SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Three: Broken Souls
The forest of Majoricka was beautiful. It had tiny bushes and large shady trees that were beginning to shed their yellowing leaves as autumn approached. She was walking through the woods, beaming as she thought about meeting him when her ears were struck with the most horrific scream she had ever heard. She stopped walking and cringed at the shrill echo. Whomever the sound came from was in a lot of pain and obviously needed help. She started running in the direction the scream came from. It was getting louder with each passing second. She neared a lake where a girl sat under a lofty Birch tree, pulling on her hair. Her dress was in shambles, her body covered in deep scratches. It seemed as though she was in excruciating pain. Amara approached the girl whose face was covered in scars along with her hands that were extremely white. Flinching at her appearance, she nearly took a step back. She wanted to help her, if there was any way she could.
The sun was starting to set in the horizon and it was becoming darker around. Tiny stars were appearing in the now inky blue sky. She had to get out of the woods soon, or there were chances of her getting lost. Besides, she was alone apart from the petrified girl in front of her. Looking around to see if she could get anyone to help her, she knelt down beside the girl who had her eyes tightly shut as tears rolled down her cheeks; but Amara noticed that those were no tears. What dripped freely out of her eyes was blood. She hesitantly placed a shaking hand onto the girl’s shoulder; who showed no reaction apart from screaming again. Amara bit her lower lip in nervousness. Why has no one else heard the cries of this girl?
“What happened to you?” Amara gathered her courage to ask.
Suddenly, the girl stopped screaming and opened her eyes to look at Amara. She flinched away at the sight of the girl’s eyes covered in red blotches. It was frightening. The girl clutched Amara’s wrist, piercing her skin.
“Help me,” the girl croaked while Amara tried to get out of her grasp.
“I—how do I help you?” She asked timidly.
“They’ll kill me. They will torture me,” she whimpered.
“Who will kill you?”
The girl did not reply, but her eyes flickered away from Amara and she stared ahead vacantly. Then she raised a trembling hand and pointed her index finger to where she was looking. Amara turned her head around slowly to see what the girl was pointing at. What she saw was something she hadn’t imagined in her wildest dreams. It was Leo, her Leo, who stood there fiercely with a torch of fire in his hand. He was staring straight at the girl as though he had no idea that Amara was present.
“Leo?” She whispered and he looked at her but his expression did not change.
A moment later, he was looking at the girl again. Amara shivered in fright wondering what was going to happen. She was confused as to how Leo had anything to do with the tortured girl next to her.
“You can’t run away anymore,” Leo snarled at the girl, taking a step forward.
Suddenly Amara saw a few other men joining Leo from behind some trees. The girl’s grip on her hand loosened and Amara turned to look at her.
“Run,” she whispered.
Amara stared at her dumbfounded. She had no clue what was going on.
“Run,” the girl said again.
Before she could do anything, Leo was grabbing her arm from behind and pulling her up to her feet. Amara struggled under his grip, grunting and flailing vigorously as she tried to break free.
“Stop moving or I’ll have to kill you as well,” he snarled into her ear and she no longer recognized the man that she had fallen in love with.
“What are you doing?” She shrieked when the men snatched the girl from the ground forcefully. Amara felt as though they would rip her apart into two.
The men started chanting something that she was unable to understand. Leo loosened his grip on her and pushed her away. He walked over to where the girl stood flaccid in control of those men. The chanting did not stop. It infuriated Amara. The noise, deafening, gave her unbearable chills. Amara started screaming. It was beginning to make her nerves rattle. She was sure that she heard the girl screech as well and felt like someone was setting her on fire, as though the flames were engulfing her into the pain that she was now starting to feel from her toes. Her whole body was shaking while the men circled around with their weapons clanking together, making noises that made her feel as though her head was about to explode. She screamed louder when she felt a hand grab her from the waist and pull her somewhere. Her eyes shut, and she let out another cry as the pain increased with the sound of the chants.
