A Hold of Spectres
Part 2
Chapter 2

Rhaean sat alone at breakfast the next morning, her head throbbing with an impending headache. She had found several texts relevant to her concerns, and had spent the entirety of the rest of the morning reading by candlelight. She had gone straight from the library to the dining hall to break her fast, and now, as she sat and spooned her porridge and milk into her mouth, she felt the exhaustion creeping over her. 

She wished she could say her search had been a success, but she could not. She had, initially, searched for information surrounding what different types of spirits existed, and the differences between them. Of that, she found a great deal. It turned out, there were seven different types of spirits, all of them similar, and all of them also completely unique. The most well known were ghosts, spirits of the dead tied to the specific locations of their death; these were harmless beings who rarely revealed themselves to the living, and when they did so, was usually an attempt to be seen, recognized, and remembered. The next most common was similar to ghosts, only they were known simply as spirits, and were not tied to any specific location; these usually were seen as the surviving personalities of those who had died, and were known to be mischievous, tricksters, trouble makers, but also harmless. 

The next Rhaean read about were called specters, not quite ghost or spirit as they usually did not represent the soul of someone who had passed into the next life, but rather represented the manifestation of some other kind of unnatural entity; these were known to be malevolent more often than not, and once they had chosen a target, it was hard to extricate their hold. Then there were beings known as wraiths, embodiments of souls who had recently died; these were rare and considered neither benevolent or malevolent, although Rhaean had seen references to both in the texts she’d gathered. Like the wraiths, there were also creatures called wights, reanimated corpses of the dead; and while these were physical manifestations, they were considered spirits by most because, like ghosts, they were connected to the places they died. Rhaean didn’t understand how that worked, and the texts held little information for further clarification. 

The last two types of spirits were extremely opposite from each other. One was nature spirits, atmospheric manifestations of the natural world, usually given guardianship over a specific section of forest or body of water or type of flower. These were considered very common, though rarely ever seen. The other was called furies, malevolent beings created entirely of magic and welded to the soul of a living person. These existed only when a person who possessed magic accessed too much magic at once, its body consumed from the inside by the arcane in what was called the zenith; this event was almost always fatal, but in extremely rare circumstances, instead of destroying the person’s mind, body, and soul, the magic only destroyed their physical form, leaving behind their essence and irrevocably connecting it with that magic. 

Rhaean continued to eat her porridge, her mind full of thoughts and questions. She wanted to learn more about all of these types of spirits, but the thing she was most interested in now were the general spirits, the tricksters and troublemakers of the otherworld. These were likely what had awoken her the night before, and she wanted them gone. They had not harmed her, and likely would not, but they could tease and annoy her as much as they liked, and that she would not abide. She had taken the books about spirits back to her room before breakfast (and was relieved to see that the chair had been placed back by her desk, and everything seemed normal), and decided that she would continue to read them later, once she had completed her training. She did not yet know how to dispel a trickster spirit, but she felt confident that one of the books would provide the answers. 

Her training went on like normal, no one else paying her much heed. She did her best at every task, and per usual, was able to conjure no magic at all, despite her mother’s insistence that she try harder. 

“You are too distracted!” she exclaimed, pacing back and forth in front of Rhaen while the other two girls worked on their magic spells. “If you would just concentrate and apply yourself fully, you would break through this blockage!”

Rhaean was on her knees, staring at a candle on the floor in front of her. She knew it wasn’t a lack of focus or application; she simply couldn’t do it. She had explained this to Mother Andromeda so many times, the words rang like a haunted memory in her mind. It mattered not how obvious it was to her and to everyone else, Mother Andromeda – her real mother – wouldn’t listen. 

“I do not understand it,” the woman said, her voice tight with anger, “you are intelligent. You are a quick study. You understand what it is you must do, and yet you don’t do it!”

Rhaean kept her gaze lowered to the candle, still trying, still hoping that today she might give her mother what she so desperately wanted. 

“Stand up,” she ordered.

Rhaean did as she was instructed. 

“What must I do to motivate you?” she said, staring into Rhaean’s face. “What is it that you need to finally break free of this…apathy?”

