With the dagger in hand, Izan stared at Clara and the rest of the corpses in the pit.
The scene was brutal and desolate. The bodies had already been rotting for days. The stench was suffocating, and the humidity and heat that day made it even worse.
The young man’s legs had taken on a necrotic black-and-green color, while his face was covered in blood and scraps of human skin from his clothes.
The arm of Clara’s corpse was mangled, with the bone exposed where he had eaten.
Everything was horrible, but Izan felt no disgust, nor even self-pity. Now he had hope that everything might change.
He closed his eyes, concentrating on his friend inside the Dark Palace, and spoke to her through his thoughts:
«Cler, are you there?»
«Yes, yes, I’m still here,» she replied. «You scared me for a moment because you left again.»
«I guess I still don’t have much control over this whole having-an-alternate-dimension-inside-me thing,» he explained, joking at the same time. «I left accidentally. Maybe because of how excited I was.»
«Umm... then come back, if you can, right?»
«I think I can try, but not yet. There’s something I have to do, and I want to find out if what the God of the Underworld said is true.»
«What are you talking about?»
«I’m going to eat your heart.»
«...»
«Yeah... That sounded weird, didn’t it?» he added, somewhat embarrassed. «When I ate you... in a way, it seems like I absorbed your soul, but I’m afraid it wasn’t enough. The God of the Underworld said that hearts contain the soul and brains contain deep memories... and, well, if I’m going to take you with me, I want to make sure I take your entire soul.»
«I don’t know how to respond to that, but okay. Do it... but...»
Izan had climbed onto his friend’s body and was undoing the leather breastplate.
«But...?» he asked, interrupting his actions.
«But don’t look too much...»
«What are you talking about?»
«At my body. Don’t look at my body too much... You’re going to take my heart out, right?» Her voice trembled nervously. «You’ll have to take off... my clothes.»
Izan, who had already removed the leather breastplate, stopped and looked at Clara’s body in surprise.
«Don’t be stupid,» he told her, somewhat annoyed. «You changed clothes in front of me hundreds of times, and you were never embarrassed. Besides, don’t forget that I saw your memories.»
«Yeah, I know, and I know it’s stupid to feel this way,» she argued. «But this feels very strange. I’m not in my body; I’m not there; it feels... weird. That’s all I can say.»
Izan frowned, not entirely understanding his friend’s attitude, but answered to reassure her:
«I’m not going to take all your clothes off. You know the heart is in the middle, right?»
With the dagger, he tore through the fabric of Clara’s dress, leaving only the center of her chest exposed.
«Besides, why would I want to look at your boobs?»
«Izan!» she shouted angrily, though also somewhat relieved. «It makes me nervous not being able to see anything and knowing that the world is still going on outside. It feels strange to feel alive in here while knowing that my body is out there, beyond my control. I wish it didn’t bother me, but I don’t even understand whether this thing I am now is really me.»
«The truth is, I don’t even know if any of this is real, but there’s no point in continuing to ask myself that,» he said aloud. «I’ve already accepted things as they are. If it turns out that this was all just a damn nightmare, then great, but I can’t keep doing nothing when I have the means to act right in the palm of my hand.»
Inside the Dark Palace, Clara bit her lip and sat back down on the floor, leaning against a pillar.
«Yes, that’s true. My thoughts are all jumbled up, and even though I want to act strong, I’m terrified... I don’t want to stop existing, Iza.» Her voice cracked on those last words.
«I won’t let that happen as long as I’m still alive,» he replied with a smile. «I promise.»
«You’ve already promised me so many things.»
«Yes, there are some promises I haven’t managed to keep yet, but have I broken any of them?»
«No.» Clara smiled as well, remembering many of the moments she had shared with her friend. «You’re right. So go ahead. Do what you have to do. I’ll be waiting here.»
Izan said nothing else. He took the leather breastplate he had removed and used it to cover his friend’s face; he felt that this would make it easier to do what he was about to do.
He took a deep breath and plunged the dagger into Clara’s chest.
Slowly, he dragged the blade through the flesh, widening the wound. Blood no longer flowed from the corpse that had been lying there for days.
The young man thought of nothing. If there was one thing he had learned during his two years studying psychology, it was that abstracting his thoughts helped him face an act as traumatic as the one he was going through. He detached himself from his emotions so he could later rationalize them and make sense of them.
With that resolve, he opened Clara’s chest and saw her heart. It was not red as he had expected; the passage of days had turned it yellowish, almost brown in some places.
His first thought was that it should have disgusted him, but instead he felt nothing, whether because he had already resorted to cannibalism before or because he had his purpose clear in his mind.
Using the dagger, he cut out Clara’s heart and tore it free.
He stared at it expressionlessly, forcing his mind to imagine that it was something else. After a few seconds, he began sinking his teeth into it and swallowing bite after bite.
The taste, the smell, the act itself, was repulsive, but with every bite his body felt revitalized, as though waves of energy were coursing through all his arteries and veins. Once he started eating, he could not stop.
But this time, something was different. There were no memories, but there was information that his mind interpreted. He felt the Stellar Words becoming a part of him.
"☽✦ AST · EL"
The same words the Goddess of the Stars had bestowed upon Clara. Although he had seen them in her memories, the words had not been engraved into his essence.
