23. Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
Haron
Someone interesting came to the Covenant Library today. A man by the name of Olin Remana, perhaps no older than
his origins. He was, however, very interested in the last census, particularly the maps drawn by the scouts detailing
the developing city to the south. I had confided in Sinna later about the stranger, and she mentioned her deceased
son’s name was also Olin. Olin Val Toric.
-"The Tragic History of Julra," by High Scholar Yuret Wend, Year 59 of Ber's First Reign
G ripping the Tome of Wira gave me the strength to step up onto the platform my stone coffin sat on.
It was almost effortless to shove the lid off in this borrowed body—the brute was all muscle and no brain when I met him.
The body inside looked like a sleeping princess waiting for true love’s kiss, lying in the cold space with a serene expression.
The only detail that broke that illusion were arms folded over the chest tightly gripping the Julran fangs I favored fighting with.
Even now, I could still remember how difficult it was fighting against the weight of death just long enough to lower myself into my resting place with those weapons.
How the thin body of the maid I took over shook on unsteady legs as I gawked at the success of the transferal spell.
Then, how it took another hour struggling to close the lid with my flawed control over my new body.
For all the times I’ve dragged my battered, weary soul from body to body the last hundred years, the sense of relief that rose up from my chest at seeing my body brought tears to my eyes.
It wasn’t a purposeful reaction, but like my very soul wept in relief.
I looked exactly the same as when I’d abandoned my shell for one of the dead maids I’d hauled with me to this hidden crypt.
Again, I had the Tome of Wira to thank for granting me enough power to preserve my body with another of its spells.
That first time I ripped my essence from my body and placed it in the maid's corpse would haunt me for the rest of my days.
Every body has its last moments burned into its brain, and every time I inhabited a new one I relived those memories.
Something I was not aware of the first time I transferred, and was wholly off-balanced by the sensation of being stabbed again and again until finally having my chest crushed in with the heavy stomp of a boot.
While the original damage had been healed when I inhabited it, the pain inflicted on the maid's body was jarring and wholly unexpected.
“Welcome home,” I murmured, leaning over the edge to gently brush the backs of my borrowed fingers against my own cold, pale cheek. A zap of residual magic zipped up my arm from the contact. “Let us begin, then.”
The transferal itself was not an elaborate ritual.
Most of the challenge was maintaining enough focus to not let my soul slip from my grasp as it was placed inside a new body.
Problems usually arose when the corpse was fresh enough to still cling to its own soul—like the body I currently held—and I had to forcibly shove it out to make room for my own.
Now, a tugging feeling from deep in my chest encouraged me forward. Like a rope tied between my soul and my body was being pulled taut, reeling me in slowly but relentlessly.
With a small knife tucked into the belt of my borrowed body, I sliced both palms deep enough for the sluggish, dark blood to pool in the palms and drip down my arms. I lifted the Tome of Wira up and opened the heavy book, flipping through to find the ritual I’d memorized so long ago, still burned into my mind with the fire of survival and desperation.
The spell was nothing more than words spoken in the Old Language of the gods and a blood sacrifice.
The power I needed laid in the Tome itself.
The tome I’d written by hand, page by tattered page, and bound myself with twine made with my own hair.
The tome I covered with leather from the nearly-extinct trebegnon I’d hunted and killed on my own.
The tome that held the largest Wiran ruby known to Erewen, made with my blood and strength of will performing the creation ritual for two moonphases and nearly starving myself to death in the process.
This tome was my life’s work and my lifeblood all in one.
My greatest achievement and most effective weapon.
And this tome had brought the downfall of my entire country on the heels of a greedy prince who wanted it for himself.
He thought killing my family would break me enough to give it up.
Ettion Werren paid for that with the existence of his country as he knew it.
Now it seemed history had come full circle, with his distant relative trying to kill me in a dingy alley in Gilamorst. This time, I would make sure to eradicate the entire fucking bloodline.
I laid my hand across my body’s chest and bowed my head to the tome, focusing all my energy to flow through the tome and out of my hand as a closed system, amplified by the blood and innate magic held in the pages.
“P’talin ge fulroth mes Wira het mislama. Tul inirish h’nem il verek ga Genma, ed retaniek gil turon gal metcha’tak. Halen tiv culramat val Morrette Wirannev Hilj, et manesh yil vinam’ashekt .”
