When you lived in a country that vilified magic, there were things you accepted as true even if you had never seen them with your own eyes. In fact, not seeing them made it easier to believe that they couldn’t be true, and so the kings and queens of Ishmar had pulled the wool over the peoples’ eyes for generations. One such thing we were led to believe was that ghosts were the product of magic’s vilest practices.

Laspa of the Magister Lords had demonstrated what magic could do to a corpse, and Kuro had used the spirits of the vengeful dead to call down a tornado on the Arena back in Ishmar. Those two things were not the same in my mind; while Laspa had selfishly used necromancy to harm and steal, Kuro had given those wayward souls peace, even if his method had been destructive.

Nuance was such a difficult thing for any warrior, let alone a berserker, to grasp. It was so much easier to let everything be defined as right or wrong, for or against, friend or enemy. The moment nuance found its way into anything, it made you question everything you knew.

I was trying to be better about that.

Growth and open-mindedness were the only means by which my nation could survive. I had to be ready to convince my people to throw aside age old hatreds and fears, and they would be resistant. Hopefully, with all the things I was learning out in the world, I’d be prepared for that day and know the words I’d need to say to convey my feelings to my countrymen.

For now, I was struggling to cope with the appearance of a battalion of ghosts standing at attention before the opening of the Valley of the Last Sunrise, their shimmering forces becoming solid and distinct as they stood beneath the darkening sky, watching the last soldier march toward the cleft in the stone with sword drawn.

Alverd held me and I leaned into him, allowing him to hold me as I tried to regain control of my breathing. That caught me off guard. Bloody ghosts just came out of the ground! Is that normal? Are they all like that? The initial shock wore off quickly, and when the ghosts showed no hostility towards us, my fear vanished. Why do they look so frightened?

The thirty farmers looked tired with the same thousand yard stare I’d seen in veterans coming back from the eastern front. Their eyes told stories they refused to tell with tongues, how they jumped at every single sudden sound or screamed in their sleep. These villagers had the same haunted looks in their eyes, as if they expected to meet Death himself at any moment. Knowing what I knew, they weren’t wrong.

Many of the farmers had armor they’d likely stolen from their fallen foes, hanging loosely from their bodies or secured improperly. Most of them had spears too, although a few were carrying bows, swords, and axes. They look so young. Some of them look barely older than me. What could’ve inspired them to give their lives for this?

Inspiration was a bit of a new concept for me. For so long, Ishmarian royalty ruled through intimidation, whether by fear of force or the fear caused by the use of it. The former kings and queens before me had no qualms about using their power to keep their subjects in line, and it wasn’t just with the mage hunts. To be able to make people follow you willingly because you personify something heroic seems like a better option. I know I’d follow Alverd anywhere because of who he is and his values.

I watched the lone soldier pause at the entrance of the Valley, their back to me, sword still pointing at the ground. What made this one soldier so compelling? What did they do to get so many to follow them into certain death? I eased myself out of Alverd’s grip and before I knew it, I was inching towards the ghost soldier, my steps becoming surer and faster as my fear fell by the wayside.

Sheena was the first to notice that I was getting too close. “Hey! Don’t do that! It’s not safe, you don’t know if these ghosts are able to attack the living!” Despite her warnings, she didn’t pursue me. “Come back here! Your maul isn’t going to work on that thing!”

I passed by Kuro, who watched me in dumbstruck confusion. “Woah woah woah, hold up! You’re messing with stuff you don’t understand!” He grabbed my arm, but was unable to stop me as I comically dragged him towards the soldier. I could hear his boots scraping against the ground, trying to dig in his heels to stop me. “No no no no, don’t take me over there! Alicia! Snap out of it!” He grunted as he kept trying to pull me away to no avail.

I circled around the ghost, Kuro still trying to pull me away, until I was facing them. He realized where he was and retreated behind me with a whimper. I looked at the soldier’s face, only the eyes visible behind the demonlike mask they wore. They’re like Alverd’s eyes. They’re clear, focused, and fixed on the goal ahead. Without thinking I extended my hand towards the soldier’s face, almost as if I were about to try to remove the mask.

Then the soldier reached up and undid the clasp that held it in place. When it came away, I saw the features of a youngish beast woman, a scar running across the bridge of her nose and right cheek, tufts of hair reaching down from the inside of her helmet, two long incisors visible in her mouth. I couldn’t tell what her beast heritage was, but her muscular frame had been enough to make me mistake her for a man under all her armor.

Behind me, Kuro started muttering. “What’s happening? There’s something wrong with my staff. The air here is wrong somehow.” He pulled it out and the ruby headpiece was flashing with small pulses of red light, like a beacon. “Alicia, we should step away from the ghosts. I have a really bad feeling about this.” He shook my arm, worry written across his face.

