My consciousness faded in and out after I collapsed. Visions of Libbu standing on a long-forgotten shore, swollen with child, alternated with flashes of her visage as a ghastly bride whose face emerged from a pool of black void. Each incarnation called to me beckoning my approach yet I could not go to her. Though only a short distance separated us, it stretched on like an infinite chasm when I approached seeming getting longer the closer that I drew.

In-between the visions, I witnessed flashes of passing sights and portions of disjointed conversations. I couldn’t understand most of what I saw through the delirium and the swirling maelstrom of my emotions which resisted my attempts to reign them under control. Never before had I been at the mercy of such visceral sentiment. I always had the option of processing my emotions analytically, pushing them aside, channeling them into fuel for my advancement. Now, they struck with near-physical force refusing to be dismissed.

I was adrift amidst that turbulent chaos. The feelings buffeted my mind from all sides. Denial, fear, guilt, sorrow, physical pain, and more: they sought to end me yet even then, delirious and critically injured, I would not be undone. I fought each blow with my will roaring like a savage beast.

I must have looked pitiful.

Faces and voices rose and fell in my senses. Finally, an agonized cry that wasn’t my own offered a temporary distraction from my battle.

“Uncle Jon! NO! What happened?! Who did this?!” Each word bore the grating undertone of anger against heartbreak. I caught sight of a woman’s face, young and framed by wild chestnut locks. Angry green eyes glared at something I couldn’t see, likely the corpse of Jonathan Holston.

I heard a click, something opening then a voice, familiar.

“We need a doctor or better yet, a healer!” said the familiar voice. It was then that I became aware of a cool hand stroking my forehead. Ah, I remembered. She was Liberty Blackthorn, technically my mother. I found that funny for some reason but couldn’t bring myself to laugh.

The young woman growled, her eyes flashing yellow for a moment as Liberty spoke. Her glare snapped to Liberty whose lap my head rested in, I realized.

“I told Nana it was a mistake to let Uncle get mixed in with a witch. I—.” She stopped mid-sentence when her I fell from Liberty to my body. Her face twisted with disgust and horror. The angry tears that were forming at the edges of her eyes fell unhindered. I made eye contact with her at that moment.

Her visage was so familiar to me then. I remembered the women abandoned as sacrifices by foolish savages to appease me on the shores of waters where I kept my physical body in ancient times. The looks of utter horror, the tears, the incoherent cries for mercy when I showed myself to them. Memory blended with reality as I looked upon the young woman. Her face blurred and I saw faces of the past: Brigantī, Eresh, Inan, and the others. Almost all had turned their scorn on me eventually, bemoaning the gifts that I had given. Yet, in the age of old, they had been queens, feared and respected by even the best of Libbu’s children.

Why had they scorned me? My modifications weren’t always optimal but all of my fleshwarped either ended up better off after the process, or died during it. Was it a human impulse to reject that improvement? Had I miscalculated back then?

My stalled emotions latched onto these questions like a warrior would his sword. I tried to push them back but failed. The memories continued to come like an ever-flowing font. Finally, I had enough. I was not a bumbling child or emotionally unstable ape. I summoned the full force of my will slamming it against the emotions yet instead of the desired rejection, the two merged enveloping my mind like a cloak around a king’s shoulders.

I laughed, a gargling sound that sent blood flecks flying from my nose and mouth. I couldn’t fight them; I couldn’t fight myself. I was who I was and I found no fault there.

The green-eyed woman flinched at my laughter as a drop of blood landed on her cheek. The women of the shore watched behind her, their fleshwarped visages cold with judgment. My eyes widened and I spoke without thinking as I looked upon the young woman’s face.

“Don’t worry, girl,” I wheezed. I reached for her. “You will be perfect.”

Her expression grew more severe but if she responded, I missed it as my body buckled under my small exertion sending me into unconsciousness once again.

