The numbers had counted themselves away and almost immediately the humming returned. Óraithe kept her eyes pointed upward, almost scared of what she might see if she bothered to look. The sound began to dance around her ears, from one side to the next. She started to count again, gritting her teeth. She had barely made it to ten when she felt a warmth against her ear.
“Óraithe.”
She spun for the first time since she had left the prison and looked behind. There was nothing, no one. Óraithe pulled a breath and held it. She slapped herself hard across the face. The burn was deep and lasting, at least enough to remind her to walk. She must never stop.
“Why would you do that?”
The voice was coarse and familiar.
“I have no choice.” She had answered it, the thing in her mind pretending to be Scaa. She kept her eyes forward trying to ignore it.
“Won’t you look at me?”
“No.” She bit her lip, cursing herself for answering again.
“Come now, look.” A wavering image stepped happily around in front of her, walking backward. It was Scaa. “Isn’t that better?”
It was. She had lost her will to fight it now. But she would walk, she resolved. The image of Scaa kept at her side and by morning she seemed as solid as the grit at her feet.
“The leather is worn. Your feet will not last long in this sand.”
The ghost had the right of it. Her makeshift foot coverings were simply not enough against the rough sand that was the whole of her unending march.
“How long will you walk? You must rest at some point.”
The soreness in her legs flared at the apparition’s words. She ignored the pain and pressed on.
“I will walk until my body fails me as my mind has.” She laughed. “Do you intend to stop me?”
“Only if you wish me to.”
The voice that came out of the vision was hollow in some way Óraithe could not quite place but the sound of it never failed to tear at her heart. She had forgotten Scaa for so long, lost in her own world and making excuses. As she walked she began to wonder.
“Are you a ghost?”
“A silly question.”
And no answer to it, she thought. Could Scaa have died? It may have been a sort of salvation if she had, though Óraithe could not bring herself to wish for it. And Scaa may have betrayed her as Teas did. There would have been little use in it, but Óraithe still wondered if she could forgive the act in Scaa. Teas, she knew, would suffer before her death if she could be found.
Her stomach growled for the latter half of the day but had given up its protest as night fell. It was becoming a daily occurrence, one that would not last much longer at her present rate of deterioration. She stumbled now, often and badly. Her steps had become feeble and slow, though she forced them to continue. It was midday at the end of her second week when she first fell to her knees.
“You should be dead, you know?” The vision of Scaa sat in front of her with her legs crossed. She was smiling wide. “You can die if you like.”
Óraithe’s breath was ragged. She ignored the ghost but did not move from the spot. The cool grit against her knees felt almost welcome and the burn that had lived in her legs for so long seemed to fall away if only the slightest bit. Dry breath dragged itself across her dry tongue and her caked teeth.
“Perhaps you should.” The vision leaned closer. “Should die, I mean.”
Óraithe swore she could smell breath on the wind, sweet as summer berries. It leaned away again and looked up to the sky.
“It could be your apology to them all. The people you’ve killed or ruined.”
Óraithe clenched her jaw.
“Did you hope to forget them? Cosain? The old woman? The shopkeeper? Teas? For what? Your childish games?”
“No!” Óraithe screamed at what she knew was not there.
“What did you accomplish at such a cost? Stole a few items from a shopgirl and burned a store of goods which no more belong to Briste than to the people she’d done harm.”
“No!” Louder now, as though it would help shut the voice out. “No, no, no!”
“Why not die and give back to them what they are owed? The life of a pathetic, petty child who wished—”
Óraithe screamed, her voice cracking. The sound echoed away and blood trickled from her broken lips, stretched past what the dry skin would allow. She breathed deep and angry for half a minute. The vision had disappeared but she could see it starting to fade back into view. She spoke to it.
“You are not wrong. Of course not, you are me. You must be me because only one set of footsteps have ever drawn out long behind me. I know…” She paused. “I know where the guilt lives in me. And I have no use of it. I will pile it on and on and become a monster. A dark, evil thing. A mirror for the tyrannical and the evil to feel their own pricks and stabs turned back on them.” Óraithe rose to her feet and took a battered step forward. “I will take and take until the ones I hate have nothing left. Until they are as empty as they’ve made me. And then I will make them see the lives so little they failed to see them.”
The vision’s face was solemn, disappointed, and then it was gone.
“And it will be the last thing they see.”
Óraithe walked again, a hundred yards maybe,
