Page 249 of Dark Souls

Hana opened her mouth to argue but my quick warning glare cut her off. We all knew that was extremely unlikely. No one came by our cottage. It was so far away from the villages in the valleys for a reason. And father died in his demon form. Whoever buried his body would have seen what he was, yet they still made it personal. They did it with respect. It couldn’t have been a slayer.

Suddenly, the wind swept through the clearing at such a speed, all the candles blew out in one go. A chill raced down my spine even though it wasn’t cold but a fairly mild day. The wind whipped at my skin like a memory, causing my eyes to widen and a calmness to take hold. I visibly noticed the change in Zoran and Hana’s postures, too, as if they had been physically forced to sit up straighter. Our heads swivelled around at the towering trees nearby that swayed in the drastic change of weather, and my eyes latched onto a faint glow by the side of the desolate ruins. They widened when that glow turned into shimmering air, delicate and incorporeal as it slowly took shape.

A shaky breath passed through my lips when I saw them.

My mama’s form was soft, her outline blurred as if she was a part of the mist herself but the features of her pretty face were clear. Her smile. Sweet and kind. Her brown hair flowing down her back. Her eyes were nothing like the last time I had looked into them. They were full of love and warmth as they cast over each of our faces and landed on mine. She slowly lifted her hand to her lips and blew me a kiss before placing that hand over her chest.

“Mama?” I breathed with disbelief as my green eyes overflowed with unshed tears, making it even harder to know if what I saw was real or a figment of my imagination.

“I see her too,” Zoran said, his own voice sounding so distant and unsure, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from her to look at him. Especially not when a second shimmering shape formed behind her. The tall and imposing frame of my father stepped up behind her. His arms wrapped around her body, just as I had seen him do so many times before as a child, and she leaned her head back into his chest. He kissed the top of her hair and then looked at us with a bright smile. Their gazes conveyed a torrent of unspoken emotions. The wind blew harder again, sending a gust of leaves swirling around us as if they were delivering us their love and tender embrace. The weight of grief in my chest lifted and was replaced by a bittersweet ache of longing to keep them with us but accepting they had to go.

“I wish they could stay,” Hana whispered from beside me, her voice so faint with emotion.

“Veles is waiting. They must go. But they are saying goodbye,” Zoran said but I didn’t dare look at him because I knew his face would mirror mine.

“No,” I sighed, exhaling a deep breath. My gaze locked with my father’s piercing green eyes and he gave me a slow nod, a gesture that felt both like a goodbye and a command to carry on. “They will see us again. But not yet.”

The spiritual forms faded, dissolving slowly into the air like dew warming under the morning sun. But before they disappeared entirely, Mama raised her clear hand as if to caress each of our faces, and I swear I felt her touch on my skin. Father placed his fist on his chest and smiled.

And then they were gone.

The wind settled and everything fell silent. The three of us peered at each other in a moment of shared stillness—each of our expressions matching in looks of overwhelming emotion and calmness. Hana placed her hand over her heart and smiled through her tears.

“I can still feel them.”

She was right. I placed mine over my chest, too, and Zoran followed suit. Though they had gone from this world, their presence still lingered, not in the wind but in us.

I finally understood what the brutality of this life had been trying to teach me. No matter what, love endures. In this life and the next.

Love endures even through the darkness.

Epilogue

Tenyearslater…

The creak of the cellar door echoed down the dark, depressing corridor, alerting her to my arrival. I heard the scurry of her body and the rattling of her chains against the damp, filthy floor as my boots clipped along the stones. I stopped in front of the last cell, twisting my boots to face her and tilted my head to the side with a fake pout of concern at the sight.

Belladonna sat crumpled in the corner of her disgusting cage, completely unrecognisable to the woman she once was. She didn’t even look human after a decade of intense torture, suffering and starvation. Her once pretty face and healthy figure had now withered into a skeletal, pale sack of skin barely clinging to her bones. Bruises, scars and burns marked her flesh, while infected sores gave off a putrid stench, making her smell even worse than the very walls she had called home for ten long years.

Large clumps of dirt, cobwebs, and blood stuck to her head, matting the hair that hadn’t been burned off. The rags of her clothes swamped her and were covered in so much filth that it was hard to identify what colour they were before. It had been a few weeks since I had last visited and the sight of her became more shocking with each meeting. She’d tried to kill herself many times over the years but I never let that happen. Grandpapi spelled her never to cause herself any fatal harm and the broken look every time she failed to free herself from me was like a song to my dark heart.

“Good morning, Belladonna.” I smiled sweetly at her, crouching down on the balls of my feet to be at her eye level. She hid her face from me, cowering away and trying her best to blend into the stone wall. The iron shackles around her ankles had rusted, creating deep wounds in her flesh where they rubbed her skin down to the bone. They moved with her, clanking across the floor as she tried her best to get further away from me.

“Breakfast.” I threw a dead rat into her cell. She slowly lifted her head, her wild blue eyes darting around the slimy, mould-ridden floors. When they landed on the rat, I saw her pupils dilate as she had an inner battle between starvation and pride. Starvation won out. She scrambled forward, her movement so similar to the rodent she was about to devour, and she seized it between the stumps of her wrists before hurrying back to the corner. She tried to hide the way she bit into its flesh and then gagged, which only made me chuckle.

“I bring you breakfast and you complain?” I questioned with evil wickedness as I lifted one leg over the other. She shook her head. She’d finally learned not to anger me. Not that it made much difference because I normally tortured her regardless. But on the rare occasion, just my presence sparked enough fear to satisfy my blood thirst. Today would not be one of those rare days.

“I saw your daughter yesterday. Evangelia.”

The mention of her daughter’s name made her pause. Lia had never once asked about her parents after that meeting at the palace. She walked out of that room with Hayes and never looked back. She was told they were dead and that was the best thing for her and it was the first time I had mentioned Lia to her mother.

Belladonna’s eerie blue eyes narrowed at me and my nostrils flared. It was always her eyes that did it to me. There was something in them, a spark that still held so much venomous hostility and self-righteousness that grated on me. I had contemplated removing them many times but like they say, eyes are the windows to the soul and I needed to see hers break. She actually thought of herself as a victim. It was almost comical.

When she didn’t respond, mainly because she couldn’t say anything remotely coherent without her tongue, I continued, “She’s doing really well, in case you were wondering. She’s not rich or of high status like you had hoped. She lives in the Romano village in a humble house with her soulmate and two children and works in a local clothes shop. They live a pretty normal life. She gave everything you owned to charity. It was all very inspiring.” Belladonna visibly bristled. “They are happy in love. They married a few years ago, and she’s taken on his last name to cut all ties with you and Mitchell. Imagine that. Not a single legacy. Knowlton or Morton. It won’t matter. Both names will be irrelevant. Completely forgotten by the world.”

Belladonna’s eyes were filled with pain and turmoil, but she swiftly lowered her gaze to the rat in her hands. I could count on one hand the number of times I had seen that look. A look of defeat. Once, when I bought Zoran down here for the first time. Second, I showed her a picture of Luka and me looking blissfully happy on a vacation, proving that he had his humanity back. And third, when I told her that Luka and I had just taken over as the leaders of the Romano Clan. But it still hadn’t quite been enough to truly break her spirit. She was exhausted, terrified and in pain, yes. But now and again, I saw that spark of evil flickering behind those eyes. Still believing, somehow, she had won.

“Do you even care that you have grandchildren you’ll never meet?”