- 10 hours ago
Declared dead and forgotten, they return stronger than ever. Secrets unravel, enemies fall, and revenge rises from the shadows in this gripping drama.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Burn her! Burn her! Burn her!
00:03My name is Layla.
00:0524 hours ago, I was New York's top forensic pathologist,
00:08calmly cutting open the chest of a powerful man.
00:11Now I'm bound with rough ropes to the cursed execution platform,
00:15my feet surrounded by grease-soaked firewood.
00:18The witch!
00:19You're in fire!
00:20Those eyes of yours that can see spirits are the mark of Satan!
00:25But I don't struggle.
00:26I'm just waiting.
00:27Behind these fanatical rioters stands an army they cannot see.
00:32Hundreds upon thousands of resentful ghosts.
00:39Since you wish to do God's will,
00:42why don't you first ask the seasoned if she approves?
00:45The air reeks of cheap grease and pine.
00:48Layla, those cursed purple eyes of yours can see Satan's illusions!
00:53Only fire can cleanse your sins!
00:56My name is Leah, not Leela.
00:59As the top forensic pathologist of the 21st century,
01:03I have dissected thousands of corpses and heard countless last words from the dead.
01:08I transmigrated to this backward medieval era,
01:11becoming Layla, the illegitimate daughter of a noble count,
01:15branded a cursed star for her purple eyes,
01:18pushed to death by her own father.
01:21I found my eyes had mutated.
01:24I can not only discern wounds clearly,
01:26I can also see the lingering victims who haven't yet departed.
01:32Valerie, are you sure you want to light the fire?
01:34Silence! The witch is casting a curse!
01:36A curse?
01:37Sister Cecile is right behind you, Archbishop.
01:39She's wearing an emerald silk dress but her throat is charred black,
01:42marked from concentrated strong alkali corrosion.
01:44Didn't she keep grabbing your left hand when you made her drink that cup of holy water?
01:49Silence! The witch is casting a curse!
01:54Archbishop, does your left hand still hurt?
01:59You're lying! Start the fire! Now!
02:02Why so nervous?
02:03I sweep my gaze over the unsettled believers in the square.
02:07Do you want to know where the saint's heart is?
02:10It never went to heaven.
02:12No one breathes.
02:13It's hidden behind the secret door inside the confessional at the Archbishop's residence.
02:17I can see the empty cavity in Cecile's chest as clearly as if I had opened it myself.
02:25He cut out her heart, simply because he believed it would prolong his life.
02:32Suspicious eyes turn toward Valerius.
02:34He's the real servant of darkness, not me.
02:39Burn her! Burn her now!
02:48The wind stops.
02:50I owe you one. Command me.
02:53Now is the time.
02:54If you want him in hell, lend me your hands.
02:58The sky blackens at once. Clouds swallow the sun.
03:01The flames at my feet go out.
03:03Then flare back to life in a strange blue fire.
03:06They do not burn me. They only eat through the ropes.
03:09Valerius suddenly starts convulsing.
03:12His left arm jerks up against his will.
03:14The old scratches split open again, blackening as they tear wider.
03:18The cross slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground.
03:21He lets out a scream that does not sound human.
03:24Then he looked behind him in terror.
03:26A black shape thickens in the air as though ink has been poured over glass.
03:30Cecile takes form.
03:31Her neck is scorched black.
03:33Her body is half burned.
03:35Tears still stain her face.
03:37Stepping onto the loosened rope and rising to my full height on the execution platform.
03:43Now, I get to judge you.
03:47I had only been in this world a short time.
03:50But I had already seen enough.
03:52I knew exactly where power came from in a crowd like this.
03:55Build a line.
03:57Name a common enemy.
03:59At that moment, Valerius' left hand.
04:02The one covered in claw marks.
04:04Keeps crushing his own throat.
04:06He hangs half in the air.
04:08Kicked up by the saint's dead grip.
04:11His legs thrashing.
04:13The square sinks into a silence so heavy it feels like stone.
04:17Fear ripples through the people.
04:19But so does doubt.
