Curled up in her bed, blankets covering her head and wrapping her body in a tight cocoon, Shana was pressing her face between the soft pillows, her cries stifled and almost inaudible. She had screamed. She had cried. She had waited and hoped. But it had been in vain.

“Papa h-hates me.” A stuttering whisper escaped her lips as her fingers dug in the covers. “H-he hates me. He didn’t c-come. W-why didn’t he come?”

A gust of cold wind blew the bed curtains and with a low hiss and ruffled the child’s hair. Perl-white mist crept on the floor, its tendrils slowly stretching out, twisting and melting together to form a translucent figure. Floating a step above the ground, kush-turgan Yanosh drifted to the crying child. He stretched out his see-through hand and carefully patted her head amidst a burst of crackling sparks.

“There, there, my dear. Don’t be sad. Father is here.”

“D-dada!” Shana perked up, her face still wet with tears. “H-how?

“It’s all because of you, sweety. I felt a disturbance in the Spirit Plane and heard your call”

“B-but I never called!”

“Our bond grows stronger by the day, my dear. Words ate not needed anymore. I heard the cry of your soul and came. But… if I’m bothering you, I can leav-“

“NO!” Shana desperately raised her voice but immediately clasped her hands over her mouth. She froze, dreading that some of the guards might have heard her scream, but to her relief, no one barged in. Taking a shaky breath, she whispered:

“Don’t leave me too, dada!”

“Of course, sweety, I will never leave you as long as you need me.” The specter’s face was graced by a soft smile. “Now tell me, darling, what is bothering you so much that your cries reached me even in the Spirit Realm?”

Still sniffling from time to time, the little girl started talking, her speech getting interrupted from the occasional hiccup.

“… And papa… papa didn’t come to see me. He used to come every night. He used to wish me sweet dreams. But now that evil woman is here and he… he forgot about me. Even today, he didn’t come… I waited for him but he didn’t come…” her voice quietly trailed into silence.

“I see,” kush-turgan Yanosh furrowed his brow. “The situation is becoming really serious.”

“W-what do you mean, dada?” Shana’s eyes became huge.

“It seems that your father has fallen into that woman’s clutches, and far deeper than I could have imagined. If I am right… I fear that pretty soon he will even… no, he wouldn’t.”

“He wouldn’t what?”

“No, it’s really unlikely…”

“Dada, tell me!”

Seeing the desperation written all over the child’s face, kush-turgan Yanosh sighed.

“I fear that he might turn against you, my dear. I fear that if you keep openly attacking that woman, he might hurt you.”

It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck the room. Shana sat in her bed trembling, shaking her head in disbelief. Her little mouth opened and closed several times before she could utter a sound.

“B-but… but papa loves me. H-he would n-never hurt me!”

The ghost gave Shana a sad glance.

“But you are not of his blood.” At his words, the child shrank back, but before she was able to retort, he continued:

“It is only a matter of time, dear. She is his legal wife and the one to give birth to his children. Be it a wolf or a man, one’s own blood is what matters the most. It might be harsh, but you need to understand, it is normal to protect your own children and family before any foundlings. As long as that woman bears an heir, your father will change. I fear that time is drawing near. He is already taking her side.”

“No! You’re lying!” Shana pressed a pillow to her chest, shaking her head while tears dripped down her cheeks. “Papa won’t harm me! He won’t abandon me!”

“And yet he is with her and not with you right now. As the Star-gazer, you can feel where his soul is. You know I am not lying.”

The moment the words left his mouth, Shana completely broke down. She burrowed her face into the pillows to stifle her screams as her whole body shook. Floating above her in the shadows of the canopy, far enough that her eyes couldn’t reach him, kush-turgan Yanosh’s lips curved into a smirk. If another binshi was present in the room right now, they could see thin silver-black tendrils connecting the child and the apparition. They wiggled like smoke through the air before disappearing into the specter’s body that had started to look ever so slightly more corporeal.

Closing his ghostly eyes, the smile of the fake kush-turgan Yanosh’s grew bigger. The strong emotions of the Star-gazer were making her spirit unstable and easy prey to latch onto. He could feel his powers growing every time she summoned him to cry out her sorrows. It was so nourishing and invigorating, much more than the tiny specks he could gather from the weaker souls on the Spirit Plane. With the purity of the Star-gazer’s soul and her ability to recuperate, this child was an almost infinite source of nourishment. But he had to be careful. After all, he had no intention to kill her. This trembling little thing was the hope of the binshi and the future mother of his children. He had to take just enough to cleanse his own impure soul so that when they met for real, he would be a decent partner and one worthy to father the future of their people.

Suddenly, a jolt shook the specter’s body repelling him backward in a rain of sparks. He cursed silently and tried to calm down the chaotic energy surging through his soul. The protections placed on the child were too strong, making the extraction a cumbersome task. It was as if a foreign will was barring his way every time he tried to take a bigger chunk. Was it Yanosh’s? No, it was impossible. That fake prophet had been on the brink of dissipating the last time they had an encounter. By now, he was either in deep slumber or had turned into a mindless shadow haunting the far reaches of the Spirit Realm. Besides, the feeling he got from the jolt was unmistakably not Yanosh. Then who?

A dim red glow caught the specter’s attention. Two tear-shaped medallions peeked out of the girl’s night-shirt, and one of them was shining with weak, pulsating light. Impossible! The ghost was stunned, watching the twin-drops in disbelief. How was it possible for the amulet to react? He remembered that on the night of the child’s awakening, something similar had happened. At that time, he had dismissed it as the Star-gazer summoning the ghosts of her predecessor from the Beyond as part of the ritual. But now the two were connected and he knew that the child wasn’t summoning anyone, be it consciously or not. So then… did it mean that there was a second soul residing in that amulet other than Yanosh’s? But the child was too young to be able to perform a binding ritual on her own. Was it the elders’ doing? Or maybe…

A grim expression twisted the ghost’s face as the realization dawned on him. There was one more soul he hadn’t been able to locate on the Spirit Plane.

‘So, it was you, Orhana,’ thought the leader of the Red Hands as his see-through fists balled. ‘No wonder that the barrier around the child’s soul is so strong and it was taking so many days to absorb any power. A mother’s blessing to repel evil, how pesky of you. Being outside of the Spirit Realm for seven years, how much longer can you last before you turn into a life-sucker?’

As if being able to hear his thoughts, the amulet flared up again tauntingly and then the light died out. Well, it didn’t matter. They could play this game for a while longer. He couldn’t absorb much of the Star-gazer’s powers but neither could the barrier on her soul keep him away completely. Eventually, he would be able to purify his tainted soul even with this interference, and there would be lesser harm to the child like that. But before he could take his little bride away from this dirty place, there were things to be done.

“My poor child,” the spirit of Akh-Moren spoke with Yanosh’s voice again, “I am so sorry that I can’t do much to help you. If I only knew this was going to happen, that you would suffer so much, I would have never left you in that man’s care.”

“N-no,” came the almost inaudible reply. “I-it isn’t papa’s f-fault. That w-woman… We h-have to s-save papa! We have to!”

“I can only give you advice but you are the only one who can save your father. Will you do what I ask of you?”

“Yes, dada.” Shana's voice was still quiet and shaky but there was no longer hesitation in it. "As long as we can save papa, I will do anything."

"Oh, my dear, you are such a sweet child." On Yanosh's face, Akh-Moren's eyes shone with glee. "You are indeed our pride and hope."