Janus has been attacked?
I quickly walked up to Collin, pushing my chair over in the process.
“Collin, what are you talking about? Janus being attacked? Where is he?”
But Collin had no time to stand around and answer my question, so instead he just grabbed my hand and began to drag me after him.
“Come! Or he won’t make it.”
Collin’s face was pale from fear, and his hand was shaking. Was it really that bad? I quickened my step while asking.
“Why didn’t you just bring him here?”
Wouldn’t it have been faster to bring him to the clinic rather than bringing me to him? These days, I’m pretty much always there, not to mention the new priest and Benjamin are also there, but Collin’s answer caused a cold shiver to run down my spine.
“He would have bled out even faster if we moved him.”
“What happened to him?”
“His… his throat was cut.”
His Throat! Who would do something like that?
But before I could ask any more questions, I noticed that we were already there. A puddle of blood could be seen behind a dark corner with a drag mark leading directly into the room Collin and I had stopped at. Collin hurried me inside. Behind us, I could already hear the approaching footsteps of Benjamin, Rika, and Otto, who had done their best to keep up.
The smell of blood was everywhere. The smell and the scene before me were so pungent, so frightening that I took an involuntary step back.
Inside the dimly lit storage room, Janus lay on the dirty stone floor, his head resting on an empty sack. Next to him were his brother Joel and his father Willhelm Yuwen, who were busy pressing a makeshift dressing, fashioned out of Joel’s pearly white shirt, against Janus’ throat. But the Dressing couldn’t hold back the dark red blood. The once white shirt had turned crimson along with most of Janus’s upper body and the sack beneath him.
His face was almost as white as snow.
“See, Father, Ruby is here. She will help him; she has to help him. Do you hear me, Janus? She will heal you, she…” Tears streamed down Joel’s face as he desperately pleaded, his voice trembling with anguish.
Willhelm was crying as well, but unlike Joel, his face had hardened into a horrifying mask of vengeance against his son’s killer.
I ran as fast as my feet could carry me. I kneeled down next to him and, with shaking hands, I began to send wave after wave of healing magic into his cold body. His cut flesh mended, his broken spine healed, and even a bit of color returned as fresh blood entered his veins. But unlike all the other times when I had saved someone from the brink of death, there was no movement, no heat, just cold and lifeless flesh.
He was dead.
Janus had died… no, he had been murdered.
“What are you doing? Why isn’t he moving? Why aren’t you…”
Joel stood up, grabbed me by my collar, and lifted me off the ground.
“You have to bring him back, you have to…”
Joel was beginning to go mad. That was when Willhelm and Collin thankfully intervened and pulled Joel off me. Willhelm pulled his son into a deep hug and told Joel what everyone already knew.
“Enough, son, she did everything she could. He… he is dead.”
“But I-I just talked to him, he was going to see her, and now he… he…”
“I know my son, I know.”
While father and son were crying their hearts out, Benjamin, Rika, and Otto had arrived. Their faces pale from shock. Death was a common visitor in a fought-over border fortress, but instead of apathy, their faces conveyed deep sorrow. Rika even broke down crying after just taking a single look, not daring to take another, she hid her face behind her hands as she quietly mourned. Her back rose and fell with each sob and breath.
I…
I couldn’t stop staring at the healed cut that had been on his throat, going from one ear to the other. The blood had already run dry, but a bit was still dripping from the now blood-red shirt that was resting on his chest like a morbid bouquet. His dead, blue, dull eyes were staring unmoving towards the ceiling. I dug my blood-covered hands into the hem of my dress while still kneeling in his blood.
But for some reason, I couldn’t cry even with all this fear and grief stuck in my throat; no tears would fall.
He was dead…
I won’t ever get to talk with him again. I’ll never be able to be with him again. I won’t be able to tell…
I can’t accept this; there must be something I can do! There must be a method! There…!
“Benjamin?”
“Wha-what?”
“I will try to bring him back, make sure that my hand and his are always connected until I’m done, even when I fall unconscious.”
I took Janus’ cold hand and lay down beside him.
“Bring him back? Falling unconscious? What are you talking about? What are you…”
“I will bring him back to life or not at all. Not as an undead, but just how he used to be, you will have to give me your mana when I run dry, so give me as much as you can. I will be off then.”
“Off? What do you?”
But I had already run off, or well, my soul has at least run off on a mission to find Janus’ soul and bring it back into his body, reviving him. Leaving my unconscious body behind, as my soul left my body behind, only tethered to it by a small golden thread.
Now, with just my soul, I was no longer bound by my body, and I could freely rise into the sky, even through objects, in my search for Janus Soul. My mana, however, was rapidly decreasing.
Leaving one’s body behind while only tethering it to one’s soul by a small thread consumes a ton of mana with every passing second. It leaves oneself unprotected against any attack that targets the soul. It is extremely risky, where just one wrong move could instantly sever my soul’s connection to my body.
And without a connection, I would just like Janus’ soul, leave my body behind to ascend to “Heaven” (God’s realm). This is not a voluntary decision but merely an unavoidable natural process that all souls go through when they die. Even I would not be able to resist the pull from god’s realm for long.
But it was necessary. Only by using my own soul I would be in turn able to see Janus’ soul and drag him back down… hopefully…
So, while pushing all these worries aside. I moved as fast as possible while burning through my mana supply. I made my way through the storage room’s ceiling, flying past everyone’s confused faces until I could see the open sky.
Thankfully, Souls couldn’t be seen at least with normal eyes, so I wouldn’t need to worry about a panic from breaking out due to a golden naked shiny woman floating through the Fort. Not that I really cared, I would have done it even if the entire Fort saw me naked… again…
I instantly feel reminded of the time I spent in god’s realm. There, my soul was just floating in some lonely corner, endlessly trying to fulfill my own desire. And now I am risking everything to save…
someone else…
Perhaps I did change... a little.
I look in every direction, and when I could already feel my mana reserves dwindling, a much-needed dose of mana entered my core. But I still couldn’t spot him until I looked up. There, hundreds of meters above, I could see a faint golden shimmer, almost invisible against the light of the setting sun.
Found him.