Chapter 238 - A Lich's Heart

Alexa tested the rope again, and realizing it was firm enough, accepted the flashlight her brother handed her. She was at the edge of an abandoned cistern a few kilometers from Ashgraufelsen, in a disused and dilapidated military post.

The place where Alexander and Konrad had supposedly hidden the 'thing' they had found and which they dared not mention in detail in their letters.

The night before, Alexa discovered that Alexander confided many things to his cousin, and vice versa.

In his letters he spoke of 'Greek girl' with distress and at times, with horror, sharing with his young cousin what he knew and what he discovered. 

And Konrad, instead of advising him to forget about these matters and to seek refuge in religion, helped him to investigate his presentments and doubts. Often Konrad used his own resources to fund searches, travels, and mercenaries, which wouldn't attract Gutard's attention. As it would have happened if Alexander did it.

It was in this way that, investigating Holstein's past, due to his constant deja vus _ feelings of having been in places he had never been before _ Alexander discovered the design of a tapestry that led him and Konrad to find 'the thing'.

While Alexander deciphered everything necessary to find the location of the oak tree mentioned in the tapestry, Konrad hired men to search the entire kingdom. And finally found a hidden mausoleum not far from the capital, from which they took a bronze sarcophagus. It took them about ten months.

"Let's say that these two boys had a lot of free time between jousting competitions and Law classes," Narses grumbled, as Alexa read the letters with increasing alarm. 

In his letters, Konrad always seemed concerned about Alexander's mental wellbeing, stimulating and encouraging him - Alexa imagined that his cousin thought it was the best he could do to keep Alexander alive and struggling. 

She couldn't make an image between the Prince she met in the form of a bird, the Alexander who was Orcaius, and the person Konrad spoke to in his letters. They didn't seem to fit into one person.

Since they only had the letters that Konrad had sent to Alexander, and not the ones that Alexander had sent to his cousin, it left some facts to imagination. The letters mentioned that Magnus at some point found out about Alexander's studies on Holstein's black sorcerers of the past, and he was furious. 

Father Agnelo found out through Magnus, and confiscated the book and all the research that Alexander had with him.

This wasn't so important anymore, however, as Konrad had already launched the search and was bringing the object to Ashgraufelsen.

After they saw what it was about, they decided to lock it up somewhere, afraid of what they had found. 

That was more than Alexa and her brother would find if they had just made it to the book itself!

Alexa was sure it was the heart of Volos.

"Nobody carries a bronze sarcophagus out there without being seen," muttered Narses, standing up and fixing his belt. "Get ready to go to where they hid it, I'll find out where it is."

And Narses came back with the answer, two hours later. 

Alexa saw the knuckles of his fingers were injured, and pursed her lips in disapproval. 

She knew that with every hour that passed, Volos could have taken over Iacintho again, although they didn't know what kind of consequences it could have. She understood Narses' haste, but not his violent methods.

At that moment, therefore, she descended with the lantern in the place where the Duke and the Prince had supposedly hidden the bronze sarcophagus.

Alexa found the object, under a layer of earth and well wrapped in thick canvases.

In there the air was dense and still, and Alexa felt the use of necromancy in her bones. 'Am I getting good at identifying this kind of thing over time?' she wondered. 

All she wanted to do was get out of there as soon as possible.

It took a long time to pass ropes and hooks capable of lifting the object with the help of the horses they had brought.

Narses was resourceful for that.

Alexa had a vague memory of seeing a similar scene in her childhood, led by her father. But at that moment, she was exhausted and in need of fresh air, so she finished the moorings as best she could, asking Narses to pull her up with a tug on the rope.

The moon was already descending in the sky when the horses finally pulled the heavy sarcophagus from the cistern. 

At that moment she was not concerned whether Wilbert or the guard knew she wasn't at Ashgraufelsen. But at opening the sarcophagus that had caused such terror in two young nobles, who were, in no way, cowards.

Narses used a knife to remove the tarps and ropes, and revealed the sarcophagus lid.

