“You will bring them both back!” Wynn shrieked.
“It cannot be done,” Enepsigos said sternly, the woman, her brown hair tied delicately on the top of her head, it was the first time she had spoken and her voice was cold and sharp.
“Bring them back, or I will kill you,” Wynn hissed. The judges laughed. Wynn took a deep breath and looked at Arabella. Her eyes narrowed and Wynn knew she was agreeing. Wynn waved her hand in the direction of the judges. At her unspoken command they stopped laughing and found they could not move, frozen to the ground. Wynn walked up to the judges and stopped inches from Procel’s face.
“I’m waiting,” she spat.
Procel laughed, “We are Shadows, and as shadows consume the light we too are just that. Carnivores, destroyers, scavengers. Our power does not extend to raising the dead. Only one of pure evil can walk in the underworld and grasp a soul from death,” Bernael snapped at Wynn.
Wynn thought of Aerona, and the creatures she had created. The Fallen, their souls ripped from death to be encased in their rotting body, a life of perpetual torture. Even if Wynn could bring Rueben and Theodore back, they would not be the Rueben and Theodore she had known. They would be shells, not truly alive, animated by magic and that would be no life at all.
“Have you always resided here?” Wynn asked, her voice sharp.
“Yes, though a powerful Mage came to us two centuries ago and forced us into slumber,” Bernael sighed.
Wynn looked around the torture chamber, her eyes finding the stains of blood on the walls. It was clear the judges had had many victims here, before the mountain had become barren. Victims who were tortured before finally being murdered, their hearts eaten so that the judges could live on, in wait for the next victim.
“The tunnel?” she hissed.
“A passage for our sacrifices, Kingly would offer a stream of men and women to use as we would. Such was the past freedom,” he said sadly.
“And who was it that woke you?” Wynn asked.
“The sorceress Aerona came to us, and gave us life, she warned us of your passing and that we must test you... and break you,” Procel answered.
Wynn shrieked in anger, unable to properly articulate for her rage was so complete. She balled her hands into fists and cursed Procel with every profanity and affliction she could think of. Procel and his jurors remained expressionless, their young, handsome features deceiving. Wynn continued to scream, mingled with fits of weeping, for so long that her voice became hoarse. Eventually she fell silent and turned to walk away, before quickly spinning on the ball of her foot, and punching Procel hard in the face. His eyes widened as blood slowly dripped from his nose and Wynn stepped back in shock, unable to comprehend that it was her fist that caused it. She had seen men in a brawl all too often, swinging their fists without thinking. She was stronger than she seemed. The dripping blood, which had turned into a stream, surprised Wynn but also comforted her; she had inflicted some sort of wound upon the hateful creature. Whether Procel was actually in pain was another thing; Wynn told herself he was.
Procel hissed and raised his hand in Arabella’s direction. The chair she was strapped to, the bars that bound her legs and the spikes that hovered inches from her hands sudden began to quiver. The bar began to crush her shins, and the spikes impaled her hands viciously. Arabella screamed through her gag, her eyes wild with pain. Wynn shrieked in anger, she had not bound Procel completely. She noted then the strange dagger that had been used to murder Rueben still gripped tightly in Procel’s hand. Using her magic she forced his hands to still. He growled in anger as he was made to stop torturing Arabella. Wynn sagged as Arabella’s pain ceased.
“What is that?” Wynn demanded of the dagger.
Procel twisted his face as the blood poured from his nose, over his lips and down chin. He grasped the dagger tighter, as though trying to angle it for use, “It is the Dagger of Night,” he replied reluctantly, spitting flecks of blood as he spoke, “created long ago, at the dawn of time and dawn of magic. How it was made is now a mystery, many have tried to duplicate it but none have the power. It is made from the shadows, from the darkness. Only one of true power can wield it, can possibly understand and control its power.”
In his hand the Dagger of Night swirled, as though accentuating his words with its strangeness. Wynn eyed it for a minute before snatching it from Procel and holding it before her gingerly. The judges all gasped as she continued to hold it without complaint and it was clear that they had expected something dramatic and painful to befall her. She grinned triumphantly at them, glad she had taken the one thing that gave them their power away. She opened her mouth to taunt them, but before she uttered a word her hand began to tingle. Wynn snapped her eyes to the dagger and saw the hand that gripped it was held fast against the hilt. She tried to prise it away but her skin was fused to the strange shadowy material.
Slowly, so slowly she was unsure whether it was merely a shadow, darkness crawled up each finger, one at a time, then up her hand and along her arm. Where the darkness spread it felt as though the skin underneath had frozen and was stuck to something cold and metallic. She had sometimes seen maids grasp steel utensils from outside during winter, and their skin stick to the surface, only releasing once warm water was run over the area. It was achingly painful and continued to creep up her body.