04:21Marquis de Moray, who was sent to supervise the execution.
04:25Everyone, do not be fooled by this witch's tricks.
04:29Even if Valerius is guilty, the church should judge him.
04:33You expect us to trust the word of a demon-ized girl?
04:36Your visions prove nothing.
04:40The dead don't invent tricks.
04:42They only tell the truth people buried.
04:44Take your eldest son, for example.
04:47The one who vanished three years ago.
04:49Valerius told you he died on pilgrimage, didn't he?
04:51The Marquis goes rigid.
04:53His sword shakes.
04:56But your son is right behind you.
05:00He says he saw Valerius torturing a novice inside the confessional, so Valerius silenced him.
05:07He was never buried in holy ground.
05:09He was chopped into pieces and hidden under the old laurel tree in the church garden.
05:15That's impossible.
05:17Cecile, show him.
05:20Her shadow stretches across the ground like spilled tar.
05:23Then tears toward the cathedral in a shrieking wind.
05:26The Marquis runs after it.
05:28So do the townsfolk.
05:34When they come back, the Marquis is staggering.
05:38In his hands is a sealed gold vessel.
05:41Inside it is a shriveled heart.
05:43That is the end of fate.
05:45The square erupts.
05:46Kill him!
05:48Burn the Karis eater!
05:51Tear him apart!
05:54The Marquis squallows Valerius throat.
05:59I stand on the stake and watch the Archbishop die.
06:03The trial has only just begun.
06:07Leela!
06:10You're alive!
06:11Thank God!
06:13She is the adopted daughter who entered the convent with me.
06:17She is also the one who drugged my food,
06:20deepened the unnatural color of my eyes,
06:23and pointed at me in front of the church and cried witch.
06:26Leela!
06:28Bella!
06:29Don't expect me to forgive you like before.
06:32I'm not the old Leela.
06:33Not that saintly little fool.
06:36What are you saying?
06:38I was worried about you.
06:39I never thought they were really bad.
06:41I looked at the looming shadow behind her.
06:43The rest was furiously tearing at Belly's hair.
06:46Bella knew nothing of it,
06:48only busy putting on her act of sisterly affection.
06:51And in that instant,
06:52another truth falls into place.
06:54Next month is the coronation.
06:56The prince's bride,
06:58the future queen,
06:59was supposed to be me,
07:01the only marriageable daughter of the house.
07:03She was trying to take my place.
07:05At this moment,
07:07heavy hooves crash against the stones outside the square.
07:11The crowd hearts.
07:12Two lavish carriages roll in beneath the protection of mounted knights.
07:17The royal crest and the holy sigil are carved into both.
07:21The doors open.
07:22Two women step down.
07:30The woman on the left is my elder sister, Cassandra.
07:34She sees good and evil as clearly as color,
07:36and turns morality itself into force.
07:39That power made her the royal court's cleanest blade.
07:42The woman on the right is my second sister, Sequoia.
07:46She can see the end date on every life.
07:48She steals years from the condemned and gives them to dying nobles.
07:51That is how she built her influence.
07:54You should not be alive.
08:01You should not be alive.
08:03Your countdown reset.
08:05A forbidden force rewrote your fate.
08:11As the daughters of the woman who once married into this house,
08:15we should have been house Stormcress pride.
08:19Only I was packed off to a convent while still a child.
08:23Then sent to die on a pyre.
08:25Liar!
08:26The king is watching this miracle!
08:28You're an anomaly.
08:30And anomalies make powerful people nervous.
08:32Come with us.
08:33Quietly.
08:34I do not trust them.
08:36Not after they stood by while I was condemned.
08:38In light of what you have shown here,
08:40and the unrest caused by your eyes,
08:42you are stripped of the Stormcress name.
08:45Effective immediately,
08:46you are to be exiled to Blackstone Cult.
08:52Blackstone Keep is a death sentence.
08:54People say even rats go mad there.
08:57I'll go.
09:00Cassandra rules the capital through morality.
09:03Sophia rules the empire through lifestand.
09:06And I?
