurrying to tend to Ysla, but Ysla wriggled out of her companion’s arms and moved to Yechvan’s side, soothing words flowing as easy as water over the falls. Her hands gripped his cheeks, and she forced him to look at her and only her. “I’m with you, Yechvan. Me. Ysla. Come back to me now.”

  With his air cut off by Zu’s immense forearm, Yechvan’s vision narrowed further and further until he could see only Ysla. He’d come back to her. But then he saw nothing at all.