Then everything was silent. Amara opened her eyes to find the girl gone with a pile of ash on the ground in front of her. She looked at the strangely perilous looking me; Leo included as he stood before her sneering heartlessly as he held the torch. That was the only light in the otherwise darkened forest. Amara felt as though she was one with the girl who was now nothing but ashes. Those terrifying men surrounded her holding deadly weapons; weapons to kill her in one go.
“Holy spirit, I pray to thee; to end the realm of witches, wizards, warlocks and sorcerers of great power. I pray to thee for solace . . . I pray to thee for destruction . . . I pray to thee for the demolition of all the rituals and the spells . . . of all the crafts of witches . . . the end to immortals and end to the carnal. I pray to thee for destruction of them all,” their chant began, first a whisper, but now gaining strength, volume and momentum.
The burning sensation began once again, trickling up through her toes and slowly encompassing her whole body. She let out another scream as she stood there shivering with the pain that chant was inflicting upon her. Her eyes began to burn as the men circled around her and started to chant those words again, which infuriated her beyond measure. Her knuckles were turning white as she dug her nails into her palms, and her eyelids painfully squeezing shut.
A moment later, she was running unaware of where she was going. Her feet scraped the ground wildly as she ran to save herself from those men who were agitating enough for her to want to kill them all. Her dress entangled in the fallen branches of the trees, making her escapes a real struggle. She could hear them following her and it would not be long until one of them caught hold of her and ended her life just like the girl before her.
***
Killing was easy. It was calming, peaceful even. Sometimes she felt more alive after a kill. She closed her eyes, inhaling the soothing scent of blood and Death that lingered around her, surrounding all her senses. Death was something she looked forward to, because every time she killed someone, a part of her died inside and that made her feel closer to herself; the pieces of her soul scattered inside her that she tried to assemble every single time she killed. The coldness of the blood, the colour of it, the free-falling rain . . . everything was her way of finding solace. She did not have to think at all. It came so naturally that her fingers danced as she killed. Bloodlust travelled inside every vein, every particle of her body and she rested herself in front of the dead, the three corpses that lay before her, covered in blood. Training someone has never been better, she thought.
Iris was standing there wide-eyed with her hands wilted at her sides. The effortlessness that Amara had while killing was beyond the limits of her imagination. Never in her wildest dreams had she thought that she would be witnessing a killing, let alone three. She could only stare blankly, unable to move an inch or utter a single word. She was surprised as to how she was breathing. There were three dead bodies in front of her, and Amara had killed them so easily that Iris could not even comprehend what was happening. It had happened that fast. It seemed like someone or something had meddled with her brain so badly that she was afraid it would make her go insane. Not every day she saw three people being murdered mercilessly.
Moreover, there was no doubt that it was nothing but ordinary for Amara. It seemed like second nature to her when she fearlessly stared at the trembling figure of a man who stood there dumbstruck as she merely lifted a hand to slit his throat. She had raced after the other man who began running as soon as his companion was killed but she caught him in a swift motion, a little above the ground. Grabbing his robe, she had brought him down to the ground and plunged the dagger deep into his throat, sliding downward in one go and stopping at his ribcage. The last one was a woman already on the verge of fainting as she started taking steps backwards, until she had her back pressed against the bark of an oak tree. Amara stood there holding the blood-spattered dagger threateningly.
A moment later, Iris saw the dagger fly towards the woman, and she nearly thought that it had vanished somewhere, but when her eyes shot up, the dagger was right between the woman’s forehead leaving her eyes wide open as she stood there limp, head stuck to the bark of the tree. If this was not traumatizing, Iris did not know what was. She fell to the ground, drenched in the rain that had begun a few moments ago. She stared blankly at Amara, who stood there contentedly as she closed her eyes and pulled the dagger out of the woman’s head and the body fell to the ground. Amara turned to look at Iris who sat there shivering. She did not know what to think or what to do. Amara crouched in front of Iris incomprehensibly.
“Is this really necessary?” Iris whimpered, tears blinding her vision and mingling with the rain.
“You’re going to be killing those who go against our kind, Iris. You have no choice. This is your life now,” Amara replied, standing up.