I awoke later to a warm wave of rejuvenating mana that washed away some of the physical pain. I laid at the base of a massive tree and a slightly-wrinkled hand waved over my chest. The energy flowed from the hand into my body banishing a bit more of the pain. Still weak, I turned my head to see the hand’s owner.

My eyes widened. It was her.

“Libbu…,” I wheezed, reaching for her. She fixed me with a calculating gaze then pushed my hand back down.

“No movement. You will disrupt the flow of the spell,” she said sparking confusion in me. She didn’t sound like Libbu. She nodded to someone and a pair of hands guided my head back into a resting position against the soft, cool earth. “Keep him still.”

Her face distorted and blurred. Libbu’s visage disappeared and in its place, I saw an elderly woman with peppered chestnut hair not unlike the young woman from earlier. My cloak of sentiment took on the weight of sorrow when the truth was revealed. I wanted her back, my Libbu, yet all I could find were fragments, memories, and specters.

My cloak pressed down my mind toward the darkness of unconsciousness. Tired of the waking world, I welcomed the descent.

I’m not sure how much time passed from when the moment I inhabited my new vessel to my waking up in a soft bed but the early morning sun shone through a window only a few feet from my bedside.

I groaned attempting to rise but found my body heavy and unresponsive. Instinctively, I pulled my mana into the beginnings of a technique, or at least, I tried. My only reward for my efforts was a ruinous headache that made me groan again, this one almost escalating into a scream.

“Careful, boy. You’ve strained yourself, body, and soul. Attempting sorcery will only make it worse,” said someone to my right. I turned my head just enough to see who spoke. It was the elderly woman, the one who I mistook for Libbu during my episode. She watched me with a sharp gaze despite the bags beneath her eyes.

As I focused, I saw the subtle strands of mana in the air along with the slight glow of her aura and the shape of her soul with her body. Within her soul, I saw her mana: its color, its flow, and its structure. For a moment, I thought that I was hallucinating again but the clarity of the sight made me doubt that conclusion.

Hmm, I didn’t even think about my ability to see mana without the aid of sorcery during my confrontation. I must’ve used it intuitively. Perhaps this is a result of the rituals? Or maybe another side-effect of my transformation? I pondered the possibilities while maintaining eye contact with the woman. In terms of strength, she was significantly more powerful than Elijah Daniels, comparable to some of the more accomplished of Libbu’s children who sought power over wealth or prestige.

There was something strange about her mana and soul though. I watched as her soul pulsed to an unknown rhythm and the flow of her mana pulled it down toward the ground with each pulse. However, the most surprising observation came not from a particular feature but rather, the lack thereof.

She didn’t have an Astral Bridge, an Astral Gate, or any kind of connection to the Astral.

My eyes widened in surprise and suspicion.

“What are you?” I asked.

“A fine question coming from you, boy,” she laughed although her eyes lacked mirth.

Instead of answering my question, she got up then walked out of the room. I frowned, unused to having my questions ignored. I couldn’t exactly do anything about it though due to my condition. So, to keep myself occupied, I turned my senses inward to investigate the supposed “strain” on my soul.

I found the issue pretty quickly. The stabilizing structures that I had constructed within the Akashic Records had been damaged. Thankfully, they weren’t destroyed since I’m not sure what the insuring would cause but I made a note not to let this happen again. After a bit of reflection, I puzzled out how the damage had occurred.

Although the death curse had failed to enact its purpose, the enchantment hadn’t been as ineffective as I had originally thought. In the chaos of my rebirth into the Physical, I had failed to notice the subtler effect of the cursed mana hidden within its brutish assault on my soul tether. While it attacked my soul tether, the curse must’ve also taken advantage of my absorption of Elijah Daniel’s soul. I had acted instinctively then with complete focus on the process so I would’ve missed any insidious maneuvers by the curse.

