I felt my inexistent blood freeze as an entity beyond comprehension appeared before me. From the mist dancing on top of the River of the Damned, a wooden vessel appeared in my sight. It was a gondola, and two silhouettes were riding it. A ferryman and damsel.
“Your change disappoints me a little.” The Lady of the River spoke as she hid behind her white parasol. “Seeing a pure soul brought some joy and entertainment to this dull place. Though I would lie if I said the appearance of a new color wasn’t joyful out of itself.”
“How?” I asked in surprise, not thinking it twice.
“How am I here?” The lady said with her melodious and captivating voice. I was unable to resist the effect even after having become a ten-star mystic. “That’s a rather easy question when you blasted these barren lands with mana. Not many people know of such art here. Or retain their consciousness, for that matter.”
“A-argh.” The gondolier groaned in affirmation. There was something peculiar in its voice. When I first spawned on the river, I thought those were nonsensical grunts, but now, I could auspice some intelligence coming from the noises. He was also talking in runic language, yet far more advanced than what I could comprehend.
“See, he thinks the same.” The lady finally revealed her face with a slow turn, and a blinding smile accompanied it. “So then, what are you doing here, once pure soul?”
She had changed her overdecorated Victorian dress by a simple silk white tunic, adorned by golden paraphernalia all around. There was some dissonance with her frilled umbrella. Yet the tunic perfectly fit with her long jet-black hair. Both had a silky look to them.
“It a pleasure to finally be able to talk to you, miss…?” I wasn’t really subtle about it, but I tried to get her name as I bowed.
“Oh, I know what you are doing, lost soul.” Her smile transformed into a grin. “You may be quite more powerful and sentient than the last time we met, but are you ready to hold the weight of my name?”
The aura of captivation changed into a gelid wind. It was nothing but a soul attack, a show-off, a demonstration of her spiritual capabilities. The change was subtle and fast, it easily penetrated through my defenses. Its intensity was far higher than the river. And that prospect induced fear inside my being. She was more powerful than the river itself. But I had seen I could also overpower the river, even if it was temporary.
“When you tainted your soul with the arcane,” the lady started, “you lost most of your capabilities. When I found you, you were unphased by the river’s power. Where others would drown, you prospered. But now, you have been tainted, you have blood and soul in your hands, and even if you can handle the river, it would drain a lot from you.”
I knew what she was talking about. It wasn’t oblivious to the fact that I was no longer pure. I had strayed off the path. And the Lady was telling the truth, even if I was using the mana coming out of the river to sustain my decaying mana pool, my soul was eroding fast, I didn’t have my innate capabilities to ignore the corruption of the dead no more.
I was delaying the inevitable with my prowess as a ten-star mystic. I had some power, yes. But the truth was another one.
If I stood here, I would die.
The ferryman looked at me directly, though he didn’t make a sound. The lady in a tunic spun her umbrella once and then promptly folded it.
“I ask you once more, why are you here?” Her light-blue eyes carried the energy of Frost as they shone.
Her innate energies paralyzed me, but I didn’t let them stop me. “I’m here to bring a soul back to the world of the living.”
“Oh?” I suspected she knew the answer, yet she acted surprised. “And why do you think I will let you do that?” The ferryman slightly nodded to her words. “Did you think that because I granted you my boon a single time, you’ll be entitled to more? Did you think you could come to my realm and take away what’s mine?”
This is what I feared, the advice from the draconid emperor wasn’t far off the beaten path. The Lady was the one who ruled here, and even if she didn’t, she had the power to back it up. I was a stranger who had been conceded a valuable gift on a whim and then came back for more. I was nothing more than a choosing beggar.
“I came here because this soul here had her life ended prematurely.” I responded as I got closer to her soul. The white and light-blue soul that I was used to.
“Most of the souls here have their lives unfulfilled. The world of the living isn’t but a ruthless place. True equality can only be found in death. Answering your petition would contradict that. Why this soul should be different?” Her words were ruthless, yet her voice was charming. That was the enchantment of the Lady of the River.
“No other motive more than me asking it.” I honestly told. “I’m being egotistical, and I know it. You have granted me a second chance when I had nothing when I simply existed. There wasn’t even torment to accompany me, as it did with the other souls. I simply had nothing. Only time. And yet I came here with no expectations to come out with my life if that meant returning hers.”
There was no façade like the one I had been wielding all of my ellari life, but my true feelings. The truth was that I could have managed all differently, and ultimately, she died by my own mistakes alone.
“So, yeah. You shouldn’t do anything, because I don’t deserve it.” I continued. “As you said, I am tainted. Not only by powerful arcane magic but death itself. My purity is long gone, but I don’t repent over my decisions. I would do them again gladly if that meant saving her.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Fire lit in my eyes, exactly as when my soul ignited. I was confident in myself even if the situation dictated otherwise. As my soul cracked, my whole being dispersed into nothingness, I felt more powerful than ever before. As if there was a vessel containing me that had finally shattered.
The lady slightly nodded. “I can see your conviction. But if you wish to take a soul away from my dominion, you may give me something in exchange.”
“And that is?” I asked the obvious, and the answer was known.
“Your life.” For the first time, the lady’s voice lost its melody. Still a song, but its joy was lost. More akin to a requiem than a ballad.
“I accept those terms.” I didn’t make a fuss out of it. She gifted my life and now she accepted to trade that gift for another life. My life didn’t matter as much as the soul beside me.
The white lady nodded, her jet-black hair slightly moving with the gesture. Then I thought, what meant giving my life I was in the afterlife already.
