How long had it been?

Miretrix had a little over six days left to prove that she was ready to take the leap that she had been avoiding her entire life. Where was she to begin?

She could think of a start.

The Coronum’s Lord gripped the crystal tight, and disappeared in a flap of her wings, ignoring the familiarity of the feeling.

She re-emerged from the ruined log cabin by a frozen lake.

Miretrix drifted closer and saw the long blonde hair of a young girl crouched over the body of the slaver amidst the debris of her home.

“Ava?” Miretrix asked.

The girl, who had feigned ignorance to Miretrix’s presence, reacted at once. She had been quietly readying her weapon the moment that purple vines seemed to regain their vitality around her. She straightened up and loosed an arrow with frightening speed. Although the shot was fired in haste, and initially off its mark, the arrow, tipped with a streak of glinting yellow, curved deceptively straight towards Miretrix’s throat.

Miretrix cast her gaze to the jewel-tipped arrow which literally ground itself to a halt, sparkling shards of beryl splintering and falling to the ruined hut below.

“You have a Gift for beryl?” The Coronum’s Lord asked the scared teenager.

Ava was too stunned to reply.

Her quiver was emptied of its arrows, the gem-tipped ammunition floating into Miretrix’s waiting hand.

Ava snapped out of her stupor and made a start, only to have a set of purple vines restrain her. One around her waist, and one for each of her hands and feet.

“Don’t be so hasty. If I wanted to harm you, you would be dead already.” Miretrix said, melting the arrowheads into a ball of molten beryl, and storing it away in a magical pocket.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“I’m going to KILL YOU!” Ava screamed, her cheeks and neck flushed red with rage.

“I suppose there’s no reasoning when emotions are too involved,” Miretrix said. She glided over to the slaver’s corpse. It seemed that Ava had closed the man’s eyes.

Ava continued to struggle against her restraints. “What- what are you doing?! Leave him alone!”

“Just relax. I’m here to make amends, not expound my revenge.”

“Make amends? YOU KILLED HIM! You can’t bring him back from the dead.”

“What you think is or isn’t possible doesn’t matter in the slightest. Shut your mouth and just watch.” Miretrix snapped back. Although Miretrix was determined to turn a new leaf, she was still the same powerful, egotistic person.

The fairy brandished the blood-red fix-all powder that she had made in her mountain base just minutes ago. It was true that the slaver’s body was dead, but that merely meant that it was no longer afforded the protections of Universal Law. Miretrix spread some of the fix-all powder over the corpse of her enemy, fully aware that this meant abandoning Virtuus Lake.

“Consider this a symbol of my resolve.”

The body jerked and writhed as the blood it had shed returned through the gaping hole in its chest. It was like time was being rewound for the man’s body. In fact, it looked like the body had grown several years younger.

Ava had cast her eyes down, unable to bear the sight.

Under a different context, Miretrix may have done far less benevolent things to the man’s corpse while still making it suitable for life, cursing the soul that occupied it to exist in a state of exquisite suffering.

But fortunately for the slaver, Miretrix did not presently have such a penchant for cruelty.

Miretrix brutally punched the spirit vessel through the left palm of the slaver’s rejuvenated corpse and then broke it in two with a purple vine. With the spirit vessel invalidated, the slaver’s soul escaped back into his body.

The man heaved his first breath in hours. Ava gasped.

He had been brought back to life.

His mind seeming to come to, the slaver suddenly screamed in agony, instinctually clutching his ruined hand to his chest, still with half the spirit vessel embedded into it. He paid Miretrix’s presence no mind.

Seeing Miretrix about to leave, Ava called after the fairy.

“Won’t you fix his hand?” the human asked with resentment in her voice.

“Do you think me an angel? Ask him what he has done to Virtuus Lake. I’ve already done far more for him than he deserves. ” Miretrix said.

“Wait! You can’t just leave! Where are you going?” the blonde girl asked.

“I’m going to make my ancestors proud… I’m going to destroy Tenebria Coronum.”