Chapter 35
To Right All Wrongs
When Desi took Ronin’s life, she believed she had lost all the goodness left in her.
Now she suspected some of it remained when the image of Freyah invaded her mind more often than she would like to admit.
The memory of her death was always accompanied by an overwhelming sense of sadness, but not remorse.
She had never planned for that to happen.
She had truly believed the general’s words when he had promised they would be taken to trial.
Desi didn’t even suspect Alissa and Freyah were from Bryniard, but now that she knew it, the way they explored this world with the eyes of a newborn made so much sense.
Still, it puzzled her how they had ever inhabited a place ruled by monsters.
It was such a waste that the life of a brilliant young woman was taken so abruptly.
Freyah didn’t deserve that, and Desi believed that with every fiber of her being.
She liked Freyah, she just didn’t come to care about her enough to reconsider giving them up.
Knowing the young woman died because of her made her start rethinking her decisions.
She questioned if that was really the only choice she had, if she would have found a way out without taking people’s lives in the process.
Was she sorry enough to regret what she’d done?
Not really.
Alissa had vowed to kill Desi the day Freyah was murdered, so for the first couple of weeks, she looked over her shoulder.
However, after seeing Eldric held in captivity, exposed in the city center for so many weeks, she deduced that Alissa had left.
She wouldn’t have let him be tortured for so long if she were still in the capital.
Desi let her guard down.
Alissa’s whereabouts didn’t truly matter.
If she lived or died, Desi couldn’t care less because she finally had everything she had fought for so long.
The general had kept his word; the bounty for delivering the realm’s most dangerous fugitives had paid her debt, and leaving her post was not considered treason.
The general had testified in her favor, lying that she was unwillingly taken to the capital by the criminals.
Desi finally had her life back, her freedom, and the love of her family.
Would that love come with an expiration date if they ever found out the price she had to pay to be with them again?
Desi fell from her seat, terrified, when a sudden burst came from the front door.
Seeing her worst nightmare standing across from her, Desi rushed to stand, cowardly running away the same way she did the night Freyah was murdered.
Except this time, there was a very important factor she was not counting on.
Her leg muscles stiffened like rocks, the sharp pain almost unbearable.
She cried out in misery, peering at Alissa, seeing her fingers move toward her.
She was a sight from hell, with brown eyes that gleamed with a piercing fire and flared nostrils that reflected her anger.
It took a moment for Desi to realize what was the cause of her insufferable pain. Magic! She had never thought she would witness the summoning of magic with her own eyes.
Flabbergasted, she whispered, “How?”
Alissa didn’t give her the privilege of finding out the answer. “Do you ever think of her?” She twisted her fingers wrathfully, and the pain increased by the second.
Desi grunted, her breath caught in her throat. “Yes.”
“Do you regret it?” She clenched her teeth. “Betraying us?”
Olga kept the same blank expression as ever, but Alissa knew the fire of rage burned with the same intensity in the woman carrying the axe.
“I did what I had to do to be with my family. You would have done the same, Alissa.”
Alissa shrugged. She couldn’t debate on that. With a snap of her fingers, Desi’s radius and femur bones snapped into two, both her arms and legs with open fractures. She screamed with agony. Alissa’s power was capable of bringing her a harrowing pain without spilling one single drop of blood.
“I should leave you like this. Broken in a way you could never be fixed. Unable to ever hug your children again or continue practicing healing.” Alissa’s tone dripped with pettiness and resentment.
“You would live the rest of your life in suffering so that with every beat of your heart, you would remember Freyah and Breno and what you did to them.” Her nose wrinkled in a snarl.
A hand rested on her shoulder; she would recognize that touch anywhere: Eldric, steadying her when things were too overwhelming to bear.
“You know… Freyah wouldn’t have wanted you to kill me.” Desi’s words came out strained as she thrashed on the floor like a fish out of water.
Her body contorted to Alissa’s magic-tight grip. She bared her teeth, and drool dripped down her chin as she tried to regain control of her body and failed.
Alissa chuckled in disbelief. “Oh, I’m not killing you.”
The healer sighed, relieved she would live another day.
Alissa stepped back, and Olga stood where she had been. Desi’s relief didn’t last a second when she recognized the violet-haired woman in Alissa’s company and the axe she carried in her hands. The gravity of her situation finally sank in.
Overcome by sheer panic, Desi pleaded, “Please,” her voice coming between sobs, “I didn’t mean to do that. Please, I will do anything!”
She yelled for help. Cowardness once again spoke louder than reason.
Eldric wasn’t completely on board with all this.
He would have preferred to move on and let Desi become a traumatic part of their history rather than punish her for what she did, but he couldn’t deny Alissa and Olga their right to avenge their loved ones.
Desi’s selfish motivations had brought two precious lives to an end, and there was nothing he could do to help her now.
He stood there, watching, his lips pressed together in a pitiful stance, almost feeling bad for the woman as she begged for her life, humiliating herself while she crumbled under the rubble of her own doing, revealing her true self-centered, weak nature.
