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You think you can help people.
You think you can save enough people, do enough, be enough, when you lived and they died.
Your family died, and you lived.
That hurt; gods, it hurt. But it wasn’t real; whatever the ghosts knew, they were warping it, twisting it. Aric told himself that. And tried to breathe.
“Tell me why.” Em turned, not moving away from Aric’s anchor, trying to see through sharp lancing water and ice. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
Woke us.
They woke us.
They opened our home.
They should not have opened our home.
Now this is our home.
And yours.
“Oh fuck,” Aric said, or shouted, since the wind was rising and he could barely hear. “It’s an ancient tomb. Someone opened a door, broke a seal—I hate those, why can’t people just not—”
Em actually laughed.
“All right,” Aric said to the ghosts, “so someone—building one of Matilda of Silverscarp’s damned guard towers?—broke into your home. But you’re killing people.”
Yes.
Yes.
And now you.
The terror rose, the horror—gut-wrenching, blind panic, desperation—
The need to run, to get away, to fling himself wildly in some direction, any direction—the knowledge they would die, he was about to die, if he stayed still—
Every instinct screamed. The shrieks sounded like his mother’s, his father’s, Berd in pain and feverish—Em injured and bleeding, because Aric had caused that, had dragged a spun-sugar fairy-creature into his life, and Em would die someday because of him, and it’d be his fault—
He jerked away from the touch, when it came. He stumbled, collided with a rock, scrambled back. He couldn’t see. Mist. Tears. Freezing his face.
“Aric!” That voice, that was Em’s voice, clear with hurt—of course, because Aric had hurt him—
Em swore out loud, frustrated and extremely audible. “Aric, you absolute hero—stop, stop, look at me, I’m here—”
“You’re not,” Aric whispered, “you shouldn’t be, you’ll die.”
“If I fucking die, it’s because I chose to die with you!” Em’s hand was warm. Touching his face. Melting ice. Em’s voice was angry. “Do you not remember anything we said last night, honestly—oh, fucking ghosts—come on, come back, look at me, I love you. Aric. I’m right here.”
Heat, the touch, those slim fingers. Emrys. Here. Yelling at him.
Aric took a breath, discovered that he could do that, let it out. Creaked his eyes open, with the sensation of mountain-weights of snow sliding away.
“Good.” Em’s face was very close, and pale. His other hand was on Aric’s wrist, gripping tightly. “Take a step this way. Carefully.”
Aric looked down. And wished he hadn’t. The ravine yawned. Rain sliced his face. The mud slid under his boots. “Right.”
“Honestly, I thought if one of us was going to listen, it’d be me.” Em’s eyes were tense with worry, and the joke was mostly one, though not entirely. Aric heard it.