09:07Coming.
09:08I am being thrown into a ruin full of dead things.
09:12To them, it is exile.
09:15To me, it might be a door.
09:19Because in this world, power may wear the mask of virtue or time,
09:24but under both lies the same foundation.
09:29Bones.
09:30And if what I hold is really tied to death,
09:32then a fortress full of corpses may be the best place in the world for me to begin.
09:40The moment I tried to pick up the chest again, that same agony came flooding back.
09:50The road to Blackstone Keep is lined with nameless graves.
09:53As the carriage moves north, the city gives way to empty land, then to scrub, then to sand.
10:01The farther they went, the more uneasy the gods looked.
10:05Cecile sits across from me now, no longer flickering in and out like before.
10:10In life, she was all softness and worship.
10:13In death, something colder has settled into her bones.
10:18Lady Lyra, that god's soul was fading away.
10:22Three hours from now, he'll freeze to death out here.
10:28I can see more than ghosts.
10:31I can see death itself.
10:33Now these eyes seem determined to drag me past time itself.
10:37I see the dead.
10:40I see the wounds that killed them.
10:43I hear their whispers.
10:45Sometimes I see the memory of the moment they died.
10:50I raise my hand and touch the scorched hollow of Cecile's throat.
10:58And I see electric shock-like sensation swept through me in an instant.
11:04Then her injury closes.
11:07The charred wound zips itself shut under a pulse of violet light.
11:13Lady Lyra, you can restore us.
11:17You can restore us!
11:26It may just be muscle memory.
11:28A doctor sees damage and wants to cut, fix, stitch, understand.
11:33And apparently, I could also mend souls now.
11:38I call these little surprises, luck.
11:42The carriage rolled to a stop in front of Blackstone Keep's rusted iron gate.
11:51This wasn't an old castle.
11:54This was a giant morgue.
11:58The moment I stepped into the great hall, they came for me.
12:03My brain screamed.
12:04My eyes wept blood from the strain.
12:07I ordered.
12:08My voice cold.
12:10Back off!
12:10They didn't listen.
12:12Spirits with no shape and no sense.
12:14Just a raw, hungry instant.
12:16Suddenly, a gust of wind scattered them.
12:18Don't bother begging them like that.
12:21It's useless.
12:22Beneath the shattered stained glass window.
12:25Half hidden in shadow.
12:27Sat a man.
12:28Like he'd been waiting for me all along.
12:43Who are you?
12:45A failure.
12:46My body was stolen.
12:48My soul though?
12:49It just won't die.
12:50Leela moaned.
12:51Take a good look.
12:53Blackstone Keep isn't a castle.
12:55It's the Empire's soul alchemist's factory.
12:57They haul souls here.
12:58From commoners from criminals.
13:00Grind them to dust.
13:01And refine the purest life force.
13:03Then they ship it to the capital.
13:05Following his lead, my violet eyes began to pulse wildly.
13:09Visions flooded my sight.
13:11Overlapping.
13:13Chaotic.
13:14They were the collective memories of the dead.
13:16So you're a harvested battery too?
13:20I'm a battery they'll never drain.
13:23They chopped up my body, but my soul was too hard to chew.
13:27Listen.
13:28The Arcan isn't ripping out saint's hearts to extend his own life.
13:31He's just a supplier.
13:33The real customer is the king.
13:35And the one swinging the blade?
13:37That's your sister.
13:38Why are you telling me all this?
13:40Your mother asked me to.
13:41She told me to wait for you here.
13:43Lila.
13:44See your power for what it is.
13:46You can read how the dead died.
13:47You can mend their wounds.
13:49But that's just the beginning.
13:51Next week, the king's sickly son is taking a new bride.
13:55Another sacrifice.
13:57The king needs a top grade spare part to keep himself alive.
14:02Guess who they've chosen as the next offering?
14:04Bella thought she'd stolen a fortune from me.
14:07Who knew she'd actually stolen a death sentence?
14:12What's your name?
14:14Alaric.
14:15Deep under Blackstone Keep, there's something your mother left before she died.
