Run Away ✧ Sebastian Sallow

chapter thirty-two

still feel. by half•alive

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"I'm sorry to tell you child, but I'm afraid I don't have the answers that you are seeking." The Keeper Rackham told her.

It had been two weeks since the burns on her hands had appeared and they should have begun to fade by then, yet the skin at the end of her fingers remained darkened as if they were stained with ink. Antheia wasn't sure how much longer she could go on pretending that it wasn't there. There were no spells or potions that seemed to cure the effects of her Ancient Magic that she had been able to find. This time the damage had seemed to be irreversible. The shock releasing the lightning bolt of magic had taken a toll on her and she was struggling to hide the effects it was beginning to take on her.

The glossy eyes of the oil-painted man looked down on her with a sense of pity. A deep breath escaped him before asking the others, "I've never experienced such a burn during my life, but I cannot speak for everyone here. Has anyone else here heard of such a thing?"

The three other portraits displayed around the Map Chamber looked around at each other in nervous disbelief.

"Not to my memory," Niamh Fitzgerald spoke up first.

Charles Rookwood shook his head before offering a disappointed, "Fortunately not."

It shocked her to believe out of all the Ancient Magic wielders and the Keepers that she had been the only one to face this issue of burning out before. When she entered the Map Chamber, she was truly hopeful that someone could surely give her an explanation as to the true cause of the burns and how to prevent them.

The only Keepers that she had ever known were dead long before she was born. The enchanted oil paintings held their memories and their experiences, but never their souls. Her connection to them would always be distant. Antheia was the only living person to wield Ancient Magic during her life and thought that no one would understand her.

"I've never experienced it since I lack the ability to wield such magic, but I've seen burns like that once before," The Keeper San Bakar finally confessed from his framed portrait, "It was only once and I am not if I know any more about them than you do, Keeper Wytners."

"Where did you see it?"

"On Isidora's body."

The small spark of hope died almost instantly. The idea suddenly put a cold chill into the air around them. Isidora Morganach had been the only Ancient Magic user who had been turned against the rest of the Keepers. The only woman to have betrayed them by creating the deadly powerful Repository that Antheia had vowed her life to protect.

"I'm not trying to imply anything," San quickly clarified, before the comparison could be made. "We all know what Isidora had been capable of and her faith had been of her own making. I don't believe that Keeper Wytners shares any of these intentions or ill will."

The leader of the group, Keeper Percival Rackham, looked across at the portrait of the old friend across from him with sharp eyes. "San, you have never mentioned this before. When did this occur?"

"Only after her death," He clarified with a bit of guilt dripping from his voice. "Isidora may have lost her way, but she was still a dear friend to me. I truly never wanted to harm her. I felt that I owed her family an explanation as to why she had died so I had brought her body back to them to bury."