When she came to, she couldn’t feel anything. Her mind was pure exhaustion. She lay still, not knowing where she ended up. She remembered the other Faedemon and broken pieces of a fight but, beyond that, her mind was hazy. Slowly feeling started to come back to her extremities, she regained enough energy to open her eyes.

She was in an unfamiliar room on an elevated surface, Her head was turned to the side. The room was the same white marble as the castle but this one a mess of books and alchemical equipment. There were discarded wands and staffs. Talismans and ritual tapestries hung from every wall that she could see. Though she couldn’t move more than her eyes, she could make out Zaramir hunched over a cauldron, faced away from her, working on a foul smelling potion.

She tried to speak to get his attention, but all that came out was a small groan, her lips wouldn't even part. Nevertheless the sound did get his attention.

Whipping to face her, he crossed the room swiftly. His expression was calm, but firm, “You won’t be able to move for a few more days. I'll put you back to sleep.” She wanted to protest but the purple mist enveloped her before she could do anything of the sort and she was back asleep.

The next time she awoke, she shot straight up into a sitting position. She could feel now, but everything felt…. Wrong. Like her bones didn’t quite fit correctly, like her skin was a different texture and seemed tighter over her muscles, like an ill-fitted shirt. Perhaps it was a side effect of whatever healing Zaramir had obviously done. She had been very injured, it shouldn’t surprise her that all the bones that had broken would feel strange now.

Nothing hurt. In fact she felt better than ever. She looked down at her hand and arms. They were completely free of injuries. Her skin was perfectly healed and smooth, like that of a child. There were no scars, no blemishes, no sun marks. Her hair had been cut short, just barely brushing the bottoms of her ears. Her nails were clean with a healthy parlor. Her knuckles were soft and young. This was not the skin she was used to.

She flexed her fingers; the joints were smooth. No stiffness from the years of tearing roots.

“Miss Cora,” Zarmair’s voice startled her out of her obsession with the newfound fluidity of her joints.

He was on the other side of the room, crossing over. His hair was longer, curling past the nape of his neck, but pulled back from his face. There were no longer even echoes of the scars on his face. It had been a good while since that fight.

“You’re awake and moving. Good. How do you feel?” He questioned.

“Weird.” She was startled to find even her voice sounded unfamiliar, smoother and brighter.

He nodded as though he understood exactly what she meant, “You were injured. Gravely injured. It… wasn’t an easy task.”

She looked back down at her arms, “It’s amazing. It’s like nothing ever happened.” Then she noticed something strange. Her arms were blemish free, but she was also missing something else. Her teleportation rune was gone. “What exactly did you do to me? Why did you remove my Rune?” She looked up at him and his jaw hardened. His eyes flash something akin to remorse.

“Everything that was done was for your survival.” An avoidant answer. What had he done?

She narrowed her eyes at him, pulling her legs out from under the sheet draped over them. Her legs were long and elegant, also free of the scars she was used to.

“What did you do?” She asked running her hands over her thigh where her oldest scar from childhood should have been. “Something’s… wrong. ”

His eyes widened slightly, “Does something hurt?”

“No, It’s just…” she stretched, an unsettling feeling crossed her mind as she raised her fingertips to her ribcage. Her burn, too, was healed. “It’s probably just a side effect from a potion or something but it almost feels like I'm in the wrong body, if that makes sense. I’m sure it doesn’t.” She told him, a feeling of uncanny paranoia blooming in her chest.

There was that look again. That guilt. He took a short breath, murmuring barely under his breath, “I was hoping you would have time to rest before you noticed.”

“Before I noticed what?” She asked, hopping down off the platform. She hit the ground a bit sooner than she thought she would with a jolt that almost knocked her off balance. She laughed uncomfortably, the feeling only growing as she met his gaze. Her perspective of him was strange.

“It almost feels like I'm taller. It's really curious.” Her smile started to waver and the dark look in his eye deepened. “But I'm not taller, right? That would be some unusual healing potion.”

His jaw clenched, “This--” He started over. “You are taller, but the potion isn’t responsible.”

That paranoid bubbled into full blown fear, “So, what happened then…”

“I was truly hoping you wouldn’t notice.” he muttered to himself. He took a deep breath. “You need to see something but first know there is no other choice. Follow me.” He led her across the room, A room she was just now realizing was probably his lab, to a table. On top of the table was a blanket with a form under it. Dread pooled in her stomach. She didn’t want to think about what this might be, but part of her already knew before he pulled back the sheet.

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On the table were the remains of a wicked ritual. One that had been long completed.

Now dying mushrooms grew from the table surface, ringing the form in a perfect ellipsis. Bloody red candles sat at the four corners of the table, burnt down to nothing.

At the center, a body lay shriveled as though all the moisture had been sucked out of it. The stomach was split open in a clean, surgical cut from throat to pelvis. There was nothing but bones inside the body, it didn’t even seem as though there was muscle, only leather over the skeleton. Though, dried blood coated every surface in proximity to the ritual.

