Read Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 09 - Ghost in the Surge for Free Online

here during whatever uproar you just started.” He pushed back the cowl of his shadow-cloak and his mask. “What happened?”
    “Ranarius,” said Caina, her voice tight.
    “Ranarius?” said Corvalis, his hands dropping to his weapons. “We killed him at Caer Magia. Again.” 
    Caina shook her head. “His spirit possessed Oberon Ryther. It must have happened right after we killed Maena Tulvius. He was controlling Nisias and using him to kidnap slaves and kill them.”
    “Why?” said Corvalis. “Some necromantic spell?”
    “No,” said Caina. “Me.”
    “You?” said Corvalis.
    “Ryther didn’t care about the slaves, and he wasn’t trying to work a necromantic spell,” said Caina. “It wasn’t some grand plan to conquer the Empire or make himself into a god. It was about me. He did it all to draw me here so he could kill me.”
    It upset her more than she had expected. She had fought powerful sorcerers and cruel lords. She had seen more people die than she cared to recall. Yet it had never been about her. Caina had been an obstacle to her foes, nothing more. 
    But Ryther had butchered all those people merely to lure her here. No other reason. 
    “He’s dead again, then?” said Corvalis. “He must be, if you are standing here.”
    “Aye, I killed him,” said Caina. She tugged off her mask and rubbed her face. “Again. But it doesn’t matter. He’s going to take another body and come for me.”
    “Then we’ll just have to kill him over and over,” said Corvalis, voice hard.
    “It gets worse,” said Caina. “Apparently the Moroaica commanded both Ranarius and Sicarion to hunt me down and kill me. She’s ready to begin her great work, to launch her war upon the gods, and she doesn’t want me to interfere. So she has sent Sicarion and Ranarius to kill me.” 
    “I see,” said Corvalis. “This is just the beginning, isn’t it?”
    Caina nodded. “And all those people Ryther murdered died because of…”
    “No,” said Corvalis, pointing at her. “Don’t blame yourself for those deaths. The blood is upon Ranarius’s hands, not yours. And if you hadn’t killed him twice, then far more people would have died. Myself and Claudia among them.”
    Caina nodded. “Thank you. I know you’re right…but I still needed to hear that, I think.”
    “How do you want to proceed?” said Corvalis.
    Caina wanted to return to Malarae, to run the House of Kularus and sell coffee to the city’s nobles and merchants. She wanted to masquerade as Anton Kularus’s pretty mistress, to sleep in the same bed with Corvalis every night. She was tired of killing, of fighting, of seeing people die.
    “We’ll go back to Marsis,” said Caina instead. “Halfdan is waiting for us there. He’ll need to know what happened. And we have to warn him about the Moroaica and her disciples. If they are coming for me, if Jadriga is really beginning her great work…then there are far more lives at stake than my own. We have to be ready.”
    Corvalis nodded. “We’ll leave at dawn.”
    Caina said nothing, unable to shake the icy dread in her heart. She had killed Ryther at the mansion, but Ranarius’s spirit would take another body soon. And, worse, she had seen no sign of Sicarion, and the scarred assassin was far more dangerous than Ranarius. 
    She hoped she could stop him before he killed anyone.
    Caina and Corvalis left Mornu the next morning and headed south to Marsis.

Chapter 3 - The Champion and the Gladiator
    “What do you think?” said Muravin.
    Ark of Caer Marist opened his mouth, closed it again.
    He had borne many responsibilities in his life. He had been a soldier, a man of the Eighteenth Legion. He had become the first spear centurion of the Eighteenth. He had joined the Ghosts out of desperation, hoping to find his lost wife and son. Now he was the Champion of Marsis, an ally of Lord Corbould Maraeus, and a wealthy foundry owner, a man with responsibilities to his wife and children, his workers,