Free Wulfyddia (The Tattersall Trilogy Book 1) by Steele Alexandra Page B

bubbles, bringing restlessness to the sleep of the moatkeeper.
Their voices were compelling, their stories gripping, and Cicely could have
lost herself in them, but they were not the ones who had asked who. Tonight,
she had only one aim, and that was to follow the conversation that had slipped
into her dreams. 
    She knew
the voice but could not place it. Seeking it, she visited Melisande’s
nightmares; the Queen’s bloodstained dreams, and the tormented sleep of the
Castle Hangman, who saw faces from his work all night every night. All of them
slept. Their minds were busy and troubled, but their voices were silent. The
one she sought was awake, thinking and speaking clearly.
    The lost
souls of the moat were not the only ones who had answered the white cry of the
full moon. There was another who had risen, and he stalked the abandoned
dungeon with a hunger that Cicely could feel in her own gut. He was hidden
away, isolated and unseen. But Cicely could see him, and from her own bed, with
her quilt wrapped tight around her and her eyes closed in concentration, she
visited one of the castle’s darkest secrets. But he was not speaking either,
only hungering, and thirsting and longing, so she left him aching and her
attention went elsewhere. Her ears and eyes sought other sounds and other
sights.
    She
found her sister awash in moonlight at the mouth of the footbridge, standing
barefoot over the Chasm. Justine wore only her white nightdress, as though the
bite of the cold wind didn’t bother her. Despite the deathly expanse beneath
her, Justine didn’t look afraid as she stepped out onto the footbridge, one
hand outstretched as though she reached for someone. Her eyes were dark with
fascination. “Who are you?” She asked, extending her hand still farther, offering
it to someone. It was only then that Cicely saw her sister’s companion, a woman
shrouded in white.
    So
Justine had found her— the spirit, the one who had evaded Cicely for so long.
There the phantom stood, in a dress as pale as Justine’s, but lit by her own
glow rather than the gleam of the moon. Cicely could see the figure, but the
face… the face eluded her. She could distinguish no features, so that it was
both faceless and voiceless. Whatever message it bore, it did not seek to
deliver it to Cicely, and no matter how hard Cicely tried she could not discern
a single thought, only that same scent of sweet rot and that lingering air of
sadness.
    “Speak
to me.” Cicely implored, her words little more than a breath on the wind. The
spirit heard her, and Cicely could taste that old frustration as the being
began to fade.
    “What?
No.” Justine murmured. “Don’t go. Why are you leaving?” Then Justine stiffened,
as if she sensed the eyes that were on her, and she tilted her head back.
“Sister.” The word was almost a snarl. Justine glared upwards, her gaze seeming
to bore into Cicely. Her brows drew low over eyes that were surprisingly
hateful. “Go away. Leave me alone .”
    Cicely
reeled backwards, at once back in her tower with the tapestries creaking around
her, and her sister’s hatred still burning in her veins, paired with the shock
that Justine had felt her gaze. Justine was the first ever to have sensed
Cicely’s eyes. Cicely could not stifle the feeling that it was all slipping
from her hands, from the faceless spirit to her own wounded sister.
    ***
    Deep in
the dungeons, where three had unwisely ventured, the beast stalked the shadows.
He scented the intruders on their air, tasted them in the blood they had
foolishly spilled. Then the spirit materialized at his side, a peaceful,
soothing presence, melancholy but sweet, and she reached out for him. She could
not touch him, for he was corporeal and she was not, but they were two outcasts
together, banished to the shadows, and her presence was all that stilled the
rage, all that kept him from prowling free at night, killing at will. And
though they could not touch, her hands hovered over