My eyes opened.
Somehow, I’d passed out. The rush I’d felt after… after killing Fossor… had been so overwhelming I’d actually fallen unconscious. How much of that was from the actual power and how much was from the emotional release of ending the piece of shit who had tortured my family for so long, I wasn’t sure. But the point was, I had been completely out of it. So out of it, apparently, that by the time I opened my eyes, I was lying on some kind of fairly comfortable cot.
We were still in the quarry, so it hadn’t been that long. Though we weren’t in the hole anymore. Wherever the cot had come from (someone had most likely magically summoned it), I was pretty sure only a few minutes had passed since I… since the blade of my staff went through Fossor’s head for the last time.
My mother was there. As was Tabbris. Both of them were kneeling on either side of the cot, Mom’s hand pressed gently against my face. The expression on her face was one of wonder, the expression of someone who almost didn’t dare believe what was happening around them, despite what their eyes told them, because it was too much. It was too good, after everything she had been through. It was the gaze of a woman who had been through so much pain and loss that she was afraid to actually be happy, waiting for the other shoe to somehow drop.
Our eyes met. I saw the rush of emotions go through my mother, as her hand pressed tenderly against my cheek. Her mouth opened to say something, only to stop as a lump was clearly caught in her throat. Her eyes closed, and then she opened them again before trying once more, speaking softly. “My baby. My sweet, wonderful little girl. My beautiful, brave one.” There was a slight tightness and physical pain to her voice, and a glance downward showed me that the wound in her stomach was still healing. It wasn’t horrific by that point, having closed up so it wasn’t openly gushing blood or anything. But it wasn’t great either, and clearly still hurt.
“I love you, Mom.” It was all I could say. It was all I needed to say. Nothing else mattered in that moment. The most important thing, right then, was for me to say those words to my mother, with no terrible darkness surrounding us. That weight was gone. The horrific, oppressive evil that Fossor represented wasn’t here anymore. It had vanished, like the brilliant sun splitting its way through thick clouds and burning them away. My mother was here, and Fossor was gone.
My mother was here… and Fossor was gone.
A smile finally found its way to Mom’s face, as if my saying those words had finally given her permission to feel the emotion that had been building up in her. “I love you, my Felicity.”
With that, I managed to shove myself up, wrapping my arms around her neck and holding on tight. The tears that tried to burst forth from my eyes were stupid. So fucking stupid. Why would I be crying right now? Why now, of all times? I was happy. I was so fucking happy right then, so why would I start sobbing like a little baby?
I had no idea how long I kept crying like that while holding so tight to my mother. Probably only a few seconds, no matter how it felt. Through it all, Mom held me just as firmly, as if she never wanted to let me go. She pulled me up from the cot, the two of us standing together, locked in that embrace. After everything we had been through, after the horrific events not only of the past weeks but of the past years, we would take as long as we wanted to be here, with each other.
Finally, I spoke, pulling back a bit to stare at the woman I had hated for so much of my life, the woman who had given everything she had to protect me. “It’s over,” I announced in a voice that shook from raw emotion. “He’s gone, Mom. H-he’s really gone.” Gone. That didn’t say it enough. It didn’t mean enough. Him being gone wasn’t the right word. “Dead,” I managed in a flat voice, speaking the word that actually conveyed the finality of the situation. “He’s dead.”
“Yes, Lissy.” My mother’s voice held just as much emotion as mine had. She moved her hands to my shoulders, squeezing tightly. I saw the way her body shuddered. She was exhausted after everything, but didn’t care. The raw relief and sense of freedom that came with the death of the man who had imprisoned and enslaved her for so long was much stronger than any fatigue. “He’s dead. He’s dead and gone and he is never coming back.”
My legs were shaking. Scratch that, all of me was shaking. My entire body shuddered as I stared into my mother’s eyes, repeating her words back to her. “Gone and never coming back.”
