Chapter 95: Chapter 95

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes as I looked around the inside of the dimly lit wagon with confusion. I remembered trying to combine the green and blue flames together, but nothing of what happened afterwards except for horrible nausea and revulsion. Even now, my stomach felt like it was doing backflips as I tried to sit up.

It was dark in the small wagon. Only the faint glow of silver light from General Arthur’s glyph shining through the window illuminated the inside of the wagon. I could make out the figures of my mom and Charly sleeping soundly nearby, but not my dad.

Clutching my stomach, I threw off my blankets and forced myself to stand. My legs felt weak, shaking as they struggled to keep me from falling over. With slow, careful steps, I moved towards the back of the wagon and stepped out into the chill of the night. I felt goosebumps on my skin and wished I had taken my blanket with me.

I was about to close the door to the wagon behind me when a small shadow dashed outside. The black and green blur leapt into my arms, purring loudly. I smiled as I held Nox tenderly while scratching under his jaw.

“Are you feeling better yet?” I asked, examining the kitten with a critical eye.

Nox meowed softly while nuzzling against my chest. “Still hungry? I do not have any food for you right now, but once we are out of the mist, I will find something that will help you.”

Nox purred louder in response as he curled up in my arms. I held him close to my chest as I stepped into the cold night.

the heat from his body fought against the chill. Nox was warm and soft. I moved to take another step but froze partway through, nearly tripping in the process. I looked down at the kitten in shock.

The heat from his body? Nox was practically devoid of any of my flames right now. How could his body have heat?

I held up the kitten with my mouth agape. Nox looked back at me, his big cyan eyes reflecting the dim silver light in the sky. He cocked his head sideways as he meowed.

“This is not possible!” I shouted, nearly dropping the cat. He squirmed in my grip at my sudden outburst, hopping down to the ground. I reached out to grab the kitten again, making sure what I was feeling was real. I even used a small spark of green flames to check his body. They disappeared just as quickly as normal, acting as if they had never existed in the first place.

I plopped down in the dirt, sitting down to examine if there were any other changes in the cat. I could not see anything visible, but there was one test I still had to run.

I unsheathed my dagger, pinning the Nox to the ground with one hand. he mewled in protest, squirming wildly in an attempt to get away. “Shush it will just be a little pinprick,” I said, holding the kitten firmly.

Nox almost seemed to be crying as I brought the dagger towards his paw. The kitten screeched as if I was murdering it as I left a tiny cut on the top side of his foot. From the tiny wound, a small drop of red appeared instead of the green flames that should have poured from the wound.

“How?

I burn away all the blood when I create an undead. How are you bleeding?” I whispered in awe.

Nox struggled free of my grasp. Sitting just out of arms read, he glared at me with fury as he licked his wound. He even hissed at me as I reached over to touch him again. I scowled at Nox before grabbing the kitten by the scruff of its neck.

“This does not make any sense. You are not the strongest undead I have created. You are not even the oldest. I may have drained all your flames, but I made sure to return most of them. None of that should have an effect like this.

There is nothing different, except…”

I quickly activated the talent contained in my right eye. The blue flame ignited. From within the small kitten, I felt a familiar resonance... I remembered, when I drained all of Nox’s flames for my little experiment, that was also the same day we became aware of this talent.

It had still been flowing freely in my body during that time. When I returned the flames to Nox some of that talent must have also gone with it.

All of Nox’s recent changes must have been because of that, but something still felt off. I then gathered all the green flames I could muster into my right eye. Both talents activated, and for the first time since Nox had begun acting strange, I was able to see inside his stomach. Burning there was a familiar golden flame, shining brightly.

I yelped in fright as I instinctively stumbled backward in a scramble to get away from the kitten. My body still vividly remembered how my last experiment with the golden flames went.

Nox meowed, and I swore I could see him smirking as he leapt into my lap. I flinched, wincing and half expecting another blackout, but nothing happened. I let the talents in my eyes fade and my vision returned to normal. There was no explosion. Nox was perfectly fine, just as he had been for days. More than fine perhaps. That golden flame burning inside him had done something to him I could not explain.

It almost felt like… he was alive.

 

 

 

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I poked the small kitten curiously. I felt its soft fur with my fingertip. Nox flinched at first but purred as he realized I was not going to hurt him anymore. Sensing my emotions, he rubbed up against my hand, practically bouncing in excitement.

Actually bringing something back from the dead was supposed to be impossible. It was nothing more than a dream. Anything dead for more than a couple hours was nothing more than a corpse. There was no talent in existence that could change that. Countless people stronger than me had tried and failed. Many had horrific results, creating abominations that barely resembled their loved ones. There was something in the body, call it a soul or whatever, that once lost could never be returned.