When he gets scared like that there’s good reason to be. If he says we need to leave, I believe him. I’m intrigued by this warrior, but for now I think he has the right idea. I turned to move back the way I came when a sudden gust of wind came from the Valley, pushing me forward and unbalancing me. Pulled along with me, Kuro lost his balance on the smooth stone and tripped, his face smashing into the ground. He didn’t even have time to make a sound before he passed out cold.

In front of me, the soldier’s face turned feral. Her eyes narrowed into slits and she gritted her pointed teeth, and drew her sword in a long, deliberate arc into a fighting stance with it gripped in both hands over her head. It doesn’t take a genius to know that’s an attack about to happen. Can I even block a ghost’s sword with my weapon? Will it even hurt me?

Instinct took over, my muscles roaring into action while my brain remained mired in indecision. I reached down, grabbed Kuro, and lunged backwards. I tucked the mage into my body, using my back as a shield as I hurled us away from the ghost. Guess I’m going to find out.

There was no searing pain from sharp metal nor splitting of my skin and bone. Instead, I landed on top of Kuro, back on the stone floor of the Valley. Oof. He’s gonna be pissed about that one. Maybe he doesn’t have to find out that I nearly broke his back. I threw a glance over my shoulder to see if the ghost was about to strike again and my eyes widened in shock.

I was still on the ground, still in the Valley, but the light from a full moon was now streaming down on me. It was still too early in the evening for such when we had arrived. The edges of the canyon had a blurry feel to them, like I was looking through fogged glass, the surfaces of the stone looking distorted and unnatural. The air was heavier, and a second later I could smell blood, not quite fresh, from further down the path.

I pushed myself up onto one knee, shaking my head. Looking in the direction I had come, I could not see any of the others. Instead, there was a camp of tents with thirty villagers milling about, now flesh. They were not pale wisps with transparent skin. They were real, and my heart froze in my chest when I realized that I was trapped in something I could not explain.

“You should not be here.”

My head whipped around, and at the same time I grabbed Kuro again and pulled him closer to me. My right hand went to the haft of the maul slung over my shoulder. Standing in the middle of the canyon, despite the fact that she had not been standing there a second earlier, was the soldier from before.

Now that the ghost was flesh and blood, I could make out more details about her. The hair poking out from under her helmet was red, her eyes golden, the armor she wore black with gold trimming and filigree. For some reason the scar on her face had disappeared, and she seemed much younger, almost childlike. Did she shrink? I could’ve sworn she was taller. Then again, maybe my mind is playing tricks on me. It’s not like I meet ghosts everyday, after all. Her voice is so soft and girlish, too. Nothing like what I imagine a real soldier would sound like.

Somehow, the soldier was now roughly my own height, maybe even shorter without her armor adding extra bulk to her form. Maybe it’s because she was a ghost a second ago? I admit I wasn’t really paying attention to whether she was looming over me before, but I swear she looked bigger than this.

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I cleared my throat. “Are… are you talking to me?”

The soldier nodded. “That’s right. You don’t look like one of the villagers. How did you chance upon this place?” A cold sweat ran down my back. I don’t know the first thing about dealing with ghosts. I have no idea what I should say or do here.

I stood up fully and let my hand fall away from my weapon. “I’m not sure.” Is she aware that it was her attack that made me jump into the Valley? Is she playing dumb? Dammit Kuro, now was a perfect time to knock your stupid ass out.

The soldier knelt down next to Kuro, running her hand across his hair. It was a gentle gesture that seemed out of place for some reason, like it clashed with my perception of her from only a minute ago. She smiled, pure and simple like a child’s happiness and in a way that made my heart seem to swell. She’s like a whole different person now. Am I seeing the real soldier or only what I want to see?

Eventually she stood back up and offered me a hand. I took it and she pulled me up to full height. “Take care of him. He’s your only way back to the world you reside in.” She pointed down the path, through the narrow canyon ahead. “He can open the way on the other side. You must return to the reality you belong in, before the reality of this place becomes your reality.”

“You’re gonna have to explain that one to me. I don’t know the first thing about magic or ghosts or how any of this works. Short words would help, please.”

The soldier’s brow furrowed, then she sighed. “Alright. This is not your world. It is what a mage would call a ‘pocket dimension’. It’s a space where the laws that govern the world you live in don’t apply properly, or even at all.”

“Okay, with you so far. Is it dangerous to be here for too long? And in what way?” I asked.

The soldier nodded. “You could be trapped here with no way to go home. You could become part of the loop, the event that created this scar in the skin of the world. If that happens, you’ll be doomed to repeat it over and over again until you forget you were never originally part of it.” She reached out and pinched the skin of my upper arm.

“Hey! What the hell was that for?” I yelled as I flinched away. She looked at me gravely.