Only then, once the two of us had assured one another of that fact, did we both stop to look around. The small, open area we were in was surrounded by a forcefield, about twenty feet wide and glowing dark blue. Too dark to see through. There was one opening, where Gabriel Prosser stood with his back to us. The forcefield was his, as the man kept everyone else out to give my mother and I time to have our actual reunion before being set upon by anyone else.
Swallowing hard, I reached out to take hold of the small blonde girl who was the only other person in this place. “Mom, this is Tabbris. My little sister.” I had told her about the Seosten girl while we were held prisoner in Fossor’s place, had explained that entire situation. But this was her first time really meeting her.
A smile touched my mother’s face, as she lowered one hand from my shoulder to rest against the side of the clearly quite nervous younger girl’s face. “Hello, Tabbris. Thank you so much for taking care of my daughter. I hear you are one of the bravest people she knows.”
Tabbris, in turn, blushed deeply. Her head shook. “Flick knows a lot of brave people,” she insisted.
“And yet,” I insisted, “it’s still true. Everyone I know, all those people, and you’re still one of the bravest people I’ll ever meet.”
Yeah, that blush was even worse. Squirming on her feet, Tabbris hesitated before quickly heaving herself my way. Suddenly, she was hugging me tightly, as tight as she could. “I’m sorry,” she all-but sobbed. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry I couldn’t help before.”
Okay, time to nip that in the bud. Shaking my head, I put both hands down on either side of her face to make her look up at me. “I’m glad you weren’t there, Tabbris. I am glad you weren’t there. Do you understand? You helped now, but you couldn’t help then. You being there would have been bad. Believe me.”
From the look on the other girl’s face, she still wasn’t sure how she felt about that. But she just hugged me tightly once more. The two of us stood there, embracing like that, for a few seconds.
Glancing up, I saw Mom staring at me with a soft, tender expression. Then I looked past her and nodded that way. Words failed me. I couldn’t speak, not in that moment.
Following my nod, Mom turned to look behind her. There, she saw two figures standing side-by-side, having been let through by Prosser. Wyatt and Abigail. The two were staring at my–our mother. From here, I couldn’t read the expressions on their faces, but it was still very clear that there was a lot going on, emotionally. The two of them were standing quite close, shoulders touching. They had instinctively grabbed for each other’s hands, seeking the comfort of their twin despite being separated for so many years.
None of us moved for a few long seconds. Tabbris was silent, pressed up close behind me as she peeked out to watch. I felt her fingers dig into my back and arm while we stood there.
Finally, Mom snapped out of it. Tentatively, as though afraid moving too quickly would cause the vision in front of her to fall apart like a rock hitting reflections in the water, she stepped that way. One step after another, at first moving so slowly I could barely tell she had even started, before speeding up just a little. But she still walked. She walked, rather than ran, though I could tell a part of her desperately wanted to sprint that way and grab the two. But this was a moment she wanted to savor, a moment she would relive over and over throughout the rest of her life. She wouldn’t rush it.
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One step followed another, before Abigail and Wyatt finally broke out of their own moment of paralyzation and moved to meet her. I heard a choked sob, a noise of the purest possible joy, escape our mother as her arms opened to enfold around both of them. From the outside, it may have looked as though adults embraced right there. But in reality, it was a mother grabbing her young children, the children she had lost decades ago, and pulling them back to her. It was a mother-our mother, stepping through all those horrible years trapped in one prison or another, and reaching the children she had sacrificed those years for. She held them tight, all three locked in an embrace that stretched across the decades that had separated their last touch.
I didn’t go to join them. It wasn’t my place to interrupt, not right then. There would be time for group hugs, for full family hugs, interaction, reunions, all of it. But in that particular moment, it was time for my older siblings to have their chance for a face-to-face with our mother, their chance to see her, touch her, talk to her. No way was I going to take that away from them.