The figure’s long golden braid, now equally bloodied, was draped over its shoulder, trailing down its side. Where the braid ended, Corabelle spotted it. In the shriveled pale leather of the body’s forearm was a familiar runic symbol. She didn’t want to recognize the form before her, but she did.

“This is why I was hoping you wouldn’t notice the change so quickly.” Zaramir’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

Her throat was dry, “What is this, Zaramir?” She broke her eyes from the dead body before her, instead locking eyes with him.

He averted his gaze, “It was you.” His voice was barely above a murmur.

She shook her head, “That’s not funny, Zaramir. What’s really going on? Who is this?” her voice crescendoed with every word.

He inhaled slowly, forcing his eyes to meet hers, “I wouldn’t kid about this. The truth is… I couldn’t save you, Miss Cora.”

Corabelle’s hearth thundered in her ears, so loud she couldn’t hear Zaramir speak as her stare shifted, boring into her own dead body. She was dead? She was dead but she wasn’t dead. Only when she felt Zaramir’s hand gripped her shoulder did she snap back.

“No, No, I'm fine. I’m right here.” She shook her head as she gripped her own arms in a tight squeeze around herself. “That’s not me because I'm right here.” Her voice raised to a near shriek. “You’re joking. This is a really sick joke and you need to stop!”

“Miss Cora,” He raised his other hand, gripping her other arm in a firm squeeze, “I wish to every deity that has ever been conceived of that this was a joke. I wish that I had been able to do something to save you. I wish you were able to wake up yourself and this was all some terrible dream but it wasn't.” He gripped her tighter, that guilt was the only thing on his face.

“What happened to me?” Her voice was thin, barely more than air. Her knees were weak, her whole body trembling as the dark reality of the situation closed in on her.

He gripped her, lowering the both of them slowly to the floor, sensing her imminent collapse.

“I know you have your memories.” He said carefully. “I made sure they wouldn’t take them, except for the one of your death. From what I gathered, a section of wall collapsed on you, it crushed you nearly to death.” His calm voice wavered. “You lived just long enough to reach me, but I-- I couldn’t get you home in time to save you.”

Her eyes widened, silent tears trailing down her cheek, “Made sure who wouldn’t take my memories? If you didn’t save me, who did?” her throat would barely form the words.

He removed his hand from her, balling them tightly in his lap. His jaw tightened, eyes squeezed shut, “Please. Please understand that you would be…. You wouldn’t be here if They didn’t do it.”

“Zaramir,” Her whole body quaked, her heart tightening with panic, “Who did what?”

He didn’t reply for an agonizingly long moment, before the words came out, just barely audible, “The Fae to brought you back to life.”

“The--- the Fae? Why th eFae? Am I an undead?” Her stomach knotted, she felt like she might be sick.

“No.” He shook his head. “Not truly. Not in any way that matters. You’re….” He let out a long breath, finally meeting her gaze once again. Deep down she suspected she knew what his next words were going to be but she hoped with every fiber of her being that she was wrong. “You’re… like me.”

A burning heat began to fill her, morphing her panic into a flaming beast upon hearing him say the words out loud.

“They turned into a Faedemon?” She demanded, grabbing him by the front of his burgundy coat with both hands in a talon-like clench.

“It was the only way you’d live.” he answered, making no attempt to break free of her clutches. The incessant guilt was plastered all over his face.

“You let them turn me into a Faedemon? Why? Why would you do this?” She screamed. “How could you do that to someone else? You know! You know better than anyone what this means! I’m-- I’m theirs now! You knew it’d mean I’d belong to them!” She shoved him away with all her force as she flew to her feet..

He flew backward, his head cracking against the stone floor.

She gasped, hand flying over her mouth,” I--- I’m sorry.”

He groaned, rubbing the back of his head as he propped himself up on his elbow. His fingers came away bloody.

Her whole body shook, “I didn’t think I was that strong.” She muttered through her hands as she sank back down to her knees.

“You'll be much stronger than you’re used to.” He brushed the blood away on the hem of his coat as he sat up.

“How could this be happening?” She questioned, softly.

“It was the only way you’d live.” He repeated, once again, the only words he seemed to be able to use as consolation.

The room hung silent for seconds, minutes, hours. In the windowless room it was nearly impossible to tell.

Corabelle’s mind desperately tried to clasp her new reality as the silence drew in around her.

She twisted strands of her cropped hair around her fingers, from the corner of her eye she could the silver locks coiling them like snakes.

The feeling of wrongness in her body consumed her, blocking out everything out feeling as her mind cataloged her new body. Everything was too new, too perfect.

After a long moment, Zaramir’s voice cut through to her, “What are you thinking?”

Struggling to pull her brain away from its work, her lips found a sentence, “I think I should be dead.”