“You felt pain, yes? You will for every cycle. When that cycle repeats, you will feel pain again. Eventually it will be all that you know. Even a berserker like you would go mad from the repetition in time.” Her face became frighteningly void of emotion for a second, her voice hollow and ominous.

I let my hand reach back up for my maul again. “How did you know I was a berserker?” This is unnerving. Every instinct I have is telling me not to trust this girl, to grab Kuro and just run. And the first thing I learned in my training was to always trust my gut. I took a step towards Kuro’s prone body, already debating in my mind whether I could outrun the girl while carrying his dead weight.

Something fearsome sparked in the girl’s golden eyes when I took the first step. In the moonlight, she almost resembled a wolf staring out of a dark forest, seeing me as potential prey. The feeling of imminent danger intensified to the point where I felt every hair on the back of my neck rise and goosebumps form on my arms. This girl is giving off seriously bad vibes. I need to get out of here, now.

She held up her hand. “Wait. Let me help you. You obviously don’t know what you’re up against.” She reached up and removed her helmet, and when she did a mess of long, tangled red hair fell out, along with two long perky fox ears popping up. “I can guide you, and help you fight against the obstacles blocking your path. You seem like you’re out of your depth here.”

The girl looked even smaller without the ornate helmet, and the fox ears made her look comically childish. I almost expect her to be a child standing on another child’s shoulders under that armor. What is with this girl? One second I’m deathly afraid of her and the next I feel like I’m going to burst out laughing at her.

Almost as if reading my mind, the girl spoke again. “Stop trying to make sense of things. That’s your mind rebelling against the alternate reality trying to impose itself on you. In smaller words, as you asked, the longer you stay, the harder it will be to break free of this place.” Again, the slight edge in her tone was extremely off-putting. “We need to move. If we tarry too long it won’t be a matter of being unable to leave, but of you not wanting to.”

Nothing for it, then. You’ve got no choice but to follow her for now. But if she tries anything I’ll bash her big dumb head in. Alverd would never forgive me if I got his friend killed. Or trapped in some weird ghost world. I leaned down and scooped Kuro up, hoisting him over my right shoulder and holding him there with my right arm. Shit, this little bastard is heavier than he looks.

The soldier’s eyes flashed again. “Be careful with him. I’m not kidding.”

I snarled back at her. “Yeah, yeah, I get it, mages are fragile, too much wand-waving and not enough exercise. You don’t have to tell me twice.” Ghost or not, I will not be pushed around by someone who looks like a kid. “What’s your name?”

She considered it for a moment. “What’s the point in knowing my name? Once you leave here you’ll never see me again, probably.” I groaned in exasperation.

“Evros above, you’re like an actual child, which is rich coming from me. Just make something up so I don’t have to call you Ghost Bitch in my head or something.”

The fox beastwoman glared at me. “Fine. Call me Deotra, then.” She unsheathed her sword, and the length of the blade erupted in an unnatural pale blue flame. “Come along. The sooner you are gone, the better, barbarian woman.” She turned, then whipped her head back around, her eyes blazing. “And nothing had better happen to that mage, or you’ll have to deal with me for the rest of forever.”

Any other time I would’ve smacked the snide out of this bitch’s tone a long time ago, but she’s a ghost and for all I know this is some whacko dream I had from hitting my head on a rock. The sooner I get out of here the better. I fought the urge to say something vile, restrained my violent impulses, and took a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth.

“Alright, protect the mage. Got it. I’ll be careful.”

I unslung my maul and held it loosely in my left hand, the dragontooth metal head dragging along the ground. The nullification runes tied to the haft glowed in their steady pattern of magical light, shifting color as they bounced against each other. I’m starting to get the hang of using these things. Lucky for me they recharge, although it’s a bit inconvenient they take so long to do so.

We’d discovered that the runes I’d taken from Magister Katrile were able to regain their power over time, although it took several days for even a single rune to restore itself. Since our journey to Kierhai had taken almost a full tenday, the runes had recharged to full power, and that meant that I had four total chances to disrupt a mage’s spell. It’s a wonder the Ishmarians never bothered adapting this as a weapon. Hopefully it’ll work on ghosts too if they get in my way.

As I followed the soldier down the canyon, the stone cliffs on either side solidified into greater detail as I got closer, as if a painter were in the process of creating the road ahead as I walked. I still couldn’t see all the way to the far end, a blinding whiteness was all I could see. It hurt to look at, not in the way looking at the sun would burn your eyes, but rather it gave me a headache that got worse the longer I stared. Eventually I gave up on trying to figure out what was up ahead.