Ghosts. They were behind me. Sensing them coalesce, I turned to find Ahmose appear first, the tall, purple spirit with red eyes forming slightly ahead of several others (including Jorsher). He was watching me carefully, but with a sense of relief that was palpable. “The abomination has been destroyed. It is no trick, no falsehood. He did not find a way to escape. Fossor is dead.” It sounded as though he’d have to say it out loud another fifteen million times or so to be fully convinced. Or maybe he just really enjoyed saying it. I knew I sure as hell liked thinking it.
We weren’t the only two either. Behind Ahmose, Jorsher and the other ghosts repeated those three words in what sounded like a mantra. Fossor was dead. He was gone. He wouldn’t be here to enslave and torture them anymore. The monster who had destroyed their lives even more thoroughly than mine was gone for good, leaving these guys, and the rest, free to… well…
“What are you going to do now?” I finally managed, after passing my gaze over them and feeling their relief wash over me to mix with my own. It was kind of a giddy feeling. “All of you, I mean.” There were more than just these few, given how many had escaped back at the estate.
“Now,” came the quiet answer, “most of us will rest.” Ahmose smiled faintly as he clarified. “For good. Our final rest. We will allow ourselves to dissipate and return our energy to the universe. We have been here for far too long, have seen too much… death. Too much suffering. We wish to move on, whatever that may entail. It is time.”
I started to nod silently to that, wishing I could give them something better than to simply cease existing. Or at least say some words of encouragement that would mean anything at all. But I didn’t even know what kind of afterlife they believed in, particularly considering they were ghosts of various different species. If they believed in any at all. Then I blinked as his exact words struck me, curiously asking, “Most of you?”
There was a brief pause as Ahmose and the other ghosts behind him looked to one another. They were silently conferring. Then they turned back to me, and their leader started in a voice that sounded apologetic. “It is too much, more than we should ask. But there are those among us, those who have not… who have died recently enough that their families, those they care about, still exist. If there is–if it is not asking for more than you can give, those few would like to perhaps, when there is time, be taken to say goodbye to their loved ones before they move on.”
It took me a second to realize what he was asking. Then my eyes widened a bit. “O-oh, you mean I could take some of you to see your living families before you… umm… yeah. Yeah.” My head bobbed up and down quickly. “After what you did–you brought everyone here. I’d be dead without all of you. So would my mother. Hell, so would everyone I care about, as soon as Fossor finished his spell. The whole universe would be doomed, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, whatever you want. I mean, it may take awhile, and I’m not… can they keep existing long enough for that? I don’t know if I’m a strong enough Necromancer to hold onto that many,” I admitted.
Again, there was a brief, silent conversation between them before Ahmose spoke gently. “You have killed the abomination, Lady Chambers. His power is your power. You may not feel all of it for some time, may take many years to fully control it. But his power is yours. You are far stronger than you may believe right now.”
His power… of course. After that rush I’d felt when Fossor had died, of course I’d absorbed his power. His own necromancy had been added to what I’d taken when Manakel died. No wonder I’d been able to sense them before they finished appearing behind me before.
Not long ago, the thought of having Fossor’s power would have disgusted me beyond belief. The thought of having any connection at all to him would’ve made me want to throw up. Let alone how unsettled and uncomfortable the concept of having necromantic powers in the first place would’ve made me.
But that was wrong. Fossor’s power wasn’t the evil thing, it was how he used it. I believed–knew that Alters weren’t evil just because they weren’t human, so Fossor’s Necromancy wasn’t evil just because it existed. The things he’d done with it, the atrocities he’d committed, that was what was evil. And as for Necromancy itself, that too depended on what was done with it.
And yet, despite all those thoughts, I still felt a shudder of revulsion got through me. Fossor. In some ways, I would never be rid of him now. He was connected to me. I’d killed him and now his power was mine. What was I supposed to do about that?
Use it for good, of course. Use it for better things than he had. Practice with it. Train with it. Prove that it was the man who had been evil, not his power. Like now, the ghosts who were asking me to help give them closure. I could do that. I could help them.
