Chapter 33: Letting go
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“May the heavenly spirit guide the souls of Helena, daughter, wife, and mother…”

They were clustered around Edwin. Each had taken a hold of his coat and had refused to let go. They watched him, his face unreadable, as the priest continued to drone on.

The children hadn’t known about Helena and the triplets. They had been mortified when they learned about the prophecy. But Hadrian hadn’t wanted any secrets between them. A secret is like a weed, his grandmother always said, it chokes the healthy plants and steals away their water.

Growing up, Hadrian had always tried to keep secrets from the woman. She had been his only family, and he felt it would be better not to burden her. He never let her in, no matter how hard she tried to be there for him. Looking back at that, he regretted it.

“And, just as we were ashes in the beginning…”

The priest continued on. Hadrian chanced another look at Edwin’s face. Tears were pooling in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. The ceremony was nearly over. Now came the hardest part.

“Will you, Edwin Roberts, bless the passage of your family, so they may know peace? So, your spirit can be clean of pain?” Asked the priest the customary last line. There was only one answer to that, but Edwin was silent.

“Eddy, when mother and father died, I too was silent,” began Ben silently. The priest sends him a sorrowful look. But not a pitying one. In his line of work, he must have learned that pity was like salt to an open wound. Ben continued on without taking his eyes off Edwin.

“But I had my brothers. You had your mother, but she was far away. It must have been hard,” said Ben. Edwin chocked out a sob and then pressed his hand over his mouth.

“But you have to understand that you have to move on. You are not alone anymore. We will never leave you. I can’t say you won’t lose us too. The life of adventurers is a hard one. But even after death, we will be there with you in spirit. Similarly, to how Helena and your children have been with you the whole time,” said Ben.

“I don’t want that. I want you to move on,” cried Edwin. He stumbled, but Hadrian caught him in time. He didn’t let him fall on the snow-covered ground. The vampire felt that if he did, something in Edwin would die, and he would lose the will to carry on.

“Helena needs peace too. Do you know what it took for me to give my blessing?” Asked Ben, now crying as well at the memory.

“You don’t have to remember…” Said Edwin, an arm wrapped around the boy in a half hug.

“Rael and Luciano began to cry. They were trying to give their blessings, but because they were small, couldn’t even speak, they couldn’t do so. I had to be strong and relay their blessings too. You have no one to give the blessings in your stead. They were your family. You healed so many people in Orc’s rest town alone. It is time you heal yourself.”

“Eddy, wounds that are left to fester get infected,” said Luciano with a serious expression on his face, getting the fact right. “And yours have been festering for years.”

“I am overdue for an amputation then, eh, healer Lucy?” Tried to joke Edwin brokenly.

“Only if you don’t see another way,” said Rael. Then he hit Edwin’s leg lightly. “But your limbs seem healthy to me. And one can’t amputate their pain. But things will get better. Tell him, Harry.”

“I talked to him already, but he prefers not to listen,” said Hadrian. He lowered his head. Edwin still refused to give his blessing.

“Young man, a word?” Said the priest, and he pointed at the chapel of Harika, the goddess of the dead. Edwin dragged his feet behind the priest and went through the door that the man was holding open for him.

Sitting on one of the benches, Edwin looked at the altar. There was a statue of a dead woman. Harika was also the patron goddess of all necromancers. His patron goddess.

He had prayed to her for his family to be returned to him when he found them mangled in their house. But the goddess was silent. Edwin felt someone sit beside him. The priest put a grandfatherly hand over his shoulder.

“Speak,” the priest commanded, and a flood gate opened in Edwin.

“It is not fair! Helena beat cancer. I healed her. Killed off the cancer with my necromantic mana. And that hurt her. Do you have any idea how painful it is to have necromantic mana infused in your flesh?” Edwin spoke brokenly and with a pause after each sentence. The flood was coming, but for now, it was a trickle. The rain was just starting, but the storm would not be denied.

“And she was so full of life,” continued Edwin, not letting the priest stop him. Not that the man had any intention to. “She joked through the pain. She used to call me munchkin. Because I munched the cancer away.”

Edwin let out a broken laugh, a bitter smile twisting on his lips. He could see her now, as if Helena was on the altar instead of the statue of Harika. With her hands over her chest and sleeping. Oh, how he wished she was just sleeping.

“But all that is marred by my last memory of her. Of her chewed up corpse. Of her missing eyes. Do you know that some necromancers believe that eating the eyes of their victims strengthens them? Hogwash. An excuse for cannibalism. If only I could kill that wretch one more time…” Anger flooded Edwin.

Anger had been his only friend after Helena died. Until he met Lara and Brian. Then it had been suppressed. Then he met Harry, and the anger took a back seat to his other emotions.

“Had you not killed the murderer of your family, he would have killed more people. But you still sinned, my boy. Your sin must be answered for.” Said the priest gravely.

“What do you know?” Yelled Edwin, fed up with all of this. “Have you ever lost family, friends? You are so surrounded by death that you are numb to it and other people’s suffering and…”

The priest backhanded him once, then another time. He raised his hand for a third time, but Edwin just stared at him with wide eyes. He had not expected a holy man to resort to violence.

“For one to be a priest of Harika, one must have lost everything. The more painful the loss, the higher the rank. I am a cardinal. What does that tell you?” Asked the priest. There was no anger in his eyes. Just emptiness.

Edwin looked down at his lap. He hadn’t known. Priests and necromancers did not mix, not even the priests of Harika looked favorably at her chosen people. He was reminded that people around him hurt too, and he felt shame at being so self-absorbed.

“How did you let go?” Asked Edwin, not daring to look in the priest’s eyes and see the understanding there. The compassion, which threatened to cut through him like a headsman’s axe.

“I didn’t,” said the priest regretfully. “I decided on the next best thing. This.”

And he pointed at his robes. This way of coping was similar to what Edwin was doing.

“But I have no one, you have a family. For their sake, you will let go. Now, we will go out, and you will give your blessing. Atone for your guilt by doing right by your new family. Wash away your sin by helping others. You will not know peace, but you will know happiness.”

Edwin nodded and then they stood up. The priest let Edwin open the door this time, and they were out in the night air. This time, Edwin was the one leading them. There wasn’t anything between the hedge healer and the shallow grave where the medallion was going to be placed. Nothing but his sorrow.

“I give my blessings and wish them a better fate in the realms of Harika the Kind,” said Edwin after a nod from the priest. The song of the priest spread across the cemetery was haunting. The old man placed the medallion in the hole that had been dug during the day, still singing the funeral hymn.

“Eddy, once we get the kids home, you and I are going out,” said Hadrian by Edwin’s side. Edwin nodded, not really paying attention. His eyes were on the medallion and the priest, who was covering it with dirt and snow.

The book is complete and clocks at 109 chapters. I want to thank you all for reading. It has been complete for about two weeks now, but I keep forgetting to give you guys the heads-up. I hope you come back to read tomorrow morning.  

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