[https://i.imgur.com/VGCFMQy.png]

Refenial stood next to Obit as he looked at the mushroom cloud, some whisper in his memory. Perhaps, a vestigial spark of instinct left from the person he'd been before; screamed in the back of his mind. Screamed that that cloud was a symbol of death, more terrifying than any other. He didn't need that faint warning, though. The obliterated forest that burned and smouldered in places, not a tree left upright for miles, spoke for itself.

"Wow," Obit whispered next to him.

Refenial felt a breeze as something moved behind him. He turned to look. It took him a second to recognize the figure.

Old Mother Hecate floated unsteadily towards the stone table at the centre of the ruins. She had aged now to the point she no longer looked human. Every bump and nodule of her skull was visible through the sallow skin of her bald head. There was not an ounce of fat on her body, and skin hung from her body in wrinkled pools.

She lay on the table looking more like a corpse in repose than a living person.

Obit Began running towards her. Refenial moved slowly, both wary of what might be beneath the vines and also to open his soul eyes as he did. The motes of mana in the ruins barely moved, only a few being gently drawn towards the failing enchantment on the old woman's soul.

"Wow! Did you make that happen, Old Mother Hecate? That was amazing! I bet all the monsters are dead. Did the village get damaged? I bet Daddy will be cross that all those monsters were running all over his fields." Obit began babbling excitedly at the old woman, seemingly unperturbed by her horrific state.

Refenial closed his soul's eyes and approached Hecate. She muttered something, her voice too faint to make out.

"Where's everyone else? Will they be coming here too?" Obit asked, seeming to have quickly recovered from his ordeal in the village moments ago.

"Are you ok?" Refenial asked the ruined crone softly, instantly berating himself for asking such an obvious question. He looked over at the excited Obit and turned to the young boy putting his hand on his shoulder. "I think that took a lot out of her. She probably needs to rest before we talk to her."

Obit began to speak, but Refenial missed what he said, instead focusing on a crow that flew into the ruins, landing on one of the ruin's pillars. The younger boy stopped talking as he followed Refenial's gaze.

A crow. He'd seen nothing living in these ruins other than plants. However, he'd heard a crow on that foggy day he'd first woken. It was strange. Other than the occasional crow, he'd rarely seen birds in the village. Now he thought back to the terrible day he'd fought the wolf and the crows that had saved him.

It all seemed odd, sinister, but maybe he was overthinking it. The crows had saved him.

K-Kaw K-Kaw, the crow cried out into the frosty silent air of the night.

Old Mother Hecate whispered something. Refenial glanced down at her "D-Don't trust her." he heard the woman faintly whisper.

Refenial looked up as a figure walked into the ruin from between the Menheirs.

She walked through with an unhurried gait of supreme confidence and authority. She was tall, with long raven black hair, pale, fair skin, and red lips. She wore a luxurious ballgown with a scandalously low cut. The dress moved unnaturally, as if it was a thousand dresses that shimmered and roiled between each other as she moved, each dress picking the perfect moment to appear. Her face seemed impossibly beautiful in its regal features. Impossible was the right word, Refenial decided. Her face was flawless, yet he'd have struggled to remember anything about it if he had looked away. It was jarring, as if her face only wore the abstract concept of beauty as a mask, and something else lurked beneath.

"Oh, my poor, poor, little ones." she said in a voice that dripped worry and concern, her mouth turning down in sadness, although there was a hint of hunger behind her eyes.

A feeling of horror crept up Refenial's spine at her words, and as he noticed, what he thought was hair was, in fact, slender feathers that cascaded down her back. "M-Monster." Refenial stuttered

The thing in front of him smiled. "Did your Old Mother never teach you that if you have nothing nice to say, you should say nothing at all?"

Obit raised the sword in his hand up in a threatening posture.

The monster raised its hands soothingly. "now, now, little one. I mean, you no harm. I'm simply here t-. Oh my, Un chosen, little Hildagard must have been so furious."

Obit glanced at Refenial uncertainly.

Refenial stepped forwards. "Who are you?"

"Oh my, didn't she tell you about me? And now she's not in any state to do the introductions. What a quandary." The monster tapped her lip with her sharpened fingernail thoughtfully. "Well, little Sir Obit and wise young Refenial, I am Griselda, some call me the Crow Queen, but we are family, so I think we can do without the formality."

