I bend down, picking up the note and unfolding it to read the message hastily scrawled across it.
My darling Natasya…
I feel my eyebrows rise. Apparently, he is not that angry enough with me that he would forego the terms of endearment.
I understand that it is late, but I have not been able to sleep. I did not wish to disturb you from your slumber, hence the reason for my leaving this note. Once you read this, please meet me at the old-gnarled oak at the crossroads outside Sunder Hollow. I have something of the utmost importance to discuss with you. Evengi Ichabod is not to be trusted. He is lying tothis whole town. Come quickly and I will reveal all and then you and I can decide the best course of action for that lying scoundrel.
I lower the note, feeling my eyes widen in surprise. This has nothing to do with me at all, but actually Evengi.
Relief rushes through me, followed closely by a burning curiosity. Just who is this Evengi? It seems I’m not the only one in Sunder Hollow telling lies. I suppose it makes sense. The first man I’ve actually felt any sort of attraction toward, of course he must be a conniving liar himself.
I hastily throw on my heavy woolen cloak because the air has taken on a wet cold feeling. It promises a rain to come soon. I throw my hood up and hurry down the main road. There are very few people out at this hour. The blacksmith lighting his forge, the farmers heading to their fields, and me as I hurry down the dirt path to the wide road that cuts down through Ruskhazar. The crossroads that Brom referred to is the area where the road branches off to head to Sunder Hollow.
There’s a broken sign that once stated that Sunder Hollow was up that road, but the path is mostly overgrown from misuse, and many people actually miss it when they walk this road.
Most people, except for Evengi apparently.
And me, but that was because I was purposefully seeking out Sunder Hollow. Is it possible that Evengi did the same thing?
It makes me all the more desperate to learn what Brom discovered about Evengi. Does he have ulterior motives for being in Sunder Hollow just like I do? If that’s the case, then I can easily blackmail him and get him to leave before he further ruins my chances of marrying Brom the Bones and getting my hands on that spellbook.
I quicken my pace as I spot the twisted branches of the old oak tree that serves as a marker for the crossroads since the sign nowlies rotting in the dirt, the wordsSunder Hollowstill etched into the wood.
This late in the year, the leaves are orange and red and seem to be barely clinging to the branches.
A gust of icy wind washes over me as I make it to the end of the path just where it becomes one with the main road. I don’t see anyone around. Not lying in the tall grass, not pacing along the road, not perched on the rickety fence in front of the oak.
It seems as though I’m the only one here at this oak so early in the morning.
“Brom?” I call, pulling my cloak more closely around me as I glance up and down the main road in case he decided to wander down it while waiting for me. “Brom?”
No one answers my calls.
Chapter Eleven
Evengi
To say that I’m confused is an understatement. I came here to free the restless spirits of the ghosts and perhaps hunt down a necromancer, not kiss someone’s fiancé. Let aloneBrom’s.
My mother always used to say that we’re more connected here in Ruskhazar than we realize and that this strife between Lowlanders, Highlanders, and Elves is ridiculous. But I’ll admit that even I never thought I’d wind up finding my old friend Brom all these years later, let alone for us to both get involved with the same woman.
Natasya is a lot of trouble, especially for being just a merchant’s daughter. How did she manage to get not one, but two lords, caught up in her snare.
How come I can’t seem to stop thinking about that accursed kiss? It never should have happened, and yet, I can’t help but be left wishing that I could recreate it. At least once more.
I pinch my nose and groan as the dim light of dawn flickers through the shuttered windows of my inn room. I’m behaving quite poorly for a man who has dedicated his life to the goddess Neltruna.
It’s true her priests are not like most other priests; we don’t worship in temples or preach of the gods power to the masses. No, we serve the goddess of darkness and monsters, and as such, it is our duty to display power over darkness and the monsters. Especially monsters, as many were created in defiance to Neltruna by her daughter Mavka, the demigoddess of night who wished to usurp her mother’s domain.
The dragons were born of her daughter Mavka and the demigod Zudhac, the great and first dragon. Likewise, vampires were Mavka’s cursed followers.
And my own specialty in monster hunting, ghosts, are a defiance against Neltruna’s husband Thyre, who is supposed to be the guardian of the dead. These restless spirits have slipped past his grasp and choose to remain in Ruskhazar for whatever reason rather than go to Skyhold and enter into their eternal rest.
Many ghosts die violently and seek vengeance or are lost and confused not even having realized that they died or how. It’s my duty to find them and convince them to enter Skyhold, either by avenging their violent deaths or by helping them to find clarity in their clouded confusion.
It’s a sacred purpose that I have come to embrace since the gods chose to spare my life from that accident at the academy all those years ago.
On the bright side, the fewer ghosts there are, the less of a headache I have.
