Chapter 60

There lives a man named Jonas in the capital city of New Athens. This man wasn’t particularly special, extraordinarily skilled, or good looking. In fact, he was relatively average on all accounts.

However, he was ambitious. He was ambitious in honing his skills in blacksmithing to become the greatest in the kingdom.

After all, even though men lack most of the freedoms that women have in their land to chase their dreams, there are not many female blacksmiths out there, and for the few that are, they aren’t especially skilled at the craft or interested in improving their talent.

The biggest issue was the fact that in most cases, men were not allowed to go anywhere in Brunhildt without a female escort. The kingdom and its royalty, all women of course, viewed men as uncontrollable brutes and animals meant to serve women.

Though thankfully for him, there were more than a few women who did not agree with the cruelty and mistreatment that was handed down to their male counterparts. In that regard, they at least shared their sympathies towards men but did little to actually change anything as it would impact their own lives negatively if they had to compete with the opposite sex.

This constant stagnation of the status quo leads many men to lose their will to continue on in a world that hampers their ability to seek self-improvement. Even if the men feel bitter of their treatment, they lack the strength and power to do anything about it. Many don’t even bother trying to find something they are good at and either accept the role that their kingdom has forced onto them or...take their own lives.

Even in regards to Jonas, there is little he can do to change his situation but decides to retain his optimism and hope his life changes for the better despite the cruel hand fate had dealt him.

Losing his father, the man who had taught him everything he knew about being a blacksmith and about being a man, and losing his mother, the woman who had hoped to change the way the system worked against her dutiful son and support him, was crushing and it make things nearly unbearable for him.

By all accounts, Jonas shouldn’t even be allowed to walk around the streets of New Athens by himself, but given his circumstances, the city guard gave him a special permit only given to males with no female escort.

As horrible as it was that both his mother and father were dead, with them, he never would have been allowed the freedom to move around the city as freely as he could now. He intended to make the lives they had given for him worth it.

Today, he had just recently finished up a special order for forging five new Black Iron spears with a diamond inner core in a spiral shape to help store spiritual energy as well as add a circular flow upon release.

Spears such as these were not too difficult to make, but nonetheless, they were very powerful in the right hands.

Jonas, however, was working on a very special project that he had been researching.

Ever since he had first gone to a library to further educate himself on ancient smithing techniques that unfortunately, many men did not have access to and many women were not interested in, he had been fascinated with what he found.

He learned that the creation of the unholy armament of New Athens, known by the name of Ljos Krasa, was forged by layering souls on top of physical matter and bonding it to the weapon itself before granting it a name. The action of condensing souls or multiple broken chunks of souls and then naming the mass of energy, in a sense, makes an entirely new soul with a new identity.

That new soul, bonded with the weapon itself, could either condense its own energy until it becomes sentient, or it could imprint itself onto its user and take on that person’s qualities, making it part of its own nature.

Upon establishing its identity, this unholy armament will engrave its personality into the metal it inhabits to serve as a ‘soul self’ of sorts while the ‘soul’ of the sword acts as a sort of energy, one that is self-sustaining.

In fact, the more he thought about it, the more similar it felt like curse magic. The act of imprinting one’s own spiritual energy into a mark on another person and bringing any manner of suffering onto them from it. Curses are meant to be self-sustaining and very difficult to remove.

This method of forging is very different from using adamantine metal as the raw metal automatically changes in nature to suit the needs of whoever uses it. It does not store energy, but rather becomes a conduit for energy to pass through according to the user’s specifications.

With all this information at hand, Jonas was certain he could invent new methods of forging weapons and revolutionize the industry.

Many weeks passed as Jonas tried multiple times to imitate the ancient forging method that the old King Dagon had invented to make those unholy armaments but each time, he had failed. He had at first, tried to replicate the process using a part of his own soul but even trying to use as small a piece as he could caused him to pass out in sudden exhaustion.

With that first failure, he realized that trying to use his own soul was pointless as it would not amount to anything with such a small piece.

He would either need a large number of small individual souls, or one really massive one.

With that in mind, he continued his experiments.

