Empyrean 39: The Healing Waters (Patreon)

Adalinda was facing a small group people who seemed to have emerged from the darkness of the holes I spotted earlier. They did not seem threatening—in fact, they seemed more scared of the celestial standing before them.

When they saw Soren and I approach, the woman in front of the group gave me an intense stare. “Hello,” she said, her voice commanding attention. “We are the nymphs of this forest. Thank you for saving us.”

“Saving you?” I asked, a little puzzled.

“From the beetle mother,” she explained. “No players have come through here in years. The insect made her home here and we could not fend her off. We had to retreat into these small holes, live in the walls.”

I looked her up and down and noticed that, even though what she said seemed impossible, the people were small enough in stature that it could be true. All of them stood no taller than my shoulder, and they all had a dark green hue to their skin. The woman—their leader, I assumed—had long black hair weaved by colorful gems and stark black eyes. It was proving difficult to meet them at all.

But I could not help but be somehow entranced by their presence.

“This was meant to be your Trial of Conviction,” she said. “But no hatchlings have made it this far in a very long time. Are you ready?”

“Wait,” I said. “I have some questions.”

The woman looked at me intently. “What is your name?” I asked.

“You can call me Ida,” she said simply.

“What are these Trials? What are they meant to prove?”

Ida furrowed her brow and looked back toward her companions. Looking closer, I saw they were all women, too—as I supposed was characteristic of being a forest nymph. But, while the leader had a mess of beads strung along her legs, the others had nothing, and simply stood barefoot at her side.

“You were not sent here?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “We came in here looking for someone.”

“Oh,” Ida said, sounding a little disappointed. “But I see you have the Hatchling Claw.”

I fiddled with the artifact around my neck before responding. “This was passed down to us,” I said, pointing to my brother.

“We do not know much about the players who came through here, only that they were sent here by their elders,” she said. “They allowed us to live in here, in safety, as long as we helped them with their Trials.”

“Why would forest nymphs live in a dungeon?” my brother asked.

“The outside world became very dangerous for us,” the leader said, a hint of sadness lacing her monotone manner of speaking. “We made a deal with your elders to stay here, grow our own forest, and live in peace.”

“The players never tried to kill you?” I asked. As I did, though, a ripple of laughter went through the whole group of nymphs.

Ida held up a hand, and immediately, the laughter stopped. “They would not dare,” she said. “It would mean failing the Trial.”

I nodded slowly, not knowing what else to say. It did not seem that the nymphs knew much about the dungeon outside of their chamber, and from what I understood, Alastair and his group had not come through here either.

“Alright,” I said, turning to Soren. “Are you ready?”

When he gave me a curt nod, I looked back at the nymph leader. “We are ready.”

“Very well,” she said. “Follow me, please, all of you.”

We did her bidding, and I found myself drawn to her presence. There was something different about the nymph—something spiritual, a magic I had not experienced before. I could not, at any moment, be sure that she did not cast a spell on me.

She led us further down the chamber and we reached a small, white bowl sitting on an oak table. It was hidden behind some bushes, and as the nymph walked toward them, they seemed to open on their own and make way for her.

“Come,” she beckoned.

I walked slowly toward the bowl and peered inside. A creamy liquid was inside, and it smelled distinctly of lavender. The leader dipped her hands into the liquid and started smearing it over my burn mark. In a few seconds, my skin was restored.

When she was done, she walked to a small waterfall behind the table and pointed to it. “Drink,” she said.

I walked to the fountain and cupped my hands, drinking my fill. The water was cold, and I felt as it ran down my throat into my stomach. The taste was unlike anything I had before, but at the same time, I felt satisfied after one sip.

You have drunk from a spring of restoration. Your mana, psi, and stamina have been fully replenished.

This place is magical, I thought. Turning around, I watched as the nymph gave Soren and Adalinda the same treatment and led them toward the spring to drink. When they were done, they stood next to me quietly. For the first time in a long time, the atmosphere around us was calm.

“You should feel prepared now,” the nymph said. “This Trial insists that you are at your best. Are you ready?”

The three of us nodded simultaneously. I truly felt like I could take on anything.

The nymph leader called back to her followers in a language I did not understand. Before I knew it, two more nymphs had appeared in front of us, and each stood before Soren and Adalinda. The leader approached me and put her hand flat against my forehead. While the nymph in front of Soren did the same, the third had to bend down to touch Adalinda.

I looked into the eyes of the nymph leader, and she closed hers. A few seconds passed, and I fell into a deep sleep, falling back into a soft bed of grass.

✵ ✵ ✵

I awoke to the bright sun stinging my face. Holding up my arm to block out the light, I looked around to find myself in a street in the middle of the poor quarter. I sat up quickly and frantically looked around. Was that a dream? I wondered. No, surely not.

