The Bearer's Burden

2. Resolve

2

Resolve

A song plays within each of us; it vibrates through everything we do, telling our story and entwining with those around us. This is the essence of the phantom.

—Excerpt from The Book of the Traveler

Ashlyn Winshire hurried down the grand hallway of the castle as fast as her court attire, a light blue dress with far too many skirts for her liking, would allow. Her uncle, Rolan, had sent for her.

She was already grinning, though it was not becoming of royalty, or at least that’s what her etiquette teacher would have her believe. Ashlyn did not care. Her uncle just had that effect on her. She remembered how he would, without fail, bring her back some trinket or oddity from his travels when she was a child. One time he brought her back a chocolate filled with delicious crème made from the petals of a yalis flower. They soon learned the flower possessed a mild amatory effect when young Ashlyn ran around the castle, trying to kiss all the boys. That had been a fun day. She smiled to herself. Of course, the incident had not endeared Rolan much to her father.

Ashlyn kept up her pace through the winding hallways of the castle. She hoped Rolan’s new contact from Rynth had secured the information they needed regarding the disappearances around Chalice. Her father had refused to let her pursue the matter, insisting it was the work of raiders and the Chalician Navy would handle the incursions. But Ashlyn and Rolan suspected more. Ashlyn would prove to her father she was every bit as capable as her younger brother, Elon.

As she neared her receiving room, she slowed, raised her head, and smoothed out her dress. She was already beaming in anticipation of seeing Rolan. Her uncle always had a way of making her happy. With her mother no longer around and her father busy with the rule of Chalice, she was closer to Rolan than to anyone else in her life. She turned the corner to greet him and froze.

Lying on the white marble floor of the small room was Rolan. She rushed over to him and fell to her knees. “Rolan? Rolan?” she said, trying to rouse the man. She placed her hand over his chest and could only make out the faintest of heartbeats.

“Help! Someone please help!” Ashlyn yelled.

A guard rushed in the room. “Princess? What is the…” The man fell silent when he saw the body on the floor.

She looked up at the guard. “Fetch a doctor and my father straight away.” The guard nodded and sprinted down the hallway.

“Rolan, don’t you leave me. You can’t leave me.” His eyes opened partway upon hearing her voice. He lifted his hand and rested it on his chest. She took his hand and held it. “That’s it. You stay with me.” He smiled at her one last time, and his face went slack.

Ashlyn bowed her head as the tears came, one by one, soaking Rolan’s navy blue vest.

A man wearing a crisp white button-up shirt with rolled sleeves entered the room. He carried a brown leather medicine bag, which he set down beside him. He knelt next to Rolan and checked his wrist for a pulse. Ashlyn made no acknowledgment of the man’s presence. She just sat beside her uncle as her heart went numb. She blocked out the sounds and the swirl of activity as she stared at the face of the man who had loved her like he would his own daughter.

“Ashlyn? What is the meaning of this? You must clear the grand hallway at once.” Her father, King Liam Winshire, followed by his long train of advisers and sycophants, swept into the room.

Ashlyn only looked up at her father, expression blank and unable to speak.

The man cast a brief glance toward Rolan. “A shame,” he said as he turned to one of his advisers. “It is not surprising, with him running off like a man half his age would do. It was just a matter of time. See to it he has a proper burial.”

Her father had never liked Rolan. The king blamed Rolan for allowing the assassination of his wife, Queen Sashion, after the end of the Wraith War. Ashlyn had been in court the day Rolan pledged himself to the king’s service after her mother’s death. Her father’s reply: “I’ll ask for your help when I’m ready to meet my wife again.”

Rolan blamed himself for Sashion’s death, and he felt honor-bound to do what he could to atone for his failure. That was when he swore an oath of fealty to Ashlyn.

Despite everything that had happened, Ashlyn didn’t understand how her father could treat him so coldly, even in death. “Father,” she called out, her cheeks growing hot.

He turned to her, his expression stern. He opened his mouth to reply when a breathless messenger ran up to the king. “Your Highness. The, ah, Wraith. It’s here. It seeks an audience.” The king muttered something under his breath and strode from the room.

Ashlyn sighed and looked once more upon Rolan.

