Once she finished reading it, the young witch closed the diary and held it close to her heart. It wasn’t hers to have, nor was it hers to read. On an impulse, she took out a seed from her satchel. She wrote a sigil above it, and it glowed with its usual golden light. Soon enough, roots encased the diary, keeping it tightly closed and protected, she added a new root to tie it to her belt.

Darya and the soldiers arrived at Salnas early in the morning; the town seemed asleep still, and only the noise of the waves and the birds animated it. Darya’s eyes glinted at the sight of the arch at the entry. So many divinities were represented, including Elephtheria. In one little corner she saw the Humble One’s cracked engraving, arms and tails and horns heavily covered in jewelry, surrounded his foggy form. As her cart was being dragged through the town to the docks, Darya took in the fresh ocean air. She only had read about it, since Alvoort was so far away from any sea, she scrunched her face at the smell of algae mixed with the sea’s. Soon enough, she was on the boat to Ravenwood; soldiers had led her to a wooden seat inside and didn’t talk to her at all. The whole way there, she observed the sea through the window. It seemed calm, but the clouds on the horizon were dark and heavy with rain. Something felt awfully wrong as Ravenwood’s form grew from the horizon, its size towered over everything, and Darya had the awful feeling of it watching her. For the remaining hours of her trip, she tried to keep that feeling down, convincing herself it was only the stress and fatigue that were playing with her. The boat docked, and they accompanied the young witch inside the walls. Despite the amount of water on the floor and walls, the whole place smelled like blood and death. Darya managed her nausea as well as she could as the soldiers brought her inside and escorted her to a simple room in a building separate from the cells and the soldier’s quarters.

“Ma’am Darya Logevich, as requested by Her Majesty.” solemnly said one soldier next to her.

One of the guards at the door knocked and waited for a firm voice to answer. Darya soon walked into the room. Leo was dressed the same as she had been for the past two weeks, although her hair was let down, and something in her felt different to Darya, something in her had changed.

“You can let us be now.” In a wave of her hand, the soldiers and guards walked off, closing the door behind them. Leo showed a seat in front of Darya, but the young eastern witch didn’t move. “I’m sorry I didn’t-”

“I don’t care about that, I can understand it. Where are they?” she asked, dreading the answer.

“He massacred them.” Leo tried to keep an emotionless face as much as she could, but Darya could feel the pain in her voice.

“Where are they?” she asked again, this time approaching Leo, her tone more pressing.

“Guards!” Leo called out. “Take us to his cell.”

Darya’s heart pounded in her chest the whole way there, while Leo looked as if she didn’t even want to think about it. Soon enough, they arrived in a cell away from the others, the lights from the torches couldn’t reach the back of it, and the only thing Darya could see was a purple fleshy tail.

“Jesse?” the tail retracted as soon as the name passed her lips, “Jesse?!” she turned around to the guards. “Open it.”

The guards looked back at Leo, who, in a nod, told them to comply and go away. As soon as the door was open, Darya ran in, she kneeled next to the wretched form and put her hands on each side of its face.

“Jesse?” the form mumbled something at her call, “Jesse? Are you okay?” she asked, worry spilling in her words.

“Darya?” weakly replied the form.

As her eyes got used to the darkness, Darya could finally see him: Jesse’s skin was in parts covered in dried blood, thirst wrinkled his lips, his skin stretched by hunger, and his eyes were puffy from the crying. His eyes, both of them, were yellow and when she looked up, two horns crowned his head. A ruffling noise caught her attention, and she saw his two bat-like wings.

“What did you do?” she murmured. Darya looked at Leo with fire in her eyes. “What did you do?!” she shouted, her heart filled with rage.

“He killed a dozen men in a matter of minutes, Darya!” she screamed back. “He’s lucky I didn’t execute him yet!”

“Yet?” she asked, shocked.

“In truth, I have been merciful. I could have killed him a week ago.”

“Merciful?” Darya stood up in a split second. “You call that merciful?!” the young eastern witch approached her with each word. “You threw him to rot in a cell for a week, and you call that merciful?”, her voice was the coldest Leo had ever heard, she tried to recoil, but she was frozen in place. “Killing him right away would have been merciful, this is cruel.”, Leo averted her eyes for a second. Darya stopped in her path. “You don’t know what you’re doing…” she realized.