Olga’s glare was narrowed and focused, like a predator honing in on its prey.
“You come into my house uninvited, followed by armed men. You bring killing into my living room to people who had never wronged you.” For every step Olga took in her direction, Desi’s heart paced faster.
“You got my guest and my husband murdered for your own selfish reasons, then you ran away like the coward that you are, and now you ask me for mercy?”
Desi didn’t say anything, but her tears kept coming incessantly. Her clothes stunk of urine, a result of the overwhelming pain and fear she could no longer contain.
Everything she had done was to be with her children.
All of her sins were a result of her desperate need to retrieve the life she once had and loved.
Desi lied and deceived, killed and betrayed more than once, to be with her family.
Ironically, that same motivation was the reason death was brought to her doorstep.
The awareness of all her mistakes dawned on her, and the resolution in the eyes of the woman who was destined to be her executioner showed her there was no point in begging, no point in running away.
Desi could at least be grateful that her family was not present to witness her tragic end.
Sensing her resignation, Alissa released her grip on the magic, but the healer did not move. She remained frozen, kneeling on the floor of her living room.
Her gaze met Alissa’s one last time. “I am not the real enemy, Alissa. I never was.”
The implication was clear. Desi was accusing the one who had ordered the assassination as the true culprit behind Freyah’s death.
Alissa knew the general was far from innocent; he bore as much blame as the healer, and she would ensure he paid for his crimes when the time came.
But the fact that, in her final moments, Desi still couldn’t acknowledge her role in the tragedy and refused to take responsibility for what she had done spoke volumes.
When Desi’s last words were spoken, they were directed at Eldric: “Don’t let my children see me dead. Please.”
He nodded, promising to grant her this final act of kindness.
Desi’s lungs filled with air one last time, her heart thundering under her ribcage. With eyes closed, the last image she saw was the face of her children.
She smiled.
It took four seconds.
Olga lifted her axe.
She moved it toward her target, a movement so swift it contradicted the morbidity of the action.
The sharp blade met the hard resistance of a neck, and Alissa recoiled at the sound that followed.
A head fell to the floor with a thud, her dark lips still frozen on the smile she wore when it happened. Her body followed right after.
Four mere seconds for the woman who had once been a devoted healer, mother, daughter, and wife to have her life ripped away. Four seconds to erase thirty-four years of existence. Yet, as fleeting as it was, it lasted longer than the moment it took them to steal Freyah’s life.
Alissa recalled the remorse that weighed heavily on her conscience the first time she took a human life in what seemed to have been a lifetime ago.
She felt goosebumps when she realized that even though she knew the circumstances that brought Desi to betray them, seeing her dead didn’t spark any emotions in her, not guilt or regret.
Nothing.
The same way killing those guards just moments before didn’t even make her flinch.
Had she lost the part of herself that made her human to be unaffected by brutality and murder, or did she only feel that way because these people weren’t innocent, and the urge to save Eldric and avenge Freyah was greater than anything?
She hoped it was the latter.
It was as clear as day how Freyah’s murder had changed her in more ways than she could have comprehended. Losing her best friend made her bitter and heartless. She wasn’t sure she would ever recover that spark of empathy and compassion that allowed her to feel sorry for those who did her wrong.
When justice had been done, the group honored Desi’s request. Eldric and Olga buried her body in the woods as Alissa cleaned, getting rid of any traces of their presence at her house and the crimes committed there.
She had seen so many of Desi’s treatment notes while being cared for in Nyfrel that mimicking her handwriting came naturally.
It was almost too easy to leave a message for her children, penned in the familiar hand of their mother.
Had to go back to Nyfrel. I’m sorry.
Alissa was about to leave when she glanced over her shoulder, looking at the sheet of paper on the kitchen table. She turned around, picturing how Desi’s children would feel if their mother was gone again and all they had left of her were those words. In a final gesture of kindness, she added:
I will love you forever. Don’t you ever forget that.
Love,
Desi
She drew in a deep breath. It took them too long, longer than time itself allowed, but their business in Golheim was finally complete. It was time they were back on the road. Time to go back to Dhalia.
“Are you coming with us?” she asked Olga.
Olga shook her head. “No, there is still unfinished business for me in Golheim.”
Alissa had no idea what Olga was referring to, so she didn’t say anything.
As she looked at the woman who had been a great friend during the most difficult time of her life, her eyes filled with tears.
She wished to give her a goodbye hug, but she knew Olga would hate it, so she offered her hand instead.
When their hands touched, Alissa was taken by an unexpected feeling, almost a certainty, that she would see Olga again.
She smiled.
After their farewells, the horses galloped through the city streets, carrying Eldric and Alissa on their backs, racing toward the outskirts of the capital.
Alissa glanced back at the city that had caused her so much pain, where her friend’s bones lay hidden somewhere beneath the earth. She pushed the sorrow aside and focused on the next chapter of their journey, hoping it would finally lead to a happy ending.
Bryniard, here we come.