Before I left the room, I made sure to consult the library Dif had bestowed upon me. The old man probably thought it would be misleading to provid me with such an enormous amount of information, but it came in handy. I managed to find more information about banshees. The fair folk weren't the nicest of the bunch. That was due to the fact that humankind had actually invaded their home, more on this later.

I learned that banshees couldn't be banished unless someone with magic related to the light element was present. In other words, I needed the Church's miracles. There was nothing about defeating them, but there was useful information on how to recruit them, make them join my cause.

As I suspected, banshees fed on fear from death. Ofelia served the necromancer because he could provide her with enough nutrition. I had nothing to offer, but I could repel her if I showed resolve. That much I had, I was sure of it.

I stood, fought the shameful sensation that overwhelmed me as a cold, sticky liquid brushed against me, then headed down. I made a mental note of was.h.i.+ng my undergarments as soon as the lesson with Lemien was over. I reached the anteroom downstairs. Lemien was reading a book whose leather cover could use some was.h.i.+ng, maybe replacement.

"Good of you to finally grace us with your presence," the necromancer said as soon as he caught sight of me.

"I overslept, I guess," I said. "How long was I asleep?"

"Twenty hours," Lemien replied.

"That much?" I asked. I felt drowsy just speaking of sleep. I hadn't slept since my imprisonment, and even that little sleep was filled with nightmares.

"Ready to learn about banshee slaying?" Lemien asked.

"It's now or never," I replied then took a seat beside him. I took a look at the book he was reading. The cover had something peculiar about it.

"It's an ancient book I found here," Lemien said. "One of the few I managed to salvage."

"What is it about?" I asked. I couldn't take my eye off the engraving at the cover. It had some kind of animal. The cover was so old the engraving was beginning to fade away, but I could make out the three tails quite clearly.

"It speaks of the Primordial Lords," Lemien said. "Did you know that they were behind our settlement in these lands?"

"How so?" I asked.

"This book depicts us as agents of evil," Lemien explained. "It says we're their creations, sent to these lands to banish the Sebyan, even exterminate them."

"That's what they think of us? That's a bit extreme, don't you think?"

"Not according to this book here," Lemien retorted. "It says the Primordials claimed these lands as their own. Those who accepted were granted power beyond their imagination. Those who refused were banished, chased, and eventually killed.

"The Sebyan decided to run and hide underground. Only a few of them remained then. They hid and focused on survival, reproduction. This book speaks of their survival, and how they met the Primordial that would eventually s.h.i.+eld them against the evil Lords."

"One of the Primordials helped them?" I asked. My eye was still fixed on the three tails in the cover.

"That's the tale anyway," Lemien said then closed the book. "I don't believe it, to tell you the truth. Our mission has always been to save humanity against beasts and external threats."

"And necromancy will help us achieve said peace," I retorted. The words left my mouth before I could stop them. I had a feeling Lemien wouldn't appreciate my jeer.

Lemien, on the other hand, just shrugged. "It all boils down to the same thing. Those who die leave for the Well of Souls. I only use their bodies, vessels for their souls, to my ends. There's nothing wrong about that."

"If you say so," I replied. I wasn't ready to argue good and evil with a necromancer. "What's that thing in the cover?" I asked.

"Oh, it caught your eye too?" Lemien said, amused. "They say it's the Primordial who betrayed his brethren. No one knows what he really looks like, but he usually takes the shape of a white fox with three tails. That's as far as the tale goes, but I never met anybody who'd actually met him."

'You have now,' I thought.

I gave the necromancer a mocking grin instead. "It's like the people who believe in Dhobor, the G.o.d of light who'd never appear to his faithful."

"You get the gist of it," Lemien said then chuckled. "Now," he went on in all seriousness, "shall I summon Ofelia?"

"Aren't you going to teach me how to defeat her first?" I asked.

"There's no point in doing so if you can't repel her morbid thoughts," Lemien said. "First you silence her. Then I teach you how to defeat her."

"What about her wails and those sound waves she sends?"

"They only affect you if you're scared of her," Lemien said. "First you must close your mind to her. Then we'll see about spells and other things to defeat her."

I nodded. Lemien was also hiding something, and he was taking his jolly time studying me. I may have severely underestimated him.

Lemien summoned the banshee immediately after. Ofelia appeared before me, ghastly, terrifying. She turned her cold gaze at me, and I felt s.h.i.+vers run down and up my spine. Her faint wails reached my ears.

***

I heard 'her' voice then, pleading, cut off in between sobs.