This was a subject Aurielle had spent countless sleepless nights studying. She was able to survive countless deaths because her life was tied to her talent, not her body, but she had always dreamed. She dreamed that one day her talent would be able to bring back all those she lost. That she could bring back the friends and family that were taken far too soon. Sadly, it was destined to always remain a dream.

However, there was one incident report I remembered that might match what I was seeing here. The incident detailed a necromancer, a father that had lost a daughter. After years of research, he managed to bring his daughter's body back to life using multiple healing and soul-based talents as well as a few unspeakable experiments. The resurrected daughter remembered everything from before, but it was all disconnected. In the report, she described it as remembering someone else’s life. Rather than being reborn, it was more correct to call her a new person born inside the body of the old one. I was never sure if that counted as a true rebirth, but it was the closest anyone had ever come. If only the father had not died bringing her back, the process he used would not have been lost.

Much of that story rang true in this situation. Aurielle’s flames could heal the body and keep it in perfect condition. Even the brain was preserved, which was why each undead had a different personality. A piece of my own soul acted as the medium to control the undead. Meanwhile, the blue flame in my right eye affected the soul. The Demon I had used it on saw flashes of her life as a human. Maybe it really could call out to the lost soul of the cat, but I doubted it. There was no way to tell if Nox was truly reborn, or if this could be just considered an evolution of sorts to my normal undead. I was more inclined to believe the latter, but I would not give up hope that I might really be able to bring someone back…

I shook my head with a sigh. I could experiment, but it was best not to get my hopes too high. Nox was smart for a cat, but he was still just a cat. There was no telling what sort of abomination might be born if I tried recreating this accident on a human. For now, all I could do was keep a careful eye on Nox and watch what happened.

I picked up the kitten, holding him to my chest like he was the rarest of treasures. Nox was completely content to be held and purred loudly as I started to look around for where my dad had disappeared to in the middle of the night.

The camp was eerily quiet. Except for the few soldiers on watch, almost everyone was asleep. I tried to move silently as I searched for my dad. with over twenty thousand soldiers and thousands of civilians, I walked for a long time, looking for him.

I was happy for the leisurely walk. My upset stomach felt better after moving about a bit and the dim silver light protecting us gave the world a dream-like feel. Even the night’s chill was not so bad once I got used to it. I was not really in a hurry to find my dad. It was more of an excuse to get up and move about.

As such, it was more than an hour before I stumbled across him.

My dad and General Arthur stood side by side at the very edge of the camp. They were whispering quietly as they looked out into the void of the night. Curious, I snuck up behind them as quietly as I could so I could listen in on their clandestine conversation.

“It is only a matter of time now before your family is branded as traitors,” General Arthur said, “They will send teams to hunt ye down. What will ye do?”

“We will continue our journey to the Kala Kingdom,” my dad replied, “With any luck, we can get past the border before our pursuers catch up to us.”

“And you are really ok working with them? The Kala were the ones who…”

“It is fine,” my dad said, quickly cutting the general off, “I have my own plans on how to deal with those issues.”

General Arthur nodded. “I will not press ye then. Just remember not to drag your family down with you when those plans inevitably drag them into danger. Ye, more than anyone, know just how ruthless your uncle can be. When he learns that ye have been gatherin’ allies, and he will make no mistake about that, do not be surprised if he goes after the little ones.”

My dad chuckled. “Can you imagine if he captured Wren as a hostage?”

General Arthur laughed at that. “nothin’ like accidentally bringin’ the most dangerous person in the realm right to your doorstep. It would be entertainin’ to watch... Just remember, she is not really immortal. Neither are the other two. What happened to Tia is a perfect example. If you keep bringing your family into danger, one day your luck will run out.” I saw General Arthur press a small silver object that almost looked like a coin into my dad’s hand. “The last resort should only be used when all hope is lost.”

“Are you sure it is ok for you to give me this?”

“Absolutely not, I am breakin’ more than a dozen rules right now. If the church finds out, I will be executed before the next sunrise. Keep it safe, and keep it hidden.”

My dad nodded as ha stuffed the silver coin into his pocket. “No one will ever learn of this.”

General Arthur then looked over his shoulder, his eye locking with mine. “How about it? Are ye going to report me to the church? Ye know what I have given him, right?”

My dad looked over at me in surprise, and I sighed as I moved to sit next to them.

“I have nothing against it. I just hope you are fine with losing your emergency life raft. You can only carry one at a time, right?”

General Arthur nodded. “It is ok. If I die because of this, then I was never a good general to begin with.”