He had asked the city guard to do him a favor and at first they had told him off and wanted to be done with it but as he further explained, he could benefit the public with his ideas. He asked them to have the local pest control capture as many rodents and feral animals as they could before bringing them to him.

They seemed reluctant to go along with it but seeing as it would clean the streets of vermin, it wasn’t a bad idea.

Very soon, he had been given hundreds of rats, stray feral cats and dogs, along with some others he did not know the name of.

Individually, they were not very impressive, but with the sheer number of them, he could surely do quite a few tests using their numerous souls.

With a sharpened quartz dagger, he killed over fifty of what they had given them and stored the energy inside the crystal itself.

Then with his knowledge of old Mordran blood rituals that had nearly been lost to the war, he took a Black Iron pot that was nearly as large as a tub and filled it with purified clean water. He then filled it with rock salt and poured in some of his own blood as well. The blood was meant to tie the energy to his own soul without connecting it to his own magic.

Following that was a lengthy and boring process of stirring the bloody salt water before then crushing the quartz dagger, storing the souls into a mortar and adding it into the pot.

According to the reports he had dug up on the Mordrinite army's ritual practices, they had used this process to repeatedly strengthen their greatest warriors by 'recycling' the bodies of their retired elders when they were close to the end of their lives. They would bleed their elders dry in a large pool and make the new warriors bathe in it until all the blood had evaporated, leaving their flesh altered and their souls strengthened. With each generation that passed, the strength of the blood and that of the soul grew stronger.

Now, the only thing that Jonas had to do now was add a receptacle for the concentration of souls.

Given that it was such a small amount of souls, he would only need a small weapon for it to inhabit. He attached a steel dagger with a bone handle to a string and dropped it into the pot along with a second crystal stored with ice magic from one of the city guards-women to have an added effect.

After several hours had passed, the mixture of bloody salt water began to glow with a dim red light before he heard a small pop and steam rose from the pot.

Once it had cleared, there was no liquid remaining and only the dagger tied to the string.

Jonas reached in carefully and took a hold of the dagger by its handle and somehow, someway, it was a success.

A mild success as there was barely any energy coming from it at all and he couldn’t seem to feed any additional energy into it, but it was a success nonetheless.

To test it out, he brought a pot of water and dragged the tip of the blade across the surface of it.

In seconds, a thin sheet of ice formed.

He tried this once again but held the dagger still for over a minute and all the water had frozen solid.

“I...can’t believe I did it!” shouted with enthusiasm in his voice.

From behind him, he heard a voice ask him, “Can’t believe you did what?”

He turned around suddenly in surprise as he didn’t realize that someone had walked into his shop without him noticing. However, once he had a good look at who it was, his breath had caught in his throat.

The person who walked into his shop was a woman, and not just any kind of woman either. She was exceptionally gorgeous. Long, straight flowing blonde hair, hazel brown colored eyes, perfectly smooth looking white skin, and a slim figure. She wore a light blue blouse and a white skirt that hung past her knees and ankle high shoes.

Her face was slightly rounded but more oval shaped and she had hooded narrow eyes. 

In his eyes, she was the very personification of beauty.

She blinked in surprise as she then leaned to the side to look at what he was working on.

As her eyes moved to the dagger he had made, she asked, "What is that?"

"Oh this? I'm...not really sure you would find this interesting," he said and she pouted.

"Oh, come now. I'm a little interested. What exactly are you crafting? What is it?"

Seeing how pushy and curious she was, he couldn't say no to a woman, especially a beautiful woman like her. So, he relented and stepped to the side.

"This is a dagger that has been infused with ice magic, provided to me by one of the city guards. I was researching how to replicate the process of forging the five unholy armaments," he said which made her look even more surprised.

Her face then broke into an enthusiastic smile before she said, "That's what that was?! That is amazing! Show me! I want to see how you did that!"

He was quite surprised at her reaction but did not push her away.

"Alright then, if you insist," he said as he spent the next several hours explaining what he had found and how he had attempted to recreate what the fallen Amaskian King had done long ago.

