#elisheva had been too angry to consult the castle so she didn't know about the archers

[soulcs]

Ghosting

The castle is haunted, everyone whispers. There’s a shade that lurks in every corner, things go missing from locked rooms, and doors open and close whenever they please. Yes, the castle is haunted.

Rudy would applaud them for their observation skills, if not for the fact that he’s been there for years.

Of course, within the last few years the so-called haunting had picked up. Maybe if people were paying attention they would have noticed that the uptick corresponded with Rudy’s sixteenth birthday, but who in a castle would notice a simple serving boy?

They say it’s the ghost of a witch that was killed around a decade before, the witch who bespelled the castle’s heir and upon being found out attacked the Lord himself. It’s not - wrong per se. But it certainly isn’t right either.

But to explain would be to cast back in time, to go back to before the castle was ever haunted. To look back upon the witch, who was not just a witch at all. She had been the Court Mage with all the respect that position demanded of her, not a simple hedgewitch like the nobles would have you believe.

It was a story of love, but more of story of betrayal than anything else.

One of Rudy’s oldest memories is watching his mother die. He was probably four or five, clutching at the dress of a serving girl as Elisheva stood at the center of the room with a defiant expression on her face.

The Lord of the castle was furious, rage darkening his previously handsome face. Elisheva had been unapologetic, equally furious. A clash of titans.

El wasn’t nobility. She wasn’t the Lord of the castle. But she was the castle’s mage - a position that had been handed down through generation upon generation of their family. The castle was owned by the Lord, but it belonged to the bloodline of Elisheva. It had always given her a sort of power no one else possessed, allowed her to get away with more than anyone else.

Rudy remembers his mother gesturing wildly, remembers the Lord’s eldest child being escorted from the room in tears as Elisheva tried to follow and was stopped by guards. He remembers the look on the Lord’s face as he sent two men at his mother, and the way she dispatched them with ease and lunged for the Lord.

He remembers the thwip-thunk of arrows and blood on the ground, but not well. The serving girl he had been hiding behind had swept him up into her arms, shielding him from the sight.

It was fortunate that the Lord didn’t pay any attention to those he considered beneath him, even including the private life of the court mage. No one had ever claimed that he was intelligent. But regardless, he was unaware of Rudy’s existence and had likely always assumed him to be the child of one of the castle staff. Which he was. Technically.

After his mother’s death (execution), Rudy was essentially adopted by the remainder of the castle staff. His mother had always been kind, showing new maids and serving girls the shortcuts and tricks with a wink and a smile. The staff had loved her, and it was the least they could do to repay her kindness by looking after her orphaned son.

So Rudy grew up learning the various trades of the castle. He scrubbed and cleaned with the maids, chopped and peeled vegetables in the kitchen, mucked out the stables and brushed down horses - he worked and he worked hard.

And the castle loved him.

Rudy’s family had been the caretakers of the castle for generation upon generation. Blood and sweat and tears poured into its very foundations - and it left a mark. Anything that was used for too long by a magic user was liable to become - strange. It was usually something small, like a contrary broom that swept up messes by itself, or a fireplace that refused to light unless someone said please. Little things that gave them personality.

The castle was too large to get that certain kind of strangeness - or it should have been. Something as big as a home took a lifetime to experience enough magic to gain quirks - but with generations of the same family. Well.

All Rudy knew is that doors were never locked to him, and sneaking around was easy. The creaky stool in the kitchen never whispered a sound when he was using it to sneak an extra pie. Eavesdropping was easy regardless of how thick a door was supposed to be. He never got lost looking for a room, and sometimes when he thought he was running late he would get somewhere early instead.

The castle loved him, even though his own magic hadn’t awoken. It loved him like his mother had loved him, like her father had loved her, and countless generations before that. Rudy wasn’t magic yet, but that didn’t stop him from doing things he shouldn’t have been able to do. After all, he might not have magic, but the castle was practically drenched in it.

Rudy spent his entire childhood ignored by nobles and doted on by the castle staff in equal measures, and he never felt lacking for it.

Rudy vanished for two weeks when he was sixteen.

They say that the first magic a young magic user experiences taints them. It colors every inch of them - it’s the reason for elemental mages and why there are sea witches and earth crones and illusion warlocks. It’s why there are specialties that run in certain families.The first magic someone touches is something that they live with all their lives.

Magic isn’t rare but it’s definitely different in terms of potential. There was a reason that Rudy’s mother was court mage, and not the cook who freshened ingredients with a touch, or the gardener whose flowers always bloomed beautifully, or the serving girl who could pull off impossibly beautiful hairstyles in half the time it took anyone else. There was magic in so many things, and people often forgot that.

Magic came from necessity. The thing was - Rudy had been positively drenched in magic - the castle was magic.

