I didn’t know what she meant. Choose? I wasn’t even sure how I was still there. But as she spoke, it sank In. I’d heard it being said, but it was that moment that I felt it. Only, I didn’t know how to go back.
As I looked over the faces in the room, all watching the scene before them, an ache filled within me. One that rivaled the agony of the life that was lost. But this ache was the longing to stay with them all. They had become my family. And I wasn’t ready to leave any one of them.
When I looked to Kane, his shoulders shook with his sobs, my heart yearned with longing to be in his arms. But the longer I lay there, not moving, it was too much for him to bear. Slowly, carefully, he stood. Fists to his sides, chest heaving, he threw his head back and roared the most guttural, agonizing, despair filled scream. The very sound of it reverberated through me.
And everyone coward.
He turned and looked at my still body. Voice weak, his words coming out in a whisper, “I am nothing without her.”
Kane fell back down to his knees next to me and put his hands over mine. His broad shoulders curled in as his muscular frame leaned in over me. The sight of him shook every inch of my being as if shaking it loose, and I was able to move again.
Lowering down toward him, I reached out to touch his shoulder, by my hand passed through his physical form. I couldn’t touch him, nor did he feel my attempt. And as my movements started to grow stiff, it made me want to fight it.
I landed on the floor across from him. Seeing the somber faces of everyone else was hard enough. But seeing Kane’s complete loss of any sort of inner light was more than I could bear.
I didn’t know what to do. I tried touching his hands, my own hands, my own face. I even laid out in my own body. The act sent shivers throughout me. And, for a moment, Kane blinked through his tears as if he felt something. His reaction giving me hope.
But something was off. I felt through my body, heard through it. But there was a disconnect. Like my body was an outer shell to my soul that wasn’t affixed together anymore somehow. That when the two layers were pried apart, the glue that held them together wasn’t there anymore. They didn’t stick together, no matter how I adjusted and tried to line up with it.
Frustrated and cold, I growled. “Come on!”
Eyes shot over to me. Only a few heard me, but they did hear me. Kane gripped my hands tighter. “Auri? Are you here?”
But his hope was extinguished when my body didn’t respond, even if I tried to speak to him. “I’m here Kane! Please! Tell me what to do!”
But it was my turn to have hope flickering out when he didn’t respond to my pleas.
I sat up and let my hand hover over his, my legs crossed under me. Then, as it had dawned on me while locked in a fight to the death with Mika, the scrawling spells on me caught my eye.
I had tried to avoid learning them for so long, not wanting to get sucked into a world of magic that I saw corrupt so many. But I realized something vital as the spells all flipped through my mind. I was a book… a living grimoire. Just as was intended. And when I touched my own flesh, slowly, those spells filled my mind. And just as if I was touching a physical, paper book, I absorbed all of its text. The fact that I was outside of my body allowed me to read it where I hadn’t been able to while alive.
Spell after spell, use after use compiled into the tome that was forming in my head. Spells for everyday use and others for less common purposes. Some that were simple and others so complex I wasn’t sure I could find even the materials needed. And yes. Some spells were darker than the blackest midnight skies.
Then… there it was.
Hope reignited within me as a small, simple spell came into focus. Instantly, I translated it from the Romanian it was written in to look like the others into English, the language it had been written in as it was specially designed for a single purpose.
By earth and air.
By fire and water.
The elements combine.
By three and nine.
This soul in mine.
My body I bind.
By sky and sea.
Cord go round.
Powers be bound.
Keep harm from me.
By moon and by sun.
May it be done.
I recalled the day the spell had been inked onto me. My captor hadn’t wanted to let me go. And he sure as hell didn’t want to afford me any chance to escape. So, in his office, late one night, he toiled over creating the perfect binding spell, unlike the others.
“I’ve created it!” He stood, tossing his pen onto the desk.
“What?” I was tied to one of the posts of the bed as I had been every night, weary and exhausted.
He walked over to me, gripping my chin hard, lifting my head up to look at him. “A spell to keep us together forever.”
The spell was designed to bind my soul to his body with him. In his insanity, he’d become