Iris followed her movements, gathering her courage to stand up after everything that she had just witnessed. They strode towards the castle; Amara moving unreservedly calm while Iris staggering. Two nights ago, she had no idea that she would have to witness murder and be told that she was supposed to do the same throughout her existence. If only suicide was an option here, she thought. However, hours before she came here to watch people die, she was given a potion that made sure she lived longer than humans ever did. They called it the Elixir of Immortality. Why she had agreed to take it was something she could not put a finger on. The moment Amara had ordered her to drink it, Iris had asked no questions because the way that witch was looking at her, it made her feel as though acting smart would render torture again.
One thing she had experienced after joining this world was that whenever she felt as though she did not belong here, she would be inflicted with torturous amounts of pain, whose origin she was unaware of. It was blinding, burning, and its sheer force broke every piece of her soul. It was killing, yet it kept her eyes open to the pain and awakened her senses. She shuddered every time the thought occurred.
“How was it?”
Iris snapped her head to find Erasmus stood before her excitedly. She had not even realized that they had reached the castle and Amara had already gone, leaving her in Erasmus’s chamber. He expectantly waited for her to reply but she could not – for the life of her – utter a word. Erasmus was not surprised. When he had first met this timid girl, she had been terrified of her surroundings, which made him want to console her but everyone knew the rules: Conjurers in training were not supposed to be given any kind of affection.
It would be meddling with their strength to cope with things. Therefore, Erasmus had ignored his will to comfort her. When he had told her everything about the world of Conjurers that she was completely unaware of, she had not reacted the way that he expected her to. Normally a new witch would have been shocked and terrified of the harsh realities but Iris remained quiet and nodded every time he said anything to her. She was calm and even though it seemed as though she would explode, she never did. Her mind seemed to be filled with thoughts that she could not collect and decipher.
Her reaction to the murders was something that Erasmus was expecting. He knew that it would catch her off guard and make her extremely uncomfortable. When she stood before him in eerie silence, he made her sit on a chair and took the other side of the table resting between them. She had not taken her eyes off the floor all the time, not after he spoke to her, and not when he moved her to sit on the chair.
“Iris, what did you see?” He asked, even though he was perfectly aware of what Amara had shown to her.
She was the darkest, most brutal witch that Lord Lucifer had ever created and everyone was afraid of her. She spoke to no one but the Lord and only did what he asked of her. She liked to be alone. Nobody wanted to interfere with her loneliness. Erasmus had tried his hardest to figure her out but he could never do it. One moment he thought he knew her, the second she would become something else and he would be confused again, going back to start. There was no one as mysterious, as dark and potentially interesting as Amara was. Nevertheless, now, Iris was his job and he had to know what she had seen.
“She killed three people,” her murmur, almost inaudible, “Effortlessly!” her voice getting clearer, louder. “I honestly don’t know what made her do that and how she can remain so calm after murdering someone.” A look of shock and disbelief had spread on her visage now.
“They were supposed to die,” Erasmus added.
“Nobody deserves to die like that. It was pure, cold-blooded murder.” She countered.
Iris kept her gaze locked to the floor as though trying to understand what the reason for such brutal killings was. Erasmus began telling her the reason that made them commit those murders.
“This is the job we all have to do. We do not kill humans unless we have a reason. They are witch-hunters, a threat to our existence, and we kill them because that is the only way we protect our kind. Humans have never really appreciated us. They have always thought we are dangerous and ruthless. Those who dare to challenge and go against us are to meet with this fate. Witchcraft is something humans fail to understand and that is why some of them want to end us. The result is that they become witch-hunters,” he said.
Iris listened to him attentively, but she was still unable to wrap her mind around the fact that this was going to be her job. She had to fight with the ones that were a threat to her existence. Those visions she saw in her dreams seemed so much more real now that she saw them happening while she was wide-awake with all her senses alert. It all made the dreams seem easier to understand. Earlier she had been avoiding those dreams and she was succeeding at that, but now that this was her life, she did not know how she would avoid any of it.
