But like Ada, I could tell a half-truth. “Last I remember, I was riding my horse and fell, then I was here.”
He nodded as he came closer. I still couldn’t see his face within the shadow of his hood, its depths inexplicably dark. But I felt him squinting at me. “Do I know you?”
“Perhaps if you took off your cloak, I could tell if we’ve met.”
He chuckled dryly. “Nice try. But the greater mystery isn’t who you are, but what you are. I’ve seen and heard a lot of strange things, but you are one of the strangest. You’re the last thing I expected to find when I decided to come here.”
“And why did you?”
“Because I heard that this castle had erupted in gigantic thorns. I had to come see what the fairies were guarding, or hiding, that could be of use.”
“How do you know it was fairies?”
He scraped the back of the knife against his unseen jaw, eliciting the rasp of a stubble. “Sorcerers don’t have this much sway over the earth’s magic, not to mention the concept of a thorn gate is very reminiscent of the Spring Court. Or so I’ve heard.”
Of course. The thorns must be another manifestation of the Spring Queen’s curse, a retaliation for having it amended, making it impossible for any savior to reach me. None of those sent my way had been able to bypass the thorny barrier.
Now this bandit had. The only one who hadn’t come for me at all, and probably the last man on the Folkshore who could be described as “the noblest of men.”
But he was the only one who could see me.
What did that mean for me now?
“You must be comatose from that fall off your horse,” he reasoned, talking more to himself. “But what could have made you a ghost, if your body still breathes?”
“I’m not a ghost.”
He leaned against one of the bedposts. “If you’re not a ghost, and you insist this is not your dream-self, then what are you? An apparition?”
“I’m not sure what I am, but we both know I’m not dead.”
“Maybe you’re half-dead?” he suggested. “A disembodied soul of sorts, halfway to the afterlife.”
A cold spill of horror drenched me. “Is there such a thing?”
“I’ve heard stories of lost souls, who either end up in a limbo between life and death, or linger here, in time becoming true ghosts, or worse, poltergeists.”
Every possibility out of his mouth blasted away whatever remained of the hopeless daze I’d been in since I awoke in this castle. I discovered it had actually been protecting me from utter despair.
It hadn’t occurred to me there could be a limited time for me to be asleep, that I could eventually become totally detached from my body. I could die regardless of the fairy godmother’s curse amendment.
Worse, I could become something eternally tormented, or even evil.
I should have never left Cahraman. I should have just let those ghouls eat me, or drowned in that flooded shrine in Mount Alborz. At least that would have been an active death, while I was fighting something, not stuck in this accursed state until I faded, or became a malevolent spirit haunting this run-down castle.
My body began to thrash in response to my horror, and he waved his hands in my face. “Hey, calm down!”
The urgency of his tone only furthered my slide down the spiral of panic. I squeezed my eyes, hands going to my neck, suffocating for the air I no longer breathed…
Suddenly, the world shook violently, and I felt something I didn’t think I’d ever feel again. The pressure of fingers on my arms.
Snapping my eyes open, I found the hooded man shaking my sleeping body, snapping me out of my descent into hysteria.
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop it,” he ordered tersely. “You’re giving yourself an anxiety attack.”
“A what?” I slurred breathlessly, running my hands over my arms, where I could feel the indirect touch of his hands.
“Like a heart attack, but less lethal, and spurred by your mind rather than any physical issues.” He carefully laid my shivering body down, adjusting my head on its pillow, then fully turned towards me. “It’s common among soldiers. I’ve seen many instances in the war.”
“You fought in the war? Which side?”
“Which side?” he laughed incredulously. “Do I sound Avongartan?”
“Accent is no indication of nationality these days. Many are encouraged to be polyglots.”
“Well, Mysterious Dreamer of the Woods…” He tapped my body’s limp hand. “…I’ll have you know that I, like any Arborean man