Free Web NovelChapter 16: The Wraith Beside Him [1]
Creak... creak....
The carriage rumbled down the road, the wheels grinded over the ground and packed rocks.
Overhead, the twin moons hung in the night sky, spilling red and blue strips of light across the dirt road.
Inside the carriage, a handsome young man with short black hair and ghostly grey eyes sat lazily against the slightly worn velvet seat.
Mikael’s blue-tinted knuckles pressed against his cheekbones as he gazed absentmindedly out at the blur of dark trees.
A dull, pulsing ache kept throbbing behind his eyes, which the healer had already told him.
A few hours earlier,
After the core’s reconstruction, he had somehow managed to reach the nearby town called Ashvale.
Fortunately, there was a healer with light affinity in that town, an elderly, kind-looking man whose calm demeanor shattered the moment he saw the extent of Mikael’s injuries.
"By the God of Light, son, how in all the blessed realms are you still on your feet?"
He moved closer, frowning at the blue spreading across his fingers.
"Essence Overload...? What happened to you?"
"...."
Mikael just met his eyes, not answering anything.
The silence stretched until the healer sighed.
"Not the sharing sort... fair enough. Lie down before you fall, and let me do my work."
He prayed to the God of Light, Aethon, as the warm golden light poured into him, slowly knitting his injuries and healing his broken arm.
After 10 minutes of continuous use of the healing spell, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and spoke again in a gentler, professional voice.
"You’ve got essence overload. That’s why your fingers and toes have gone blue. You’ll likely be dealing with a nasty headache for the next two or three days, maybe a full week if your luck stays bad. Try not to move any mountains until it passes. And also take these medicines with you, eat them twice a day."
As he handed over the medicines.
Mikael slowly sat up and handed him the generous amount of money. freewebnøvel.com
The healer hesitated, palms raised in refusal.
"That’s far too much. I follow the ’Lord of Light, Aethon’. I cannot charge for what ’His’ light has done through me."
"Then consider it a reward. I need a carriage to Thornhaven tonight. If you can find me a driver willing to travel this late, the extra is yours."
The healer studied him for a long moment, then gave a resigned sigh and pocketed the pouch of coins.
"Wait here. I know a driver who owes me a favor."
And so, here he was—cocooned in the warmth of the carriage as he felt the constant pain throbbing behind his eyes.
He felt a cool pressure against his left palm, which he just noticed now.
He stared down and saw a pale hand slipped into his, her fingers curling around his own.
It was Liren.
She sat beside him, wearing the same black dress that hugged her curvy figure, her silvery-white hair spilled across her shoulder in a quiet cascade, stark against her black dress.
She was staring out the window, her expression blank and neutral, her one hand pressed against it.
He stared at her ethereal profile, and a small shiver ran down his spine as he remembered what had happened when she materialized in the forest.
The moment she had the proper look at him -- at his wounds, the injuries, his broken, battered body, she snapped.
Her calm, ethereal composure had cracked wide open in an instant, replaced by a flurry of frantic questions fired off one after another, barely giving him room to breathe between them.
"What happened? Who did this? Who hurt you? Who did this to you? Are you in pain? Where does it hurt the most? Show me. Show me now."
Her emotions spiraled with rage, panic, and worry.
Her hands had hovered inches from his skin, trembling, like she wanted to touch him and simultaneously feared that touching him would somehow make it worse.
It had taken him nearly ten to twenty minutes of careful, patient reassurance to calm her down.
"It’s okay, Liren. I’m fine. See, I’m still alright."
He said, letting out a nervous laugh.
This wasn’t quite the Liren he remembered.
The girl he had known before was gentle and cheerful, with a smile that didn’t waver even when she spoke of the family who had left her to die.
She had never hated them, never let bitterness take root.
Now.
She was so still.... so hollow on the surface, her emotions folded away behind a mask that gave away nothing.
But, he already expected this change inside her.
Liren was a wraith now.... a red spirit.
And Red spirits were known for being half crazy, their minds bent and splintered by whatever unfulfilled obsession or desperate wish they had carried from their former life.