"Ooh...that's impressive. Though it doesn't look like you have a strong enough concentration of spiritual energy in that dagger for it to be meaningful," she said as she took a long look at it.

"You can tell?" he asked and she nodded.

"Layering the souls of rodents works for a test run, sure. At some point though, you will need a greater source to craft weapons out of souls," she offered him helpfully.

"Yes, I am aware of that. However, there is another factor that goes into it. Applying a name to the new soul of a weapon gives it an identity. This will apparently increase the strength of the weapon itself if its name has a deeper meaning to it," he said and she tilted her head in confusion.

Jonas looked at the ice magic dagger as he thought long and hard about what kind of name would be best suited for it, even if it were just a first test. His mind wandered as he thought of the strongest kingdom in the world, Forrosa. The kingdom that came before it, Verglas, was originally the first owner of one of the unholy armaments, the spear known as Heaven Breaker. However, even with the powerful spear in their possession, it was not powerful enough on its own to prevent their kingdom from falling at the hands of rebels who they had intended to enslave in their wars.

Not long after Heaven Breaker came into their possession, their kingdom fell. Not from an enemy's advancement, but rather from their own people who had become sick of being oppressed. From overcoming their reign of cruelty, the fall of Verglas laid the foundations of what would become the most powerful kingdom on the planet.

"I think I will name this dagger, 'Verglas' Scar', " he said and the moment the words left his mouth, the small and frail dagger in his hands began to vibrate with intense energy, far more powerful than it should be capable of, before settling down.

"Amazing...your theory was correct...," the woman said to him in amazement before she leaned forward to look him in the eyes. As she did, her dress, which was somewhat loose around her breasts, started to shake itself loose a bit and revealed more of her cleavage to him, making it impossible for him to look away from her.

With a kindly smile, she asked, "Would it be alright if I helped you with exploring this method of forging?"

"T-Truly? Are you really interested in that kind of thing?"

"A woman must have her hobbies, lest she be bored to death," she said humorously.

"Ah...alright then. I don't mind. Oh but, can you tell me your name?" he asked.

"Only if you share with me your own," she said.

"My name is Jonas."

"Mine is Natalie."

Many weeks had passed since he had met Natalie and the two of them had begun working together on researching soul forging. Truthfully, he was in complete disbelief that a woman with such breathtaking beauty would be helping him with even the messiest aspects of this research. What was even more surprising though was how helpful she was. She was truly intelligent and well versed on the nature of souls and the flow of spiritual energy as well as the science behind death. The techniques of forging weapons was all that she seemed to lack though as she did not fully grasp the concept of applying souls to inanimate objects. With the two of them pulling their various knowledge and working together, they were able to make many breakthroughs.

Unfortunately, as Natalie had been showing up around the shop to help him more and more, other blacksmiths took notice of it and even started to tease him over it. They would make jokes about how she was his new lady friend and all that. He would curse them furiously and yell at them to go away so that their teasing wouldn't scare Natalie away.

One day however, as he was meeting up with her on the street, she stood a little too close to him and the other blacksmiths (as well as a few women who jumped at any piece of gossip they could find) started to toss out annoying comments that made Jonas want to crawl into his skin.

He then heard an older woman shout, "You had better act fast Jonas and make that woman your wife or someone will pull her out from under you!"

Jonas had no idea how to react to that and simply froze in place. He didn't bother looking at Natalie as the two of them were making their way to his shop and wanted to ignore them all.

Natalie though, had a different idea in mind.

"Oh, but this man is too shy to offer me his hand! Perhaps I should be the one to make a move," she said playfully and the older woman who had made the joke laughed while the others stared at her in astonishment. Jonas too, could not seem to comprehend what had just been said and simply kept walking.

As the day stretched on and the two of them continued on with their experiments, his mind wandered. He couldn't get the thought of what Natalie had said earlier out of his head. Eventually, he had begun to space out so much over it that Natalie waved her hand in front of his face to get his attention.

"Jonas? Is there something wrong?" she asked.

"Oh! Uh, no! No. There is nothing wrong...," he lied. He lied and she could easily tell that he did.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him and said, "Spit it out. What is on your mind?"

