An Ember Among Shadows

Chapter Eighteen

"Embittered, you should not be. For embitterment is venom to your heart how a snake would to a tree."

- Sacred Scripture, verses seventy-five to seventy-six of Hypostases.

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The sensation of falling. Down, down, down. Soft and dreamlike, an ethereal descent.

Fleeting moments of his recent affairs laid bare before his eyes. Leaving the monastery, reunited with Seoji, the plague. Then he hit cold ground. His body floated weightless above the still water that possesses neither crest nor fall beside his ears. His robe wasn't wet. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

Darkness, sprinkled with condensed twinkling stars reflected back on the blackness of the water. This was all he could see, lying on his back. Was he dead? Dead people go to ruh'sa or ascend to heaven. And considering all that had happened, he'd abandoned hope to get to the latter.

He chuckled at the thought. Brilliant. "Maybe I am dead," he mused out loud.

"Whyever would you think that?"

A voice, feminine, reverberated throughout the void. Ruqa rose to his feet, the water sloshing behind him in languid ripples as he stood. "Where are you?" he called out to the darkness. There was nothing as far as the eyes could see. Just a boundless layer of water.

"I am here."

Behind him, a lady with a ridiculously long tress of undulating raven hair sat poised on a dense cluster of mist, graceful fingers nimbly plucking gossamer silver strings that surrounded her like a loose cocoon. Her whole being seemed to twinkle and shift ever so slightly that you would miss it if you blink, and her skin was as white as the stars above. Maybe she was a star, sent from above to speak with him.

"You are finally here," she said. He shuddered when her obsidian eyes met his grey ones. "I've been watching you closely, Ruqa."

"Who are you?"

The corners of her dainty lips curled into a soft smile. "Who I am is not important right now, nor does it concern you."

Ruqa sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. Why did everyone he met outside the monastery speak as if they were keeping something from him? "I've always thought the afterlife would make more sense. I guess even that was too much to ask."

She chuckled. "You really know how to make people laugh, don't you?"

"You're the first person to say so." He looked around. "I didn't expect ruh'sa to be so...quiet."

"Is that where you think we are? Ruh'sa?" she asked, a playful smile crossed her lips.

He thought he wouldn't ascend to heaven, not after what he'd done. "Well then, what is this place?"

"This place is the centre of the universe. My abode."

Only someone special would call a place like this her abode. She was still plucking the strings purposefully, as if she was strumming a harp but all her attention was on him. The sight was nothing short of unsettling. "So I guess you're dead too."

"Neither of us are dead, but you will be if you don't answer me correctly."

"What do you mean?" He didn't like the sound of that at all, but the hint that he may very well be alive piqued his interest. "Are you saying that...I'm still alive?"

She leaned closer without moving from her strange throne. With an uninterested voice, she asked, "Tell me, how exactly did you plan to kill Gamu?"

"How did you–" But he shook his head. He would go with the flow for now. "Just like any other spirits; through exorcism."