14:18I've kept it safe for you, for decades.
14:21With that, you'll get closer to the truth.
14:26I followed the spiral staircase down.
14:29The underground didn't smell of rot like I'd expected.
14:32Instead, there was a sharp, chemical scent.
14:37Something like formaldehyde.
14:38At the bottom of the stairs lay a precision laboratory.
14:41In the center, on a stone table, sat a heavy iron chest.
14:47The moment I touched the chest, my violet pupils erupted with shattered images.
14:52I saw my mother.
14:54She hadn't died from postpartum weakness.
14:57She had been down in this dungeon, frantically recording something.
15:00She wasn't a victim.
15:02She was a key node in this whole immortality experiment.
15:06Connecting it with what Alaric had told me.
15:08The current king wasn't the first beneficiary of this immortality scheme.
15:12They had used Blackstone Keep to drain life force.
15:14But when the Keep stopped working, they needed a replacement.
15:18And my mother?
15:19She might have been that replacement.
15:21The moment I tried to pick up the chest again, that same agony came flooding back.
15:31Lady Mondae left a magic mark behind.
15:34It was meant cement to someone from her world.
15:38Someone like her.
15:39To end all of this.
15:44Now, can you tell me your real name?
15:58My name is Lyra. I'm a medical examiner.
16:02Cecil stood behind me.
16:05Her voice was no longer ethereal.
16:08Lady Lyra.
16:10I can feel the wind now.
16:12She pulled a long sword from her hollow chest, looking just as shocked as I felt.
16:18I'm going to use this blade to carve out that old immortal's heart.
16:25Only the one who picks up this blade is worthy of pureness.
16:30Back then, the king ripped out my heart, trying to turn me into the purest battery for Blackstone Keep.
16:35Your mother used that open heart moment to secretly stitch part of my soul into the king's foundation.
16:40She saved my consciousness, but trapped me here, unable to leave.
16:45She was a brilliant stitcher.
16:48She did all of this so the immortality fast would end with my generation.
16:52And she must have had her reasons for saving me.
16:55Will you come with me, Alaric?
16:57Lyra.
16:59If you want to take me with you, you'll have to use that blade.
17:03Stitch my ghost into your shadow.
17:05From then on, your life will be my end.
17:12Ways to return me to your spirit,
17:13His cold, weightless body passed bleeding and inverts.
17:16Then dissolved into swirling black smoke that shrank into my shadow.
17:24Let's go.
17:26Putting away the scapicle.
17:30After the coronation banquet in the Imperial Capital, Bella, wearing a pure white wedding dress,
17:35held the hand of the king's most beloved third prince i hid in the shadow of the huge stone
17:40pillar in the banquet hall and the shadow under my feet stirred restlessly as if echoing the
17:45undercurrent surging in my heart my second sister sophia appeared behind me without warning her
17:50tone trembling imperceptibly and her eyes were filled with unprecedented anxiety it turned out
17:55that bella had been a pawn from the very beginning used to carry a cruel exchange of vitality the
18:00king would use sophia's hand and ravella's vitality to the third prince it was never lila i was leia
18:06after three years of protection it was now my turn to come back and clean up this mess with my
18:12own hands
18:14the banquet reaches its peak level lifts the golden cup with shaking excitement the prince does the
18:20same i object i step out of the shadows at once the glamour around the nobility peels away in my
18:27sight the beautiful faces wrinkle collapse rot under their silken velvet i see patchwork flesh
18:33and old sutures and stolen years barely held together seal materializes in the center of the
18:38hall her dead white face all of it appears before the assembled lords and ladies for a heartbeat no
18:44no one moves then someone screams the same the same is that the hall explodes into them
18:50the seal raises her sword and starts having to get out every thrust lands in the transplanted heart
18:56walk toward them slowly my violet eyes burn today is where we can kill that witch
19:02new lords slam the hand on the table the royal guard serves forward my shadow erupts
19:08black blades raise across the floor scaring each soldier from his own shadow bodies crumble and
19:14weather away before they leave the screen half of hour rises from the darkness and wraps one spectral
19:19hand around the prince's throat bella drops to the floor stunned i crouch in front of her and then i
19:25smile
19:25thanks for dying in my place she jerks back finally recognizing the danger why are you still alive