That unstable edge was simply a part of what she had become.
As for what Liren’s obsession might be.
He thought it was something painfully simple....
A person who would still trust her, someone who wouldn’t abandon her the way she had been abandoned before.
That would explain her extreme reaction when she saw him-- the person who had promised never to abandon her, now broken and bleeding.
She probably thought he was going to leave her, too.
Still,
’I really need to be careful not to anger or annoy her.’
He reminded himself.
Red Spirits’ moods could shift without warning, and the line between devotion and destruction was razor-thin.
That was what made red spirits dangerous.
He glanced at her again.
She was still gazing out the carriage window, watching the passing world with that same blank expression, her free pale hand resting motionless against the glass.
Even so.
He could see it.... the faintest glimmer in her eyes, a quiet spark of wonder she couldn’t quite hide.
It was the look of a child seeing something marvelous for the first time, buried just beneath the surface.
It had been nearly two hundred years since she last saw the mortal world, after all.
So it was expected.
Or maybe she was just happy to be with him.
He nearly laughed at his own delusion.
Well, in any case, even if her personality was different, she was undoubtedly the same Liren he once knew.
Noticing his lingering gaze, she turned from the window to look at him.
Her greyish blue eyes were unreadable.
"Oh, sorry for staring," Mikael said quickly. "I was just thinking about a few things and didn’t notice."
She said nothing and simply nodded.
"We should reach Thornhaven in another four or five hours."
A brief silence settled between them, filled only by the creak of the carriage.
His eyes drifted to the crown of dark blue roses woven into her hair as twisted, thorny branches biting into her skin, thin rivulets of blood trailing slowly down her temples.
"Doesn’t this hurt? Can’t you remove them?"
The words slipped out of his mouth.
Liren blinked, her expression unchanged.
"It doesn’t hurt."
She muttered in a soft voice as if commenting on the weather.
"Still..."
Liren studied his face for a moment, catching the faint crease of concern between his brows.
"If it bothers you, then I will remove it."
The crown started dissolving, the dark-blue petals and thorny branches unraveled into thin wisps of dark blue smoke that vanished before they touched the carriage.
The thorny crown was gone, leaving only her silvery-white hair and the pale, unmarked skin beneath with rivulets of blood on her temple.
Mikael hesitated, then quietly reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief.
He leaned closer and gently wiped away the remaining traces of blood from her forehead.
He remembered the time... the quiet days he had once spent tending to her, and before he even realized it, he instinctively started wiping the blood from her forehead.
Liren went very still beneath his touch.
A faint pink bloomed across her cheeks, soft as the first light of dawn.
She turned back to the window without a word.
Mikael didn’t notice the blush and simply smiled to himself, folding the stained handkerchief away.
He still found it deeply strange that they could hear and touch each other.
At first, he’d been genuinely startled when she materialized before him in the forest because he hadn’t summoned her.
His essence was far too low to summon any spirits and could only borrow some of her powers.
Later, he discovered she couldn’t truly interact with the outside world.
She could only interact with him.
That meant she was unable to help him in a fight in her current state... unless he somehow managed to acquire the essence needed to summon her.
Was it because of her Max Favourability toward him that she could only interact with him?
Or maybe it had something to do with his Shepherd class.
Either way, no one else could see or hear her in this state.
Still.
They would need to be careful around high-tier Awakeners.
He hadn’t checked the status of his and Liren’s yet.
A part of him wanted to see what he had gained.
But the thought dissolved almost as soon as it formed, swept away by a heavy wave of exhaustion that finally, fully caught up with him.
The weight of his battered body, the long hours, the tension.... it all pressed down at once.
His eyes grew heavy, and he closed them.
Liren had been sneaking glances at him, her attention drifting from the window in small, stolen moments.
She watched his breathing even out, his expression slacken and soften as sleep claimed him.
The faint flush on her cheeks deepened as a quiet warmth bloomed across her pale skin.
She slowly shifted closer to him.
"I was missing this, too."
She tucked her hair behind her ears and slowly leaned in.
******
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