"I...I've just been stuck on what you had said earlier, about offering you my hand. I know you weren't being serious but the thought of it still had me reeling," he said and her mouth opened up in mild surprise at his honesty.

"Oh Jonas...but I was serious. Or at the very least, I am serious about wanting to get closer to you," she said with a warm and welcoming expression on her face.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that ever since I met you, you have shown me many interesting things. Since I came to this kingdom, I've found most of it to be rather dull compared to other places that I have traveled. In fact, until I came across your shop, I was planning to leave Brunhildt and head to a different kingdom. But now...you are the reason I want to stay. I want to stay and see what wonders you can create. Not only that, but I see ambition in you and I want to see where that might lead. To be completely honest, I like you," she said, giving him that same warm smile that would melt any man who saw it.

He could not bring himself to speak his mind to her, for if he tried, he felt that he would make a fool of himself.

Although...he also liked her very much.

Over a month had passed and she decided, without bothering to ask him, that she wanted to move in with him and help him even when he was home. She wanted to help him in any way she could. He couldn't bring himself to tell her no, not that he wanted to say no to her, but he felt that maybe things were moving too fast for him. Though, maybe that was just his shy nature as she had called it once.

It was true that he had grown up with a rather antisocial nature to him while in contrast, Natalie had an outgoing and extroverted personality to her. Perhaps it was a good thing that she wanted to be with him at every step and help him along. She had even started to prepare food for the both of them to share and enjoy. They would talk and laugh about what had happened during their day.

One day though, everything changed.

The two of them had come home, tired and filthy from a failed experiment due to attempting a new method of layering feral dragon souls onto a smaller and weaker weapon in an attempt to concentrate the power only for it to explode into dust.

After he had taken his shower, dried off, and gotten his clothes, he left the bathroom as Natali had walked inside, naked save for a towel that hung over her breasts but failed to cover anything behind her as both sides of her ass hung out, leaving nothing to the imagination.

"I-I'm sorry, I'll leave you to it," he said but she grabbed him by the hem of his shirt.

"Hold on a moment," she said to him and he stopped.

He turned around to look back at her and even though her face and arms were still filthy with dust and shrapnel, she was too beautiful for words.

"Yes...?"

She stared at him for a moment before saying, "Can you wait for me on the bed until I am finished?"

"Of course...," he said and he left the bathroom to her.

When she was finished with her bath, she walked into his room.

The towel was tied firmly around her and her hair was still wet as she walked over to him. She then sat on his bed next to him and he had to turn his head away from him to keep himself from staring.

"Is there something on your mind Jonas?" she asked him sweetly.

"N-No. Not...not really," he said as his nerves were wrecked from trying to control himself while looking at her.

"Are you sure? It looks to me that you are incredibly nervous about...something," she said, insinuating the obvious.

It would be clear as day to anyone else who would have seen this that she wanted him to make some kind of move towards her. Looking at her, he wanted nothing more than to toss her onto the bed but he was too much of a coward to take any action.

"Jonas, look at me for a moment," she said and he obeyed.

She then asked him, "What is it you want to do?"

His mouth opened but no sound came out.

Natalie sighed but did not drop her smile as she said, "Jonas, please close your eyes for me?"

"You are not going to force yourself on me, will you?" he asked and she shook her head no.

He closed his eyes for a moment and could feel the vibration of the bed moving as she brought herself closer to him. He almost expected her to throat herself at him, or to straddle him but instead, he only felt her lips against his cheek as she kissed him lightly.

The moment she pulled away from him, he opened his eyes and she retreated away from him.

"I will at least leave you with that much. Now Jonas, I will not make any further advances on you until you yourself decide that you want me all to yourself," she said as she stood up from his bed and was about to leave his room.

He stood up abruptly, feeling empty from only allowing himself that one small shred of intimacy that she was more than happy to give to him.

He could not bring himself to ask her to stay and watched as she left his room, and left him alone to his thoughts.