19:31you bitch catch her wrist and wrench her upright then i turn toward the king your majesty is this the
19:38heart you wanted do you even know what she is she's not lady monda's true daughter king does not panic
19:44not even a little he is staring at the scalpel in my hand to be able to accept it once
19:50the hidden
19:50mother array beneath the floor ignites the modern scalpel in my hand lets out a strong metallic flag
19:56then it rips free of my grip it does not fly toward the king it does not fly toward the
20:01prince
20:01it shoots straight across the hall and buries itself in sophia's chest
20:08for one second everything stops the silver flash the wet sound of impact sophia looking down at the
20:15blades sticking out of her chest i reach her as she falls at a glance it looks fatal but i
20:20am a doctor
20:21before i am anything else something is wrong there is no arterial spray and my breath catches the blade
20:27is not in her heart it is embedded in a black growth at that exact moment the king lets out
20:32a monster
20:33scream one whole side of his face shrivels before our eyes collapsing into dried rot now i get it i
20:39say
20:40gripping the scalpel the blade didn't attack her it cut out the parasite sofia coughs up black blood
20:46in the back of her head and drags my breath our lives were tied to the king when we were
20:49choking she whispers
20:51mother no big deal cecile returns at a run sword for me lady lyra the noble said got me stolen
20:58hairs
20:59i've snapped back all at once did you do this three plants in pieces and they're all at once sophia
21:05is one
21:05half of the king's living room my mother used her daughters as thorns hidden inside the king's body at my
21:13call
21:13my shadow boils move i drag sophia with me cecile shields us alaric wraps us in black force and
21:20sends us crashing through the palace windows and down into the freezing moat below
21:26north of the capital stands the holy court that is cassandra's domain unlike the banquet hall this
21:32place is clean to the point of madness with a bleeding sophia in my arms cassandra is already
21:37seated at the judgment bench beside her stands high pontiff julian he smiles with his eyes low
21:43a holy white aura blazing above him so bright it almost hurts to look at my child julian says
21:49stepping down from the dais i have waited for you i feel it at once the pressure heavy enough to
21:55crush
21:55thought cassandra says nothing she does not stop him that tells me everything i need to know
22:01sophia broke the link too early the truth is leaking julian needs me dead before the room catches up
22:07all those crimes he says softly the archbishop the broken marriage the chaos in the palace
22:13such evil death is the only thing that can cleanse your soul he raises his hand white light gathers
22:20and is calm and vicious enough to shred the mind before he can strike my shadow spills across
22:26the floor of the new hand a scaled hand punches up from the darkness and catches the holy light
22:30barehanded the light vanishes into shadow the hand is scorched to pieces for the effort but enough
22:36julian he says voice low and filthy with contempt the pontiff sees his face prince alaric and he shrieks
22:43he says impossible your soul should still be trapped
22:48my pulse stutters alaric's identity is bigger than i ever guessed he is the king's brother the prince
22:55the crown should have gone to lyra alaric says without looking back protect your sister he draws a
23:01massive black sword cecile steps in front of me and sophia julian does not attack alaric head on
23:07he comes for me cecile takes the blow instead white he tears part of her form away but she keeps
23:13the strike from hitting sophia too i hurl the scalpel the blade slices straight through the holy
23:18white ring above julian's head and in the instant that false halo breaks sandra's world breaks to
23:23him she does not see radiant virtue anymore she sees faces hundreds of them all the people she
23:30condemned all the scraps of goodness stripped from them and packed into julian's crown of life
23:34the dead crowd the room with their grief my shadow breaks that in some become wind around
23:40some alaric some hardening his armor some sharpening a sword in his hand the rest gather behind me
23:46farmers with pitchforks men with candlesticks cabarener with split skulls and phantom horses
23:52cassandra presses bloody fingers to her eyes no she whispers no that can't be true you're indispensable
24:00i tell her coldly mother didn't surrender she planted blades sophia was time you were morality
24:07and i the doors blow open the king enters with half his face rotten and bella in one hand like
24:13a