Elisheva’s magic had been tied in house and home. It was a magic of domain, which made it easier to take care of the castle. She had always known without fail if there was intruder. The castle had whispered the gossip to her and let her know when things needed repair, and Elisheva had taken care of it in return.

Magic often run in family lines because of exposure - so it shouldn’t have been a surprise when a lot of Rudy’s magic was also tied into the castle. It probably also shouldn’t have surprised anyone that Rudy’s magic was also tied into hiding. Rudy had been a ghost in the castle for long, long before there were rumors.

He looked a lot like his mother, after all.

It took Rudy two weeks to figure out how to be again. How to step out from between the here and there. Two weeks of actually being a ghost and unable to reach out and even talk to anyone.The castle still loved him - it loved him even more now that he could talk back to it. Could trail his fingers along the walls and listen to it complaining about the rude noble in the west wing who kicked the walls when frustrated. Could open doors with a gesture of his fingers and bring in soothing drafts from outside. Could understand it.

He could also disappear into the shadows now. He could melt into the walls like they weren’t there and hear the call of unused trapdoors hidden beneath ornate rugs. Rudy could see more than he’d ever before and it was terrifying.

The first thing he did, after going around and comforting those that had missed him, was ask the castle for a favor. The castle had spent so long looking out for its favored son that it was in complete agreement.

Rudy asked the castle to get rid of the Lord.

The castle might have been a little overeager. After all, the Lord owned it but Elisheva had loved it and it had loved her. And the Lord had killed the castle’s mage and it had been so angry. But with no direction from a mage, it had only resented him and could take no action.

The next day the Lord returned from a hunt, and the castle doors would not open to him. No matter what he tried. The castle easily permitted all but the Lord in its walls, but if someone tried to open the door for him it would swing shut with a bang. The Lord was left outside the castle, cursing terribly.

Rudy sat above on a windowsill. The widow there didn’t actually open - but the castle let him get away with a lot. Especially now. He called down to the Lord, waving jauntily with a smile. “Hello down there!”

The Lord was understandably confused and furious. “Who are you?” He spat at Rudy.

“I am Rudy, son of Elisheva.” Rudy told him easily, watching the blood drain from the Lord’s face.

“Have you come for vengeance?” The Lord asked Rudy, trembling slightly. Rudy almost felt pity for the man, but then he remembered a face twisted in a snarl and his mother’s body full of arrows, and suddenly he didn’t care for the comfort of the Lord anymore.

Still. Rudy was very tired, so he answered honestly. “No. You are free to leave this place unhindered. But the castle will not accept a murderer as its Lord. You shall have to send someone else.”

The Lord turned red in the face - “This is my castle!”

Rudy brandished a letter in one hand, and then vanished between one breath and the next making the audience that had gathered gasp. He twisted out of the shadows behind a messenger boy, offering the letter and ignoring the sputtering Lord. “Please, take this message to the King. The castle will accept another lord or lady - but it will never accept another of his line in its walls.”

“You’ve made sure of this?” The messenger boy asked, face made of stone.

Rudy shrugged in response, “The castle has hated him since he killed my mother - but it has not had a conduit to communicate before now.”

“Turn sixteen then?” The messenger boy asked with a rueful smile, reaching out to take the letter.

Rudy laughed, nodding, and then was twisting back into the shadows to narrowly miss the sword aimed at his torso from one of the Lord’s retainers. He reappeared with a pop back in the window.

Rudy’s laughter was gone, even as the messenger boy swung up on the horse to leave. His face was dark as he stared down his nose at the Lord, looking at him like he had looked at all the castle staff - like something not even worthy of his notice.

“I,” Rudy began, voice like thunder, “am not my mother, Lord of Nowhere. You may have killed her, but you will not kill me. At the very least, I am not in love with your daughter. You will find no mercy here, not now, not ever.”

He stood up gracefully, or as gracefully as a lanky sixteen-year-old could. He sneered down at the crowd outside the castle, smoothing a hand against its outer wall. The castle would not let them in, he trusted that. So with a twist of his hand he once again vanished, retreating back into the castle feeling cold and spent.

A new Lord arrived a month later, with a missive from the King himself. He had not been aware of the circumstances surrounding Elisheva’s death, and apologized for not investigating.

Rudy knew that he only got an apology instead of an army at his door because he was a powerful mage, even at only 16. Those with powerful magic, magic that could shape and change things - they were not common enough for the King not to seek to appease him.

The new Lord and Lady arrived, and Rudy did not meet them. He spent more time than not hovering between the here and there, ghosting around the castle on silent steps. They knew he was there. Everyone knew he was there - but Rudy had spent his childhood being invisible and he didn’t really want to give that up.

The Lord and Lady came with their young daughter. The castle liked the child, who ran through its halls with reckless abandon and said “sorry” when they crashed into the walls.

The castle was haunted, as everyone said. The ones who knew exactly who the castle was haunted by kept a tight lid on things. The castle was Rudy’s family after all - and they loved him.