“One question, though.” I addressed her. “What does giving my life in this context mean?”
“Oh, it’s really simple, tainted soul.” Pure soul sounded a lot better. “You just have to remember.”
“To remember?”
“You know what I mean.” Her ethereal voice combined with her blinding smile penetrated deep into my soul, a fiercer attack than the leyline as the realization hit me. Something I had noticed when I first casted the True Recall spell yet stored it deep down inside me to forget about it.
Oh, no. She didn’t intend to take my life, but Edrie’s. She wanted me to remember my past life, overwriting and killing the new one I had been granted. For some reason, that felt worse than actually dying. If I remembered everything, Edrie the ellari would die.
“I know you have control over your very soul, recalling buried memories shouldn’t be difficult.” The melody of her voice returned. “Thus, the river hasn’t purified your soul and memories, of your pure soul.” She looked directly at me. “Go on. Return to that previous state. A state of magnificence.”
The lady was right, even before I was able to cast Mystic’s Dominion, I had enough proficiency with my soul to dig out the memories I had blocked out. Yes, I. It was easy to deduce that it was induced by a post-death shock, and not by the river. I could’ve recalled those memories a long time ago, but I chose not for what it would entail.
I liked being Edrie, I didn’t want to go back. The decision was to revive my old self and her or keep being Edrie and let her die.
I made up my mind a long time ago.
I activated Mystic’s Dominion to ease the prosecution of information. A lot of years had happened since my death, and I couldn’t even know how my soul would react to it. Last time I tried, I almost lost myself.
I began channeling my memories.
I recalled the recent event provoked by my blind rage, the time I learned Mystic’s Dominion, the stupid duel that gained me infamy, when I found the mysterious anthology, when I entered the academy, when we learned of the spell synergies, the time I’ve met Alatea, when I entered the school, when I learned magic, when I met her even if back then it was a distasteful encounter, the day I was born, and finally, the river.
Thirty-one years passed in the blink of an eye, yet the recalling didn’t stop.
I saw the Lady of the River grabbing my white body with her hands and reincarnating me, I heard the thug made by the gondola colliding against my back, then, the river. Sludge flowed against me, myself floating still without moving. Sludge flowed against me, myself floating still without moving. Sludge flowed against me, myself floating still without moving.
Again, and again, and again.
And more, and more, and MORE.
I grabbed the spiritual manifestation of my head in pain, as I continued remembering. I entered the waters, enthralled by the energy of the river. I walked. I walked. Souls appeared in my surroundings. I walked. I died.
During my time in the underworld, I had underestimated it greatly. Because I was a soul I had no way of measuring time, no stars, no clock, only myself and the painfully slow sludge that flowed on the river. I lay on the ground as I writhed in pain unable to process the time I had forgotten. The time I had omitted from my memory. Three-hundred and seventy-one.
Three-hundred and seventy-one years. That was the time I had spent in the river. Far beyond what I had lived between my two other lives combined. I chuckled, as I felt my soul being torn apart, thinking how in a way I was the oldest ellari alive.
Then I saw a white bed. I saw my beige arms being filled with tubes. I saw other humans whose faces looked familiar. This was… when I died. I heard a beep as my eyes closed for the last time.
“Stop.” A melodious voice echoed across my memories, overcoming time itself.
I stood up from the ground to look at the lady who had left out her gondola and now was standing before me. I could only be amazed as I contemplated the straight silhouette. It meant a lot to me that she stood up for me, no longer resting on her vessel. And even more when she lent me a hand, slightly bowing down. Her figure towered over me, an impossibly tall being, even if she was shaped after a human.
“I have been a witness of your will and determination.” Her voice now seemed more deign, more… divine. “No further sacrifices are needed. You have remembered enough.”
“But… I haven’t remembered my previous life.” I replied back.
“Didn’t you?” She questioned me. “But I have seen a soul recalling centuries of a previous life.”
“I…” I understood her words, and her mercifulness. “Thank you.” I felt my soul crying.
“Now, depart.” She told. “You wouldn’t want to have your way out to close, right?”
“R-right.” I was still stunned by the sudden influx of memories. I could tell a whole lot of time had passed when I was worming down in pain.
I picked up her soul, storing it up inside myself with the help of Mystic’s Dominion. It was way easier to manipulate souls when they didn’t have a corporeal body or a cognitive mind to fight back. But before going away, before returning to the world of the living, I addressed the lady one last time.
“Could I have your name?” I asked the most beautiful being I had ever seen. I was like the mages back in my world, only powered by academic interest, even if that meant the worst of fates.
“Haven’t you heard my previous warning?” She reminded.
“Yes, and still, I want to know it.” The cracks in my soul had been healed, and my recent episode had strengthened me. I didn’t know when that had happened, the damage from the leyline, the knockback from the Nethergate as I entered the realm of the dead whilst being alive, and the overextension of Soul Sight, everything had been healed.
I couldn’t but be even more grateful to my divine patron.
“Alright then.” She approached me and whispered right to where my ear was supposed to be. “You already know it.” The whisper was melodious and sensual.
A flash of previous memories assaulted me, they were still buried, yet my recalling had removed some layers. I nodded to her.
“Farewell, lady…” I gave my goodbyes to the Lady of the River, her name only known and heard by her and her ferryman. A name even the runic language had problems processing.
"Farewell, my arcane soul." Her goodbye was familiar, akin to the one I heard three decades ago, yet different. I liked it.
With that, my companion and I returned to the world of the living. Life Anew.