24:13butcher carrying meat lyra he rasps give me the knife or i cut out what your mother hid inside your
24:19sister he claws open his robe a black smoking heartbeat in his chest then he squeezes it
24:25cassandra drops to her knees through her gown the strange violet light pulses from her abdomen in
24:30the exact shape of the array he needs blackstone in and before anyone can leave the king dances
24:36and julian's back and reaches for cassandra
24:40the king's fingers tear through flesh julian's blood pours into the glowing array on the floor
24:46the whole hall shakes no cassandra gasps mother's plan cannot end here
24:51then to my shock she grabs him not to escape to hold him still lyra she screams now at the
24:59same
24:59instant aleric steps fully out of my shadow he is taller than before more solid more terrifying
25:05his black sword slams across the king's claws and stops them cold my dear brother the king hisses
25:11is one good idea for you 40 years and you're still a fool father wanted to give you the throne
25:18said your soul could not rot so i took the spark i turned you into the cleanest battery
25:23and now look at you now kingdom no body not even proper life what you do the right to stand
25:30in my
25:31way all right does not cringe the ground under the throne still remembers your true title
25:36his eyes cut toward me i understand it once the dead behind you too their grief turns
25:43not just into mourning into vengeance for honor for innocence for what was stolen i clench my jaw and
25:52get ready to move aleric drives his sword through the king's chest i can hold him for three minutes
25:57he roars three minutes that is all i grab cassandra's arm and force myself to focus
26:05cassandra leaned against the stone pillar coughing up blood violently from the shock of the king's heart
26:10yet she stubbornly shook her head i am guilty i have to stay here the king ignoring his arm that
26:17was spurting black blood lowered his head and tore at something i could see it was a fresh heart
26:22leia now aleric roared the wind around him turned into countless black chains tightly binding the king's
26:28enormous misshapen body his withered left face slowly recovered even growing younger madness blazed in
26:35his eyes and his voice warped and stretched you think i have no way you can see you're as naive
26:40as
26:40you were decades ago bella's heart should not have rivaled the speech yet the king's body swelled
26:45his severed arm grew face after face surged into his chest and countless soul fragments on the ground
26:51were sucked into him some of the undead beside me were ground directly into dust i was not one of
26:56the
26:56undead but blood kept seeping from my eyes nevertheless i struggled against the wind toward the king
27:03cassandra took my hand her tattered robe clapped loudly in the gale and a white light shielded me from
27:08applying shards of souls the undead around aleric were constantly being drawn away by the king
27:13fighting back the urge to vomit blood i saw him turn his head and shouted me i remember what i
27:18told you
27:19before so the souls together you have to command him aleric drove his grave sword into this house
27:38the blade tip precisely avoided all vital points on cassandra neatly severing the self-destruct pect
27:43stitched inside her cassandra let out a low groan as i tore the purple core straight out of her body
27:48and held it high above my head the core drew the undead energy that had flooded into the king's body
27:53swirling back toward it cassandra struggled to straighten up i used the blade to stitch and
27:57mend the scattering undead forces around us then held the scalpel it pierced the purple core and
28:03drove straight into aleric's back his body stretched and twisted violently in the center of the hall
28:08devoured by nether fire until nothing remained but a murky shadow he did mother's heart everything
28:13was already too late the king's body disintegrated into act he turned his head
28:18papa's handsome face was eaten away by ghostly blue cranes
28:21green and purple light flickering alternate turns to his face
28:25his features twisted with an eternal madness that i've never seen before
28:28behind his hunched silhouette and placed the bloodstained crown steadily upon his own head
28:33and slowly i snapped open my purple eyes
28:36here's some ghouls for the end support
28:38and the glass saw the cream nature of the heart in a moment like a sparkle touch it
28:41built-in self-destruct rune would detonate instantly erasing all souls sewn within it
28:46just then aleric completely consumed by the heart let out a beastly growl and swung his greatsword
28:52horizontally at me i do not stand there waiting for love to save me i throw myself sideways behind a
