Page 81 of Whisper of Nightmares

Chapter 16

A Face Beneath the Skull

Once they’re safe outside, Ash sets Euphemia on her feet and stands back, his shoulders angled with something like triumph.

Like he expects gratitude…

Euphemia supposes he technically saved her from what would’ve otherwise been a grotesque and brutal death.

But he has also robbed her of the one thing she wanted.

The one person who might have healed her. Made this wound hurt a little less.

As the beast of a man steps back, Euphemia charges forward. Her palms slam against his chest.

“I told you to put me down! I told you to leave me in there!”

“Leave you there?” His head cocks to one side. And he lets her hit him once. Twice. Three times. Before finally grabbing her by the shoulders and holding her at bay. “If I had left you, you’d be dead.”

“I never asked you to save me!”

Not only does her voice break, but so does the atmosphere around them. Like something in the ether snapping, tension ripples across the eerie expanse. The air becomes colder. More snowflakes drift past her, freezing to the touch.

Tension melts from his shoulders and Ash steps closer.

But Euphemia does not want his nearness anymore. She did earlier, but he was nowhere to be found. Mimicking his movement, she steps backward.

He halts, his voice hardening into something serious. “Look, I do not know your father, but I promise you, he was not in Náströnd.”

“You don’t know that—” Her voice cracks around the grief. “I heard him. He was in pain. He was crying out for help.”

A heavy sigh eases from Ash’s chest. “That was not him. Náströnd is not a place for simple men.” He pauses as if that will be the end of that. But seeing the stubbornness flash in Euphemia’s eyes, he rolls his and adds, “Well, was your father a murderer?”

“He was a soldier. What of it?” Euphemia crosses her arms in defiance.

Ash just shakes his head. “No. Not like that. The life of a soldier is one bound by honor and duty. By loyalty and oaths.”

Once again, his hand raises up like he wants to drag it through a thick head of hair that he’s disappointed to find lacking. It’s not until then that she remembers this beast of a man is not her enemy.

Watching him battle the disappointment, Euphemia finds herself wondering what that head of hair might’ve looked like before he became the creature before her.

Ash lowers his hand with a huff. “I mean a murderer in the truest sense of the word. Did he kill without honor? Without cause?”

She doesn’t hesitate. “No.”

“Did he rape women?”

“Of course not!” She clutches her collarbone. “Why would you even⁠—”

“And the people who knew him best, did they trust him?”

Flashes of their life before her father’s death flood her mind. Sunny days spent on his shoulders, plucking apples from the tree in the garden. The sense of pride that would wash over her whenever he’d choose her to go to market with him. How he’d sit her on his lap and whisper in her ear all the secrets of brewing and trading, even though she knew they weren’t secrets at all. Just one father sharing his joy with the only daughter who seemed equally excited by it.

Euphemia could think of no person she had ever trusted more.

But she wasn’t the only one who adored him.

No matter where her father went, people gravitated toward him. They enjoyed his company. His laughter. The way he put people at ease and how he was always willing to lend them a hand. It’s why the tavern became as successful as it did. People came not only for the booze and refuge, but because they loved him.