As the weeks went by, she decided to act more reserved towards him but continued to help him in all the ways that she had offered before. This made him feel immensely guilty for constantly avoiding her advances out of cowardice and he cursed himself for it. He cursed himself for it so much that he had asked her to not go with him to the shop to help him until he could figure out how to come to terms with how he felt towards her and although she seemed to be against it, she reluctantly agreed.

He would need to face his cowardice in his own way.

As time passed on, with Natalie no longer coming with him to his shop to assist him with his experiments, he started to notice that he was losing a little bit of weight. He didn't know what it was that was causing it, nor did he even realize it himself until someone else pointed it out for him, but all the excess fat that he had started to thin around him. Not only that, but he started coming home earlier and earlier at times as he began to feel more exhausted more easily.

Every time he would come back home and was greeted by Natalie, she looked at him with a worried expression on her face. He would brush it off and tell her he was fine, but he knew that wasn't the truth.

With every passing day, he started to feel weaker and weaker without Natalie next to him at the forge. Whenever he came home, he would collapse onto the bed and fall asleep. Some days, Natalie would even rub his back and massage him to try and help him but it did not seem to matter.

It wasn't until he came home from the shop one day and was welcomed by her kind smile again that he fell to his knees the moment he walked in the door.

She ran to his side at once before he blacked out as she shouted his name while being held in her arms.

When he woke up, he found himself laying down on the couch in the living room with his head resting on her lap and feeling more refreshed than he ever had since before he had asked her to stay at home. She was looking down at him as she stroked his hair gently.

"Jonas...," she said softly.

"Yes," he said, as if acknowledging his name being said by her soothing voice.

She looked away from him as if she were feeling guilty of something.

"Natalie, is something wrong?" he asked her.

She looked back at him and it was as if she were on the verge of crying as she said, "Yes. You were on the verge of dying Jonas. That is what is wrong."

"W-What do you mean by that?" he asked her, panicking as he didn't understand what she had meant.

"There...was a seed of death root nestled in your chest that had kept growing ever since you asked me to stay home. It wasn't until you had blacked out and allowed me to remove most of it that I was able to help you but...," she said but he didn't understand.

"Death root? But how-," he wondered and the guilt shone on her face once again.

"Jonas...keeping me in this home...it prevented me from removing the Arcanence in my soul that spreads seeds of death root in living things. Your work, the experiments, it allowed me to keep it at bay and keep it from affecting you too as I poured some of my own soul into those weapons but...," she tried to explain but trailed off.

"Natalie...what do you mean? You can't be saying that you are the cause of this," he said as he tried to deny her words but she shook her head.

"I am and once I realized what was happening I wanted to explain it to you, but every day you came back so exhausted that I never had the chance," she said and he realized that all those moments she tried to talk to him, only for her words to become jumbled and murky from his condition, he understood.

"What is going on?" he asked and she bit her lip as she mustered up the courage to tell him.

"Jonas, I've not been fully honest with you about who I am. I am not a human being, or at least, I am no longer the human that I once was. I am a Lich. A human born, but with a soul that is so heavily tainted by death that it has changed the very nature of my soul and my flesh. Arcanence leaks from my body at all times but before, I was able to mitigate it from becoming a risk to anyone who gets close to me for a limited time. When I met you, I realized that your experiments allowed me to drain more of that from my body and soul so that I could approach someone I love and embrace them fully. When you told me to stay, I could no longer stop the spread. I am so truly sorry," she said as tears started to fall from her face.

He was left speechless at her words. He did not know how to react to what she said and realized the error of his ways. He had truly dug his own grave by denying her to be by his side.

He was a fool.

"The only way that you can recover from this is if I leave now. That seed of death rooted in your body will not simply go away until the source of it being planted is removed in the first place. I have managed to cut out the thickest parts of it for now so that you will be able to recover on your own, but if I stay for too much longer, it could become even deeper rooted inside you and I might not be able to help you the same way again," she said as she continued to cry.

Hearing that, Jonas sat up abruptly and said to her, "No! No, I will not accept that!"

"B-but you could die if I stay for too long!"