Darya quickly walked out of Jesse’s cell and looked around her, almost panicked. The young eastern witch took Leo by her shoulders and stared into her eyes. “Where can we talk alone?”

For a moment, Leo stared at her, still zoned out, until she could utter something. “The dovecote.”

“Let’s go then.”

With a nod from Leo, the two young women almost ran up the staircase up to the dovecote. Darya noticed something she hadn’t before, Leo was limping. She was trying hard to hide it and it clearly pained her, yet she didn’t use any crutches. On the way there, Leo effortlessly sent away all the soldiers. Once up there, Darya quickly realized why Leo had brought her up here, the sounds of the waves hitting the prison walls covered almost every sound. Leo led her inside the dovecote and set her a seat in front of the one she had previously used to write her letter to her.

“I can’t help you until you tell me what happened.” Leo hesitated a little before saying anything. “I promise I won’t get angry.” Darya tried to reassure her.

“After you walked away, things got out of control. I got out of control. I told him to not get in my way again, and I meant it. So when we got caught, I ran away and left them to the guards.” Darya bit her tongue. With a long breath out, she calmed herself down enough to continue listening to her. “By the time I tried to do what I came here for, they had brought Cecilia, Vagraad and Jesse to their rigged trial.” Leo stopped for a second as the fresh images of that fateful night came back to her vividly. “They executed Cecilia first. Then, they declared Vagraad and Jesse her accomplices for my murder. Vagraad went under the ax.” Leo’s voice faltered with her last sentence. “He turned into a beast, Darya.” A sob broke her voice, like a plea to make the memory go away.

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After a few seconds, the young eastern witch stood up and gently walked outside. She went up to the rampart and let her emotions out. Her delicate face turned into a painful expression, her cheeks overflowed with tears and her heart felt as if it was tearing in two in her chest. She leaned on the small wall for support, and her breath became deep and erratic. She hoped the sea would take away her pain, she hoped its god would wash away her tears and give her the strength she needed. After a few minutes, her body felt numb, she let her hands fall at her sides, and let the ocean’s air fill her lungs. The rugged surface of the stone under her fingers reminded her of something. She needed to do something about this. With a decided pace, Darya walked back inside, she sat once again in front of a distraught Leo.

“Did you tell anything to anyone else?”

“I spoke to Baron Moore about a few things, and I have only allowed you to come and go near Ravenwood since I last spoke with him.”

“Good.”

The both of them talked for hours, devising plans after plans, anything to save Jesse. Yet, no matter how they turned it around, the answer was always the same: the young demon needed to meet his end, just like Cecilia and Vagraad already had. It took the two young women a few hours to write the letters, and by the time they finished, the sun had set. Leo walked out of the dovecot to send the letters, leaving Darya alone. The sigil in her palm irritated her skin, even though she now knew why it was really there, she still felt ashamed. The words of the dwarven healer bounced around in her head. She had the plant side alright, but the healing was much more difficult for her than she would have wanted; despite her endless hours of studying and helping people, she was nowhere near the level she should be at. For a second, she wished she had the power and the knowledge needed to help him by herself, if only a little. With a beating heart, Darya set up to prepare the next part of their plan. She poured the water that had been brought to them onto the floor. The young woman kneeled in front of it and took out her newly made pendant from underneath her clothes. She wrapped her hands around and prayed. She knew it had few chances of working, none could ever possibly call a god like this but if it had worked for her Ma, then maybe, it would work here. It took almost an hour of praying and of shivering through her knitted clothing before she heard anything.

A few minutes later, the young woman took the previously root-covered diary in her arms and walked down the stairs back to Jesse’s cell, her heart beating hard in her chest, trying to convince herself that what she was about to do was the right thing. As the dust and blood filled air traveled up to her nose once again, she had to fight her cowardice. With a decided pace, she sneaked past the guards, gripping the key Leo had demanded from the young soldier that seemed to follow her around constantly, always looking like a lost puppy. The darkness of the cell took Darya out of her thoughts. She took in a deep breath and opened the heavy metal door.

“Jesse?” she gently asked as she walked in. “Jesse?” she asked again as she kneeled next to him.