Elijah’s soul had passed momentarily into my body, through my soul tether, and into the void in my soul which had initiated the process. The curse likely managed to sneak a bit of its mana through my soul tether without my noticing. The curse had likely been incapable of harming my soul so its energy had been unleashed on my new structures which I hadn’t had time to reinforce against such complications due to my shortage of mana.

I sighed.

Having a body and soul is proving more troublesome than I would like. I suspect it will only get worse.

My musings were broken when the door to the room opened. The elderly woman entered, followed by a mountain of a man with golden eyes and a mane of dark brown hair. His face spoke of a man who had survived more than his fair share of life-or-death trials. The woman took her seat once more while the man closed the door and leaned against the door. He fixed me with a stare that I would’ve found intimidating had I been mortal.

I focused on the man’s mana and soul with my extraordinary vision. He lacked the capacity of the woman but his flow was much more uniform hinting at better mana control. Like her, he also lacked a connection to the Astral but unlike her, there was something embedded in his soul.

It was an intricate mana structure that fed through the man’s soul tether pouring mana into his body like an Astral Bridge would’ve allowed. However, this structure kept the mana from dissipating by cycling it through a continuous loop until the mana was pulled. Theoretically, this meant the individual had no use for the Astral as long as they could produce enough mana to expand the structure and strengthen their soul.

Sadly, it had its downsides. The primary one was that the structure’s upkeep required an incredibly inefficient amount of mana to maintain, much less expand. The costs only grew as the structure did which resulted in the individual’s eventual inability to progress in strength or even worse, maintain the upkeep. If the latter occurred, the structure would collapse upon itself causing severe damage to the soul and likely the death of the individual.

Fortunately, the massive man seemed to have not reached that point yet.

I was intimately familiar with the entire process because I had created the first such structure within one of my fleshwarped millennia ago. It was a failed experiment designed to salvage Libbu’s consciousness after her sacrifice.

I laughed heartily despite the aches in my body. The laughter made both the man and the woman frown in unison as it clashed with the dire pressure they exuded.

When my mirth subsided, the woman coughed bringing my attention to her. Her mouth worked as though she was puzzling over what to say for a few seconds. She eventually sighed and spoke without preamble.

“Who are you?” she asked.

I raised my head slightly off of my comfortable pillow and quirked an eyebrow at her.

“I am Eric Blackthorn, son of Jonathon Holston and Liberty Blackthorn,” I said without pause.

Her frown deepened. “I supposed that is technically true but all three of us know that is not the whole truth.”

“You smell of our blood but you also smell of Mother Gaia and the Dark Invader,” the man growled, his eyes flaring slightly as he said the last words.

“Regis,” the woman said fixing the man with a look. The two locked eyes for a moment before his eyes dimmed. She turned her stern gaze on me next. “I’d prefer if we could do this without any unpleasantness and perhaps, I am putting a bad foot forward. Let me introduce myself. I am Morgana Holston, Archdruid of the Holsburg druid circle and Keeper of the Holsburg ley line node.”

Another look from Morgana pushed the imposing man into speech.

“Regis Holston. Sheriff of Holsburg and leader of Holsburg’s shifter pack,” he said. His voice sounded like a rumble that traveled from his chest through his mouth. He scowled and aimed a glance at Morgana. “And one thing my wife failed to mention is that Jonathan Holston was our son, a son that died protecting whatever you are and that Blackthorn girl.”

Druid? Ley line? I didn’t recognize the terms so I put them aside for the time being instead I focused on the spirit of their introductions especially the end of Regis’s. I could tell their sentiment about Jonathan’s death played heavily into the context of my current situation. Regis’s soul practically oozed anger and frustration while Morgana’s soul rang with sorrow and acceptance.

They were grieving parents looking for answers and in so doing, found a grandson who bordered on abominable to their mortal understanding. In light of that situation, I didn’t see any reason to be unnecessarily difficult or antagonistic but I also saw more than a few complications that could come of telling them the whole truth.

So, I settled on a compromise.

“Tell me, what do you know of reincarnation?”