As the healing magic dissipated, Geral awoke from his slumber feeling fully restored, energized, and powerful. He heard a woman's voice sigh in exhaustion after the long and arduous task of healing him and wanted to show his gratitude.

"Thank you, my dear," he said, lifting his head.

In the darkness, he felt her body close to his face and breathed in her scent, planting a kiss on her breast. But to his surprise, he was violently pushed away. He froze in panic, feeling her sudden repulsion. Had he done something to upset her?

"Is everything okay, my love?" he asked, wondering what had gone wrong.

“Something wrong? I just finished healing you, but I'm not here to cater to your whims, you ruffian,” the voice replied with a higher pitch than Anabella's, and it was not her way of speaking: while Anabella's voice was tranquil and level, this person's voice added a chanted note, a strange accent when ending longer words.

His vivid memory of holding Anabella before made him panic, realizing she was not the one with him now.

“Who are you? What did you do to Anabella? Where is she?” he asked, trying to peer through the almost complete darkness.

As the hands kept pushing him away, he grabbed hold of her hands and felt two weak, warm, and satin-like hands in his.

“Where is Anabella?” he asked again, feeling a bout of panic and despair taking hold of him, starting to realize that maybe he had only imagined that he was with Anabella.

"She's right there!" the voice replied, and Geral breathed a sigh of relief.

He felt her hand pointing in a direction, and he looked to where it was indicating.

There was a faint light flickering in the darkness, so faint that he almost thought he was only imagining it. That light defined what seemed to be Anabella's silhouette, which filled him with joy.

"Anabella!" he exclaimed, dropping the hand he was holding and leaping towards her.

But he tripped over something and fell face-first onto her belly.

"No!" the voice behind him screamed in horror.

He felt something move beneath his face. It was Anabella, embalmed just as she was the day before. How was this possible? Hadn't the inquisitor burned her body? He felt her embalmed hand on his neck.

"Papa?" It was Anabella's voice, yet it wasn't quite her voice.

The other person pushed him aside.

"No, no, no! It's too soon!"

"Mama? Is it too soon?"

"Yes, my dear," the voice said. "Close your eyes, concentrate. You're too weak to stand just yet. You need to build up more strength; let it accumulate."

"Yes, Mama."

The woman took Geral's hand and pulled him along, leaving him feeling bewildered as he followed her. After a few paces, she came to a stop and spun around, causing Geral to narrowly avoid bumping into her.

With an exasperated tone, she whispered to him,

"What have you done, you fool? She is not ready for her rebirth yet! And why would you want to impose your authority on her?"

"What do you mean?" - a dismayed Geral asked, not understanding her allegation, his confusion growing.

He heard Anabella's moans coming from a distance.

The woman let out another sigh and tightened her grip on his hand before pulling him closer. In a hushed voice, she whispered into his ear, "Please, speak softly. Speaking loudly or angrily could disturb her and potentially affect her newly formed personality."

The idea of a new personality for Anabella sent a shiver down Geral's spine.

Geral nodded, but realizing that she probably did not see his nod in the darkness, spoke in a whisper,

"I understand!"

He tried to think things through, trying at the same time to calm his accelerating heartbeats. It seemed that through some wonder, Anabella was alive. Besides her allegations, the woman seemed to be well-intentioned and to know much more than him about undead rebirth.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down, and decided to ask some questions to clarify the situation.

"Where are we? I saw Anabella's body being burned; how is she here? And who are you?" he asked, his voice more steady now.

The woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath before answering his last question.

"My name is Algartavaretha De'Rona."

"Derona? Are you the fugitive slave?" Geral asked, sounding surprised. Algar let out a sigh of frustration. She couldn't believe how incompetent these humans were; they couldn't even pronounce her name correctly.

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It felt like an unjust twist of fate that she, a superior and well-educated elf, was forced to rely on these humans in an impossible situation.

At only thirty-three years old, she had barely lived three-quarters of a single long year, being the youngest daughter of a low-level noble family. To the elves, a long year - also called an ethean year - was a complete rotation of Ethea around Ghomer, which they referred to as Ahmer. They believed that only those who had lived through at least three ethean years could be considered mature, which would equate to almost one hundred twenty-one years.

"De'Rona, not Derona." - she whispered.

She had two sisters, one of them about to turn three ethean years old, signifying her coming of age, and her family was preparing to properly celebrate that.

Algar had, for the first time in her life, left their province, not accompanied by her parents, to buy a gift for her sister's celebration.

Although the republic was amicable towards elves, and many of them shopped in the republic's capital, her father had only allowed her to go to the border town and asked her to return the same day, as soon as she had bought her present.

The trip to the border town and back was a five-day round trip, but her father wanted her to sleep only in what he called elf-secure land.

Although she wasn't allowed to spend the night in that border town, she found herself unable to decide which gift to purchase. When a merchant told her that a fresh shipment of goods from the empire would arrive the following day, she made the decision to stay put.

