Torn between two lives

Splintered soul

John shook Eliza awake, she was pale and sweating. He hadn’t even made coffee yet because as he walked down the steps, he could hear his roommate whimpering in her sleep. “Eliza?” He hadn’t heard her leave her room last night, when did she fall asleep on the couch?

She sat up with a start, “My journal!” Eliza was teary-eyed as John frisked her backpack for the leather tomb and a pen. He stood over her shoulder, watching her hurriedly scrawl her dream before she lost the fine details.

Smoke burned her eyes, her lungs protesting with every breath. Splinters of wood slashed her skin, but her hands were gripped on the silver stake poisoning her heart. “No…no, no, no, no.” Leo was openly weeping, carrying Anna in his arms, running at top speed, human eyes be damned. He kicked open the door to the witch’s coven, the smell of incense was everywhere, blocking the outside scents from the inside.

“What happened?” A witch flung the curtain that separated the back room from the front, her outfit dating her as the Elizabethan era, her corset loose but still proper. She honed in on Anna, who was withering by the moment. Anna hissed with disapproval as the witch tapped on the stake.

“Wolves.” Leo growled, “Anna has held this territory for hundreds of years and the wolves claimed it in her absence.” In the midst of Greenland, Anna had flourished years ago, though the past few hundred years, she had not returned to her old home, choosing to tour the courts of Europe and feast on the blood of nations. Her scent was tied to the land, it reeked of vampire dominion yet a new Alpha had taken it for himself, building an empire in the midst of the once barren land, filling it with trees. Anna would have been impressed, had his pack not met her with hostility and come out swinging under the belt.

Rather than meeting in their true forms, the spear had launched right at Leo and Anna had shielded her mate without a second thought. He had broken the spear but left the silver intact, for fear of hurting her more after she howled when touched it. “Save her!” Leo demanded, glaring at the witch who was already considering her options. She knew well enough that Leo would kill her if Anna died, but she also knew that Anna was beyond saving.

“My time in this life is long overdue to end.” Anna tried to sound reassuring but she was crying, clinging to her beloved, her mate. “I love you, Leo. I promise, I will watch over you, I will return to you, my love.” She looked longingly at her mate and then the witch, pleading silently.

The witch nodded, grim understanding donning. “Push the stake through, Leo.” He stared at her, dumbfounded. “Push it through, it’s the only way.”

“I love you.” He whispered as Anna closed her eyes with a hint of a smile on her face, she looked almost serene. He pressed it through as quickly as he could and screamed when her fingertips and legs began to turn to ash, slowly spreading through her body. “No!” He clung to her as she burned away, watching the love of his many lives disappear before his eyes.

When the last bit of her was ash, the witch waved her hands, the bits of Anna that were left swung through the air, twisting and turning into a collective unit. She was whispering an incantation, forehead beading with sweat as she concentrated. The ashes clung together, glowing as the flames grew hotter and then in one single blink, disappeared completely.

“What have you done?” Leo questioned, pinning the witch to the wall by her neck, “WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?”

The witch tried to speak but her voice was wheezing from the lack of oxygen so he loosened his grip and she dropped onto the floor. “When a person dies, their soul is splintered, recombined with others who have passed, creating a new soul, a new life.” She hacked and coughed, pale and exhausted, “If a soul is worthy, it may continue. I kept her soul from separating, so she can be reborn as herself, not as a new being, a mixture of many becoming one. Anna will be reborn as herself.”

“What?” Leo had never heard of such a thing, there had been theories on reincarnation but it was forbidden, “Then why not leave the soul alone with every death?”

“Because it weakens your own.” The witch hissed, this sort of spell was rarely, if ever used, usually only by the coven leader when something dire happened. Leo had brought Anna to this witch on purpose, for Anna had saved her and her coven from the stake, ten years before, it was a life debt owed, promised to be paid for generations to come, only Leo had collected on Anna’s behalf not twenty years later. “She will remember who she is, but not why she is, not until the soul chooses to reveal itself to its new host.”

Eliza’s pen stilled, her hand shaking. John let out a long sigh, unsure of what to think. “Should we Irish our coffee and walk to class then?” Was the only thing he could think to say. He and Donna were the only ones who had been kept up to date on the journal entries. While Donna saw them as a steamy, plot twisting romance, John had a strange feeling about them. His family had always been spiritual and the journals always raised the hairs on the back of his neck, today especially.

Eliza’s eyes were glassy, her voice a mumble, “I need to shower” was all she said before climbing the stairs without another word or backwards glance. She was numb.