"Family?" Obit asked.

"Ah, she didn't tell you that either. My, my, I despair of all the secrets she keeps.

Old Mother Hecate is a name she made up to hide away. Her real name is Hildergade Crowchild, and she is my daughter, by adoption, of course."

"You're a monster. You eat people; you don't adopt them." Refenial said sceptically.

"Oh, and she has neglected your education too. I truly despair. Monsters only hunger after mortals until their soul is complete. Few live that long, of course. However, those like me that do, after a time, lose the need and can think quite rationally."

"I don't believe you!" Obit shouted.

Griselda smiled sadly at Obit. "And what do you believe, poor, poor, little one? I left Refenial in her care, just like I left that sword in her care, and what do I come to see, the village in ruins and your sword raised against me." She lowered her arms and knelt down to Obit's height even though a significant distance separated them. "She has done you all much wrong, but I am here to make it better. You can both come with me if you want to, and together we can go on grand adventures." She looked up at Refenial. "And together, we can find out why you were in these ruins and help stop whatever that thing is inside you."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I don't believe you. Old Mother Hecate is good. She helped me lots. Like when she stopped the wolf monster," Obit said Hotly.

Griselda nodded softly. "Yes, she helped you, little one, but what about Maxit?"

"The monster killed him. She couldn't save him."

"Oh?" Griselda said doubtfully. She raised her hand up, and an image was projected into the air. It was imperfect in its colours, but it was a recording in soul sight. In it, Maxit was slumped against the tree. Old Mother Hecate stood over him, casting a spell that twisted into the boy, and a second later, he stopped breathing.

Refenial felt ill as he watched and glanced over at Hecate. The look on her face convinced him of the recording's validity.

Bile rose in his throat, and he vomited onto the vines. He'd trusted her, and he'd trusted that she would keep him safe from the monsters like the wolf. He'd slept in the same room as Maxit's murderer, eaten meals together, looked up to her. The whole time he'd been terrified of what was outside the village. He should have been worried about what was inside with him. She'd seemed odd with her strange powers, but despite that, she'd always seemed mundane, a frail old woman, not the murderer that now sat in the image before him. While Griselda might be a monster in the shape of a human, Hecate was something more terrifying, a murderer that could hide behind the dull mundanity of humanity.

"What? I don't get it?" Obit asked, his sword drooping in his hand as he looked back and forth between the looping projection and Refenial.

Refenial spat vomit from his mouth. "She... she killed him."

"But, but, you're a prince, and she's your teacher." The boy babbled, seemingly struggling to take in the situation.

"No! I'm not. She's not. I woke up here with no memory, and something is wrong with my soul."

Griselda hung her head sadly. "Do not blame Refenial. He was under my daughter's influence. She probably made him deceive you."

Obit raised his hands to his ears, shaking his head violently. "It's lies, all lies. I don't believe you!"

"I am truly sorry, sorry for both of you. I trusted my daughter, and she strayed from what is right."

Refenial felt as lost as Obit looked. It all felt surreal, like a waking nightmare.

Obit turned to Old Mother Hecate as she watched him on the slab and raised his sword towards her. "Why?" he asked, his arm shaking.

Griselda approached and placed her hand on Obit's shoulder in tender reassurance.

"She was a troubled child, Obit. She was gifted with true magic in a way I've seen in no mortal before or since. She used it to kill, though. She'd killed many people before I found her. I took her in, gave her a home, and was a loving mother to her. I'm sorry she took everything from you, Obit and used you too, Refenial. I'm sorry that she killed your parents like that, Obit."

"W-wh-what?" Obit asked, his voice cracking with grief.

Griselda looked down sadly at Obit, but for one brief moment, Refenial was sure he caught a hint of amusement in her eyes. "One more evil she leaves burdened on my shoulders to fix. The village is gone, Obit. Your family, the villagers, they're all dead. She murdered them all, just like she did that day in the forest when she murdered Maxit."

The sword fell from Obit's hand as Griselda brought him in for a hug.

"Hush, little one. You can come and live with me, Refenial too." She said, reaching out a hand towards him.

Refenial instinctively moved away, not trusting the monster.