“Ashlyn…” Ashlyn looked up to see her brother, Elon, had entered the room. He sat upon an ornate wheelchair, crafted by the king’s chief artisan. Complications in childbirth had rendered Elon lame, but the king was nonetheless overjoyed to have a son and heir to the kingdom.

Ashlyn didn’t bother to look up. She hardly knew her brother outside of the handful of awkward exchanges they shared at official events. To Ashlyn, Elon was just a younger version of her father. “Don’t. Just…don’t,” was all she could say.

She heard Elon heave a sigh as he wheeled himself out of the room, following her father’s entourage.

A symphony of odd, clacking sounds echoed down the hallway, as if a hundred walking canes were making their way down the hall. Ashlyn looked up to see a procession of Skex marching past the room, their striated tan exoskeleton appendages scraping across the marble. Though she had seen them run on four legs—which was a terrifying sight—these were upright on their two hind legs. Their hands, if you could call them that, possessed long, finger-like appendages that gripped the energy rifles they were known to carry into battle. Their heads appeared to be encased within metal helmets, which had no opening through which they could see. She still did not know how they could navigate without eyes.

Ashlyn knew little about the creatures other than they were the hands of the mysterious Wraiths. They were both soldiers and beasts of burden, guarding key Wraith outposts or carrying supplies back to the Thread.

Marching in front, astride the beasts, were a pair of Acolytes in their flowing red robes. Though they wore no expression, their faces appeared strained, as under some unseen duress. Ashlyn knew little about them, other than they were connected to the Wraiths, though she could not fathom why.

Within the center of the procession walked a solitary Wraith. Ashlyn caught herself holding her breath. It was rare to see a Wraith in person since they rarely visited the cities of men. They were rumored to dwell within a vast ship among the stars, looming above Chalice. The Wraith had the same basic features as a human, but everything about it felt wrong. The way it walked, the way its eyes moved within its head, and above all, the haunting voice with which it spoke. It wore simple black robes, and its skin was a shiny dark gray, almost like polished coal.

It turned its head toward her as it passed and fixed its unnatural eyes on her. It smiled, and the sight of it sent a cold shiver reverberating through her.

She regained her composure and pushed aside her anguish. She looked up at the adviser who was now talking to the doctor. “Leave me,” she said.

“I’m sorry?” the adviser asked.

“I wish for a moment alone.”

“Yes, yes. Of course,” the man said, and he and the doctor exited the room. Ashlyn stood, closed the doors, and locked them.

Ashlyn surveyed the room. Her uncle was not young, sure, but he was hale and hearty for his age. She refused to believe he died of something as mundane as a heart attack.

She spied a broken teacup on the floor. That wasn’t surprising. Her uncle loved tea. “The blacker the better,” he would always say. He was not a morning person and would generally drink five cups of the earthy stuff before starting his day.

Ashlyn furrowed her brow. What was upsetting her now was less what she saw than what she didn’t see. Where was the teapot? They always served his tea with a full pot. Unless someone had already taken it from the room? She knelt and sniffed at the rug where the teacup had fallen. She could smell an almost floral note in the spilled tea. “My uncle would never have taken more than a sip of tea like that,” she said aloud.

Continuing to explore the room, she found that his folio, the one in which he kept all his notes and correspondences, was nowhere to be found. Her uncle was never without it.

She knelt next to him again. “Somebody did this to you, Uncle. What did you discover?” She looked at his vest, where his hand rested, and could see a faint black spot that had seeped through his vest. Her eyes grew wide. She reached inside the lapel of the vest, her hands still shaking, and broke the stitches of the secret pocket Rolan had sewn into its lining.

When she was a little girl, she would steal away with his coat and run around the palace pretending to be a world-famous spy, just like her uncle. Rolan started hiding candy in secret pockets he had sewn into his jackets to see if she would catch on. She had nearly forgotten.

Whatever is in this pocket cost him his life, she thought as she pulled a sealed letter from the vest. She stood up, her eyes filled with determination. “I’m going to finish this, Uncle. And I’m going to find whoever did this to you.”

Ashlyn thought she could hear strange music playing somewhere in the distance, perhaps down the hall. It was unlike any music she had heard before, yet it bore a sense of familiarity. She shook her head.

Ashlyn opened the letter and scanned its contents. “But where do I start?” she found herself saying out loud. “Who can I trust? If only I could just ask you—” She snapped her fingers.

“I know who can help us.”