When he became aware of his surroundings again, he had already finished eating his friend’s heart.
«Clara?» he asked but received no answer.
He sighed and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his dirty shirt. He closed his eyes and concentrated.
«Clara?»
«Iza? It’s... done, right?» the girl replied from within the Dark Palace.
«Yes. Did you feel anything different?»
«Yes. I feel stronger... more alive,» Clara admitted, also feeling the energy returning to her.
«Looks like the god wasn’t lying to us.»
Izan moved to get away from his friend’s body, and the pain in his legs made him cry out.
«I still have a huge problem to solve. My legs aren’t going to recover; they’re destroyed,» he told her once the pain had subsided somewhat. «I think I’ll try going back to the Dark Palace.»
«Wait. I doubt that will do anything right now.»
«What do you mean?»
«This place is like another dimension, right? But even so, it’s also as if it’s inside your mind, which is why I could feel your emotions.» Clara spoke while looking at the ceiling of the palace, as though doing so would somehow allow her to communicate better with Izan. «When you come here, your legs are fine, so I don’t think you actually come to the palace physically.»
The boy stopped to think about it for a moment. His friend had a point. Then he added more information to Clara’s theory.
«The God of the Underworld said that the Dark Palace was in a limbo between this world and Hell, so the version of me that saw you and stayed with you was probably my own soul.»
«That’s the most likely explanation,» the young woman agreed. «That means coming here changes your physical condition.»
«Then what can I do?» he blurted aloud, worried.
«Don’t you remember everything the god told you?» the girl scolded him. «He told you that your power depends on the souls you consume, right? That means you should have my power.»
Izan immediately understood what she meant when he remembered the Stellar Word that had been engraved into his being. That Stellar Word had been the blessing the Goddess of the Stars had bestowed upon Clara.
«My gift is called Stellar Fire,» the girl continued. «If what the god said is true, you should be able to use it. Stellar Fire can be used not only as a weapon but also for healing.»
«But I don’t know how to cast spells,» the young man admitted. «When I arrived in this world, I didn’t have any words, any gifts. No one taught me how to cast them.»
«Didn’t you see all my memories?»
«No, only part of them. This time, when I ate your heart, I didn’t see your memories. I felt stronger, and I did see the words the goddess gave you.»
Clara thought for a few moments.
«Let me try something.»
Izan nodded and lay back in the mud of the pit, staring at the sky.
Inside the Dark Palace, the girl stood up and walked back and forth, reminiscing about moments from her past. Then she focused on one moment in particular and tried to relive the emotion she had felt at that time.
Immediately, Izan’s mind traveled through time, back several days, and he saw the memory his friend wanted to show him. It engraved itself into his mind as if he had lived it himself. Despite this, he did not fully enter the past this time as he had before. Rather, it felt as though he had possessed that information in his mind all along.
He saw the old woman Aster and Brion teaching Clara how to invoke the prayer for her spell.
«How did you do that?» he asked in surprise as he sat back up.
«Did it work?» she asked, astonished. «I thought that if I could feel your emotions while I’m here, then maybe if I focused on a memory and an emotion, you would feel the same thing.»
«That’s why I always left you in charge of the university group projects,» he told her with a smile.
«That was because you’re lazy.»
«That too,» he admitted. «But I also left them to you because you’re the best.»
Clara laughed and accepted the compliment.
«So that’s how magic works, huh?» he said to himself, mentally going over his friend’s memory. «I’ll try it.»
Izan closed his eyes and visualized the Stellar Word "☽✦ AST · EL" in his mind. Then he closed his right fist in front of his chest and wrapped it with his left hand. Finally, he pressed his elbows against his waist, adopting a posture similar to prayer.
His voice pronounced the spell with determination:
—Naast pyr resvit.
Immediately, the Words of the Spell began to draw themselves in the air beside him, floating gently.
"☉❈ NA · AST" "☉❈ PYR" "☉❈ RES · VIT"
Once Izan felt the energy surrounding him, he opened his eyes, released his hands, and placed them over his destroyed legs.
The Words of the Spell immediately traveled to his hands, covering them in a green glow that then spread into his broken limbs.
The boy felt a sharp pain as his bones shifted and realigned beneath his skin. Then came small electric spasms as his nerves repaired themselves, and finally he felt his blood begin to circulate again, allowing him to move his toes.
When the green glow disappeared, he saw his restored legs. Most of the bruises had vanished; only small marks remained where healing had not been complete.
Izan moved his legs and, feeling them normal again, stood up. He felt neither joy nor relief. What he felt was the flame of hope burning throughout his entire body.
«I did it,» he told Clara. «I used your power. I can walk again.»
The girl did not answer because she was celebrating, jumping for joy inside the Dark Palace.
When the initial excitement subsided, she told him with a smile:
«Now get out of that damn place.»
«Not yet. I still have things to do here,» he replied seriously. «Don’t you want some company?»
«What are you talking about?»
«The rest of our classmates are also in the pit.»
«Are you thinking...?
«I’ll take them all with me, Clara. I’ll take their souls and their powers.»
Clara understood that what her friend was saying made perfect sense, but the way he expressed it sent a chill down her spine.
Had something changed in him?
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