"No Natalie. I...I pushed you away too much already and it was because of my foolishness that I am in this situation right now. I would like you...no, I want you to stay with me so that we can figure this out together," he said.

Hearing that, her eyes widened slightly at his admission before she looked up at him. She stared at him for a moment before asking, "Show me not with your words that you want me to stay. Please."

Hearing her almost pleading for him, he reached out gently with his hand and pulled her face to his own and kissed her. She took in a sharp breath before she kissed him back and they held it there for a moment. When he pulled away, he found himself slightly short of breath as it was really his first time kissing someone.

Natalie opened her eyes to look at him invitingly, waiting for him to embrace her again and this time he did not hesitate. He quickly wrapped his right arm around her back and pulled her to him, to which she wrapped her arms over his shoulders and around his neck as he lifted her on top of him. She rested her legs on either side of him as she sat on top of him and leaned against his chest. Her breasts rubbing against him was a soothing pressure but he found that it did not completely satisfy him.

Natalie then cradled his head in her hands as she brought his face to her own and kissed him even more deeply than he had. As she did, he moved his left hand down to her waist and his fingers began to fumble for the hem of her shirt. When he finally managed to get a decent grip on it, he moved his hand underneath her shirt and traced it against her back as he took in the soft feel of her skin while also pressing her closer to him.

He then decided to take a risk and moved his right hand down to her waist and underneath her skirt to firmly hold her ass in his hand. The very moment he did this, she pulled away from him slowly though the expression on her face told him that it was not because of what he had just done.

His own expression seemed to bother her though as she had a disappointed look on her face.

"You do not need to doubt my feelings towards you Jonas," she said as she reached for his left arm and moved away from her back and placed it over her breasts before continuing, "I intend to give my all to you."

He stared at her and he finally had the courage to be able to speak to her freely and make whatever advances he desired without holding himself back.

"Natalie, can you lift up your arms for me?" he asked and she obeyed.

He grabbed both ends of her shirt and raised it until he had pulled it and the braw underneath off of her completely.

He took a brief moment to admire her as she rested on top of him with her chest bare and said, "You are beautiful."

She blushed for a moment before chuckling.

She then grabbed hold of both his hands and placed them over her breasts as she said, "Go on. They are all yours now."

He looked at her breasts, which filled even his large hands, and squeezed them. As he released the pressure, they pressed against his fingers lightly. He then traced his finger around her areole to which she shuddered lightly. He then brought his right hand back down to her waist and grabbed her ass, pulled her close to him. He ended up doing it so suddenly that it surprised her and she had to grab a hold of the couch with both her hands to stop herself from completely smothering him but ended up doing so with her breasts anyways.

"Did you do that on purpose?" she asked with an amused smile, to which he gave her a muffled laugh.

He then wrapped both arms around her and held her close as he lifted her up off the couch, much to her shocked protest, and carried her all the way to his bed.

For the time that they were spending together, they lived mainly in separate bedrooms but today they would share one.

He dropped Natalie on the bed a little earlier than he had intended as she fell onto the bed from half a foot above it and let out a yelp.

She laughed at the noise she made while she watched Jonas strip out of his own clothes.

Her eyes drifted down to look at what he was sporting and they widened while her lips mouthed the words 'oh...my...'

Jonas laughed at her reaction and asked, "Is something wrong?"

"N-No. Why don't you come and finish what you started already," she said, putting a bit of defiance in her voice to spur him on.

He then leaned forward and stripped off the last of her clothing as he knelt above her.

As if waiting for an invitation, he rested his hands on her knees but did not move them.

Natalie then spread her arms out to welcome him and with that, he spread her legs apart and fully embraced her. She let out a sharp gasp, though she did not seem to be in pain.

"Are you okay?" he asked her and she nodded.

"You know...you had called me beautiful before and I have yet to give you a compliment of my own," she said as she waved her index finger at him in a 'come closer' gesture. He leaned forward to lend her his ear, forcing himself deeper in the process and causing her to let out short little gasps as she tried to accept all of him.

When he was close enough, she whispered in his ear, "You are a truly magnificent man, and I love you all for it."