Rhaean’s heart panged. She wasn’t apathetic, and it hurt to know that was how her own mother saw her efforts. She did not know what to say, so she remained quiet, her eyes staring blankly at a button on her mother’s robes. 

“I asked you a question,” Kyndra said through grit teeth.

Rhaean’s heart began to race. “It is not apathy, Mother,” she said, her voice quiet, but steady. “It is simply that I cannot do what it is you’re asking of me.”

Kyndra’s eyes stared at her, wide and full of anger. “You know that I don’t accept that excuse!”

“It is not an excuse!” Rhaean heard herself saying. “It is the truth, whether you accept it as such or not.” Kyndra opened her mouth to speak, but Rhaean cut her off, unable to hold back the worlds in her throat. “No amount of punishment or wishing or motivation is going to change what is already written. I cannot perform these magical tasks because I am not magical. It is as simple as that. And if you would simply let go of this impossible goal of yours, and let me train with the others back at Passing’s End, I might have a chance to graduate on time.”

Rhaean didn’t know where the courage to speak those words had come from, but she was glad she had spoken them. Even with the rage swirling in her mother’s eyes. She knew Kyndra wouldn’t listen, but at least she had said what had been burning in her chest for years. 

“Get out,” Kyndra said, her voice low.

Rhaean did not wait to be told a second time. She immediately left the training hall and made her way back to her dorm, where she grabbed her books, sat on her bed, and looked for how to dispel a trickster spirit. Almost immediately, a voice filled her ears, laughing, mocking, teasing; she forced herself to ignore it, unwilling to leave the room and read elsewhere. She was already watched with so much scrutiny, she didn’t want anyone to see her reading about spirits. 

“You’ll miss me!” the spirit said, its voice moving circling around her. “I know you will.”

Rhaean skimmed the pages, hoping to find a passage that would help her, her eyes never lifting from the page. The spirit continued to circle her, laughing and calling to her, sometimes pretending to be angry, and sometimes pretending to be sad. Rhaean ignored them all. She continued to read, and the spirit continued to try and distract her, until at last, Rhaean found what she was looking for. She read eagerly, her eyes taking in each word so that she clearly understood what was required. When she felt she understood it, she rushed to grab the items she needed, and then immediately went about enacting the spell. She was relieved to find that the person enacting the spell didn’t need to possess magic for it to work. Some spells, it seemed, were more like religious rituals; while magic was, indeed, involved, the person was not the access point for that magic. The spell was. Like a prayer or a hymn, anyone could perform it.

She grabbed three candles that had never been used before, and set them on the floor in a triangle. She tied three individual pieces of twine around one candle, and then tied the other end of the twine around another; this she did three times, making sure the candles were all connected, and that the twine was placed near the top of the candles. Then, she set an hourglass in the middle of the triangle, and turned it to start the sand cascading. Immediately after, she lit all three candles, officially initiating the spell. 

The only thing left to do was wait until the right time to complete the final act. As she had been setting up the spell, the voice had laughed heartily and mocked her, calling her childish and weak. But Rhaean didn’t care. This was how she would be free of such a mischievous entity. As the sand fell from the top of the hourglass to the bottom, she allowed herself to smile softly in the dim light of the three candles. The fire melted the wax and, after some time, caught on the twine wrapped around each. 

“No!” the voice said, suddenly sounding afraid. “No, stop it! Blow it out!”

Rhaean kept her eyes on the hourglass. She had to time this carefully if it was going to work. Once each piece of twine was burnt enough to fall away from the candles, she was to stop the hourglass and blow out all three candles simultaneously. This would sever the spirit’s connection to her, the fortress, and its connection to the realm of the living. The spirit must have sensed what was coming because it did everything it could to sabotage the remainder of the spell. But, much to Rhaean’s relief, she completed the spell perfectly. The voice stopped. Everything in her room was quiet, with only thin wisps of smoke rising into the air. Rhaean smiled and let out a slow breath.

She had done it. The spirit was gone, or at least, the connection between them had been severed. As far as she understood it, the connection could not be remade after such a spell. If the spirit was still around, it couldn’t bother her, and for that, Rhaean was grateful.