The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

She’d never had a ghost trick her. Or lie to her—unlike the people of her village.
    “I brought you breakfast,” she said to the air, hoping she directed her words in the proper direction. She’d waited four days to come back. Ghosts never needed to eat more than once or twice a week.
    “Thanks, I’m hungry.” The trencher of bread and cheese covered by a plain linen cloth floated from her hands. Ghosts could touch inanimate objects in this world, but not a living being. Life energies generated a barrier that repelled ghosts from humans and humans from ghosts.
    “Did anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are, Vareena?” Marcus asked. “I would compose poetry to you, but you defy the limitation of words.”
    She dismissed his admiration. Other ghosts had told her as much. They had no one else to speak to, share their thoughts with, or pass the idle hours. Of course they fell in love with her, or her mother before her, or her grandmother before that.
    If she were as beautiful as they claimed, then some normal man would have claimed her as his wife by now.
    Nothing could come of Marcus’ flirtations. These men were ghosts, after all. And she must cater to them until they died. Quite likely these two could last for the rest of her life rather than a bare two years.
    “Step into shadows, so I can see you, please.” She continued to search the area around the well for some trace of distorted light or a wisp of mist.
    There! The outline of Robb, the dark and brooding one, materialized on the far side of the well as he slumped to sit on the ground with his back against the stone circle.
    “Why bother eating,” Robb grumbled. “We’re trapped here until we die. Might as well hasten the process and get on into our next existence.”
    His dark eyes burned through the mist of the gloaming into her soul.
    “I wish I could help you,” she murmured. Her entire body ached for him, trapped here with no hope.
    And then she realized that she ached for herself as well.
    “Coronnan is doomed. We’ll never find the dragons and return magic to the Commune. Without dragon magic and controls, the lords will tear the country apart. Three hundred years of peace will evaporate like mist in sunshine. I wonder if this gloom ever evaporates. Everything is lost because we sought shelter here during a storm.” Robb buried his face in his hands.
    “Is he always so gloomy?” Vareena asked, wary of her own sensitivity to his emotions.
    “No. I can usually persuade him to look on the bright side.” Marcus moved around the well until he crouched beside Robb. “We’ll find a way out of this, friend. We always do. My luck will return. It always does.”
    “And if your good luck has deserted us permanently? As the dragons deserted Coronnan?” Robb thrust Marcus’ placating hand off his arm.
    “Then you will develop a plan, like you always do.”
    “I told you yesterday and the day before, and the day before that, your luck has run out and I never had any.”
    “There has to be a way out of here. I don’t know how or why yet, but there has to be,” Vareena said. Did she truly believe that? She must, or she would not have said so.
    Her mother had taught her that lies—even those said in comfort—served no purpose. Vareena had never knowingly lied before.
    Tentatively, she reached to touch Robb’s shoulder, offering what comfort she could—as she would to any living person in the village. Her hand tingled as she neared him. Resolutely she pushed herself closer, resisting the urge to jerk her hand back. The strange sensation in her hand and arm did not really hurt. Felt more like the pinpricks when she lay too long with her weight on a hand or foot.
    At last she made contact with him—almost. Her hand did not so much pass through as curve around a soft mass, not quite liquid, not quite solid. Then the barrier of energy broke through her willpower and thrust her hand aside.
    Her hand and arm had not faded when she touched the ghost, however briefly.
    Robb looked at her. All of his hurt and despair poured from him into her. Her heart twisted and found a new rhythm.
    The world seemed to shift beneath her feet as she sought a new destiny. One that included this sorrowful man.
    “I brought a deck of cartes to help pass the time.” She proffered the painted sheets of pressed wood.
    Robb took them from her. He shuffled them idly. “Maybe I can finally win a game with Marcus now that his luck has deserted him. That’s