Chapter 5

Chapter Five: The Exorcist’s Mercy

 The white light emanating from the Priest’s mace didn't feel like a blessing. It didn't feel like the warm, healing glow of a Sunday morning. It felt like a desert sun—blistering, dry, and soul-searing. It was a light designed to burn away the darkness, regardless of whether the person carrying that darkness survived the fire.

 I was still pinned against the cold stone of the catacombs, my body trembling in the aftermath of a passion that had turned into a death trap. The black smoke of the King of Sorrows was still curled in my lungs, tasting like soot and old blood. My heart felt like it was being squeezed by a frost-covered hand, struggling to beat against the crushing weight of the entity now occupying my husband’s skin.

 Shadow-Julian—the thing that wore Julian’s beautiful face like a mask—hissed at the light. His grip on my throat didn't loosen; it tightened. I could feel his black claws drawing thin, stinging lines of blood on my skin. He wasn't just holding me; he was claiming me.

 "Step back, Father!" Julian’s voice emerged from the monster, but it was distorted, a dual-toned roar that sounded like a man screaming from the bottom of a well. "She is mine! The debt of the Valerius blood is paid in the Tenth! She belongs to the Mirror now!"

 The Priest didn't stop. He was a tall, gaunt man with eyes like polished flint and a scar that ran from his temple to his jaw. He didn't look at me with pity. He didn't see a woman in love or a victim of a curse. He looked at me like a house that was already on fire—something to be demolished before the flames could spread to the rest of the village.

 "There is no debt left, Julian Valerius," the Priest said, his voice echoing with a supernatural power that made the very stones of the catacombs vibrate. "There is only rot. And I have come to prune the branch before the whole tree withers."

 He raised his gold-and-white mace, the head of the weapon glowing with a violet-white intensity. It didn't point at the demon. It pointed at me.

 "Wait!" I tried to scream, but only a puff of black smoke escaped my lips. My voice was gone, stolen by the entity. My lungs felt filled with lead.

 "The girl is the anchor," the Priest said coldly, his eyes locking onto mine with a terrifying lack of emotion. "As long as the Tenth Life breathes, the King of Sorrows has a doorway into our world. To kill the demon, the vessel must be shattered. I will give her the mercy of a quick end."

 "No!" Julian’s silver eyes suddenly flickered back to the surface for a heartbeat. The black ink receded just enough for me to see his soul—tortured, bleeding, and desperately in love. "Father Silas, you promised! You said there was a ritual to separate us!"

 "The ritual required you to stay pure, Julian!" Silas shouted, his face twisting into a mask of righteous fury. "You succumbed to the flesh. You opened the gate by choice. Now, I must close it with blood."

 Silas swung the mace.

 A wave of pure, white energy slammed into us. It didn't hurt the shadow; it bypassed the demon entirely and hit my soul. I felt my spirit being ripped away from my body, the connection to my Tenth Life fraying like a burnt rope. It was a pain beyond anything I had felt in my nine previous deaths. This wasn't the death of the body; it was the erasure of the self.

 Julian screamed—a sound of such raw, human agony that it shattered the nearby burial urns. With a burst of strength that defied the curse, he threw himself in front of me, taking the brunt of the Priest’s next strike.

 The white light scorched his back, the fabric of his shirt disintegrating into ash. He fell to his knees, gasping, but he didn't let go of me. He pulled me down into the dirt, shielding me with his own broken body.

 "Run," he wheezed, blood coughing out of his mouth and staining the white silk of my torn gown. "Elowen... run to the back of the tombs... the well..."

 "I won't leave you!" I finally found my voice, though it sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a grave. My hands clutched at his shoulders, feeling the heat radiating from his burned skin.

 The Priest stepped closer, his heavy boots crushing the brittle bones of the dead that littered the floor. "Move aside, Duke. Let me give her the mercy of a quick death before she becomes the Queen of the Void. If she turns, the world ends."

 "You will have to kill me first," Julian rasped. He tried to stand, but his legs failed him. He looked up at me, his silver eyes drowning in tears. "Elowen... I love you. In every life, I loved you. Even when I was the one holding the knife, my soul was screaming for you. I was always there, trapped behind the black, trying to reach you."

 "I know," I whispered, reaching out to touch his face. I could feel the King of Sorrows retreating, weakened by the Priest’s light, but I could also feel the Priest’s killing intent growing.

 The Priest raised the mace for the final blow. The air around the weapon began to hum, the light turning a blinding, lethal violet.

 But I didn't look at the Priest. I looked at the shadows behind him.

 The nine other Elowens—the ghosts of my past lives—were no longer chanting. They were moving. They crawled out of the darkness, their broken limbs snapping and popping as they surrounded the Priest. They weren't the beautiful women they had once been; they were the versions of me that Julian had destroyed. One had a purple ring around her neck. Another had a hollow chest.

 They didn't hate me. They didn't even hate Julian. They hated the "Order" that had let them die nine times without helping.

 One of the ghosts—Life Four, the one with the slit throat—reached out and grabbed the Priest’s ankle with a hand made of solid shadow.

 Silas gasped, his light flickering as the cold of the grave touched him. "What is this? Begone, foul spirits! I am a servant of the Light!"

 "We are the debt," the ghosts whispered in unison, their voices a chilling wind that blew out the Priest’s magical fire. "And we have come to collect from the one who dares to end our final sister. She is the only one of us who fought back."

 The ghosts swarmed him. The "holy" man was dragged down into the darkness, his screams of "Heresy!" being muffled by the weight of nine dead women protecting the tenth. It was a sight of horror and beauty—my own deaths saving my life.

 In the chaos, the King of Sorrows within Julian let out a frustrated shriek. The connection was weakening. The intervention of the past lives had created a crack in the fabric of the curse.

 "The well!" Julian gasped, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the very back of the catacombs. "The Well of Souls at the end of the tunnel. It’s an ancient portal, Elowen. If we jump... it resets the cycle without us dying. It’s a gamble. We might wake up in a different time. A different world. But we’ll be together, and the Shadow will be locked in this era."

 "Is there a future for us there?" I asked, my heart pounding as we reached the end of the tunnel.

 Julian gave me a weak, bloody smile, his silver eyes shining with a hope I hadn't seen in ten lifetimes. "I’ll make sure of it. A world where I can love you without a shadow in the room. A world where the only thing that kills you is old age, in my arms."

 We ran.

 We reached the end of the catacombs, where a massive stone well sat, glowing with a soft, blue moonlight that seemed to fall from nowhere. It looked like a drop into infinity, a swirling vortex of stars and silver mist.

 Behind us, the Priest had broken free of the ghosts, his mace glowing with a desperate, dying light. He was stumbling toward us, blood dripping from his eyes. "Stop! You'll break the fabric of reality! You'll bring the darkness into the future!"

 Julian looked at me. He didn't look like a Duke. He didn't look like a monster. He just looked like my Julian.

 "Together?" he asked, his hand squeezing mine.

 "Together," I promised.

 We jumped.

 The fall felt like an eternity. The air vanished. The sound vanished. The heat of the catacombs was replaced by a cold, weightless vacuum. And then, everything went white.