“Maybe they go against us because people think Conjurers are evil?” She said, now looking at Erasmus.
He gave her a small smile, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table between them.
“We’re only evil when they are. The difference is that we’re stronger and more powerful than fifty of them combined,” he shrugged, standing up. Giving Iris one last thoughtful look he strode out of the chamber.
She had to work on some of the things by herself. Erasmus was there to help her, but the answers to some of the questions could only be answered on her own. Her journey now was with herself. Iris sat still in her spot contemplating as to what Erasmus had just told her. Her mind wandered back to the time when her parents recited bedtime stories about witches and how people had killed them and made them suffer because they did bad things. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that she would turn out to be one. When she had talked to Erasmus two nights ago, it had been awfully easy for him to know nearly everything about her, starting from when she was born up until now. He knew everything. She was surprised at the amount of things that his brain could hold. But then again, he did say they were more powerful than humans were, so their minds would obviously be sharper.
“All the things that you were capable of, while in your human surroundings, including the dreams; it was all because you are not a usual mortal. You were always a witch. You were always different. That is why they stayed away from you. Humans only accept those who are sane enough like them; one tiny difference and you become the outcast. The qualities of being a Conjurer that were born with you never left you. They reminded you of who you were. If only you could have deciphered your dreams, you would have known who you actually are. Now you can learn everything. You will learn to invade minds, manipulate them, and you will make people do whatever you wish. You will control their very existence once we train you. Every witch has one quality that becomes their identity and your quality is controlling minds. The dreams you had were just a reflection of what was going to happen in future. You can control those dreams now,” Erasmus had told her when she was curiously questioning him.
His answers confused her; in some way, she did not know what he meant by them, yet she knew what he was trying to say. The more questions she asked, the more he put her mind in a mess. He never gave her a simple answer. If the questions were confusing enough, so were his answers. However, she was aware that he helped. Had he not, she would have been clueless. With Amara training her by killing people all the time, she would have ended up going insane.
Iris stood up and looked at the dove on another table in a corner. Every dove symbolized a human that was killed, Erasmus had told her. They used doves for those souls to reside in before sacrificing them in a ritual that happened roughly every two months in the sacrificial chamber of the castle. He had advised Iris not to go there. They kept the doves in a chamber for a night and then escorted them away for the ritual. Apart from the Lord and Amara, no one went in the chamber where they sacrificed doves as a symbol for those human souls.
Iris realized now that even after their Death, the world did not leave those souls alone. Every soul was destroyed and it only increased the power of the one who killed them. She understood how Amara seemed powerful and enigmatic every time she ended a life. The euphoria that she felt while murdering, was strong enough for even Iris to feel it.
She stared out the window as cold air flooded in and chills ran down her spine. She could clearly see souls of dead Conjurers roaming around but never getting out of the graveyard. Iris saw a figure lying on the branch of a tree, one hand hanging at the side, long hair flowing like waves in the air, and a ruffled black gown, sashaying as the wind blew past, yet it all looked elegant. It surprised Iris as to how calm Amara could be with no trace of any emotion on her face. She truly is magnificent, Iris thought.
Amara closed her eyes, a slight smile on her face, of which one would question the existence. She breathed in the cold air as it calmed her from head to toe, creating a series of silent rhythms playing in her ears. That was what she always felt after a kill: calmness and peace. For her, killing those humans was like killing Leo – the one who had ended her family, her friends and everyone that belonged to her kind, thinking that they practiced dark witchcraft. Hard as she tried, the vision flashed into her mind repeatedly whenever she killed.
***
He chased after her along with the other men that had killed the girl in those woods while she somehow tried to make her legs move faster. She knew that they were close and would catch up to her any moment. She was not wrong, a few more steps later, despite all her efforts, Leo had grabbed her leg from behind and she fell to the ground; eliciting a flood of tears. She tried not to make a sound as he pulled her hair and made her sit up. Her back was knocked onto the bark of a tree. Blood trickled out from the back of her head, as she felt it drip onto her gown, making her queasy as she winced in pain. Leo got on his knees before her and she looked away not wanting to see his face. He grabbed her chin, forcing her to look in his direction as he gave her a murderous look, the same one that he had when he killed that girl.
