Chapter 87 — The Ghost in the Halls

Chapter 87 — The Ghost in the Halls
Six months had passed since Isla vanished.
Six months since the humming stopped.
Six months since the bond had gone silent.

And Lachlan Strathclyde had become the worst version of himself.

The castle that once pulsed with life had turned gray with neglect. Servants moved like shadows. The hearths burned low. The air smelled of smoke and spilled wine. At night, laughter had become whispers — soft, fearful things that vanished when his boots struck the floor.

He drank through mornings, through council meetings, through prayers.

The goblet was his only companion now.

Every night, when the rain hit the stone walls and the fire hissed low, he thought of her.

Of Isla.

She haunted him — not as a specter, but as a memory with breath.

He heard her laughter echoing through the corridors, light as chimes.

He smelled her perfume in the air, faint and floral.
He felt her touch every time he turned in bed, reaching instinctively for someone who was no longer there.
He would wake in cold sweat, calling her name.
Sometimes, he swore he saw her — pale in moonlight, hair drifting around her shoulders — but when he reached out, there was only air.

He was a fool.
Such a damned fool.

He had learned the truth too late.

That night in the laboratory, the illusions were stripped bare.

Vaelen’s smoke had revealed everything — Mairi’s lies, Ruadhán’s deceit.

The truth was uglier than anything he’d imagined.
From the moment she’d learned of the betrothal, Mairi had plotted Isla’s downfall.

She’d conspired with the hermit magician Ruadhán Dubh, the same who’d once lived among their kind before fleeing into exile. The poison arrow. The Black Forest. The illusions that twisted what his eyes saw. All crafted by them.

And worse — Ruadhán had taken Isla’s true father’s life and used dark magic to impersonate him.
To stand in her home. To watch her from within her own bloodline.

Lachlan had been too blind to see any of it.
Too proud. Too certain that his pain was truth.
When the truth came out, the council was unanimous.
Mairi and Ruadhán were tried for treason, deception, and witchcraft.

Their heads fell at dawn.
Their bodies burned before the sun reached its peak.

That day, Lachlan didn’t celebrate.
He didn’t even speak.

He simply watched as the fire consumed them. Watched until the air shimmered and the smoke curled into shapes that looked almost human. Until the smell of burnt flesh mixed with the sweet scent of peat and ash.

When the flames finally died, the world changed.
The sky cleared for the first time in months.
Color returned to the fields — richer, deeper, impossibly bright.

The oppressive heaviness that had plagued the land lifted like fog after storm.

And then came the pain.

A single, unending ache in his chest.
The bond that had been broken now severed completely, burning through him for an entire day before disappearing altogether.

When it was over, the scar was gone.
And so was she.

Now, Lachlan sat in her old chamber.
The place still smelled faintly of her — parchment, roses, and the ghost of ink.
He sat where she used to sit, hunched over her desk, the candle guttering low beside him.

He had her things laid out before him: a comb, a ribbon, a hairpin she’d once lost and Fenella had found again. He touched them one by one, tracing the outlines of her life. Each one a relic. Each one a reminder of what he’d destroyed.

The goblet trembled in his hand. Wine spilled across his fingers. He didn’t bother wiping it away.

“Why did you come here, Isla?” he whispered to the empty room. “Why did you love me when I gave you nothing but ruin?”

The wind outside howled in answer, rattling the shutters.

He drank again.

Sometimes he talked to her ghost.
Sometimes he cursed her name.
Sometimes, like tonight, he simply wept — silent, shaking sobs that left him hollow and small, the kind of crying that belonged to boys, not kings.

He’d forbidden anyone to enter this room.
Only here, in her absence, did he allow himself to be weak.

At some point, his hand brushed the edge of her writing table — the one he’d knocked over in a drunken rage months ago. The ink stains still marked the floor. He’d never bothered to right it again.

But tonight, as lightning flashed outside, something caught his eye.

A faint glow.

Pale, soft, pulsing — coming from beneath the desk.
He frowned, set his goblet aside, and crouched.

The light flickered again.

A drawer had spilled open during his fit weeks ago, its contents scattered. Among the chaos lay parchment — dozens of letters, tied with thin string. Each one addressed to him.

Lachlan’s throat tightened. His trembling hands untied the first one.

He read in silence.

You asked once why I help your people. The answer is simple. Because they deserve the peace you were too afraid to believe in.

If you ever doubt me, read this again. I never wished you harm. I only wished you love.

He read another. And another.

With each, something inside him cracked a little more.
She had written every letter as if she knew he would find them one day.

Each one was an answer to a question he had never asked aloud.

By the fifth, his vision blurred. His hand shook.
He found one sealed differently — thicker, heavier. The wax bore her initials.

He broke it open.

Inside, she had written:
If you are reading this, then my time has ended. But I hope yours has not. The ring you find beside this letter will guide you, if your heart still remembers what it means to believe. The bond may have broken, but love is not bound by time. Find me, Lachlan. Not in this world, but the one that waits beyond it.

The ink trailed off, her handwriting growing faint.
A dull glow drew his eyes downward.

On the floor, half-buried beneath scattered parchment, something shimmered.

He reached for it.

An emerald ring — the same shade as Isla’s eyes — pulsed with faint light.

He turned it over in his palm.
It hummed.

A vibration — familiar and haunting — ran up his arm, through his chest.

The room blurred. The air grew thick, bright, and alive.
He tried to stand, but the ground fell away.
The light consumed everything — the walls, the floor, the air.

And for the first time in months, Lachlan felt… peace.
Her voice echoed in the distance, soft, warm, real.

Lachlan… find me…

Then the world went black.