... And So It Begins Anew

“Halliyah… wake up!”

I awoke in a massive coughing fit, spitting and spraying out water everywhere. I had spent so much time in the afterlife on what felt like dry land that I had forgotten I died underwater. The constant back-and-forth caused me to drift in and out of consciousness. It was the same position I found myself at the start of yesterday.

Yesterday? Gods, I had no idea which day it was anymore. Everything since arriving at Kanett felt like little more than a dream at times, with some incidents feeling more dreamlike than others. Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat at Kanett, the assassination of Queen Rini, the attempt on my own life, Tomosse… All of it felt like a dream to me, a dream that I feared I would never wake up from. And then the pain came, right through my chest where Ayya shoved his sword through. At that moment, I realized it was all real.

“Who's here?” I asked as soon as it felt safe to speak. I kept my eyes shut tight to avoid making contact with anyone. Only a confirmation of friend or foe would get me to open them.

“Giorg is here,” came the answer. ““Khevhla adami nda shebrolvi.”

“Khevhla adami nda mottiki,” I replied.

“It's good to see you again,” Giorg told me. “And just in time. I had to learn that elf prince's door sealing spell to keep the others out.”

“Others?”

“Yeah, even after Hilami tried to cast that revival spell on you,” Giorg explained, “the others were convinced that you were gone for good. They were trying to wrap you up in papyrus and have you tossed back into the ocean.”

Hilami… Revival spell…? I had never heard of such a thing before. Although, if anyone did know of such a spell, she would have been the one.

“Where is she?” I asked as I tried to get up out of bed. Pain or no pain, I had to see her.

“No,” Giorg stopped me. “You need to rest. It's not a good time.”

“To Arakkia with that,” I insisted. “Where is Hilami?” I stumbled out of bed, nearly tripping over something in the process. “What was that?” After catching myself, I turned around to see… her… Her body laid on the floor of my room next to the bed with her arms crossed and her eyes closed.

According to Giorg, she had been dead for most of the day. She tried to cast the Resurrection, one of the nine forbidden spells, a convoluted ritual that transferred the life force of the caster into the recipient. It involved much strange dancing (as he put it), prayers, and the pouring of libations. But that was overnight, many hours ago. Naturally, the others assumed it didn't work despite her insistence that it was foolproof.

“What were her last words?” I asked Giorg.

“Death pays for life, she said,” Giorg explained. “She then poured the ninth libation and collapsed onto the floor.”

“If what you're saying is true,” I realized, “then I'd been dead for almost an entire day.” I looked back at Hilami’s corpse. She looked so peaceful laying there, not a care in the world. I could not believe how quickly she was willing to throw her own life aside for the sake of another. And yet she did. I could only imagine how the others felt as she performed the ritual that would cost her her own life.

“Halliyah, are you alright?” Giorg asked me. I had tightened my fists. Whether I was angry with her or at myself, I wasn't sure.

“She didn't even give me a chance to say goodbye,” I answered. “It's not fair. Who was she to decide who lives and who dies anyways?” I felt something poke into my side, about where I remembered putting that letter she gave me. Reaching into my cloak revealed it, though contact with the water had smeared some of the ink. A few of the words were still legible on the front.

May the gods forgive me and judge my heart light enough to enter into the Seventh Heaven.

“Ironic,” I said to myself, looking at the letter. “Hattu most certainly did not enter the Seventh Heaven.”

“You have a chance to say goodbye now,” Giorg told me.

I looked back at Hilami’s corpse. She was still smiling as if she had just laid down for a nap. Part of me expected her to wake up at any moment. That was not meant to be. She was gone and I was here. Part of me wanted to learn the ritual she used so I could bring her back at my own expense. She wasted that magic on me, I thought to myself. I wanted to say so many things to her, things she would never have the opportunity to hear again.

“Foolish girl,” I told her, the tears welling up as I did so. I never had a chance to send her favorite insult back at her in life, so it was better late than never. “I didn't ask you to bring me back. Still… Thank you. Thank you for everything. You were good to me. Dare I say, you were a good friend.”

“We should arrive at Freehold by nightfall,” Giorg told me. “We're supposed to figure out where to go from here. There's been so much he said, she said over the past several days it would be a miracle if we even still have an alliance by the time we get there. Should I tell the others about your return?’

“No,” I told him. “We shan't tell anyone.”

“We shan't?” Giorg asked. “Not even Ipas?”

“Okay, we can tell her,” I corrected myself. “But we mustn't tell anyone else. The Demon Lord has eyes everywhere. The fewer people who know, the better. We'll surprise the others when we get to Freehold.”

Dead… alive… I had been there and back again. The whole thing felt so unusual. I was half expecting to be some rotten husk of myself given how long I had been dead. From what I could see of myself, however, there were no signs of decay. Nothing appeared to be missing from me other than -

“My sword,” I whispered. “Where is my sword?”

“I have it in safekeeping,” Giorg answered quickly. “You should have seen yourself when Ipas fished you out of the water, still gripping onto the damned thing like your life depended on it. You were awfully strong for someone who just died.”

“Died…” I remembered. I had been so quick to return to my life after waking up that my recent trip to the afterlife kept slipping away. “Damn it, what was it they said about The Choosing? Victory or death…”

“Halliyah, what are you talking about?”

“That ritual King Hattu conducted that dragged me into this mess,” I explained. “It's one of the forbidden spells. It puts a curse on the recipient forcing them to answer to a calling against their will. Only success or death can free them from that curse. I died, so that means…”

“That means…?”

“It means I'm free from that blasted curse,” I realized. “That changes everything.”

“Your curse has been lifted,” Giorg agreed. “Now what?”

“Bring Ipas in here,” I answered. “I have a plan.”

•

As Giorg predicted, we arrived at the city of Freehold right as the Watcher's eye dipped below the Western Dorns. Night had arrived, and it was yet some time before the Watcher's night eye opened. We waited for everyone to disembark before the three of us made our move. The goal was to surprise everyone with my return, but we had to sneak through the city to do so.

The streets of Freehold were surprisingly devoid of life. To be fair to the residents, it was nighttime. In the midst of a war, very few reasons existed for people to run around outside in a half-destroyed city. All the better for us, however, as we made our way to the library, where Giorg said the alliance leaders would gather tonight for a meeting.

Giorg's intuition was correct yet again; the royals and other leaders had gathered in the library to discuss their respective plans for the coming days. Judging from what we could hear through the library doors, none of them were too happy about recent events.

“The chosen hero is dead,” one of the men inside said. “There is… done here. We have lost.”

“It is not over yet,” a loud, commanding voice, probably that of Gihri, countered. “To admit… consign ourselves to a fate worse than death.”

“The elves, humans, ogres, and everyone else… together, and we won,” a dwarf agreed.

“It was only a fluke…” another person argued.

“My father… allies on the battlefield,” the dwarf continued.

“Ayya… right under our noses… against those odds?”

Gihri continued, “Well, there has… can do to stop this.”

“The apple… tree,” someone else said. “You are too stubborn… nothing we can do.”

The library fell silent apart from the occasional prayer. Many of those in there saw no hope on the horizon. Gihri, much like his father, tried to keep the situation under control to no avail. For many, defeat had already come.

Ipas quietly performed a gift of sight ritual in an attempt to track troop movements. Giorg paced from one end of the hall to the other wondering what to do next. I continued to listen closely to the goings on inside the library. The people inside engaged in light chatter amongst themselves. Gihri put up a vote on whether to continue the fight or give up and return home. But I had a plan.