“She can’t be,” Bastian agreed.
“Give her time,” Aimon told me.
“Fawn’s bonded to us, and we are still alive. That means she should be, too,” Silas reassured me with logic, but I couldn’t process anything they were saying.
I felt oddly like a puppet on a string, unable to control the movements of my own body as I was driven by a sinister, mysterious force.
The only person that could stop me was Fawn, and she was dead.
17
FAWN
Once again,I floated at the edge of Hexarium’s spirit realm, my heart pounding with both anticipation and anxiety. The air crackled with mystical energy, and the raw magical energy danced in iridescent patterns across the inky abyss.
Taking a deep breath, I propelled my spirit forward, crossing a boundary I had never crossed before. As I fully entered the spirit realm, my spirit form transformed into an ethereal figure of pure, magical energy.
I approached the pool that held the heart of Hexarium, but suddenly, a haunting wail echoed through the void, signaling the approach of the malevolent entity that was Matthieu’s soul.
Emerging from the heart's depths, his twisted spirit materialized before me, a grotesque manifestation of malice and hunger for domination. Sinister eyes radiated a sickly yellow glow, an embodiment of wicked intent.
“You betrayed me,” he hissed.
“I wasneverloyal to you, Matthieu.” I forced my voice to stay strong. “You ruined my life so many times, and it’s time you pay for the lives you’ve carelessly taken.”
His deranged laughter, eerily reminiscent of his physical form, punctuated the air. "A mere speck, daring to challenge my supremacy in this realm? Delusional, indeed."
“I will decimate your spirit!” I shouted.
Inky tendrils of darkness surged forth, a vile snare meant to ensnare my spirit, much akin to the nightmare that had once tormented my sleep.
But I maneuvered, evading the sinister grasp and retaliating with bursts of spirit magic that splintered and fragmented his form. Fragments of his twisted entity flew off in all directions as I advanced, my elemental powers rising within me until they almost burned in intensity.
Matthieu screamed in agony as parts of him were torn away and destroyed, but his spirit clung to the realm.
Our powers clashed, sending shockwaves through Hexarium’s heart.
With a surge of spirit magic, I summoned my most potent spell—one I only knew because the spirits had placed it in my brain long ago. I hadn’t ever had to use it…until now.
It was a forbidden incantation etched into the depths of my consciousness. An incandescent vortex of spiritual energy formed around me before I unleashed the gathered energy.
Matthieu's insidious spirit convulsed and shrieked in agony, tormented by the onslaught of magic that pierced its core. The once-unyielding grip on the heart of Hexarium began to falter as his spirit unraveled.
Yet as his spirit undid, my spirit froze as ghostly images appeared and flashed in front of me like a sick movie reel. Many faces that I had once known played out in front of me, faces that shocked me to the core because I had trusted some of them.
Faces that Matthieu had paraded in to become involved in my life through the years.
But it was the last face that hit my spirit harder than the rest, and that was Declan’s.
Disbelief slammed into me as another vision took over the faces. In their place was a massacre of my adventurer guild. Matthieu’s monstrous form decimated my guild and slaughtered my adventurers with no remorse.
Ash and Declan were running just outside of the rubble of the structure when Matthieu’s claws broke through Declan’s chest, spilling his blood before ripping his vessel in two before Declan had the chance to scream.
Ash’s horrified expression broke my heart, and Matthieu’s beastly form rumbled as if he were laughing. He jerked his claws from Declan’s body and swiped at Ash, but she dodged it at the last minute, but his claw caught one of her braids, slicing it off before she started to run—then the vision ended abruptly.
He was trying to distract me, and whatever he’d done with the images of the past worked. Just not as long as he needed it to.
I pushed my magic forth, shredding his spirit until there was nothing spiritual left of it, leaving behind only an echo of its former malevolence.