In the back of her mind she could feel the traveller’s horror as they watched the blackness slowly consume her. The cold dullness extinguished every happy memory she could think of. Her body went numb and she thought suddenly that it would be all too easy to give up and let the coldness consume her.
Procel laughed cruelly, “You cannot control it, you are not strong enough.”
Wynn felt the thickness of the darkness and knew it was overpowering her, choking her into submission. It was like nothing she had ever experienced, a depression, sadness, utter desolation that forced the air from her lungs and made tears fall down her cheeks in a stream. Every bad memory and experience was brought to mind and replayed over and over again. The darkness’ hold was vast and unyielding and Wynn knew she was dying, even through the hold she knew it. And it was that knowledge, the sense of her own death that was so strong that it jolted her into clarity. However pleasant the darkness had made death seem, she could not allow it, too much depended on her, her friends, the lands. Aerona must die. She reached deep into her pool of magic, ignoring once again all of the warnings she had been given by Arabella and called it to cover her and purge her of the darkness. Slowly, to Procel’s horror and the traveller’s relief the darkness began to recede, and was replaced by a faint golden glow. In her hand was the Dagger of Night, untouched and unchanged it seemed, by what had occurred.
“Who are you to wield such a weapon?” Procel questioned, his voice high.
“I am nothing,” Wynn replied, her voice flat and unfeeling.
Procel shook then with fear. He himself needed Bernael and Enepsigos’ power to control the dagger for one use, one sacrifice. Wynn held it before him like a toy, its power surging through her. He had misjudged and underestimated her; the frail girl with the sad eyes would now kill the living dead, and lay him to rest once and for all, after centuries of sacrifices.
“I cannot bring them back,” Procel reiterated, his eyes firmly on the dagger Wynn now wielded.
“Then you shall die,” Wynn said simply, and stabbed him in the chest. Black blood poured from the wound. Procel’s eyes rolled in his sockets and he crumpled to the floor like a rag doll, Wynn’s magic releasing him whilst he died. The youthful skin that had encased his skeletal frame began to wither, curling and rotting, falling off of his skull. His eyeballs crumbled to dust and left gaping holes in his skull. Bernael saw the death of his Master and opened his mouth to beg but she sliced his head off in one swift motion before he had time to speak. His body too underwent the horrific transformation of young man to decaying skeleton. Finally Wynn stuck the knife right between Enepsigos’ eyes and she let out a little gasp. Black blood gushed from the judge’s broken bodies; it seeped along the cracks of the floor as though crawling towards Wynn. Everything was over so quickly the travellers were unsure it had happened, Theodore and Rueben had been sacrificed, and Wynn had done the impossible and killed the dead.
Wynn then crumpled to the floor, too tired to cry. Her magic was not yet whole and the dagger was so powerful. She dropped the weapon beside her, watching its shadows swirl, dark and evil. Braelyn rushed forward and cradled Wynn in her arms. The travellers stood still, silent, each caught up in their own grief.
She had not been able to protect them. The Death tarot card once again flashed in her mind and she realised that although the sense of worthlessness that had been drummed into her since she was a child remained, she really had changed so much in such in the short space of time she had left the Manor. Before she was timid, broken, and distrustful. Now here she was, a Magus, trusting these travellers with her life. The death of one’s old self, she shouted to herself. That was true. Her old, worn, dying self had been replaced by one who had been reborn. Did she like that? Being reborn meant she was open to fresh pain, pain she had never experienced. Losing people she loved dearly, knowing she would never see them again...
“They are dead,” Wynn whispered. Braelyn stroked her hair.
“You had no choice,” Braelyn said softly, rocking Wynn gently.
“I can’t go on,” Wynn said flatly, “I am no more than a murderer.”
All the faces of people she had killed flashed before her eyes, contorted into sad and pleading expressions by her imagination. How could she ever claim the title of the Foreseen when all she had ever achieved and ever would was the deaths of those around her? Why carry on? Why even get up from this cold stone floor?
Braelyn grabbed Wynn by the shoulders and forced her to face her, “If you give up now, then their death was in vain, do you want that?” Braelyn snapped.
Wynn lowered her eyes and knew Braelyn spoke the truth; she would not let Rueben and Theodore’s death stop her. The hate she felt for Procel and his jurors only helped intensify the hate she felt for Aerona.
“What do we do with their bodies?” Griffin said gruffly, tear marks streaking his face. In the distance Arabella had worked her gag off her mouth and was trying to use her impaled hands to heal herself. Wynn sent her magic to the contraption and forced the spikes up and the bar away and let Arabella heal herself. She had not the energy to continue using her magic in such a controlled and careful way. Arabella swallowed, her throat constricted with grief and pain and quickly healed her wounds before waving her hand over the corpses. They burst into flames and the travellers watched as the fire cremated them. Wynn could feel the mixed emotions of the travellers, sorrow at Rueben and Theodore’s death, and hate for Aerona, she allowed herself to feel only what the others felt, her own emotions too raw to even contemplate.