“I got the books.” Anna approached us. “Let’s go.”
She had quite a few books in her hand so I took it from her hands.
“Thanks.” She smiled. “We should leave quickly now.”
I nodded began following her out. Nat flipped her hair in my face, gave me a smirk and walked in front of me. I simply chuckled. Ya, she was better now. Mission accomplished.
We took the cobbled path escalator thing back to the river bank.
“It’s weird.” Nat said suddenly, her eyes meeting mine. “It can’t be this easy. Why didn’t someone show up to kidnap her?”
Crap.
Something is wrong. And then thoughts start popping in my mind.
“Don’t jinx it.” Anna said. “It’s a good thing.” And them she saw both our expressions. “Isn’t it?”
“No.” Nat and I shook our heads.
Anna looked scared to even ask why. She behaved like an adult so it was easy to forget that she was a sixteen year old kid who had never seen things like these, never faced true adversities.
Nat went ahead and told her the answer anyways. “It means that their army is formed. They will attack anytime now.”
“We should leave. Call Rory.” I said and she took in a deep breath and nodded.
Anna said the spell but Rory didn’t appear. She said it again and Rory didn’t appear again. She gave us a nervous glance. And then she said the spell again. And again, Rory was a no show.
“What the hell?” Anna muttered under her breath before looking up at us. “I think… um maybe something is wrong.”
“No shit Sherlock.” Natalia muttered and kicked a rock in frustration.
“I think we should wait. He’ll come. Maybe like then librarian, he’s stopping again and again. He’ll be here in sometime.” I said and Anna nodded with hope in her eyes.
I took a seat on the grass and picked up one book. “Let’s not waste time and get to work.” I said. Anna followed promptly and took a seat. Nat gave me a look but followed as well.
The book in my hand was a book about sacrifices. And the page I ended up opening was about sacrificing three witches. I read the description and amazingly, it matched exactly what had happened to all the witches.
It was a way in which the ancestors could come from the land of dead to Jivan again. The gist of what was written was that three witches had to be sacrificed together. When their souls leave their position in the body, the souls of the ancestors will enter those witches and take the position of power. But in the process, the true soul of that person will be stuck inside the body, forced to watch and unable to do anything.
But this doesn’t make sense. The ancestors aren’t the ones controlling the bodies. Adrik is. Maybe they did a combination of spells for him to be able to control them.
And it means that those witches are still alive, trapped inside their own bodies. The only way to stop the zombie witches is to kill them. That will automatically send the ancestors back where they came from. But it will also send the trapped souls to the afterlife too. And too many witches will end up loosing their lives.
I can’t let that happen. I didn’t want so many people to die. We need to find a way to help them.
I told the girls what I read. Anna immediately began searching for another book with an alarming speed. She had tears in her eyes. Rightfully so. There were a few hundred free witches in Jivan, most of whom were in hiding. The survival of her entire race is at stake.
“Got it,” she whispered and began leafing through the book.
Natalia and I scooted closer to her from either sides and peeped in. But Anna’s reading speed was much faster than ours. She read a page in the time we managed to read a paragraph. She went through a couple of pages before she slammed the book close with a distraught look on her face.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“There is only one way to remove a parasite soul from a body.” She whispered. “You set the original body of the parasite soul on holy fire.”
“Which means we need to put the the entire graveyards on fire.” I said.
“But-but witches gain their powers from the ancestors. That is the only reason we don’t burn our dead ones and burry them.” She whispered, and then met my eyes. “If we do it, no witch will have powers. Ever.”
“Isn’t it better than so many people dying?” Nat asked gently.
“Yes…” she looked down at her lap. She herself will never be able to do magic anymore. She jumped to her feet, her eyes cleared and determined now. We got to our feet too. “The second biggest graveyard is in this island, I’m not sure where it is exactly but we will find it ourselves. Fuck Rory. The biggest one is on one of the islands of Bellehaven. That will be our next stop.”
I suddenly got a quick sharp feeling in my chest. Right in my heart. I felt like I couldn’t breath for a second.
“What is it?” Nat was quick to ask.
“I’m not sure.” I breathed through the ache. “Avalyn… something isn’t right.”
Nat’s eyes reflected the same fear in mine. Avalyn and I were tied with blood. And if I was feeling it this much, Nikolai would feel it much more. And Avalyn’s pain would be worse.
Please, Moon Goddess, I know we don’t talk much but keep them safe.
“Dimitri.” Nat was holding her stomach now as she looked at me with a haunted look. “Max… he’s hurt.”
“It has begun.” I whispered.
“We should get going.” Anna said and we nodded. The dread was setting in now.
And then suddenly, Rory arrived with the boat. But there were three witches in it too. The male was old and had long white hair and long white beard the other two females with him were a much younger.
“Not so fast.”