He gripped a stack and let them fall to the floor in an unceremonious mess.“None of your business.”
“Why didn’t you go back with them?”
Rolling his eyes, Saer pivoted to face his inquisitor.“How long have you been here, Little Ghost?”
The spirit form of Ruki leaned against the wall furthest from Saer.Its head tilted to the side, answering in a tired but curious tone, “Years of seeing your kin come and go, but Neyu is your equal and partner, different and above the others.Why did you avoid her?”
Saer’s jaw worked, the line of questioning digging at his insides while at the same time a spark of his innate sin ignited to have someone—even an invisible spirit—acknowledge what Neyu and he meant to one another.
Still, he didn’t owe any explanation to Ruki’s soul about his vow to his maker, nor the danger it suspended over Neyu’s head.And his.
“That’s not your concern.”
“Neyu said you’ve been gone for a while.She meant you hadn’t returned to the burning place, didn’t she?”
Saer blinked, trying to remember when that particular conversation with Neyu took place.Weeks ago, when she’d first arrived.His stomach clenched.“How in frenzied Hells—?”
“I’ve gotten better at hiding.”
“It would have been better if you’d stayed quiet.”
“Really?”
Saer grunted and refocused on sorting through another pile of parchments.He already warred with distracting himself away from Neyu’s absence and fate.He had no patience left for the spirit.
“Seeing the two of you together was interesting.”
“Watch yourself,” he hissed between clenched teeth.
Ruki’s essence pushed itself from the side of the hut—as if it had physical form—and approached him.“Or what?You’ll take me to the burning place as you took my father?”
“It would be a pleasure to take you there,” Saer lied.
“Then do it.”Ruki’s soul threw its hands out from its sides.“I’m ready!”
Saer’s lip curled.“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“Anything is better than this!”
Huffing a sharp breath from his nose, Saer cleared off the rest of the papyrus from the desk, storing rolled parchments in his pockets.
“You haven’t gone back since you took my father.”
Saer’s fingers spasmed, his only tell that it surprised him for Ruki’s spirit to have noticed.
The soul’s voice persisted at his back.“I’ve gotten to know all your kin through the decades.One of them comes in at the last minute, every time, to take…what do you call them?Your harvests?But you don’t return anymore, do you?And I can’t follow them when I’m dedicated to you.”
Saer strode through the hut’s exit and slammed the door behind him.He gestured with a harsh wave of his hand, setting the shelter aflame.Ruki’s spirit walked through the burning barrier, untouched and unfazed.“Why does the great and powerful Saer stay behind while his kin reap the rewards of harvested souls?Why doesn’t he rid himself of me once and for all?”
“Go away!”Saer shouted over his shoulder.
“You’re afraid.”
Afraid.Saer whirled around and bared his teeth with a bark of a sound more befitting a beast than a man.“I was willing to go back!”
Ruki’s essence paused and held up its translucent hands, though went on in a more subdued tone.“But you didn’t.”
Damn this spirit for spying on everything they’d done and said!
