Death soaked into the ground, a psychic stain so immense that it was overwhelming to those who could touch it. Cara had never seen a land so blighted by the spectral touch of suffering and loss as New Benalia, and she squeezed her eyes shut, shuddering at the wisps that clung to her mind. Whatever happened here, it had to have been catastrophic to leave an imprint so profound after so long. It was an old stain, from well before she was born, but if she focused, she could still hear the phantom screams of men and women being butchered. An entire country torn down in a monumental massacre that bordered on genocide.

New Benalia had obviously earned its name. Whatever remnants there were of old Benalia, they weren’t worth dwelling on. Cara closed her awareness tighter and the blessed reality of her surroundings reasserted themselves. While the spirit world surrounding the nation was a horror show, the rest of New Benalia was gorgeous, as if trying to distract from the terrible events that had happened in its past. Great domes of stained glass enclosed every city, each decorated with amazing patterns of unfathomable complexity for their size. The glass mosaics were held between great alabaster towers to every side, and inside the dome the broken sunlight streaming through the heavy clouds colored the buildings of the city in cheery colors and constantly shifting art unlike anything Cara had seen.

It was largely lost on her.

She didn’t approve of the ostentatious display or the false sense of security the domes provided. Academically, she could tell they were an amazing feat of engineering, but she felt somewhat annoyed at the waste of what it must have cost to make them and how little help they’d be in an actual siege. The way the people in the cities acted didn’t help soothe her irritation either. There was a certain pious arrogance that grated at her, even if she did realize it was mostly her own problems eating at her rather than anything they had done to her. Their overt piety still bothered her regardless.

She grunted and leaned against the apothecary she’d just come out of before she’d parted the veil of the spirit world. It was a gift she was still adjusting to, and it was one that had come at too high a price for her taste. Nothing had gone right on Kamigawa, and she was fairly certain that the raw nerves making her irritable were from her stung pride and disappointment she felt at having failed. In the end, she’d silenced the spirit she’d been tasked to find, but nobody who had walked away from that fiasco was happy about it. It was the ones who hadn’t walked away at all that bothered her the most. They’d trusted her, and she hadn’t lived up to that trust. Altogether, the emotional turbulence and her own inexperience was likely the cause of the intermittent flashes she was suffering from.

Cara pushed the golden lock of hair out of her eye and tucked it behind her ear. It rarely stayed there, but she was used to that by now and she ignored it when it inevitably fell back over her eye as she walked. It did her no good to dwell on her failures, she had too much to do. She pulled the list of supplies out of her belt and read it as she walked, unconcerned about bumping into anybody else in the streets.

The townspeople gave her a wide berth, at least partially owing to the saber she carried openly on her belt. Even if she wasn’t carrying it, they’d likely still put some distance between themselves and her, they just wouldn’t really understand why. People didn’t normally like being around her very much, and it was a sentiment she shared. She preferred the company of the dead.

She had only come into town to resupply, but she was already feeling anxious. The weight of the guards’ stares made her skin itch and she honestly couldn’t blame them. The plain blouse she wore wasn’t unusual, nor was the short coat or black trousers that completed her ensemble. However, the corset and long skirt split down the front, both a dark leather, were another matter. The armor was finely worked, ornately stitched and studded with steel for battle. Metal vambraces with winding knots inscribing their length protected her forearm and her sleeves were tucked firmly under the armor. The glitter of pristine gold coins, each bearing a perfect sunburst on their faces, set into the braces contrasted with the battle worn steel, and the piece of smooth stone strapped to the back of her hand was far from normal. Of course, the thing that would likely draw the most attention from the austere public servants was the same thing granting her the blessed personal space on the crowded street. The pocket laden belt sashed around her waist, and more specifically the weight of the pair of blades hanging from her hip. She drew attention, she accepted that, but it wasn’t something she was happy about all the same. Accepting it and making peace with it were far from the same thing.

Her own gaze kept darting to every side, trying to keep track of the people in the crowd. She didn’t like being in crowds this size, she was used to solitude, but she’d suffered worse in her time. A flash of the bustling streets of Ravnica rose in her memories and she grimaced, hand tightening on her saber.

Honestly, her time there was probably the source of her agitation. It was one lesson she’d learned there, among others. Crowds meant danger more often than they meant safety when you were an outsider.

She sighed and folded the list up again, putting it back on her belt. She was feeling jumpy and her mood wasn’t likely to take a turn for the better the longer she stayed here. Cara needed a few moments to herself, some time to calm her nerves and be out of the crowd. She wasn’t normally this anxious, but the gloom of emotions that had been hanging around her must have worn her down worse than she had suspected and the brief exposure to the slaughter of the past hadn’t helped.

