Chapter 15
She turned off the lights and locked her room, keeping everyone out. They all thought she was grieving, scared, and needed time alone. But it was none of what they were thinking. Because there was no one who truly knew all of her yet.
She climbed onto her bed and closed her eyes, focusing all her energy within herself, and she swore she’d never gone into her meditative state faster. She sifted past her defenses and her bond with her familiars and Ivanna. Finding Morrigan’s essence, she attacked it and found herself in her body.
“Viria,” Morrigan spoke, “why do I feel like you’re here with me?”
Viria didn’t say anything. She wanted to see how Morrigan responded to the invasion.
“If you’re listening, I’d like to apologize to you and Ivanna for a lot of things.” She sighed. “A lot of secrets that you’ll probably never know. But knowing you, Viria, I wouldn’t be surprised if you found out long before all this. You’re intelligent after all.”
Morrigan was chained and held together by binding spells so powerful that it would take Viria years to work through them. They weren’t another witch’s doing. Another paranormal being for sure.
“Please fix the community,” Morrigan pleaded into the air, “I’d let my selfishness destroy so much. Please undo the damage, Viria. I know you’re capable.”
“Don’t leave us yet,” Viria spoke.
“My soul will roam for a while collecting pieces of itself after I die,” Morrigan continued as if she heard nothing, “Only then will it leave. Nina was the first person I left my essence into, and she’ll be the last to be collected from. Goodbye, Viria and Ivanna. I truly did care for you all. Very deeply. You all make me proud, no matter what, doing what even I couldn’t do. Standing up to evil, even when it was your own.”
Morrigan closed her eyes, and Viria felt as if she was literally forced back into her consciousness and back awake. It was enough an indication to let her know that Morrigan had heard her when she had spoken. She was aware. She figured it out in the end and admitted to it.
Viria was frozen. Speechless. Numb. All this time, she’d assumed Morrigan to be a cold and heartless liar. But being in her consciousness for what was probably the last time, she felt the genuine and raw love she had for them. Gathered, she was an awful person for the things she did, she still loved them. That was one truth Viria hated herself for denying this whole time.
Would she have changed if I reciprocated it genuinely? she asked herself. And she knew it was a no. Morrigan had been the way she was for too long to change anymore. But she still regretted not accepting what she was being given. She’d missed out. She’d really missed out.
Ivanna came back the next day straight to the HQ, too hardened to speak.
“She’s been executed,” she stated, “I’ve been allowed to bring her head and body back for the funeral service.”
None of the members of the High Council said anything. No one knew what to feel. They knew about Morrigan’s dark acts. They knew she was evil. But she had been around for so long that it felt weird to digest the fact that she was capable of death.
Ivanna placed a recorder on the table and pressed a button.
“I want everyone to confess everything they know about Morrigan,” she demanded, “I have a lot of messes to take care of and it would be best for me to at least be aware of them.”
None from the Council objected. Grippin was the first to start speaking. A lot of the revealed information was not new to Viria, but there were minor details that she did not dare overlook. And there was so much hidden. So much. Eventually, there were things revealed from days where even the Council members themselves weren’t born. Access to secret rooms. Under radar enemies. Contracts. Debts.
Viria started to hate Morrigan once again. They had so much to take care of.
Ivann didn’t speak on the way home. They’d left after a very long day. It was past midnight and their parents were getting frantic, but Ivanna had to arrange for funeral services. Morrigan’s death would be announced the next day, followed by the funeral.
Viria had grown curious and taken a look at Morrigan in the coffin, despite Ivanna’s warning. She regretted not listening because the image scarred her. Her body had aged to the point where she was no longer even recognizable. Skin sunken beyond the bones, charring and molding from here and there, eye balls in a puddle of goo in her sockets, lips shriveled, and body withered and fragile. Viria wished she could get it out of her head, but she couldn’t. Those eyes were haunting her.
****
It had been a few months. Things were a mess and they hadn’t expected such a burden to come with Morrigan’s death. Once news spread, their community faced plenty of danger. Heartbreakingly enough, most of the attacks were from their own kind, but with Ivanna’s helpful alliances made before Morrigan’s death, there came a lot of help. It was still hard. The HQ was almost never locked anymore. There were so many changes made, one would have thought that the community came under dictatorship. Mass training of the physically eligible, recruiting, emergency situation trainings, survival courses, and whatever else witches and wizards could need to survive.
Viria had grown distracted. She had hardened. She’d faced enough battles in the last few months before her sixteenth birthday, seen enough bloodshed and cruelty to believe in love and kindness anymore. Or companionship. Alliances, certainly, but that was as far as she was willing to keep people at anymore. The distance was good. The distance was safe.
“You know I said I’d never leave, Vi.”
“Well, I’m asking you to,” she replied, “You’re wasting your time with me.”
“Why?”
“I no longer have the strength and capability to allow emotions, Tyler.” She sighed, as if she was talking to a child. “I have too many battles to fight and no time for intimacies.”
“So all that time together meant nothing to you?” he croaked brokenheartedly. And it pained her very much to see the look in his eyes. It hurt so much…
But she’d seen greater pain before. She’d felt greater pain before. This was nothing to her. Nothing could move her now. Not when she’d seen war.
“It meant everything to me,” she said as gently as she could. “If you want honesty, I care for you deeply even now. But my circumstances have changed and I can’t give you what you deserve.”
“I don’t want much from you,” he begged.
“You need to learn to overlook your desires and focus on sustenance and self-worth,” she said indifferently. “Trust me, it gets easier to leave all that is undeserving and harmful once you understand that. I’m not worth the tears and love, Tyler. I’m not worth waiting for. I can’t treat you well. I’m too much of a fuck-up and probably will be for a long time.”