May Wira hold my soul in her hands. May she find me worthy to enter Genma, when my work in this world is done. In life and death, I am Morrette Wirannev Hilj, and no man can take that from me.
The incantation was short, but its effects were immediate.
Two voids formed on my chest, in this body and the body beneath my right hand, the skin giving way to allow my fingers to pass through.
Instead, I reached into the hole in this chest until my fingertips brushed something cold and thrumming.
Blood smeared across my palms acted as an oil of sorts to let my hand slip through the space easier.
My soul numbed my fingertips with its energy as I wrapped them tightly around it, and slowly began to extract it from this borrowed body.
As soon as it cleared my chest, I could feel the chill of death creep in. There wasn't much time to transfer my soul before this body failed me.
My tome thudded heavily on the floor, too heavy to hold now.
I stumbled against the coffin and leaned against it for support to gently lower my hand to the void in my chest. It pulsed with an unnatural light and crackled with indigo energy that arched out and danced across the skin of my original body as if trying to escape.
My hand sunk to the wrist, holding onto the beating core of my soul until it settled in place. It was home.
I was home.
The edges of my visions faded to black. My knees buckled, arms slipping from the edge of the coffin, and the dead weight of this body pulled its hand from my chest as it fell to the floor.
And with that loss of connection, the old body returned to its state of a lifeless, soulless corpse once again.
Air wheezed through my throat and my eyes snapped open, my lungs burning and starved for air not given in a hundred years.
It was like breathing in dust and sent me gracelessly hacking as I weakly pulled myself up with the lip of the stone coffin.
The Julran fangs shifted and fell off the top of my body, sliding into the space between my hip and the edge of the small space.
No matter how many times I did this—even when coming back to my own body—it was a disorienting experience, basically ripping my soul out of its old carrier and setting it in a new one, like a gem in a jewelry mount.
A low groan left my chest, and I closed my eyes against the violent swirling and harsh colors bombarding my eyes in their adjustment.
I had to rest my head on my arm draped over the lip of the coffin and just let myself settle in this body again.
Finally—when it didn’t feel like my head was going to burst from pressure or have my chest collapse from lack of air—I lifted my head and pulled myself further out of the coffin.
Heavy black hair trailed along behind me, even when I swung my feet over and half-rolled out.
An odd side effect of my possession, so be sure, and not one I was expecting to deal with right out of the crypt.
I had gone to rest with a practical shoulder-length cut, just long enough to tie back in a fight yet short enough to push out of my face and call it styled.
Now it pooled in the bottom of the coffin a good length and a half of my body, and I was by no means a short person.
“How inconvenient.” The sound of my voice was grating and dry from disuse. “How is it I still have to deal with haircuts after escaping death for a hundred years?”
I reached back inside and pulled one of the pair of swords out, and gripped the bulk of my hair to drape over one shoulder and pull tight.
The sword had dulled with a hundred years of disuse, making sawing through the chunk of hair troublesome and leading to a choppy and uneven cut.
I would cut it shorter, but with how jerky and stilted my movements were, I was just as likely to stab myself in the throat as cut my hair.
At this point, looks were the least of my worries.
On shaky legs, I bent low and ripped a strip of cloth from the man’s shirt.
It was a trick I’d learned on the battlefield—winding a cloth tightly enough to create a makeshift twine, sturdy enough to bind a wound or tie back unruly hair when needed.
Clumsy fingers made it more of a process than it had to be, but eventually I was able to knot the fabric tight enough to hold the thick black hair back.
My eyes fell to the dull blade held in my shaking hand.
It would be more practical to just take the man’s short sword to fight with…
but I’d be damned if I left my beloved fangs here to rot any longer.
The metal was still good, likely affected with close proximity to the magic that preserved my body.
It was just the edges that needed sharpening.
“This is going to be a bitch to do,” I muttered to myself and reached in for the other sword to its mate. Then with a groan, I bent down to grip my tome by the thick spine. Even that weight made my muscles burn with the strain. “Here’s to not slicing off a finger in the body I just returned to.”
From above, another shudder rocked through the Clifftombs signaling another assault to the walls.
I leaned back against the coffin and let my head fall back, already feeling the drain of performing so many gods-damned miracles today.
"Gods help me," I whispered, hoping that one of them would hear me and take pity.
Then, with another heavy sigh, I pushed myself up and stumbled toward the steps up to the main level.
I had to ready myself for one last war.