(Updates everyday)
Power demands what it's owed, and souls are its favorite currency.
===
When museum curator, Lena Goodwin, receives an anonymous package containing damning evidence of a mistake she thought she buried years ago, her carefully built...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
===
Lena didn't waste a second, didn't even pause for breath. She frantically gripped onto Hugh's arm and roughly shook it. Her urgency felt tangible, sharp, and electric in the air. She had barely given him time to process everything before telling him they needed to find Roran, a matter of life and death. She didn't offer any explanation, and he hadn't pressed her, even though in his mind Roran was gone. But the look on her face made her feel scared, and he wondered what else she saw when she recalled her forgotten memories.
He had heard others talk. About how missing with one's brain made them more susceptible to similar magics. Like having visions or predicting the future. If that was what Lena experienced, and that was all Hugh needed to listen and do what she said.
He followed her without question, no hesitation. He trusted her enough that she wouldn't pull another stunt on him, especially not when it involved someone close to him.
They approached an abandoned warehouse near the edge of the city's underground district. It was a place he knew well for its isolation, and it was also close to the cursed cave the Necromancers habited. It's just tightened with a sense of foreboding. The kind he couldn't shake.
Lena quickened her pace as if she could sense what awaited them inside. She had gone silent as she carefully pushed the door open. Just a crack but the site that greeted them stole the breath of his lungs.
Hugh's vision clouded at the body strewn across the floor. The rest of the room faded away as he stumbled forward. He dropped to his knees beside the relic hunter he worked the most with. They weren't friends, at least that was what he kept telling himself. Roran had a way of irking him quite like Lena. Except his Hugh could tolerate.
He wouldn't get that luxury anymore.
Roran lay on the cold, dusty floor. His body was unnaturally still, his eyes glassed over as they seemed to look directly at him. It was probably just a trick of the light, but Hugh felt this immense guilt for leaving him behind. He knew there was nothing he could do to help him. He could stop an archmage like Drakhar, but Necromancers dealt with a kind of magic that he could never overpower. They were cast out of society to their purgatory for foolishly interfering with the balance between life and death. Not even Drakhar was that dense.
But Hugh had gone out looking for them despite knowing what they do. He had been so desperate for answers he never truly realized the risk of bringing Roran with him. If he could go back in time, he would have told his colleague not to come.
It was too late for that.
"Roran." His name was spoken in his strangled whisper.
You reached out with trembling hands. The reality of the scene sunk into him like a knife to the gut. If he had followed his instincts like he usually did, he probably would have recognized a doubt that told him Roran could still be alive. If he had just paid attention to it.
