The price for a cure

Krav's expression drained of any other emotion except shock and disbelief. He didn't even know what to answer with. Not a sound escaped him. 

"This text is from a time, imperceptible to us. So long ago, even the seeds of our civilization haven't been born yet to be planted." Rana scurried over to grab the book from her desk and show it to him. The page had a painted image of what looked like a mage, looming over a corpse with wide open eyes. A red circle with eerie symbols, scribbled with blood, surrounded him and the ritual table. "Nesretan the Magi writes about his experiments that bring back the living from death. As you can imagine, there was a lot of trial and error involved. Until he found this." Her slender, clawed finger pointed to the golden chalice in the painted mage's hand. Teal liquid sloshed inside, tipping over the edge in droplets. "This is what we need."

He had grown quiet for what felt like hours. His face froze the way hers had, when her eyes first gazed upon the golden apple he brought her. She left the book in his lap for him to study, but his mind couldn't register the strange, archaic scribbles, written on the pages. 

"It almost sounds too good to be true." He murmured. The sting of an antiseptic liquid didn't register in his mind. 

"It's worth a try."

"What do you want to do?"

"Since you have proven yourself, I'll tell you what we need to do. There is a legend... In the land of Nav, the underworld, it is believed that there are two neverending fountains. One spills living water. The other - dead water." Her hands grew more insistent in their movements. A needle pierced his skin, where the flesh was torn by the dragon's claws and stitched it back together with thread. "The living is what we want. This water washes the underworld and traverses through its caverns and labyrinths. But water always finds a way out. That is where our waters come from. This fountain feeds and nourishes our world."

"But the Lamia drained our water sources."

"That's why we have to find the source itself. The Fountain of Living Water in Nav."

"You want to go to the Underworld?!" 

"What would you do to defeat your nemesis?" 

Now came Krav's turn to scowl. His muscles relaxed, where her fingertips grazed his biceps.

"How did Vrag let you have all these books in here without questioning it?"

"I promised him to find the Fountain, so that he can use it for himself."

His limbs grew colder than they already were. "And did you?" His voice came as barely a whisper. 

"Little did he know, I was already plotting his assassination. That's why I'm giving you this information." 

The reassurance did nothing to ease his tension, but gave him an ounce of peace, concerning her intentions. 

"What does he want from the Fountain? Are the plagues not enough for him?"

"He wants to gain immortality from it. An endless rulership over Belgora and the world beyond it. He will raise an army of the people his plagues killed, only they will be subservient to him now. This Fountain will prove to be the answer to all of his plights."

Silence settled over them for a long moment, during which the tension between them grew. So, an army of subjects, resurrected by magic. A foul idea it sounded like... killing off all inhabitants of a land and using magic to raise the corpses as obedient puppets. It was morbid. Uncanny. 

"Then we need to go now." He announced, standing up a bit too fast for his aching body to not protest. "I already lost my brothers. I can't lose any more people I care about. I have to cure this disease he infected me with. I need to..."

"Wait. First, you need to do something else for me"

"Again? What more could you possibly want from me?!"

"I want you to kill everyone who could pose a threat to my claim to the throne in the future."

The macabre request made him freeze in shock. Her cold calculation, the unnerving seriousness she made it with made the blood turn to ice in his veins. Krav watched her, as if he didn't know what he looked at. A reluctant ally? A foe? What did he agree to help in reality? Something worse than what he already faced against?

Princess Rana sensed the hesitation. His fingers twitched against his sides. The wounds on his body suddenly felt numb and didn't ache anymore. With a gentle, fleeting touch, she caressed his bruised cheek. A touch he leaned into, as if he had waited for it his whole life, like a desperate kitten met with kindness for the first time in its life. The waves of her ember hair obscured his vision like magic, which locked his eyes onto her own dark ones and he could see nothing else... feel nothing else except her soft lips meeting his in a kiss that felt too tender for this cruel world. A kiss, which surged feelings of foolish bravery inside his undead heart, beating to protect this gentle touch with his life, which felt like the unscathed golden apple tree, amid the ruin of the world. 

When she depleted him of the feeling once again, his breath caught and he found himself chasing after her lips in search for more. But the princess backed away to look into his glazed over eyes. 

"I beg you. We may have only one chance to do something to save ourselves and this wretched world. I won't ask you for anything more or promise grand gestures. I only want you to trust me."

"Who do I have to kill?" His own composure shattered. His tone trembled. Nails dug into the palms of his hands to stop them from shaking. He couldn't believe his own words. Like a stranger had spoken them and turned him into a spectator of his own life. The kiss still lingered on his lips and his unfocused eyes stared into the floorboards, mind frozen in that fleeting moment he wanted to burn into his memory and make it eternity. 

"Sumrak, the Magi, who lives in hiding and plots to overthrow our evil overlord." Rana returned to her desk and leaned on it. "Lesh, the priest of Veles, is also forming an army against him. I hear he works with my brother Mratin." Her eyes trailed over to him again, as if to see if he is still under her spell. "Who I found out had survived. And you must finish off."