"[Awaken]."
The column collapsed inward. The pale fire condensed into a shape, a silhouette, a woman. Ophira's ghost stood beside the bed with her feet a hand's width above the stone floor, translucent and still, her neck straight again in death in a way it would never be in the body on the mattress.
"Gh!" Alastair made a sound that was not a word.
Eveliana had been watching her husband since the moment the spell left his mouth. The gasp at [Eternal Damnation] had shifted into quiet fascination as the sequence unfolded, and by the time the ghost of her stepmother stood hollow-eyed beside the bed, her expression had settled into a warmth that neither parent in this room had ever earned from her.
He had spent his reserves on a useless minion who would never swing a sword or hold a line like a proper soldier would. He had done it because of his wife, and the cost had not entered his calculation.