She wove her way through a group and darted into the shadows of an alleyway, stepping carefully so that she didn’t slip in the water sluicing into the gutters. It felt so good to be free of the bustling street, embracing blessed solitude, even if just for a moment, but the itching on her skin did not fade. She’d thought it was the crowd, but out of the mob’s gaze, she realized what the familiar sensation was. A cold caress across the characters etched into the skin of her back.

It meant there was a spirit somewhere nearby. In a crowd, she felt awkward, but this was comfortable territory for her now. She knew how to deal with this. She still had trouble with her newly earned gift, but focused on a task, it was much less difficult to control. She eased her breathing into a smooth rhythm and then opened her eyes to the deeper world just under the skin of reality.

Her vision swam as wisps and misty memories bled out of the stone all around her. The remnants of buildings and lives drifted in and out of her focus and she let out a small thankful sigh that she hadn’t dived too deeply. She had no desire to relive the massacre from centuries ago. Her vision skimmed the uppermost layers of the spirit world and she took off after her prey.

She was drawn away from the streets, each step growing more confident as she left the crowds behind her. Eyes open to the world beyond and tattoos burning, the discomfort across her skin grew more insistent as she hunted and it was not long before she knew she was getting close. Even as she’d walked through the back streets, there had been stragglers and strangers about their own business and away from the beaten path, but now she walked alone. This had become a place nobody went.

The park was a carefully maintained shard of nature meant to be a relaxing place within the city’s dome, but Cara could tell it had become the object of rumors and quickened steps. A place where children dared each other to go, but even the bravest would balk. The air itself seemed still and oppressive, the light streaming in from high above somehow muted.

Even then, that could be explained by any number of things, even whatever had happened so long ago to this nation. What could not be so easily dismissed was the blanket of fog that strung between the gnarled and stunted trees. In the ominous haze, even the delicately planned paths meant to meander openly through the park looked sinister.

She stopped as she caught sight of the soldier standing silently in the mist.

He’d once been a proud man, now weary under the weight of ages but still defiant beyond his last, a pale silhouette in battered plate armor. He held an immense shield before him and a sword hung bonelessly in his hands. All across his limbs were delicately fluttering bandages, blowing in the same nonexistent wind that caught his cape and hair. His face stared beyond her and if he even saw her, she couldn’t say. His eyes were pits of shadows and his features broad, but there could be no mistaking him for anything except what he was. A dead soldier from some distant war. She almost pitied him, sharing a strange and reluctant kinship with him. He was as out of place and battle worn as she, and in a way, neither of them belonged among the living.

“Can you hear me?” She asked, nearing him slowly. His gaze never wavered though, staring into things Cara couldn’t. She pursed her lips and began to dig through her belt. She glanced back up and froze. He was staring at her now and she hadn’t seen him move. “So you can hear me then. I can help, if you’ll let me.”

“You don’t belong here.”

“Tch… you’re one to talk.” She shot back, feeling suddenly defensive at the accusation. Her hands moved from her pouch to the athame strapped to the small of her back. She carefully drew it, its silver edge and etched length shining unnaturally in the wan light. She slid the over-large dagger into the front of her belt and returned to pulling components from her pouches, silently cursing that she’d been drawn into this before she’d actually had a chance to restock.

“You’re a Planeswalker.” The spirit said and her attention jerked abruptly up to stare into his hollow face. Shock ran a cold caress down her spine as she fought for control of her own instincts. “We’ve seen your kind many times. Your arrival always heralds disaster.”

“I don’t herald anything. I’m just here for supplies and I ended up getting dragged out to the ass end of this city because of you.” She groused unhappily. He’d thrown her off balance and she responded poorly to that in the best of moods. The memory haunting her of what had happened on Kamigawa meant that she wouldn’t feel at her best for a long time yet. Sometimes at night, she wondered if she would ever recover.

“Your kind are a plague that bring misery where you travel.” He quirked his head, a strangely sad look upon his brow as he considered her. “But it is not always the lands you tread that suffer for your passing. Your fate is unkind Cara Holis.”

She froze, blood turned as cool as the chilled air that blew in the presence of the dead man. Her eyes slowly turned to his and her gaze turned hard. She drew the athame again, knuckles white against its hilt as she stared at the spirit. It is said the dead have nothing to fear, but even a dead man could see the threat written plainly on Cara’s face. He drifted backwards and Cara wasn’t sure if he was aware of it or not.

“What do you know?” Her voice was flat and calm, but it held less life than the voice of the spirit to which she spoke. It stirred uncomfortably, perhaps feeling the edges of the magic bound upon her skin, the burning cold the tattoos bled.

“The dead see more than the living, we can see more clearly, unchained by the flesh and material. I can see the life that flows in your body, and how it stretches before and behind as clearly as I see you as you stand Cara Holis.” He said and Cara shuddered. She didn’t want to listen, but when the dead spoke, it was best to heed their words. “I can see the trials awaiting you. When the silver moon sets, you will lose sight of your faith, and despair will lead you to ruin. In the land of the dead, a futile war will rage and surrender will be the only path to your rest.”

