Wherever Stáli went, he couldn’t avoid them. They crowded behind his shoulders. They watched him sharpening his axe. When he fished, they even grabbed onto his line, like he might leave them in his water.

Last night, he’d even woken up to go take a piss, gone and unbuttoned his pants, all alone. Then, when he’d turned to go back to his mat- a pair of glowing green eyes in the dark. He’d nearly fainted.

“It can’t go on like this,” he hissed, out of earshot of their visitor.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said his sister, prim. She was surrounded by her own cloud of ghosts. They hunched around her shoulders. One of them was attempting to throttle her, hands going through her carotid artery and hovering somewhere around her throat. As usual, Sólveig paid them no mind.

“Yes, I said we needed a change. I didn’t say we needed to use all of our weapons at once!” He flung his hands out. “We aren’t using them. The longer they just stand around, the longer they… they… I don’t like the way they look at me!”

This was what he got for working with Sólveig. One ghost, he had suggested. A minor summoning, to get things rolling. He had taken his eyes off of her, and they had ended up with half of the population following them!

“I gave you a chance to take charge. You did not. We cannot be stuck in this stupid stone prison forever. Thus, we must use our weapons.” She turned and glared at him. The look was so sharp Stáli nearly stumbled back. The ghost attempting to throttle her even pulled his hands back. “If you hadn’t been such a coward, this wouldn’t have needed to happen.”

“I understand maybe using one or two,” said Stáli. This always happened! He would come for a normal conversation, and Sólveig escalated it for no reason. He should have never agreed to this horrible mission. He should have stayed home, and taken that flower-arranging job, no matter what his mother said about it. Now he was surrounded by ghosts, and blood, and axes, and some strange southern councilman! “But not all of them! We won’t have any left if we really need them!”

“We do need them,” she said. “We need something more than just strength. We need information.” She stood, folding her arms. “We used to just be the muscle. Now we can run the mission. This isn’t a demotion- it’s an opportunity.” Stáli stepped back. They were tucked behind a tree, where the councilman couldn’t see them. He was also out of reach of his axe, and he was too-aware of it.

“I’m not sure I want that opportunity,” he said. “Have you met the others? They’re horrible. Not to mention the paperwork.”

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As usual, she ignored him and kept talking. “I have heard such interesting gossip. There isn’t just one source of blood in this temple, Stáli. There are two.”

Stáli closed his eyes. She was poking him in the chest. “I really don’t think we should do anything without Flaviana,” he said. “Especially not- that. You’re going to trust their word? They once called a bear an agent of death!”

“They were not wrong.”

“They want to lie to you, Sólveig! They know you want to hurt people. They want to see you defeated. What if this second source of blood is actually just a man with twenty swords or something?”

“Then I shall defeat him, and every sword shall be mine.” Sólveig smiled. “Well. Maybe I will give you one sword, as thanks.”

The green cluster of ghosts behind her had dispersed slightly, but they clustered tighter together at that. Stáli caught a set of glares. There were enough ghostly weapons that it was spiked like a hedgehog, the images of ancient armor.

He avoided eye contact. “I’m going to go speak to our companion,” he said, instead.

Sólveig waved him off. “As long as you’re ready. I’ve gotten some information on how to move forward in this temple. Get your things packed.”

----------------------------------------

“Leave,” he said, as soon as he got around the tree.

Domitius looked up. He was wrapping a piece of cloth around what looked like a blister on his heel. “I beg your pardon?”

“My sister,” Stáli said. “She is, ah… not well.” He paused. “Ill. Horrible sickness. Plague.” He coughed, twice. “Very bad. You should go. As fast as possible.”

He stopped moving. Domitius still hadn’t left.

“Sorry,” he said, “But something’s not adding up. Sólveig seems, uh, very healthy to me.”

Behind the tree, Sólveig threw another axe and gave one of their people’s famous battle cries. Stáli closed his eyes in defeat. “Ill in the mind,” he said.

Domitius looked politely confused. He had spread out across the campsite, propping his boots up next to the embers to try and get them to dry. A line of fish was spread out across the logs. He seemed to be one of the few people who prayed so little to the gods he couldn’t see ghosts at all. He had been peacefully unbothered for the last few days, even as ghosts poked at the fish, poked at the fire, looked over his shoulder and pretended to untie his boots.

Stáli wished he could say the same.

“She wants to kill you,” he said, finally. “She’s always wanted to kill you. She hates southerners, she hates you in particular, and she really wants to kill everyone. I can’t really control her, and I am really regretting going on this journey in the first place.”

He wasn’t entirely sure that his vocabulary in the southern langauge worked for all of that, so he spread his hands and made a sort of slide across his throat, then pointed to Domitius. The councilman, who was a rather down-trodden looking man in his mid-thirties, stiffened in surprise.

“Really!”

Stáli nodded.

“And she really-”

Stáli nodded again.

“Well,” said Domitus. “I. Hm.”

“You should really go,” said Stáli. “I’ll help you pack.”

The ghosts tried to help, too. One of them stuck his tongue out at Stali as he shoved the fish into Domitus’s bag. Stali tried to avoid looking.