Chapter 11 #3
With each passing moment, her body became paler.
Lesya placed her hand upon Freya’s heart. There was supposed to be a nuance to this magic. It wasn’t just an invocation to Aeterna.
Please, Aeterna. Guide me.
The Death Mother’s presence became more and more real until Lesya was no longer sitting in the grass beside Freya’s corpse, but in the presence of Aeterna, in the celestial graveyard.
“Very well,” Aeterna said, getting up from her throne, shrinking to the size of a normal human being.
Even though she lost her size, she lost none of her stature as she walked across the floor of skulls and bones and came to Lesya’s side.
“Consider this my first gift to you, a lesson in an art long lost to time and the tempest of men.”
Aeterna sat beside Lesya and guided her hand to the girl’s forehead.
“Soul is not energy. To think that is a mistake. Energy expends, dissipates. Soul is eternal, soul is whole. As of right now, her soul has absconded from her body. It cannot come back to her body while the body is dead. You have to restart her body, take control of her many systems, send signals through her mind, make her heart beat again, let air enter her lungs. You must do that while you locate her soul and bring it back to her body. That is true Aeternumancy. Anything else is an unnatural imitation.”
Lesya looked toward a source of light above her. It shone white, pure, like liquid silver. She reached for it.
Aeterna grabbed her hand and pulled it away.
“You must never reach for Chaos!” Aeterna scolded. “It imitates soul, but it is not soul. It is madness from another realm, a blasphemy. It is what every necromancer uses to animate their thralls!”
“I don’t understand!” Lesya said in desperation, looking at the hovering source of light. It looked so welcoming, so warm. What was it if not something good, if not where souls went after they departed the body?
“There are realms beyond our realms. Chaos is one such realm, beguiling mages and believers since time immemorial. You must resist it. Look not for bright white lights or angelic hymnals and symphonies. A soul is not seen but felt. In a sea of billions of departed souls, how can you see a soul? You can only feel for it. Feel for hers.”
Lesya closed her eyes, one hand performing resuscitative magic on Freya while with the other hand she parted through the veil of life and death and felt for something, anything.
“Lesya?!” Freya screamed out of nowhere. “Help me! I’m?—”
Lesya wrapped her fingers around the soul that felt like Freya’s and pulled it out, from where, she didn’t know.
She brought it down into her body, and only then opened her eyes.
As she opened her eyes, she saw the veil of life and death closing before her—a colorless sea of indistinguishable souls in a sunless land.
Souls flowed like water, waving, splashing.
Before she could get a better look at it, the veil closed, leaving nothing in its place.
So, too, did disappear the shimmering white light above.
“Good work,” Aeterna said, “Death Shepherd.”
* * *
Lesya was sitting beside Freya in the lawn. By now, Elias, Theo, Cassian, and Clive had joined her, all of them standing around Freya.
Freya’s skin was no longer pale. She coughed, and then spewed out black sludge. She screamed at the top her lungs. Lesya placed a calming hand on her chest.
“You’re okay, you’re okay,” she said, meeting Freya’s terrified eyes.
“I…” Freya said, and then stopped. She looked at all those around her. She dared not speak of what happened in front of them.
Clive Bane delivered a slap across the back of Elias’s head.
“If that’s what you’re going to do tomorrow, you might as well petrify us here!” Clive yelled.
Elias was numb. He didn’t register the slap. He knew what he had done. He had seen his friend die at the hands of the death curse, a curse that he had meant for Lesya. Against all explanation, Freya still drew breath.
“What the hell did you hit her with anyway?” Cassian asked, feeling for Freya’s pulse.
“Must’ve been a spell of my own. Knock her out. I only meant to knock her out,” Elias said, his voice hoarse.
“You’re lucky Ms. Rosefield is a good healer,” Clive said. “Come on, Ms. Drummond. Up you get. You won’t get the luxury of lying on your behind on the battlefield come tomorrow.”
But Freya did not move. She only looked at Lesya, her lips quivering in disbelief, shock, and the unimaginable toll of being brought back from the dead.
“What did you do?” she whispered to Lesya.
“I saved you, nothing else,” Lesya said.
Theo came around to Freya’s side and lifted her up gently. She could stand on her own, but she was grateful for the support Theo offered. He took her back into the mansion.
The soldiers all witnessing this spectacle dispersed. Clive pulled Elias by his neck and aimed his quarterstaff at him.
“What did you hit her with?!” he shouted.
“It was just some profane spell I’d read somewhere. It’s supposed to knock you out!” Elias yelped.
“That didn’t look like a knockout spell to me! Come! I will investigate until I get to the bottom of this. To the headmaster with you!”
Lesya stood alone with Cassian, her hands shaking.
She looked at Cassian.
“You blocked me out,” he said. “And then you weren’t responding for such a long time. Are you okay?”
“I…”
“Lesya, what did you do?”
“I think I brought Freya Drummond back from the dead,” Lesya said, collapsing on her knees.