Things I had not seen appeared out of nowhere as we pushed forward, as if we were rolling back a fog curtain. The bodies of villagers, of soldiers wearing iron splinted armor like the kind I’d see back in Standing Stone, littered the ground. Blood ran everywhere, making my boots squelch as I tried not to trip over a corpse. I had to sidestep a boulder that had been rolled down one cliff, and an arm was all that was visible of the soldier that had been crushed beneath it.

Deotra was completely unnerved by her surroundings, and at one point she kicked aside a corpse so she could make the way easier for me to traverse. Yikes. There is something seriously creepy about this girl. I’ve seen Legionnaires show that kind of disdain for the dead, but watching someone else do it doesn’t make it any easier.

“Keep up. Your presence is making the dead restless. I’d rather not fight my way through if I can help it.” She didn’t even bother turning around. The sheer hostility in her voice was enough to send another chill down my spine. It’s almost like she’s become another person. Kuro was right, there’s some seriously bad shit about to go down here.

Then a stray thought occurred to me. She said that reality doesn’t work the way it does in the normal world, right? So maybe there’s a way to make that work to my advantage. But that would mean using magic. I still had no way of knowing how to use my supposed magical talent. I had been meaning to ask Kuro if he could teach me some tricks for how to begin exploring it, but something had held me back when I tried.

You wonder if that’s really a good idea, to embrace something that your people vilify. When you return to them, they’ll either see you as the person destined to bring the change they need or the exemplar of everything they fear. You’re rolling the dice on saving them, and that makes you pause.

I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I didn’t notice Deotra had stopped, and I bumped into her. “Hey, what’s going on?” The girl didn’t answer at first. Then she swung her flaming blade to the right, just as the form of an imperial soldier lunged from behind a rocky crevice. As the blade made contact with the soldier’s head, there was no spray of blood but instead an unearthly wail as the entirety of the soldier’s body was engulfed by the blue fire on Deotra’s sword, burning him to ash in seconds. Only the smell of burning flesh remained, and then even the ashes evaporated into wisps of familiar-looking smoke.

“Someone has stirred the restless spirits. That idiot girl outside is rousing their fury. We have to go. Now!” She grabbed hold of my weapon arm and yanked me forward. “In only a few more seconds, every restless soul here will be on us. Move faster!”

Behind us, more of the monstrous wails sounded, all blending together into one discordant sound. “You don’t have to tell me twice!” I gripped Kuro as tight as I could and broke into a full run, moving as fast as I could under his weight. She stopped just long enough to conjure an enormous ball of blue fire in her hand and threw it past me, then fell in behind me.

On both sides of me, the bodies of imperial soldiers seemed to crawl out of the stone, almost as though they were passing through invisible walls. Each was making that damned sound, grating on my nerves as I rushed past. One reached out his arm for me and I swung my maul one-handed at him, knocking his arm away and possibly snapping the bone at the same time.

As I kept running, chaos ensued and all hell really broke loose. Arrows began to shoot past me. A boulder rolled right through me, passing through me with no ill effect. Spears rained down on all sides, I knew there was no point to avoiding them. God I hate ghosts. I’m never getting mixed up with them again.

I lost track of how long I ran. It couldn’t possibly have been long, but it also felt like I’d been running forever. Time felt like it would slow to give me time to fear an oncoming barrage of arrows, but then speed up as they hit me and went through without hurting me. I just want to leave, is that too much to ask? If you want me gone, I won’t argue, just show me the way out!

Finally the white light ahead turned into an opening in the canyon. There was empty space on the other side, no tents or camps or armies of bloodthirsty soldiers, but sweet escape. Spurred on by the possibility of freeing myself, I put on a burst of speed.

I was only about ten feet away from the opening when something grabbed the back of my head. It was a hand, but the fingers seemed to bore into my skull, pinching with enough pressure to send waves of pain across the skin. I screamed in surprise, then agony, as I sank to my knees. The pain wasn’t just in my flesh, it was in my mind, like it was on fire. I felt Kuro slip off my shoulder and slump to the ground, still unmoving, unaware of the peril I was in.

Then I heard Deotra’s voice. “Not yet. I’m not letting you leave just yet. You know too much, barbarian. And I’m going to make sure you forget before you go.” It was the disgust in her tone that struck me. It was so unrestrained, as though she had wanted to kill me for such a long time that it had twisted her up inside to hold back for so long. Another wave of white hot pain pulsed in my head, and I couldn’t even hear my screams anymore.

The world started to feel fuzzy. My vision failed me, turning to blackness. My breath wheezed out of my lungs, my heart seized in my chest, and my mind burned to ash. Her voice was fading too, sounding like it was coming from a far distance. “Don’t struggle. It’ll only make what I have to do hurt more. Just let it happen. I guarantee you won’t hold it against me.” The last sensation I felt was tears rolling down my cheeks as the dark engulfed me.

“It will all be over soon.”