Title: Weight of the Castellan's Curse (Winter of Ghosts/Ghosts in the Snow Episode 1)
Series: Children of Nall Multi Timeline Series #1, Dubric - Classic Murder Mystery #1, Dubric - Grimdark Writer's Cut #1, Dubric - Writer's Cut #1, Ghosts in the Snow #1, Winter of Ghosts #1
Published by: TamboWrites
Release Date: September 17, 2019
Contributors: Tambo Jones (author), Michele Maakestad (illustrator)
Genre: Grimdark Fantasy
Pages: 116
ISBN13: 978-1951023027
ASIN: B07X8Q6PLZ

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For Dubric Byerly, aging head of security at Castle Faldorrah, saving lives has become a matter of saving his sanity. A silent, unseen killer stalks his castle, mutilating servant girls while leaving no clues or witnesses—only the gruesome ghosts of the victims. Ghosts only Dubric can see.

Caught in the grisly tangle is Nella, a linen maid working to free herself from a tortured past—if she can survive the invisible killer and pay off her debt to Lord Risley Romlin, grandson of the King and Dubric’s prime suspect. Every snowy dawn brings a new victim, a new ghost, and Dubric must resort to unconventional methods to unravel the few clues. With the future of Faldorrah and countless lives at stake, including his own, he can’t afford to be wrong. And if he’s right, the entire kingdom could be thrust into war.

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Also in this series:

The first was found facedown in the mud, her dress cut off, her back cut open. She was fifteen summers old and a milkmaid.

***

 

Dubric Byerly, Castellan of Faldorrah, sat alone at a small table in the castle kitchen, his mangled breakfast congealing before him. He sipped his tea and frowned as he poked a chunk of sausage with his fork. Having spent the past half bell toying with the food on his plate, he worried he had wasted too much time pretending to eat. The beginning of an inquiry always seemed disjointed to him. Finding the first clue, the first mistake, the first hint of guilt.

 

Responsible for the safety and wellbeing of Lord Brushgar’s demesne, Dubric tried to make his presence felt on a regular basis in all areas of the castle. But as he glanced up from his plate, he wondered if he had eaten too many breakfasts alone in the kitchen. The staff gave him a wide and respectful berth as they hurried through their labors, but none gave him a second glance. Could they be too used to him? Was that the problem? Maybe so, but he had to start somewhere.

Dubric contemplated the uneaten food on his plate, he watched the kitchen staff, and he glanced out the window at the blossoming dawn. He looked anywhere but at the ghost that stared at him, silently wailing.

He had woken before dawn to find the slashed horror of a scullery maid’s corpse standing beside his bed. Her gaping spirit still stood before him in a uniform drenched and dripping with blood. He could not recall her name and had no idea where her body might be. He only knew that she had been murdered, in his castle, and that he would see her pained and tortured apparition until he put the matter to rest. Cursed by the Goddess Malanna after his wife’s murder forty-three summers before, Dubric had long struggled to ignore the horrid images of wrongful death.

The ghosts came to him in the darkest part of the night, in the brightest days of high summer, whenever they happened to die. The spirits would stare at him, their glazed eyes pleading, knowing he alone saw them, saw their torment, and would do his best to avenge them. A praying man would thank the Goddess that he saw only those murdered within the range of his responsibility and no others. But Dubric had denounced religion the day Oriana died and had never looked back.