He felt the thing, the horror inside his soul, begin to wildly fight and buck as it took advantage of his horrified mental state. He stumbled and nearly fell as he struggled to breathe under the power of its assault against his soul. He closed his eyes as he tried to focus inwards, but with his mind so jumbled and distraught, nothing happened. The thing redoubled its efforts as cracks began forming across his soul.

He heard Griselda speak, but it was too distant for him to make out.

He tried once more, but as he did, he fell to the ground, his body spasming as convulsions wracked it. The thing was free once more. It began to weave its spell form. His soul's eyes flickered open, and Refenial and the thing looked through them. It spoke to him for the first time through their connection, it didn't use words, but still, its message came through the link. Refenial felt his mind straining to near annihilation to understand the concepts and meaning as if someone had stuffed all human understanding in the brain of an ant.

What little he could understand could be summed up into one short sentence.

I am inevitable.

Refenial saw Griselda weaving a spell form in the air, but with casual disregard, the thing swatted at it with a soul tendril, instantly smashing the spellform. The thing finished its spellform, crushing two more of Griselda's with just as much ease. It then reached forwards for the mana around them. Refenial's soul crumbled more and more as it did. It became impossible to tell where his soul ended, and the thing's soul began.

He tried fighting it back like he had before, but it felt impossible. He fought with every ounce of will he possessed, his mind slowly calming from the revelations of moments ago as he no longer had the time to process them. Despite his efforts, the thing barely slowed as it reached forwards, grabbing the mana and starting to bring it into itself.

Griselda ran forwards and grabbed the grief-stricken Obit. Obit seemed too lost in his sorrow to respond and went limp in her arms as she picked him up, only keeping enough strength in his arm to loosely hold his sword.

Griselda ran for the exit from the ruins as she held Obit tight to her, her crow flying ahead.

Mana flowed through the air as an impossible torrent. Through the closed eyelids of his mundane eyes, he saw the air light up with raw magic, something he'd never seen before. Even the spell to connect to systematic magic and Hecate's life extension spell combined had only taken a tiny fraction of the mana that was now being sucked into their entwined souls.

An overwhelming amount of the mana was being sucked into the thing. He could already feel his broken soul crumble further under the weight of the mana he absorbed. If this continued much longer, his soul would be destroyed.

The horror began reaching out a tentacle to redirect the mana towards its mysterious spellform.

Refenial fought it now with every inch of his soul. He struggled against it as blood ran from every orifice of his body, as his body violently convulsed. He felt his soul begin to melt away. For every second he held, for every second he fought, he drew ever closer to death. With a shuddering jolt, the tendril stopped, held shakily in place by his will.

What was he to do. He couldn't stop the mana. That was the first and most repeated warning Old Mother Hecate had given him. Once you began to absorb mana, you only ever stopped by connecting it to a spell or by the mana ripping your soul apart.

The mana was gathering still faster and faster in his soul. He knew if he didn't act, he would die. A terrible explosion, something that would maybe take the thing with him. Perhaps it would set it free. The other option was to complete the connection and send the mana into the horror's spell, allowing it to complete its sinister magic.

He still didn't know what the spell did, but having fought it and had it speak to him, he knew whatever the spell did would be awful. His mind roiled in pain and chaos as he considered the impossible dilemma. It was hard to think as he struggled, his body and soul dying with every second of hesitation.

He felt a gentle wisp of a spell gently brush against his mind. "Send it into my enchantment, boy." the voice of Old Mother Hecate whispered in his mind. He looked over at her with his soul's eyes. Her enchantment was failing. She had used the last of its power to send that message. Her breathing was slowing as death was taking her.

He had no time, no time to think, no time to consider if this murderer he'd once trusted was the lesser evil. He had no time, so he acted. He exerted his will as he pushed with every fibre of his being the mana-infused tendril move towards the old woman's soul.

I am inevitable.

The thing that lurked in his soul said once more before its tendril connected the mana to the enchantment. The mana burned through his soul as it left into the enchantment. Defeated once more, the thing began to slink back into its cage as his soul quickly reformed and recaptured the abyssal horror.

Above him, he could hear the animalistic screams of a woman whose body was ripped asunder by magic. He had no strength to even check if it was the screams of death or rebirth as he faded into unconsciousness.

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