Chapter 32

CHAPTER 32

I know I am asleep, yet I cannot seem to fight the darkness wrapping around me. My emotions feel muted. I can't remember what happened, and I know I should be worried, but I am empty, wrapped within this fog that seems to squeeze me tighter and tighter.

Suddenly, it parts, and the necromancer is before me with the mask still covering his face. We stare each other down through the smoke. I should be fearful, but I can't feel anything. He slowly lifts his hand, holding it out to me.

"Join me, Freya," he purrs.

"Never," I snap, fighting to escape him and the seductiveness in his voice calling to that part of me.

"Aren't you tired of fighting who you are, Freya?" he murmurs. "Of what lives inside of you? Accept it and come home with me, where you belong, with your people." His hand is still held towards me, like a lifeline in the dark.

"You are evil," I hiss.

He laughs, the sound grating on my brain as he drops his hand. "Evil? You use that word so carelessly. Evil . . . You have no idea." The smoke around us parts, and the numbness I felt is stripped away.

We are inside a house. It's small but cosy, with a little wooden table with one leg shorter than the others. There are three place mats with cutlery before them. A multicoloured, handwoven rug is under our feet, and candles blaze around us. It's filled with warmth and happiness and so much love, I can feel it pulsing through the walls.

"I want you to understand," he says as he turns to me.

"I do not need to understand," I retort. "You have killed people?—"

"As have most," he adds. "You call me evil, Freya, but do you understand the truth of that?"

A baby's cry splits the air, and we turn to see a woman smiling down at a baby bundled in her arms as she sits in a rocking chair. Her thumb rubs over the baby's ruddy cheeks, her smile so bright and beautiful it hurts. "There, there, Daddy will be here soon. I know you miss him, hmm? I do as well," she whispers before kissing the little head. "But he's protecting us. Do you know why? Because he loves us so much," she says as he starts to suck her finger.

"That is my son and my wife."

I turn to see him, and his mask disappears. I do not know what I was expecting, but it isn't the handsome, middle-aged man before me. His hair is dark, and there are lines around his thin lips and cheeks. He looks normal.

"They are both dead now, killed by those who hate us. They were slain right here in our home. I was not here to protect them. I simply came back and found their bodies."

I turn back to the baby and the woman to see her giggling at something he did, and something inside me aches at the pure happiness radiating from them.

"No evil being starts that way. We are all born innocent," he murmurs as he looks at his baby. He steps towards them and kneels, looking up with such longing it feels like I am intruding before he stands and steps back. "We are turned evil by people who hurt us. Mine is not the only story of pain. So many innocents died. Babies were slain in their mothers' arms and wombs. It's why we went underground, but even there we were not safe. Everyone was killed simply for being born as we were. Our children did nothing to deserve it. My child did nothing to deserve it." He looks at me. "He died, but you survived. Tell me, Freya, how is that fair? Should you have been killed at birth simply for being what you are? Or should you have been given a chance?"

I'm silent, lost and unsure.

"His name was Laurent, after my best friend—my best friend who died while trying to protect me. That name died with them. No one remembers them because even their memories weren't safe from the stigma. You call me evil, Freya, but I wasn't always. I only wanted to keep my family safe. We hid, we rejected our magic, and yet it was not enough for them. Most died in the massacre in our hidden city that day. Others were hunted across the world, and then I was the only one remaining, or so I thought. I never wanted to become what they called us. I hated the idea that we could be capable of such evil, but when I had no choice, when I lost everything, the darkness was all that was left. It welcomed me home. It stole the pain so I could survive. It kept me alive and gave me purpose."

"What they did was wrong," I say, pained as I look at the child. "But it does not make what you are doing right. We need to be better. We need to show them?—"

"They will never listen nor care. Don't you understand?" he roars. "You can be as good as you wish, and it will not stop them. They will never let us live. They cannot because that means they must admit they were wrong and all those they slaughtered were innocent. They cannot live with that."

The room around us transforms, and I stumble back in horror. The candles are out, the front door is hanging off its hinges, and blood and scorch marks mar the surface. The once beautiful rug is destroyed, and the woman lies across it, turning it red with her blood. Her head is turned, her eyes empty and her arm outstretched, and I gag when I realise she's reaching for her baby.

"Do not look away," the necromancer demands. "If you choose their side, then you must watch."

His tiny body is at a strange angle, and his blankets are gone. For some reason, that worries me. Won't he be cold?

Then I realise he's dead too .

They both are.

"Evil is not born, Freya. It is created," he says as a younger version of him rushes into his home. The echoing howl of agony pierces my heart as he falls to his knees, clutching his wife and his baby to his chest as he sobs. The bag that was on his shoulder falls to the floor, the contents spilling free—baby formula.

The vision changes, and we are in the street. It takes me a moment to realise this is the underground city I saw before, but there are hanging lanterns, children's toys in the street, and open food vendors. It's filled with life, but then it changes once more.

All that life is gone.

Bodies litter the streets, and blood runs into the cobbles.

Houses burn, and screams fill the air.

It changes again, and I'm staring at the necromancer once more. He's panicked, sitting in the driver's seat of a car, the door open. A man stands before it, looking at him, his expression determined. "Go, my friend. You need to get back to your pregnant wife and keep them safe." He shuts the door and turns, racing with a gun raised to two figures who float in the air before them.

"Gods," he murmurs from my side.

He drives away, but we stay, watching as his friend fights and is slain with a flick of one of the god's fingers, a wound opening on his chest so deep, I see his beating heart. He glances up at the escaping car and smiles before falling forward, dead.

The visions keep changing. There are so many bodies piled up, fields of dead, and destroyed homes. I see so many corpses that I start to scream, sinking to my knees.

"Stop, make it stop!" I beg.

He walks towards me through the battlefield, the dead and dying surrounding us, their calls splitting my head and heart. There is so much death, I can feel it crawling into me. The horror and power wrap around my dark heart.

"Do you understand now, witch?" he calls as he stops before me, tipping my chin up. "How about now?" The scene transforms again, and I gag once more .

Children of all ages lie around us, broken and dead. We are in a church, the same church where we found the arm.

"They came here to hide and beg the gods to stop, but it didn't work," he whispers as he straightens, the edges of the vision starting to swirl with smoke once more.

His voice fills my ears as the vision fades. "Who is really evil, witch? Them or us? Those who were born with the capability to be, or those who forced them into it? We are not enemies, and you will understand that soon."