“Yes,” I finally managed, meeting Ahmose’s gaze. “Anyone who wants to stay and get closure before they, um, move on, I’ll help them get it. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but I’ll do it. I’ll take them wherever they want to go, talk to whoever they want to talk to until they’re ready.”
“Our gratitude to you,” the tall, violet ghost murmured. “For that, and for all that you have done. And our apologies, for all that we were made to do to you and to your mother.” He said the last bit even more quietly, crimson eyes glancing over my shoulder to where Mom and my older siblings were still reuniting.
“But you’re moving on,” I noted. “You’re not going to stay and say goodbye to anyone.”
“There is no one left for me to say goodbye to,” he confirmed. “Everyone I could have cared for was… is long gone. I have no connections to this or any other world. It is time for me to leave it.”
“Now?” I blinked. “Like, right now?”
A very slight smile touched the ghost’s face. “There is no sense in stalling. Those of us who are ready to go will disappear, and those who wish for your help will give you all the time you need first. Simply… pull at them when you are ready to begin helping. They will feel it and come to you.”
“Thank you.” After saying that, I quickly amended, “Not just for that. For all of it. For bringing my friends. For coming back and risking being enslaved again. For–for helping. Thank you.”
“We could do no less to ensure that the abomination was destroyed,” he insisted, with a collective murmur of agreement from the others behind him. “And we thank you, for what you did to give us that opportunity.”
That was it. With those words, Ahmose literally began to disappear. He offered me a smile, and a wave, before vanishing. As did most of those behind him, save for a few. I felt their essences, the Necromantic energy that bound them together, fade away. They were moving on. The few who were left, including Jorsher, watched me briefly and nodded before fading as well. But their fading was different, less permanent. They were giving me space, but I could still feel them if I tried. They would be there when I was ready to help them get closure.
And speaking of ghosts who had needed closure, I felt another figure appear nearby. Turning that way, I saw her. “Rahanvael.”
“He’s gone.” Her voice was very quiet, gaze looking off toward the sky. Toward their own planet? I wasn’t sure. “He’s really gone.”
“Do…” I hesitated before asking, “Do you want to see the body?” It sounded morbid, but I thought it might give her closure. Not that I knew exactly where the body was right then.
Her gaze turned to me, head shaking. “No. I don’t need that. I–he is dead. He is gone. The monster has been destroyed. I know when my brother died, and it was not today. It was long ago.”
That said, she moved closer, sounding a bit more hesitant. “I… should move on as well. It has been far too long for me, and now that my brother can rest, I should do the same. But if…”
Belatedly, I realized, “You want to go home.”
“I would like to fade away on my own world, yes,” she confirmed. “I know that it will take some time. But when you are ready, after you have rested and recovered, and done all the other things that will be clamoring for your attention, I would like to take you and those of your choice to my world, to tell those who are there that they are free. I would like to tell them that he is dead and our world can move on, before I let myself disappear.”
My head bobbed quickly. “We can do that. I mean, I hope so, anyway. We will. Just–time. I’ll find a way to get you there and let your people know they’re free. I’m sorry, it’ll take awhile. But eventually, I promise.”
“Thank you, Felicity,” she murmured, a genuine, beautiful smile touching her face. “Thank you for everything.”
Before I could respond to that, my name was called. Turning, I saw Tabbris waiting silently nearby. But it was Mom who had called me. She was there with Abigail and Wyatt. Koren had joined them, as had Deveron. All were looking my way, waiting for me.
So, I walked that way, reaching out to take my little sister’s hand. But I didn’t stop there. Instead, I pulled her over into a tight hug, squeezing firmly enough to make her squeak. For a few seconds, the two of us clung to each other. Then I smiled at her. One of the first genuinely happy, unstressed smiles I could remember giving for quite some time. “Come on. We’ve got a lot of reunions to get to.
“And I can’t fucking wait.”