Page 11 of Stone Sentinels

“I tellin’ you, she ain’t right in the head,” the sprites declares. “I were watchin’ her the other day an’ she fuckin’ did somethin’ real freaky with her eyes that made me shit myself.”

Always so dramatic.

“But we know she’s been talking to both Variant and Theren about seemingly different things. Could she be trying to pit them against one another? To see if one is more worthy to serve her purpose?” Pyre asks. “I’m thinking she might have heard her own prophecy.”

“Aima thinks she’s after Silvanus, and I agree,” I reply.

“But, why?” Eilish asks.

I face her. “Morrigan would naturally want to get rid of Silvanus because he’s the only one who knows the truth about her. The problem with that is, while we have an idea of what her next moves might be, we have no fucking clue as to why she’s doing it. Hell, she won’t even tell me the real truth in the reason why I’m walking around again after Variant killed me.”

“I think I have the answer to that…” Pyre says as he reaches into his robes and pulls out a ratty book with strange markings on it. They are unlike the runes I’ve become accustomed to seeing in The Veil or even the Realms.

“What is that?” I ask.

“This is English. It’s a language humans used to speak before the Singularity. I took a walk through the past with a spirit the other night and came across this book hidden in the catacombs of an old church.”

“What’s it about?”

“It was written by a man who once hunted your kind, Baron. It speaks of many types of vampires and sorts out the myths from the facts about your species. Though you may think of yourself as a Revenant now, according to these texts, that’s untrue.”

“What the hell does it say, then?”

“Vampires were once said to have had two souls or two hearts. One that was killed in your mortal death, and the other that brought you back. You have a heart, Baron, but no soul. That means Morrigan knew she could reanimate you in the ways of old... witchcraft. Not necromancy—it’s very different. Necromancy requires a full death of both the heart and the soul; you were only a partial death,” Pyre explains. “With your second heart still alive, she simply had to keep your body in the earth until she needed it. In ancient times, humans used to put bars over the graves to keep vampires and ghouls from returning to the land of the living.”

“So, that explains how she was able to do it, but not why,” I say.

“I’m getting to that,” he answers while turning the pages. “In this form, you have the ability to use your body as a vessel, to house souls that haven’t crossed into The Veil. Morrigan has the ability to project her soul outside her body, which is how she contacts Variant. But... if she regains her full power, she could project her soul and possess you, use your strength and abilities for herself, and you would be helpless. Without a soul to combat hers, you would die again. And while your heart still beats within your body, your conscience would go into darkness—”

“Then I become a true Revenant.”

“What the fucks that mean?” Flumph asks.

“It means I would haunt those around me and feed like a ravenous beast, creating more of my kind.”

“Yes,” Pyre agrees. “You wouldn’t be yourself any longer, but a shadow on the wind that brings death to those unlucky enough to cross your path.”

I lean back in my chair and close my eyes. “We can’t let Morrigan get her powers back.”

“Wait! Wait!” Noni jumps up onto the table from her seat and walks over to Pyre. “Master, if Mr. Baron be a vessel, then so can the angel, right? She able to pull stuff inside her and hold it ‘cause she a succubus, right?”

Pyre goes quiet and my mind starts racing once more. Morrigancoulduse Eilish as a receptacle of power, to absorb power with her succubae abilities and then wield the force of it with her angel gifts. Like a never-ending font, a well Morrigan could tap into whenever she pleased.

Pyre must be thinking along the same lines, because he shakes his head in disbelief. I stand to take my leave as Pyre assigns Flumph and Noni their duties. Both the sprite and the brownie promise not to let anything spoken here be mentioned outside this warded room.

Pyre and I meet in the clearing. I whistle to get Eilish’s attention, where she sits on a patch of grass beneath a large tree, reading. She shuts the book in her lap.

“What is it?”

“Time to start training you,” I reply. Those words are even truer now that we have some inkling as to what Morrigan may be up to. “Pyre will train your abilities and I will train you to fight, but you need to know how to do both at the same time.”

She huffs, but I see her lips twitch a little. “All right, what first?”

“Show me what you know already—what Dragan already taught you earlier. I need to know where you’re at in terms of skill and instinct.” I circle her, watching as she strikes, giving her directions that make her hiss in irritation, but the angrier she gets, the better she fights—most probably owing to the succubus. I like that about her. There’s a natural strength to Eilish that she’s unaware of.

“Strike with your entire body or else you’ll just tire your arms. You’re smaller than most creatures you’ll be up against, so throw all your weight into the attacks and save your strength for defending.” I grab her arm and throw her. She hits the ground with a roll and pops back to her feet, but I see she’s favoring her left side.

“You were holding back on me before…” she accuses, looking even more irritated than before. “What’s the point in training me, if you don’t attack me as fiercely as an enemy would?”

---