Chapter 145 - Relived

"Baron Florian?" Alexa didn't believe what she was seeing. That was Baron Florian, wasn't he? 

But she saw his death with her own eyes!

Standing before then, the noble foreigner who dueled Prince Magnus for offending Alexander's bride. In this case, Alexa herself. 

And that he had died. Absolutely and undoubtedly dead.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you out of a bier!" the legendary warrior had his face sewn together and Lex imagined that it was work of the same people who stole his body. 

And then, it was easy to deduce, they decided to use some macabre ritual to trap his soul in his body and relive him. 

Florian emanated a sickening chill from his body, and Lex saw his hand go down to the sword he carried around his waist. 

There was a very fine line between healing and necromancy in Holstein, apparently. 

But the Light Bearer realized that, unlike other places, people were able to invoke great power in that region. Was it something to do with Holstein? 

Although his shock was great, his survival instinct was greater and Lex pushed Balbo in the direction of Florian, poking his ribs,

"Can you lend a hand here?"

Balbo still had time to give the Second Prince an astonished look, and mumble, "So brave minutes ago!" while turning his own sword, moving towards Florian.

The swords clashed when they met in the darkness. The Second Prince huddled against the fence, behind Balbo.

Looking over his shoulder to try to catch a glimpse of what was happening on the other side of the grid, Lex, just understood that the group of necromancers that was caught there was trying to escape. A few centimeters away, Balbo and the revived warrior were balanced in a fierce fight.

Under the light of the torch, Lex could see the skill and speed of the Castilian, against the resilience of the Pole. 

"Get out of here, Your Highness!" Balbo grunted, keeping the ground and moving Florian away from the door where the Prince was.

Lex then left the trance to see the epic duel in the catacombs to turn back to the grid and try to reach the lever. 

The Prince stood on tiptoe and stretched as far as he could. He grunted in his effort to reach the piece, squeezing his face against the railing as he wished Alexander was a little bigger. 

His fingers reached for the lever, but they were unable to grasp hard enough. In addition, his hands were burning and it hurt with all that effort.

SLAP!

Another hand jerked his hand away, and pulled the lever. Lex gave a cry of fright and pain!

"Watch out!" his brother's voice alerted when the railing started to rise with the change in the counterweights that moved it. Narses had come back and opened the door from the other side. Lex took two steps back, instinctively, so as not to be hurt by the movement of the ascending door.

And that was his mistake.

Florian launched himself at him, deflecting Balbo's attack in a fluid motion and grabbing Lex by the hair, turning his body around, and placing his sword quickly around his neck.

The Prince failed to escape in time, and he backed away when Florian tilted his face close to Alexander's, examining him with curiosity.

"Isn't funny? May we meet in a place like this, Little Prince? " his fetid breath denounced that something wasn't going very well with his body, unlike the beautiful gello that Lex found last night keeping Gutard company.

Lex could bet that using an already decomposing body was quite different than returning a soul immediately to its still warm body. Or wasn't it? The technicalities of the matter would have to wait, however.

"You're dead," Lex reminded him, trying to hold the blade and push it from the sensitive flesh of the Prince's neck. But it met with strong resistance.

"Do you think so? I must thank these gracious ladies for correcting an injustice."

Once again Lex closed his eyes in disgust for a moment, suffering from Florian's breath. The Baron would no longer get dances at balls.

Then Lex spied out of the corner of his eye where, and what, his friends were doing. 

Balbo cautiously approached trying to find a good position to interfere. Narses was behind the Prince, but in a blind spot. He had no idea where Duke Kurt and his ally were, however.

"Oh well. I agree. It was pitiful. From what I heard," the young prince forced a half-hearted smile, withdrawing his hand when Florian showed he wasn't kidding about cutting his neck. "Oops, oops, calm down, Baron. See, we both know that no matter how strong your soul is, your body is not in the best condition, huh? How long do you think this will last now that these demon summoners have tied your soul to this decaying body? I mean ... I'm supportive. I really am. But ... You know and I know that they aren't your friends. That you are, at most, a skilled pawn for them. Don't lower yourself like that. "

The little confusion his words caused was long enough for Narses to grab Florian's arm from behind, and the Baron's revived body trembled at his touch. 

