Free The Wizard's Treasure (The Dragon Nimbus) by Irene Radford

suddenly and left Vareena the odd destiny to care for the ghosts who periodically appeared in the abandoned monastery, a calling inherited by the women of her family for nearly three hundred years. They were the only ones who could see the ghosts and knew what they needed and how to provide for them.
    Suddenly Vareena stood up. “I’m going back up there,” she announced to her father and five brothers. Something tugged at her senses. She couldn’t sit here listening to the wind any longer.
    “Stay, Vareena. The storm,” Ceddell, her father, objected. He whittled a toy sheepdog for his four-year-old grandson.
    “Let this one go, Eena,” Yeenos, the second oldest brother said, looking her directly in the eye. “Your ghost is just a drain on our supplies. No work, no food. That’s the rule, for everyone but your s’murghin’ ghosts!”
    “He’s lost between here and the void. I can’t allow his soul to depart unguided,” Vareena stated.
    “Maybe there isn’t really a ghost at all. You’re the only one who can see them. Maybe you’re feeding a bunch of outlaws. Why should we take necessary supplies away from our families to feed a bunch of criminals and repair their building. We could use some of those finely dressed stones ourselves,” Yeenos continued, his voice rising with his passion. “I say we tear down that cursed building.” His fist clenched as if he needed to pound something, or someone.
    Vareena backed away from his temper. He’d never hit her before, but a number of men in the village had crooked noses and missing teeth from violent connections with his fists.
    “I’ll go with you, Eena.” Uustass, the eldest of the brood, stood up to join her. “Stargods know, we’ve never been able to keep you from your duty. Might as well do our best to take care of you when you get a calling.”
    “Stay, Uustass.” She waved him back to his stool and the leather he braided for new steed harnesses. “You’ll only catch a chill and be miserable for weeks. Bad enough I’ll have to take soup and poultices to half the village in the morning. I don’t need to tend you as well. Stay with your children and tell them stories so the storm doesn’t frighten them.”
    Uustass had lost his wife in childbed last winter. He always seemed lost now unless Vareena gave him something specific to do.
    “Take him, or you stay,” her da commanded. “Lost your mam to a storm. Not lose you.” His voice carried the weight of years of experience leading the village, judging misdeeds, and deciding the crop rotation and beast fertility.
    No one disobeyed him when he used that tone as if he begrudged each word.
    Vareena was tempted.
    “Very well. Uustass, take the cloak I oiled yesterday. There’s soup in the pot and bread in the hearth oven for supper. Serve yourselves when you get hungry. I don’t think this will take long.” She fetched her own garment from the row of hooks by the low door. Farrell wouldn’t need supper. She knew he would find his way out of his body and into the void this night. Ghosts always passed on during wild storms like this, as if they needed the wind to guide them to their next existence.
    As she opened the door, a powerful gust nearly blew her back into the main room of the cottage. “Stargods, I hope I’m not too late.”
    Uustass took her arm and guided her up the hill to the ancient building on the crest, mostly hidden by trees. His stocky body shielded her from the wind. For her own comfort she blessed him for being so stalwart and ready to aid her when the rest of her people would shun her for her contact with ghosts. Perhaps Uustass hoped to communicate with his recently deceased wife through Vareena’s ghosts. Six moons and he still had not accepted the loss of his life mate.
    Nothing but ill luck stalked those who communed with ghosts. She’d known that for years.
    She fingered the silver amulet again, praying that her luck was about to change. Stargods only knew, her