He pulled his head back to look her in the eyes and was frozen for a moment before he said, "I love you for all you have given me."


Through her eyes...


As he moved, she barely had time to breathe, much less time to form any coherent thoughts as the two of them gave themselves to each other fully and did not stop to speak even a single word until after they were both about to reach their limit.

"Jonas...I need to...share one more thing with you...," she said in between sharp gasps.

"Yes? What is?"

"My...name. My real...name. It is not...Natalie. Call me by...my real name..., Nashandra," she said.

Jonas held the left side of her face with his right hand as he pulled her in close and said, "I love you Nashandra."

The moment she heard her true name being spoken by him, she pulled him in close as they both reached their limit.

In that moment, as Jonas was giving his all to her, everything that he had, she wanted to stay with him in that moment and for the rest of his life.

Unfortunately...she knew the truth.

There was no saving him from the seed of death root, because even if she left, it would not have helped him. He likely would have been better off if he never met her to begin with as he would not have died because of her. She was only able to cut out the worst parts of the death root that had formed in his body to ease the pain and hopefully allow him to live one more day at peace, and maybe even give him one memorable night with her.

The way things stood now, if she did not finish things now, then he would surely die a horribly painful death as the death root continued to spread within him.

It was in the moment when he let everything go that she made a needle of bone with her magic and forced it into the back of his spine.

A quick, near painless death as she even infused some of her magic into it to numb the pain.

His body reflexively arched back to get away from her, but from the look in Jonas's eye, he knew the truth as well.

There was no hope for him anymore save for the one night they could share a bed together.

She could not stop herself from crying as she looked up at him and said, "I'm so sorry."

With the last bit of strength he had left, he said to her, "Its alright. I still love you."

As those last few words left him, she watched the light fade from his eyes and his body collapsed on top of her, resting for the final time, in her arms.

Several weeks had passed before she had carried Jonas's corpse out of New Athens and into a forest to be buried. She did not want to burn or dismember his body to keep him from turning into a Draugr and instead wanted to bury him out of respect. Burial was typically not a funeral practice that was offered to men in Brunhildt but out of all the men she had met and seen die with her own eyes, Jonas was one of few she knew deserved that honor.

There she stood, still grieving him and dealing with the regret of meeting him so that he could suffer that fate.

She had intended to visit his grave in peaceful silence...

But things did not want to go the way she wanted as the scheming bastard known as Kayron arrived to speak with her.

"What do you want?"

He spoke to her with feigned sympathy as he said, "I apologize for interrupting your grief, but I would like to speak with you. Only, if you can spare the time for it, naturally."

Her eyes narrowed in annoyance as she knew where this was going.

"Speak quickly, or I will rot your body down to the bones," she threatened.

He smiled thinly as he knew she understood his intentions.

"Do you remember that binding vow I asked you to make for the moment when I needed to call in a favor? That time is now.

Nashandra scoffed at him and said, "To hell with your binding vows and your favors. Why should I-"

She tried to finish her sentence but then felt a cold chill run down her spine. It was a feeling she hadn't experienced in well over ten thousand years since the end of the Amaskian War.

She felt the encroaching hands of sudden death run down her spine.

"Yes...?" Kayron asked.

She had thought the oath she made with him for a favor under Styx's name was just a dumb story that Kayron told to scare her. She didn't think it was actually binding but now she could tell for certain that it was.

"What do you want from me, Kayron?" she asked.

"I just want you to come and fight for me in the Contest of Champions that will be held in a few weeks from now, in Duranell," he said.

"Is that all you want? If I do this for you, then that will be the end of the oath I made," she asked.

Kayron nodded, "That is really all I want from you."

"Very well then... I will fight for you. For now, please leave and let me grieve in silence," she asked as she turned away from him.

"I know, I know. Although, I have a question. Why exactly did you come to New Athens? What brought you to that city?" he asked.

"If I answer this one question, will you finally leave me alone?"

"Of course. I only want to know this one answer," he said.

Nashandra breathed in deeply before saying, "I thought I had sensed the presence of my dear King. I was wrong but...I found something more precious, even if for a moment."