Cara stared fiercely at him, knuckles popping as she gripped the dagger in her hand. She was on edge all over again, the kindred feeling she’d had shattering as if it were as brittle as ice. This was far from the average spirit and that meant more than she could put into words.

“Chatty thing aren’t you?” she growled and shoved the athame back between the pouches on her belt, turning her attention the contents within them, still shifting items from one pouch to another. She knew where everything was on her belt, but she still didn’t know what she’d need in the next few minutes. It could be any of several things, and she wanted them ready at a moment’s notice… and quite frankly, wanted to make sure she had enough. “What bound you here so tightly that you can’t move on?”

“Duty.” There was the shadow of emotion in his voice at that, phantom pride that echoed in the way the mists curled and he drew straighter. “I… I do not remember anything else, but I know my duty. They had come for us, to take that which we were trying to build. He came with his knights and… and…”

The spirit’s features twisted and he raised his hands, clenching them to the side of his head. The temperature dropped and the mists that made his body began to billow outwards. Cara could hear frost snapping in the trees and her breath fogged on the air. The cold burning on her skin intensified and she watched him carefully. Things were getting worse, and it didn’t take anything special to tell her that.

“They came at dawn, the knights in dark armor, towering on their horses. They flew the banner of Clan Mahr. They crashed against our lines, and our swords seemed to break against their armor. It was useless…” his voice moaned mournfully.

“You need to let it go, abandon your ties!” She yelled over the wail that echoed throughout the park. She pulled her athame and unfastened one of the pouches from her belt, knowing that whatever was going to happen would occur within the next few seconds and it had all gone so terribly wrong.

“Our men fell, trampled under horses, overwhelmed by the enemy and then I…” his voice drifted off in shock, a terrible dead look dawning on his pale features. Even as she watched, his armor and skin split with phantom wounds, silver blood cascading down his translucent form. He reached down and touched the wounds, holding his hands up to see the silver stain upon them. He found his voice again and he shrieked, rage stealing whatever composure he’d had moments before. He lashed out and Cara leapt aside, drawing memories of heaths from her past. White mana flooded her senses, radiant and intense. It thrummed within her head and her back erupted in a terrible burn that reached soul deep. She pushed all the mana into the spell ready in her mind and cast the pouch towards the shade. It passed partway through and then caught in his spectral flesh, hanging there against all logic. He didn’t even notice and lashed out, but Cara slipped inside his reach and thrust the athame into his form.

“Ar ôl bywyd!” her voice rang out and her back seared as the mana passed through her and into the blade, igniting the pouch and its contents, scattering them throughout his body. The cleansing light left her body, leaving her senses raw and numb, and the powders in his body began to glitter and tear him apart from within.

The spirit’s mist shredded in the sudden warmth and his identity melted away. Cara felt a stab of guilt as she watched the ghost’s features bleed away. When a spirit of a particularly strong will was banished, there were times when their form would remain, only their ego fading to nothing. That exact thing was happening now and as the spirit’s legs blew away it became unmoored, drifting aimlessly as empty eyes searched the air, wailing at what it had lost but unable to know what that was. Cara’s stomach roiled as she watched it drift back and forth, a ghost of a ghost and she shook her head sadly and sheathed her athame.

“You should have just gone on…” she said bitterly, the guilt of what was to come mounting. There was no afterlife for this poor thing now. The only thing left for it was oblivion.

Its head swiveled towards her voice and it struck, flying through the air right at her, spectral claws reaching for the warmth of her flesh. Cara flung herself back, casting her arm wide in a well practiced motion, throwing a ring of sugar just as the spirit struck at her. With a touch of her will and mana that wracked her body, the ring began to glow a pale violet as it fell.

Smoke rolled off of the sugar, floating in mid air as some wind blowing from beyond the world scattered the dust and light. Within the ring, that same wind tugged at the ghost’s form and then with one monumental gust, tore it from this world. Nothing was left, of the ghost or the ring and Cara winced sharply, tears collecting in her eyes at the pain scouring across the back of her skin.

On shaky legs, she stumbled over to a bench and fell onto it, breathing hard and forcing her mind to clear. The veil of her hair was a golden halo in her vision, but it faded in and out as she watched. That had been more than she normally needed, but that’s what she got for doing such powerful spells with so few supplies. She needed the focuses, because without them, the only thing left for her to rely on were the words scored into her flesh. They empowered her in profound ways, but the toll enacted was awful.

She lifted herself back to her feet, gasping and trying to ease her breathing as she looked around at the park with new eyes. The fog had blown away and the air seemed clear and crisp. Despite all that, Cara did not feel any joy or brightness. All she felt was a weight that only seemed to get heavier every time she couldn’t live up to her promises.

And on top of that were the hushed words that he’d uttered. An omen that she couldn’t escape, and the feeling that perhaps she really wasn’t anything more than a herald of misery.