“Where is your family?” He probed, as she struggled to turn her face away.
Infuriated at her unresponsiveness, he took her by her hair and pulled on it hard so her head was now twisted backwards, making her cry out her pain.
“What do you want from me?” She managed, aside all the pain, her eyes shut at the excruciating pain she was experiencing.
She was unable to believe that it was her Leo; she wanted to know what made him behave in this manner all of sudden. How could he be this cruel . . . this merciless? He was not the man she had fallen for a year ago. This man was someone she failed to recognize at all.
“Tell me where they are!” He snarled, jerking at her hair again.
She groaned in pain, blood flowing faster out of the wound and the burning sensation increasing. She was finding it hard to breathe.
“R-R-ose cl-iff,” she stammered and he let go of her with such force that she fell back down to the ground. Her vision blurred, her senses almost concussed.
“Take her to the dungeons. We need her to know the locations of the others. Don’t let her die.” She heard Leo say and moments later, they tied ropes around her wrists and lifted her up to standing. The ropes slashed across her skin and she squeezed her eyes shut at the stinging pain. Her head felt heavier than ever and she struggled to stand in place.
“Follow me,” ordered one of the men and she silently obeyed, not wanting to go through any more pain.
She limped behind the man, trying to keep track of where he was going but she could barely walk straight; her vision was foggy and she felt as though she was about to faint. Somehow she kept her gaze locked on to the man and followed him, tripping on stones every now and then. He led her to a huge cave-like structure, and wide doors opened to allow them inside. Amara stopped walking as her legs became weaker and weaker. She dropped to the floor, struggling to get rid of the pain. The man turned around, and grabbing her by the elbow, he forcefully pulled her up to standing. He dragged her further in and she heard a few noises from around her that sounded like wails and cries, similar to the ones that she had heard from the girl in the woods. She wondered why they were there; she wondered why she was there. The scalding sensation began once again from the wound on her head as blood dripped out faster. She was sure she would faint soon enough.
The man pulled at her arm and pushed her into a cell, closing the gates and locking her in. Not being able to keep her eyes open any longer, she let them shut by themselves as she collapsed on the floor.
It seemed as though years had passed when she woke up and found herself on a blanket with her head wrapped in a bandage and her wrists bleeding under the ropes cutting through her skin. Ignoring the pain, she tried standing up but there was no strength left inside her. She wondered if Leo had tended to the wound on her head but thought otherwise when she realized that he was the one who gave it to her.
“They killed your parents,” said a voice from her side and she turned to look at the source.
It was a young boy. He sat in a corner of the cell with his legs bound in chains. She watched him perplexed.
“I saw it. Your parents were burnt alive. Even your brother . . . their hands were tied up onto a pole. They were—”
“STOP!”
***
Amara found herself jerking upright. Tiny beads of sweat glistened on her forehead as she bit her lower lip. A slight fear crept up into her veins but she pushed it away quickly, telling herself she did not have to feel anything. Everything was over. It was past. It was gone and it had been more than a hundred years she lost it all. She was not supposed to be thinking about it. Letting herself fall gently onto the ground she made her way towards the lake, placed her foot into the cold, chilly water, and then proceeded to walk further in. Wind caressed her face and she dipped her head into the water, pulling herself out again after a few moments. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head upwards and let out a loud scream. The water gushed around her in waves as the wind traversed faster upon hearing the sound. She let herself scream as loud as she could and all of the pain disappeared. Then she dipped her head below into the water one last time.
At a distance, Iris had her eyes focussed on Amara, who had vanished into the water. She realized right then that she had just seen what Amara had seen. That vision had made Amara seem vulnerable for a few moments. Iris now understood what Erasmus had meant when he said that she could invade minds. She had just entered Amara’s mind and seen what she had seen, felt every bit of what Amara had felt. Iris had seen and felt every bit of Amara’s pain and loss.