spared! I’m here to make sure of that!” She paused and gave Sessilly a sad look. “This girl is my friend. Truth be told, I often thought of her as my little sister. Therefore, it’s not easy for me. I hope you all understand where I’m coming from.”
“We’re friends, yes!” Sessilly pleaded. “You can’t let them kill me.”
“You’ll only be spared if we kill the source of the Black Fever. In this instance, it’s Sessilly. Come on, Petra. We’ve had this conversation so many times,” Corbin muttered.
“No, please…” Sessilly pleaded for her life, and I felt the horror, the anxiety, the rage caused by what I could only perceive as a dreadful injustice. “Petra, I trusted you!”
“I’ve had enough of this,” Zoltan said. He pressed the blade deeper into my skin—our skin, Sessilly’s skin—and I felt the metal slice through. The blood was warm as it flowed down my chest. I screamed. We all screamed from the raw pain as the scythe cut flesh and bone and tendon, separating the head from the body.
I saw Petra tearing up, mouthing an apology as the light faded with Sessilly’s life. I wondered if this was the last time that the high priestess had had a real friend. Maybe Sessilly was Petra’s last attachment, emotionally speaking. Maybe she steered clear of bonding with anyone again after this, since it ended so badly.
Valaine cried out.
I fell backward, and the memory was gone. All the pain vanished. I was lying on the ground outside the inn. We were back in Orvis. We were safe.
“Oh, no…” Valaine managed, sobbing. I scrambled to my feet and rushed up the steps to wrap my arms around her. I held her close as she cried, her tears drenching my shirt.
Phantom and Morning sat beside us, still and silent. There were no words left, anyway. We had just witnessed the end of Valaine’s previous life. Sessilly. An innocent Aeternae vessel whose only fault was her connection to the Unending—the source of the Black Fever.
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled, stroking Valaine’s long, silky black hair. She shuddered, but she didn’t pull away. “I’m truly sorry you had to see that.”
“They killed me. It wasn’t the first time,” Valaine croaked, “and they’re going to do it again as soon as they get the chance.”
“I know I told you to detach yourselves from what you were witnessing,” Phantom sighed, “but I also understand why you’d be unable to keep that distance. Especially given what you saw.”
Sharp pain cut through my temples, but I pushed it aside. There was no time, no room for any suffering on top of what we were already going through. Valaine grunted, resting her forehead on my shoulder. “My head hurts.”
“An expected side effect, like I warned you,” Phantom said.
Morning tucked a lock of hair behind Valaine’s ear. “You were amazing, sister,” she said. “You managed to remember something from a previous life. It means we’ll get to see more and farther back, the next time we dig in.”
“I… I don’t think I ever want to do that again,” Valaine whispered.
“You’ll feel better after you rest for a while,” Phantom replied. “We have to keep working at this. We need to get back to your truest self because that’s where we’ll figure out what sort of seal Spirit put you under.”
In theory, it sounded simple. But after this experience—I sensed slivers of pure darkness slipping out of Valaine as I held her—I knew it wouldn’t be easy at all. The more we peeled away at the problem, the more unpleasant it would get. The journey into one’s past was a massive task. The journey into one’s past life… well, that was infinitely harder. More tedious.
Perhaps dangerous in ways we had yet to anticipate.
Even so, I certainly wasn’t going to quit, and despite Valaine’s exhaustion and misery, I knew she’d get right back at it as soon as she could. “We’re in this together,” I said to her. “We’ll pull through.”
Valaine didn’t answer. She was already sleeping on my shoulder, softening in my arms as her mind drifted away to what I hoped were better places. I remained anchored in reality with Phantom and Morning, wondering what we’d discover in the next attempt.
Deep down, I was scared of what we might unearth. But excitement trumped the fear, because there was freedom in truth, no matter how unpleasant.
Tristan
Agreeing that a break was sorely needed, I left Phantom and Morning with the rest of the crew and took Valaine upstairs to her