Lex pushed Florian's arm with the sword, taking advantage of this moment, and ducked to escape. The Baron, however, still had reflexes fast enough to brandish the sword once again against Lex. 

The blade would have caught the middle of his back if Balbo had not interposed his own blade with a precise movement. Lex had even shrunk the body in anticipation of the impact, which was trimmed by his friend.

Moving to the other side and inhaling the air into his lungs, Lex saw Narses's hand light up quickly as he grabbed Florian. The Baron was trying to free himself, but Balbo was on the other side to hold him and take his sword.

Narses reached for the bottle of holy water and spilled its contents on Florian,

"Here, defiled creature! In the name of the Lord, I command you to leave this body!"

Then the light in his hand started to fail, at the same time that a horrible smell started to emanate from Florian. 

This was a new experience for Lex. Lex knew internally that Narses was fighting the temptation to display his gifts as a Light Bearer. Although it wasn't his specialty, Narses had the birth gifts that Alexa had, and could do the same things as her. 

But of course, doing this in front of strangers could be his death.

Florian grunted, still struggling to get rid of the two men, but mostly, he seemed desperate to get rid of Narses' touch. It was obvious that the dead Baron seemed strong enough to resist for a long time, anchored in that body.

Then Lex stepped forward, and touching him on the chest, began the words of exorcism of souls according to the Lazarites. There was no alternative there and the holy water didn't seem to be able to do the job alone.

"No! I don't want to die! I don't deserve to die! AEHHHHRG! NO!"

"Dying is not a merit, nor a punishment," said Narses, resuming the prayer where Lex last spoke. 

Together, they performed the sacred rite to expel a resistant shade from the world of mortals.

Florian's struggle to resist was long and tiring, perhaps reinforced by the macabre rituals that invoked his lost soul and tied it grotesquely to a decomposing body.

Lex saw the haughty figure begin to lose its firmness and fall forward, and also its flesh began to rot before their eyes. But the soul was still there, like a shadow clad in a carcass, its eyes bright and vivid with fury and attachment.

Then, at last, the weak voice of ex-Baron Florian pleaded,

"Kill me! Please free me from that decaying flesh! Please!"

Balbo, with an expression of disgust, with one stroke he thrust the sword into Florian's fragile and putrid chest. The last breath of that body released the shade from its spiritual bonds. Florian vanished in a fog, leaving the mortal world behind.

Lex was exhausted, disgusted, and sad.

Balbo proceeded to poke poor Baron's remains with his sword, trying to understand if he could revive again.

After resting for a while, Narses spoke, showing a calm that Lex could not feel at the time,

"This subject is intriguing, and I'm certainly interested in the details of this story. I will wait, as you promised me, for the right time to hear them. But that pair managed to arrest only one of them. The other two or three managed to escape somewhere ... "

Lex nodded, 

"And what about Father Agnello?"

"We found him in a cell. He's ... not well. Mr. K, as you call him, is with him right now. "

Lex gave a weak smile, "Then we should get him out of here as soon as possible." Going in the direction of the hall that had been denied access moments ago, Lex saw the large statue of Hecate, with three faces and holding a key. The statue had the bottom totally stained with what the Light Bearer supposed to be blood.

Following Narses, they came to a room that looked more like an ominous butcher shop. The Duke held a woman by the fists with him. He was just gagging her. Her face was unrecognizable because the disheveled woman dressed in black wore white paint all over her face. 

Blue Eyes was on the floor, being helped by Duke Kurt's man. The Moor was carefully freeing Father Agnello from the shackles. Looking around, the maiden understood that he was tied and hanging from the ceiling, n.a.k.e.d and injured. He wasn't even conscious at this point.

Lex ran to help the Moor,

"Let's get him out of here. He needs medical care!"

Touching it, she immediately withdrew her hand. Blue Eyes burned with fever, and m.o.a.ned incoherent things almost inaudible. 

Balbo and Narses came to help as well, when he was lifted from the ground, the priest murmured, in some delirium, apparently to himself,

"... can't know ...! They can't know ...! "