I stood up and walked around the street, noticing no people were around. Which was strange for the middle of the day in Mesina, and especially when the sun was out. There was an eerie quiet presiding over the area, and I could not seem to see further than a couple of houses down the road.

Looking around, I also could not see Soren or Adalinda. Strangely, I felt like something had been ripped from me. Adalinda is not with me, I thought. She is not in her resting place.

I was alone.

“Elana…”

Or, maybe I wasn’t. The voice, strangely familiar, was coming from a distance where I could not visualize anything. I had to continue down the road, I thought, if I wanted to find it. The walls of the houses around me closed the road off to any other direction, and behind me there was the large wall that cut the poor quarter off from the new city.

The only way out was forward.

I started walking slowly, and as I took steps, the voice called again—louder, this time. “Elana.”

My eyes widened as I realized where I recognized the voice from. It was Alon. I rushed down the road. And, low and behold, as I reached the point where the voice was coming from, I saw him. It was the axeman.

I ran as quickly as I could toward him and launched myself into his arms. Even though this was clearly a dream, it was him. I couldn’t believe it. “Alon,” I said, touching his face and broadening my smile. “What are you doing here?”

“I have news,” he said simply.

“What? What do you mean?”

“Good news,” he clarified. “It’s exciting.”

“Then tell me,” I said, growing a bit suspicious of his manner of speaking.

“I can come back,” he said.

“Come back?”

“I can come back to the world of the living,” the axeman said. “We can be together again.”

I stepped back slowly, taking in what he was saying to me. Surely this could not be possible. “How do you propose to do that?”

“A life for a life,” he said. “All you need to do is sacrifice someone in my name.”

I said nothing. I knew this was a dream. It had to be—this didn’t happen in real life.

“Come,” Alon said. “I’ll show you.”

Reluctantly, I followed the axeman further down the street. Nothing had changed about the poor quarter. In fact, it was how I remembered it as a child, only sans the usual people populating the road. The colors of the houses around me seemed as bright as they were when I treaded these grounds with my brother and Alon.

We did not walk much further until he stopped in his tracks. Turning to his left, he gestured that I walk through the door of a small hovel. As I looked where he pointed, I realized I knew this place.

It was Soren and my old home.

I pushed the door open slowly and was hit by the familiar smell of soil. Soren always used to keep small plants around the place to make it feel more like home. As a result, it always smelled of soil, and sometimes of whatever herb he was trying to grow.

When I stepped inside properly, I noticed there was a body on the bed, and my heart stopped for a moment.

“Do you remember?” Alon asked behind me. “Go look.”

I moved toward the bed. I couldn’t see who it was, as it had been hidden under the covers. Pulling them away from the head of the bed slowly, I saw a familiar mop of brown hair appear.

It was Soren, but he wasn’t dead.

I watched as my brother took labored breaths. Turning back to face the axeman, I swallowed back a lump in my throat. “What is this?” I asked.

“Do you remember?” he repeated. “When Soren was sick? And you dragged me into the Devil’s lair.”

“I remember,” I said simply, trying not to show my peril at where this was going.

“He was meant to die that day,” Alon said. “But you sacrificed me instead.”

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “You wanted to come with me.”

“Of course I did,” he said. “But you had another chance at life. You could have survived a death. You knew that we would get into trouble if we stole from the Devils.”

“You knew that just as much as I did,” I argued.

“But you willingly put me in danger to save him. And now I’m dead.”

I fell to my knees next to the bed where Soren once lay. What Alon said, I thought, may have been true. If I had just accepted my brother’s fate, not taken the stone in hand, and left fate to play out, the axeman would still be alive.

Unknowingly, I swapped one life out for another.

“What must I do?” I asked, not looking away from Soren.

“You must let him go,” Alon responded, putting a hand on my shoulder. “To free me.”

“I can’t let him die,” I argued. “And you are already gone.”

“But you must still let him go,” Alon repeated. “That is the only way you can save me. Save yourself.”

“You’re not making sense,” I snapped, smacking his hand away from my shoulder. “How will trading one life for another fix this?”

“Letting destiny take its course was the right decision,” he said grimly. “And you meddled with it.”

I stood up and looked directly at the axeman. When his eyes met mine, I noticed something a little different. They were his eyes, unmistakably, but there was something dark behind them. I saw a small snake slither in them. I couldn’t trust him.

“I forged my own destiny,” I said confidently. “Losing you almost killed me and did cause the death of others. But Soren cannot pay for my mistakes.”

Alon said nothing and instead, a dark sneer formed on his face. His mouth grew wider, unnaturally so, and before I could step away from him, his body exploded into a wisp of black. With a loud screech, the creature acting as Alon fled the house, and I looked back to see the bed empty