"Don't let him break you," she said. "I'll always be with you. You haven't done anything wrong."

"You can't always be with him when you're dead!" he told her. I saw him whip her back. That hateful sound, that crack that announced pain and suffering. I wasn't at the receiving end though, she was.

"Stop it," I begged. "Stop it! I know I shouldn't have taken her. But I didn't know. None of us knew!"

"You signed your death sentence the day you defied the Church," he told me in his arrogant, demeaning tone. I heard the whip crack again, and I heard her wails.

I held my head with both hands and screamed. I couldn't take this any longer. I had to do something. I had to save her, save my friends who were being helplessly slaughtered. But I couldn't move. I was tied down.

***

Then I realized I could hold my head even though I was tied down. I opened my eye and the gloomy anteroom of the necromancer welcomed me. I was lying on a couch made out of bones. Lemien was observing me, scribbling down some notes.

"You're finally awake," he said after I sat up. "I told you, it's more difficult to shut her down in practice than in theory."

"Let's do it again," I asked.

"You may lose your mind if we don't allow you time to breathe, recollect your thoughts."

"We don't have much time," I said. "I wasted enough sleeping," I added. It was a lie. The reason why Ofelia easily got under my skin was probably because I lacked sleep.

Lemien observed me with a calculating eye. He let out a heavy sigh, put down the quill and the scroll he wrote on then stood up. "Very well," he said. "I'll summon her again. But make sure you're ready this time."

I could tell he enjoyed seeing me faint like that. He even made sure to place me on a couch and observed me while he took notes. I wished I could use the time stop spell now and see what he was writing. But there was no use in hoping. Dif and his Fragment had shut me out completely. I tore a page from Dif's book and waited for the banshee to appear again.

"Ready?" Lemien asked.

I nodded.

Ofelia appeared out of thin air, a green glow following her as she moved toward me. She looked at me and I felt as though her eyes were drawing me to her. I heard her faint wails once more, but reminded myself to push them away. I tried sensing her, and I saw ample energy seeping through her.

I managed to feel the connection she had with the necromancer. It was faint, buried deep within the sea of the banshee's Essence. She had more Essence than me or the necromancer. She was strong, really strong. She approached me. Her faint wails weren't working on me anymore. I knew she was about to up her game. I braced myself for impact.

She was now inches from me. I could see the flesh dangling from her upper jaw. It was the part from which her lower jaw had been wrenched free. She eyed me now with interest. It was as though she admired my resolve. And then, without prior warning, I heard a deafening scream.

I tried my best to resist it.

'I shouldn't flinch,' I mentally repeated. 'Don't flinch. Don't flinch. Don't flinch.'

I clenched my fists harder. I felt my nails dig deep into my skin. I wanted to take a step back, at least to reduce to intensity of her long, uninterrupted scream. My ears were already ringing. My eye started watering. There was a breath to her scream, putrid, awful, eye stinging. I endured all of it. I endured the harrowing thoughts that came rus.h.i.+ng in.

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***

Death had indeed followed me everywhere I went ever since I was a teenage boy. I'd killed my first man at the age of thirteen. I remembered it now clearly. I'd helped Raiya retrieve a book of spells. I went back home to find my older sister in tears. She'd shut me down when I asked what was the matter.

Sam came to me later. He told me the story. He told me how that n.o.ble son had ambushed her in the street at night. She'd rejected him many times before. But that day was a day too many. He'd gotten drunk and forced himself on her. The Custodians didn't interfere. He was a n.o.ble after all, wealth and power protected him.

I couldn't accept it.

I stalked the b.a.s.t.a.r.d for three days. I learned everything about his habits. Then I ambushed him in the same street he'd ambushed my older sister in. The stupid man thought he could overpower me. I was a sailor. Despite my young age, I was strong, muscular and taller than average. I wanted to give him a lesson, that he shouldn't take advantage of helpless girls.

In my anger though, I punched him so hard his head wobbled back and hit a wall. Blood smeared the wall as the n.o.ble slid down to the floor, lifeless. I panicked. I ran from the crime scene but was soon found out and arrested. There was no trial, no interrogation. I was directly sent to the prisons outside Yanoku, to work on the mines until I drew my last breath.

***

I opened my eye and found myself lying on the same couch again. I gritted my teeth, frustrated.

"Again!" I told the necromancer, who was again scribbling on his scroll.

He raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Are you sure?" he said. "You've taken quite a hit. You've been crying some names in your hysteric state. I didn't think you'd snap out of it."

"I'm stronger than you think," I said, defiantly. "Again!"