She even convinced her friend Friga to stay with her for the night in order to not be the only one disobeying her parents.

It was the next day that her life had suddenly taken a devastating turn.

The caravan with fresh goods did indeed arrive, but with it came a band of raiders.

The two mercenaries her father had hired to guard them had either run away or been killed, and Algar ended up being captured. Even though she had disclosed her noble name, De'Rona, as she had been instructed to do when talking with humans, they still imprisoned her and put her in chains. They even laughed at her.

She could still remember the fear in Friga's eyes as she watched from beneath her cloak, hidden in plain view under the water fountain in the center of the town. They both looked at each other, she in chains looking at the frightened Friga trembling under the running water, and yet Friga, the silly Friga, who was always second to her in everything they competed, had escaped the slavers while she had been caught.

It had been three weeks since that fateful day, and Algar was still reeling from the horror and misery of it all. She couldn't make sense of what had happened to her, reduced to being nothing more than a prisoner in the hands of humans.

During the first few days, she had been cooped up in a carriage on her way to Silver City with the caravan. Though she had been treated relatively well, being confined to a cage was bad enough.

But that was just the beginning of her ordeal. She was sold off like a mere commodity, with no one willing to help or listen to her pleas. Even worse, to silence her, she had been forced to wear a cage over her head that clamped down on her tongue.

And then came the shocking realization that she was meant to be sacrificed.

Sacrificed? No! That did not make sense! It was too much for her to process.

The only person who showed her any compassion was the undead, Anabella, whom she had initially feared more than anyone else.

As a trainee working to become a white mage, she recognized that Anabella was an undead.

And yet Anabella was the only person willing to talk and listen to her. With time she had learned that Anabella had been a white mage too. White mages had similar spells to priests dedicated to life magic, but they did not draw their magic power from their flock of believers as priests did. She was aspiring to become a white mage of the third moon, exactly what Anabella was.

Perhaps that was why Anabella wanted to help her.

They had spoken several times in their elvish language. The guards were lenient with Anabella, and she had used it to talk with her.

Initially, Algar thought that Anabella only wanted to extract information about the elves from her. In her desperation, she was willing to give any information hoping in exchange that her father would somehow find out where she was and buy her freedom.

But as the date of her sacrifice came closer, she grew increasingly panicked.

Slowly a nascent friendship developed between the two elves. As they plotted her escape, she learned more about Anabella and her strange family. Elves did have very strong family bonds. Was this how the undead woman tried to regain her humanity? Could undead care about other people?

But Anabella was risking everything for her; was that not proof enough that she cared?

”If something happens to you, I'll take care of your children, of course! I swear on my magic, I'll do that!”

That had been only several days ago.

And now? Now she was completely over her head in this human mess. What could a youngling like her do? She was not even one ethean year old! But these humans seemed to be even more ignorant than she was. How could they possibly have a functioning society?

She corrected Geral, knowing full well that he will again spell her name wrongly next time:

“Not Derona, De'Rona. Algartavaretha De'Rona. The particle De' means that I am of a noble family, the Rona family! My father is Algarthorus De'Rona, and my mother Varetha De'Rona!”

She took a deep breath. For weeks she had been wanting to say that, but the fear of that dreadful cage over her head had tempered her tongue. It was so liberating to be able to say it! It was bringing her closer to her true life, not this horror that was all around her. She closed her eyes and added.

”Anabella did save my life, and I am deep in her debt,” - she opened her eyes and looked straight into his - “but this does not mean that I am your slave and you can do what you want with me!”

Maybe the effect would have been greater if he had seen her.

Geral sighed and shrugged. Why was she repeating her name? Alga-what Derona?

“Look, Derona, you misunderstood me. I have no interest in slaves. Would you be so kind and tell me what is happening?”

Algar narrowed her eyes. Humans, they like to leave things unclear to then pretend it is how they see it.

“Why did you try to abuse me? Why did you force yourself on me?”

Geral closed his eyes and bit his lower lip. One needs nerves of steel to be able to talk with this girl, he thought. He tried to explain himself:

“I did not try to abuse you. I thought you were my Anabella!”

“How can you say that? I do not look like Anabella? My hair is green with pink lines! How could you say you mistook me for her when her hair is completely silver-white?!”

Geral snorted.

“I did not even see if you have hair on your head in this darkness, not to talk about its color?!”

“Phah, don't pretend that you are that blind?” - she wondered. At least he did not continue to molest her; that was a plus!

Geral rolled his eyes.

“Oh, come on! Would you please... Ouch! Hey! Why did you stick your finger in my eye?”

Algar huffed, surprised. He did not even blink when she did stick her finger in his eye. Well, yes, he did blink after she had done it.

“You really are that blind?” - she wondered, then decided to explain to him - “OK, we are in the Darkwing tomb!”