Controlled Burn (BxB) (Werewolf)

Chapter 9: The Abomination

The Archdruid summoned another small blue light on her finger. This time, it was smaller yet brighter than before. She approached Ashton and pressed the searing light against a tumor protruding from his neck. The flesh burned and writhed. The smell of burning flesh added to the smell of the gore. A groan escaped Ashton. When Lady Stella pulled back, there was a deep, cavernous burn which quickly began healing, or so it seemed. After a few seconds passed, it was clear a new tumor was forming in its place.

"There is always a price for using forbidden magic," Lady Stella continued lecturing. "Ashton gained the immortality he sought... and the price was steep. Now, he's an abomination."

"He's in pain" Callum finally mustered the courage to say, his voice tinged with desperation. His druidic senses could feel the strangeness of Ashton's essence. It had a quick circulation and seemed to collapse in on itself before bursting back into circulation. Ashton's essence didn't reach out into the environment to touch nature like other druids. It was self-contained, imploding, and expanding over and over. His essence was being recycled, which Callum assumed was the key to the man's accursed immortality, but any excess essence he generated pooled together and formed the monstrous tumors. He wondered how it was even possible... how healing magic meant to save lives could produce something so disgusting.

"Of course he is," the Archdruid confirmed.

"Why keep him like this? Can't we do something for him?" Callum's voice quivered.

Lady Stella rolled her eyes. "Ashton serves as a cautionary tale—a living testament to the dangers of our magic when taken to dark extremes. He is beyond our aid. His duty is to exist as a warning to us all."

The room sank into a heavy, disquieting silence, filled only by the unsettling sound of Ashton's tumors pulsating, as if each had a heartbeat of its own.

"Magic is not merely a tool, it is a responsibility. One wrong step, one bad decision, and the path to destruction is swift and irrevocable. As druids, we alter and shape nature to our will, but we do not break it. Without the sacred inevitability and permanence of death, life will cease to exist," Lady Stella continued, "even for us druids. We may live long lives because we are one with nature, but death still comes for us in the end."

As Lady Stella's words reverberated through the cabin, drowning out even the incessant pulsations of Ashton's tumors, Callum felt a whisper caress his thoughts—a soft voice he had heard before when he first passed by the misty glade while Rose gave him a tour of the Sacred Grove.

"Callum," it whispered, imbuing his name with a sense of urgency that sent shivers down his spine. "Help... him."

Callum glanced around. The other saplings seemed lost in their thoughts, oblivious to the ethereal voice that had reached out to him.

Ashton's eyes, those dim glimmers amidst the horror of his face, met Callum's for a moment. In that brief connection, Callum felt an echo of the pain that plagued the man every moment of his unnaturally extended life.

How? The thoughts raced in Callum's mind. The only thing he could think of was killing him, ending his suffering, but killing was wrong. He was no murderer, but he believed the man didn't deserve to suffer just to serve as a living lesson for the saplings.

"End him," the voice told him before fading away into an echo.

Later that night, sleep eluded Callum. Lady Stella's words churned through his mind, but even more, it was the ethereal voice that haunted him.

The decision was not an easy one; he was aware of the ethical ramifications and the potential punishment. Yet when he closed his eyes, he saw Ashton's face—marred, suffering, pleading. He couldn't shake the feeling that if he did nothing, he was just as culpable as if he'd caused Ashton's condition himself.