107th of Nemulum, 336 EA
Ishikar, Athal
The night was cold and dark, and the hallowed walls of the Stria’s temple had been trespassed upon by a clinging force of malevolence.
“I just don’t see what we’re still doing here,” Mepka crouched in a huddled on the bed, directing her frustration at Svaljna across the room. “It’s not her.”
“Why not?” Svaljna winced as she brushed knots out her hair, “She has the way about her, a powerful sveida. She has been kind and hospitable, as a holy woman should.”
Mepka grimaced. “I won’t have some templeheaded prude on the road with us. I just won’t.”
Svaljna felt then a sudden instinct to turn around, some immediate sense of danger.
“Mepka.” She hissed with wide eyes.
“No, really,” Mepka spun herself up, “There’s a fatal flaw there, religion. You can’t trust a woman of faith, not to have your back. When chaos strikes and the water is rising, they’ll sell you down the river and not feel a lick of remorse if their gods tell them it’s right. It’s like-”
“Mepka.” Svaljna hissed again to cut her off, and this time she was listened to. “Be very still.”
Mepka tensed and turned around. Hovering above her, the air around them all bitter and frigid, was the spectral face of death. Livia was a ghost, sunken and sallow, the intangible flesh of their face rotting off into wispy trails of mist.
“Ahtr-” Mepka had just enough time to call the barest half of an arcane word before the spirit leapt to invade her senses.
Svaljna watched in horror as her friend convulsed, overlaid by the phantasmal being. She ran over, grabbed her shaking shoulder to steady her. Mepka’s body went stock-still at the touch.
She turned her head, her eyes filled with a faint blue light. Svaljna felt the kick to her sternum before she saw it, and she tumbled back across the room. The ghost possessing Mepka stood, stretching and flexing, as Svaljna tried desperately to suck in the air which had been knocked from her lungs.
“Maia!” It belted out, grating over Mepka’s voice. “Why can’t I leave, Maia!”
“Cer’i Psalre Ibel-ratiij” Svaljna pushed herself back into a corner, and began a chant of her own. She felt her magic wash out over her possessed friend, resisted and ineffective.
The being snapped Mepka’s head over to Svaljna, it’s tone all of spite. “Would you replace me? Would you be the tether, that holds us all to this place? What home is this, but ours?”
Before Svaljna could reply from her stupefaction, the door burst open to reveal Belmaia.
The ghost turned with scraping movements through Mepka to look at Belmaia, and smiled a faint spectral smile in recognition.
The Etra Anthology 