There were no legible inscriptions, just decorative designs on the lid, and hermetic symbols around it. But the Dallassenos siblings knew the sarcophagus had been violated before.

"Volos," Narses mumbled, wiping sweat from his forehead. "I smell the necromancy and stagnation."

After some work, Narses finally managed to open the lid. A rotten smell of decomposed human flesh escaped from there, causing Alexa to vomit immediately.

Her brother just threw a clean cloth at her, motioning the Princess to walk away from the sarcophagus. He could not take his eyes off what was inside, with a frown and clenched fists.

Alexa preferred not to see whatever had that unbearable smell. But at the same time, she knew that if she didn't see it, she could spend my life dreaming of something unspeakable inside the sarcophagus. Following this logic, she got up from the stone where she sat down to rest, and came over to the coffin.

What she saw impressed her.

There was a bronze statue inside. A life-size statue, greenish as one might expect from bronze. But Alexa recognized the face - a more human and fleshy version of Volos.

"It's him!" she exclaimed.

Narses leaned over, and using a cloth to protect his hand, touched the statue's chest. 

Alexa was certain that the rotten odor came from the statue. Pushing, Narses moved the plaque that was the statue's chest, revealing a niche, where a gray and wrinkled heart beat constantly.

Narses pulled a curved dagger with a black blade from inside his clothes, and looking first at the object and then the heart inside the strange statue's chest, he stared at Alexa.

"Do it," he ordered, handing her the dagger. Alexa took the blade reverently, because she knew it was the blade of a tanaion, destined to take miserable lives out of this world.

And without thinking too much, just in memory of her surly brother Iacintho, when he was still alive, she stuck the dagger in Volos's hard heart.

The air stopped around them, as if something choked.

Alexa just saw the alarmed look of her brother, who threw himself on her and turned her away from the sarcophagus.

An invisible force drew air into the statue, while the object began to blacken and consume itself. 

Alexa and her brother embraced, not being effectively affected by that, but mesmerized by the speed with which the matter around the heart was attracted to it, and consumed. The heart caught fire, and the statue turned to ashes in a matter of seconds!

"Y-will Iacintho be all right?!" Alexa asked, her eyes full of tears.

Narses loosened his hold and turned her around, keeping his arm over her shoulder,

"Sis ... It would have been better if he had left this world this moment."

"You have a harder heart than Volos!" she exclaimed, walking away.

"No, Alexa. That's the way to keep me untainted. I am the last Dallasenos Light Bearer. I have to keep the Light, or at least an ember of it, alive."

Alexa felt miserable when she heard her brother's words, but she wiped her eyes,

"You should at least get married. Get over with this farce! I will help you."

"Yes. I hope I have time for all this, before the end," he said, throwing the torch that had lit all their work that night inside the sarcophagus. "Let's go. What could be done for our brother's soul today, has already been done. And even Volos will one day thank us, in a future incarnation. "

ººº

They left Ashgraufelsen the next day, under the foreshadowing of a storm.

Narses had cleared the place from desperate Shades, and he was exhausted and hurt but, at the same time, neither of them really wanted to stay there. 

There was still the bitter taste of dealing with a lich, and at least they were sure that Volos wouldn't return as a lich wizard.

At the same time, it made Alexa have terrible thoughts about Alexander and Magnus.

The brothers said goodbye temporarily on arrival in the capital. Narses had been away from the Dominicans for a long time, and he owed his superiors an explanation.

Alexa arrived only with her escort at the castle, feeling tired after the long and slow journey back.

As soon as she arrived, she was informed that Father Agnello wanted to speak to her immediately, as it was urgent.

With a strange feeling about it, Alexa just wiped herself off the dust from the trip and went to find her tutor. They ended up meeting in the corridor, as he came to her, unable to wait. That alone has already worried the Princess.

"Father Agnelo, what happened? Did something happen at the border? Or something with Prince Gutard?

Taking a breath to prepare for bad news, the priest looked her in the eye,

"Just something to worry about, but the news is not the worst. A Hansa ship intercepted the ship on which the First Prince was returning to Holstein. All were taken prisoner by Cordelia's father!"