28:59broken stone pillar and wrench the scalpel back into my hand
29:03i have to kill him i whisper my voice does not shake do i love him maybe but that isn't
29:10the point
29:11what matters is this if i don't cut that heart out now he will become worse than the king ever
29:16was
29:16he drives his sword into the floor to keep from moving most of his face is gone to blue flame
29:21now
29:21his hand shakes on the hilt lyra
29:25kill me i move fast i rush straight into his arms he is too locked in pain to stop me
29:32the scalpel flashes
29:33i drive it toward the glowing core in his chest aleric smiles
29:37then instead of stopping me he grabs my wrist and forces the blade deeper into himself
29:42boom the blast throws me backward as i black out i see him dissolve not into ash into light
29:50that i murmur to myself in the last moment before unconsciousness takes me
29:54is the worst growth rejection i've ever seen
29:59when i wake the war is over the king is gone the immortality system is gone everyone who lived off
30:06stolen years begins aging naturally or dying naturally at last later in the imperial archives
30:12i discover the final piece bella really was lady mondes daughter just not by the earl she was the child
30:19of an affair that was why the king could still use her heart shared blood is useful even when it
30:24is not
30:25perfect i returned to blackstone keep the dead come with me my sisters walk beside me when we pass
30:32through the stormcrest lands my father kneels and offers me his staff as if submission might by
30:37forgiveness i look at them and feel nothing i take only what my mother left behind then i begin
30:43searching for aleric the dead help me collect every scrap they can find but his fragments are too small
30:49too scattered even my violet eyes can barely hold on to them so i go back to blackstone keep what
30:56are
30:56you trying to do sofia asks weekly rebuild him his body turned to ash his soul shattered you'd be
31:03stitching emptiness as long as even one trace of him still exists in the world's field i say without
31:10looking up i can recreate him this was an unprecedented full organ reconstruction surgery aleric once told
31:19me that mother had kept a fragment of his soul i dragged my broken body back to the underground
31:24laboratory of blackstone fortress point forty years ago in that deal mother had traded her own
31:29hardware carving it into the ground ruins of the laboratory as the core that summoned me across time
31:33in space among mother's belongings i found a letter written in modern english unfolding it i stared at
31:39the familiar modern handwriting i am the beginning of this tragedy and you night are its end aleric's
31:45body was ground to dust by the king forty years ago i thought a heart for a heart was an
31:49equal exchange
31:50yet it was nothing but the king's life he had never kept his promise to release mother's daughter
32:19as if written in extreme urgency these were her final words and she
32:24revealed the method of resurrect lila's heart must have stopped beating before you arrived
32:28from the moment you opened your eyes you have been living off the life force within aleric's heart
32:33i looked at the shattered spirit and his fragments piled on the operating table with my eyes glowing at
32:38the time desperate resolve if you are willing to give half your lifespan to rebuild his circulatory
32:43system he will live he is a capable ruler i lay beside the operating table gripping the scalpel
32:49tightly this was the ultimate surgery i cut out half of my own heart
33:02those soul fragments were drawn to the heart in my hand aleric's eyes snapped open and in those emerald
33:08green pupils my haggard yet triumphant face was reflected he sat up staring blankly at his own hands
33:15his memories seemed frozen in the moment he had driven my blade into his body only when he saw me
33:20pale but smiling did he believe in disbelief and pull me into a fierce embrace a real tangible embrace
33:26with a heartbeat breath and the warmth of my body i can actually hold you now leila his voice was
33:32hoarse trembling at the end you have given me new life a week later the imperial capital changed dynasties
33:39i looked down over the entire realm restored to life then turned to smile at aleric in his eyes
33:45i saw a flood of emotion i glanced back at the city's inhabitants humans and undead alike all looking
33:51up at me in reverence in this world the nature of power was no longer to take but to protect
33:56long live the dead i whispered softly aleric took my hand and kissed my fingertips
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