“Why are you back?” he weakly asked. His tail was wrapped around his waist and his wings were tight against his back, while his ears pulled back.

A million words went through her head, yet none seemed right. She undid his shackles, letting his arms go free for the first time in days.

“Why are you doing this? Why do you look at me like that?” his voice broke. “Why?”

Darya’s heart sank in her chest.

“Because you deserve none of this.”

“But I do! I left Cecilia, and I let Leo down, and then I let it happen to Vagraad and I-I”

“None of it was your fault.” she whispered as she took his left hand in hers. “It never was.”

“But-”

“Cecilia had to meet her end at a moment or another, and nothing you could have done would have ever prevented this. Just like her, Leo and Vagraad made their own choices on which you had no control over.”

“You say it as if you knew.”

“I do, Leo told me about the Kraken.”

“I should have convinced them to stay.”

“And they made their own choice to save Cecilia.” Darya had a good look at Jesse, his honey-colored eyes looked strange, but not unusual on him. As if his body had finally finished growing. Her heart broke once she thought about the obvious, her childhood had been filled with stories like Cecilia’s. “You were only another character in her story.” Jesse held a sob. “She meddled with the gods’ plans and she felt their wraths, right until the end.” her hands squeezed Jesse’s.

“Your gods are awful.” he said in a broken voice, his hand squeezing hers.

“I know.” she whispered as she hugged him.

Jesse welcomed it, he melted in her arms, letting himself feel safe once last time. Darya felt his scars under her fingers, she felt the branding’s scar they had done to him years ago, the very one she had felt the night he brought her to the Night Elf inn. She didn’t understand why something in it had felt so familiar, yet so foreign. Now she knew. The branding hadn’t fully burnt away the sigil, it hadn’t taken away the remnant of her mother’s energy, the little piece of herself she had left in it for it to work for years on end. It was only a copy, a faded ghost, but it was still there. Darya leaned into the hug, pressing her naked palms on his back one last time, the smell of blood and sweat taking her.

“Thank you.” he said, his voice cracking up again.

A sharp light basked the cell and the hallway in a golden hue. Darya came out of the cell, her eyes lost in the void, she had put her gloves back on.

“Is it done?”

Darya lifted her eyes to meet Leo’s. The young woman had a few soldiers next to her.

“I did what I could. Did you send her the message?” Leo nodded. “Could you make sure she gets this?” Darya squeezed the diary. “It’s very important for me that she keeps it safe until then.”

Leo nodded again, taking the worn out diary in her hands.

“Don’t find me again, Leo.” she declared coldly.

Leo nodded slightly, surprised by Darya’s unusual tone. The future queen stepped aside and let Darya walk away. Leo granted her a safe passage to Salnas and from then on, she lost her trace. She kept receiving news of a wandering healer with great powers over the years, but she could never believe it was her. In the morning, the royal counsel in Alvoort received Leo’s message: the Saint had been executed, and her demon child had turned and killed Adam, Lord Warren, and Judge Harper. In return, she had him executed and his body disposed of in the sea. Once everything had been tidied up in Ravenwood, Leo came back to her childhood palace in Alvoort. She traveled through Outer-Alvoort, where most people had lit bonfires and danced around burning idols at Cecilia’s effigy, while others looked at them in worry. Especially a goblin who had a strange gray skin and was clad in a suit, clashing heavily with his orc guards. She passed through the arch and saw the nobility wearing their mourning attires, she thought she would be torn at the difference, but she wasn’t; Cecilia didn’t deserve to be mourned as a Saint, she should have never been a Saint. Leo finally arrived at the palace, it brought back the memories of the last night she had spent there. On the way to the Counsel’s room, she went to see her sisters’ rooms; they had been cleaned up, as if they had gone away for the day and all of this had just been a long nightmare. But the eye bags on their personal maids were the last proof of their murder. Leo entered the Counsel’s room, all of them were old men, most of them wearing their crow insignia proudly and without worry. Some could fake being relieved to see her alive and well, others couldn’t do as much. As she sat down in her father’s chair, she realized how long her fight against the Order would be. In a thoughtless movement, she touched the scabs that had formed on her leg. She would never be able to forget those last weeks.