Tyler said nothing. Taking this as her chance, Viria turned around toward the trees and walked. Each step hurt like a bitch, as if knives were being placed upright wherever she stepped. And with each step away came a stronger tug at her heart toward him. And it got painful.
By the time she left the park, her heart had been torn apart and tears had wet her cheeks to the last patch of skin.
It hurt a lot, but she knew the future would hurt even more if she hadn’t turned him away. He deserved better and he needed to understand that.
Me, though? I guess I was never destined for all good things to last.
It made sense. It’s how her whole life had worked. The memories had been coming back ever since Morrigan’s death, and she dealt with them well. She could deal with heartbreak and a doomed fate, too.
She could deal with it all.
****
Ivanna had just returned from another meeting that ended successfully in a peace treaty. Some shifter clans were worried about a potential threat they could smell in the air, that promised to have them destroyed by turning their own people in the clan against each other. She agreed to have her strongest witches and wizards posted in hiding to take action whenever the threat took place and take all survivors to one of the abandoned communities the First Witch had established. That required sending witches from hers and other communities to clean up and see to building of basic facilities. The whole wizarding and witchcraft world was undergoing a major makeover through Ivanna who propagated little Viria’s ideas forward. She was a genius, so why wouldn’t anyone accept them and offer support?
But the support they were getting wasn’t enough. They needed more. Because a new enemy had popped around and were kidnapping their young ones, and they were never to be found. Ivanna had sent Viria out there for the first time in a while simply to investigate. And the results she bore were not disappointing.
“Kids’ve been brainwashed, so no use trynna get them back,” she stated, entering the office.
“Can’t make such a sacrifice, Viria,” Ivanna said, absently as she signed away at paperwork.
“We’ll decide that later.” She shrugged as she placed a scroll onto a long table and unrolling it, “Found one of their bases up high in the mountains south west from our community. About two days’ travel by car.”
“That’s some good news.” Ivanna nodded. “Anything else?”
“They’re using paranormal DNA with humans to create chimeras.” She sighed. “Very unethical. Already lost about ten fetuses from the fifteen after the first three months. The five left are struggling.”
“So what are we dealing with here?”
“Very low-key project. They haven’t found out about shifters yet. This is not their main base, but only research and training area. I’d suggest we enforce protocols on every discovered paranormal being out there and leave these guys be. They’re humans, and they might involve higher authorities and risk exposing us in masses.”
“Wait, what?”
“Humans, Ivanna,” Viria repeated, “We’ve been discovered, but being kept a secret from the public. Must be some underground syndicate of sorts. They’ll keep quiet about us and we’ll deal with them later but I don’t want them taking their chances on exposing us. Leave them be for now, trust me.”
Ivanna stared at her. The members of the High Council looked hard at Ivanna, not wanting her to let the matter go. But Ivanna could never doubt Viria. She’d proven herself as someone extraordinary from the very beginning.
“All right,” she agreed, “lower it on the priority list, Yale.”
Yale did it without a question. He trusted Viria’s intelligence just as much as Ivanna did.
“Anything else I can do to help?” Viria asked. Ivanna’s head rose as she recalled something and she immediately asked everyone to leave.
“Listen, I got something on Nina when I went to visit the Shadow Claw pack,” she said quietly and Viria moved closer to her, calculating.
“Nina wouldn’t have any purpose there…”
“She’s mated to a lieutenant of the Alpha,” she continued. “If we can find her and get her on our side, she can help us gain the help of the Shadow Claw.”
“Those bears?” Viria scoffed, “You think a clan of unstable mangy—”
“Your familiars are bears.”
“Not shifters,” Viria pointed out. “Thing is, the Shadow Claw is unstable enough as it is and they made a treaty with the wolves some time ago. That’s a suspicious move considering they both don’t get along well and have dwindling numbers.”
“Our aim is Nina,” Ivanna reminded her strictly. Viria fell silent, then sighed as her temper cooled.
“I’ll track her down. Morrigan’s essence is still rooted in us,” she said as she strategized in her head, “Let me deal with this whole thing on my own, yeah?”
“I trust you,” Ivanna nodded.
“Thanks,” she said with a smile and left the High Council’s quarters, moving toward Ivanna’s old office that had now become hers.
She’s cleaned up the place a bit, making space for her exercise and meditation before she went home. She sat at the very center of the room and did what she always did, and entered the meditative state, sifting through the barriers and links that lingered from the remaining essence of Morrigan. Viria had seen enough pictures, and even touched a few of her old objects to recognize her aura and be able to tell which thread of consciousness was hers. And it wasn’t long before she found it, connected to another’s, which she was sure was her mate’s. Slipping past the mate’s so as to not alert him, she dissolved into Nina’s to see where she was.
So, she’s a seer, Viria observed. Nina was probably in a coma and was being assaulted by a wave of nightmares and visions. From what she understood, Nina was pregnant and would give birth in a few months.
It didn’t take long for Viria to make a plan. Extracting the essence of the baby from Nina’s own consciousness to store in her body, she decided to practice a long-distance summoning spell to get the baby to her. She couldn’t tell where Nina was, so that meant she was well-hidden, only leading to the fact that she would have to lure her out by kidnapping her child. Once that’s done, they corner her and demand a ransom: her support and knowledge, along with a treaty with the bear and wolf packs. But all this needed right timing. Preferably when she was giving birth, and hopefully by then, Morrigan’s essence would have worn off to allow herself to reach full potential of her powers.
The beings in the paranormal world had an intense need of coming together with the danger that lay ahead of them. And Viria would make sure it happened.
THE END