The Healer ✔

Chapter Six

Ever since they had first defeated the Zlohiel by locking them away in the Gate, Elora had been the one tasked to defend it. She lived forever. Giving her the task was far easier than changing people every fifty or so years. They'd eventually grow tired of the job. Immortality had been one of the many gifts her father had given her when he created her.

Every couple of decades she would move it to a new part of the realm. All she had to do was gather it with her magic and take it with her as she flew. It weighed next to nothing. No one else would ever know where she put it, mostly because she never told anyone about it. She was surprised people even knew about the Gate and the Key.

As for the Key, she allowed the kings and queens of Veridun to deal with it. They would transport the powerful chunk of wood between each other every few years. She would follow them, unseen and unheard, and watch the transfer until she was satisfied the Key was safe.

Sometimes, very rarely, the Key had not been placed in safe hands. Someone would attempt to steal it, especially in the first few years after the war when there were still sympathisers for the Zlohiel. She would then have to assassinate both the person who attempted to steal the Key and the ruler who hadn't protected it properly.

She had assassinated a great many people over the years, and she wished she didn't have to. She wished that people would just keep the Key safe. If King Wyndel had survived the attack she would have had to kill him as well.

Even though she had created the Gate and the Key she didn't know where the Zlohiel were. At first, she thought they had just been sent to another part of the realm that hadn't been discovered at the time. But as the years passed and there was no sign of them, Elora had eventually figured out that the Gate led to another realm, one they had created themselves. She didn't know what kind of realm it was though.

She couldn't say she didn't picture it like this. It was what she had hoped, a place where they suffered for their evil. She just didn't expect the end up in it. How she had gotten there, she still did not know, her father hadn't told her that yet.

Nowhere, he had said, the realm was called Nowhere. Named by the evil that lived there. It was a fitting title from what she had already seen. It was just blackness and death and fire and nothingness. Nothing could survive there. She was surprised there were any Zlohiel coming out of the Gate.

"How am I here?" she asked her father, trying to ignore the pained cries around her.

I brought you here. Only your spirit. Your body is still sleeping, still with those friends of yours. I took you back in time, not too far, but enough for you to see.

"See what?" she snapped, her voice quiet.

Why they are the way they are.

"They were like this long before I locked them away."

He scoffed, and Elora couldn't help but find it patronising. They are worse now, my daughter. You've angered them with your actions.

"They were going to destroy the realm! You told me to deal with them! I did what you asked!"

And now they are back, worse than before. Because of you.

There was a blinding flash of light and Elora winced, throwing an arm in front of her face to cover her eyes. Nothing else around her seemed to notice, even though it would have been completely obvious.

"They cannot see you, my daughter. They cannot see either of us," a familiar voice said. Nyal, but not quite. When the light finally faded away and she took her arm from her face all she could see was Nyal. He stood right in front of her, a frown on his face and his body rigid. "This form is more comforting to you, is it not?"