I said, “We can talk.”
“Thank you.”
Chapter 9
A dead guy who's not dead. Interesting.
Yolkeltod and I stepped into the hallway. It would’ve been weird to have a conversation next to his crying sister and lifeless body. Or at least, I would’ve found it weird. Maybe it was a normal Tuesday for him. I didn’t know what the hell he did with his time.
I sat on the floor near the wall, so people wouldn’t traipse through us. Yolkeltod hovered over me, his tail lashing.
“Sit down,” I said with a wide grin to soften my order.
I didn’t know for sure if drakcol took being ordered well, especially with him being a warrior soul. Drakcol believed in four soul types: warrior, seeker, spiritual, and creator. Warrior souls were more aggressive, I assumed. Once again, no one hadexplained it when I was haunting them. It was infuriating to know bits and pieces, and not know if what I thought was true was actually correct.
Anyway, him looming over me wasn’t a great way to talk, and this wouldn’t be a fun conversation. I remembered when I’d run into my first ghost.
She’d been an elderly woman in the same neighborhood who passed away a few days before me. She’d been extremely sweet, explaining what she knew, which hadn’t been much. It had been stressful, and I’d been a bastard to her for the simple fact she heard me. I took every ounce of anger I had out on her. I’d demanded answers. The why of everything, and she of course hadn’t known, which pissed me off.
She passed on a few days later.
Stiffly, Yolkeltod sank to the floor across from me. His tail didn’t stop moving, and he crossed his arms over his broad chest. He was a massive dude in height and width. Well into the six-foot range, maybe even seven foot, and had muscles upon muscles. I appeared positively puny next to him.
“You can ask me anything,” I said. “My Drakconese is really good.”
“How long have you been dead?”
“Twenty-three cycles,” I replied while saying a silent thank you to Seth.
“Why?”
I knew what he meant, but I still asked, “What do you mean?”
“Why me? Why were me and Tinlorray in that shuttle accident? Why can’t I get back into my body? What’s the point of everything?”
“Well, you don’t ask small questions,” I commented, not surprised. I’d asked basically the same thing. Death was apparently the same for humans and drakcol. People werepeople. Strip away the casings and we all hungered to know the same things.
“I wish I could tell you,” I replied. “I really wish I could, but I don’t know. I’m not some afterlife guide. I’m just a guy who happened to be walking by. I have no answers for you.”
His tail went lifeless by his thigh before curling around his calf.
“How did you get injured?” I asked.
“A couple of months ago, Tinlorray and I took a shuttle into the capital for work, and it malfunctioned, crashing. We were among the few survivors.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not as bad for me. I worry about my older sister. I’m all she has.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. Those words were incredibly small in the face of what he’d revealed, but I didn’t know what else to say.
“Do you have any idea how I can get back into my body?”
“No,” I said, but Zoltilvoxfyn surfaced in my thoughts. “But I might know someone who does. We can go meet him.”
“Where?”
“He lives in the palace.”
