The grand wizards began chanting again, and Cassie felt her anger grow. How could they be so callous? Her horror and anger mounted when the blood from Alexander’s body seemed to drain into the carvings in the ground, filling it until it glowed a frightful red.
She screamed, frustration and anger battling for dominance. Shaking her head, she tried to run to him, moving away from the circle and returning at different spots to break through the barrier. She couldn’t….
The scene fell away, and she found herself struggling and fighting against a very alive Alexander Petraeus. Tears leaked from her eyes, and he pulled her close, pressing her against his body. Warm. Alive. She could hear his heart beating steadily under her ear.
“You died,” she said in an accusatory way, wanting to kill him over again for making her watch that.
“No. No weapon fashioned by man can kill me. I was gravely injured, drained of my life’s blood, and weakened.”
She breathed deep, willing herself to be calm. Cassie wasn’t the hysterical, weeping kind. Her last breakdown had been early teens, and well deserved, but this pushed her limits.
“I’m fine.” Pulling away, she wiped at her face. His hands still held her upper arms, and he was peering at her closely, as if trying to decide whether she spoke the truth.
“I didn’t want to show you that memory, but you gave me little choice,” he explained.
Cassie nodded, sniffling still. “I don’t understand. Why did they hurt you like that?”
“They needed a powerful sacrifice. One that could open the portal to the other realms. I’m strong, Cassandre, very strong. It’s a result of my birth, and the gifts given to me then.”
“By your father?”
“Yes.”
“So they used you to banish the druids?”
He nodded and her brow furrowed. She’d remembered him calling this place a prison. Was this where they’d banished him to? Was this one of the other realms?
“No,” he stated, and for once she didn’t mind him reading her thoughts. It was all overwhelming, and if he could answer her questions, she was fine with it.
“They banished my people, but they could not banish me.” He looked away briefly and said, “None but a god can banish me. It is another provision afforded me by my father.”
“I don’t understand. How is this your prison?”
Alexander released her arms, and sighed. “You have called me a cold-blooded killer, a murder, and what I am about to tell you will prove that. When my body had rejuvenated enough to awake, I knew I was alone. I could not feel them, my brothers, my sisters. They were no longer a part of this world.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Even the corpses had been banished. It was as if they never existed.” His voice hardened. “I tracked them down, all twelve of the grand wizards responsible for the banishment of my people. I killed them all and I cursed their descendants, their followers, their friends, and every witch to come in the future generations. As long as my people suffered, so would theirs.”
His gaze held hers, as if affording her the opportunity to call him monster, or killer, or something worse, for what he’d done. She wanted rage at him for cursing a group of people who’d had little or nothing to do with the banishment of his, but she understood. It had begun to make sense the moment he’d allowed her to witness that memory, and she was understanding. To the witches, he was the avenger of his people. To the druids, he was their freedom fighter.
She turned from him and walked to the water’s edge, thoughts swirling in her head. “If I resurrected the druids, would you take revenge on the descendants of these grand wizards for the crimes of their ancestors?”
A sigh. A long-suffering sigh, as if he were Atlas, and held the weight of the world on his shoulders. She guessed in some ways, he did.
“No. The witches have suffered much over the centuries. If you were to resurrect my people, I promise no retribution will be sought on our end.”
She nodded. She needed to think this over. Cronin wanted the druids resurrected for selfish purposes, but Alexander wanted his people freed. Which brought her back to the question she’d asked him….
“You said you weren’t banished by the witches, so why are you imprisoned here?”
He approached her slowly. “After killing the grand wizards and cursing the witches, I banished myself.” When she gasped, he continued as if it was the most natural thing to do. “It was unfair that my people were suffering while I was not. I spent half a century in that torturous existence, always hungry, thirsty, tired, lonely, but unable to find relief. It is an existence where one yearns for death, but even that is denied.”