Remnant Stars

Chapter 9: Evil Sorceress

Solamh's lips trembled as he watched the tears drip down the woman's cheeks. Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply, but as he was about to start explaining himself to Medea, the woman grabbed his arms and yanked him back.

"How could you hide this from me?!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, her hand shooting out to hit him on the face. Her sudden action startled Solamh, but he made no attempts to stop her. A dull smack rang out as the old man endured the pain without much reaction.

Gil had dismissed this woman's relationship with the miller's family as a casual, neighbourly friendship, but looking at their behaviour, it was apparent that he couldn't have been more wrong.

"Ainnir..." Solamh's voice choked as he looked away from her, unable or unwilling to maintain eye contact with her.

"Tell me why! You told me Braon got better, but this..." Ainnir moved her hands to unwrap the bundle, treating it with extreme care and reverence.

As she peeled the layers off the wrapped bundle, more and more black stains appeared on the fabrics, and once she removed the last, disgusting piece of cloth, a bloated and disfigured corpse of a small child emerged in all its hideousness.

If that sight wasn't bad enough, a red, viscous foam trickled out from the mouth and nose of the body and dripped down onto the ground.

Gil had to take another step back as the smell hit him head-on with full force. He had experienced a lot of things since coming to this world, but something about watching a woman gently embracing a child's decomposing corpse trumped it all.

From the state of putrefaction, the blue tinge of the skin and the bloating, Gil figured that at most four or five days had passed since the child's death. By now, the micro-organisms inside the body would have already gone to work, eating their way through the intestines and invading other parts of the body.

Solamh gritted his teeth and hobbled his way towards Medea.

"Lady Medea, please, I beg you to bring Braon back! He was all I had left!" Solamh fell to his knees, his forehead scraping against the filthy floor. Gil stared at the pitiful old man grovelling at their feet, a million thoughts racing across his mind. But, he was most curious about why Solamh thought Medea could bring back this child.

"Solamh!" Ainnir finally broke out of her reverie and turned to glare at the old man. "That's enough! How much longer are you going to torment Braon with your foolishness?!"

"You don't understand! I have nothing left to live for! Broan was my last hope, my last light! And watching him grow up was the only joy I had left," Solamh's voice became quieter the more he spoke, his nails digging into his palms as he clenched his fists. "Everyone is gone, taken from me by this cruel world. Please... I beg you."

"This isn't right..." Ainnir whimpered while embracing Broan's corpse, but Solamh ignored her.

"Lady Medea, people say that you are an evil sorceress that conspires with the devils. They say you poisoned Lord Fithel and deceived him, but I don't care about any of that! If you can return Braon, my precious grandchild back to me, then I will even sell my soul to the devil!"

Gil raised an eyebrow at that. From Almha's comments and Brigit's behaviour, he knew the villagers didn't exactly have a good impression of Medea, but he didn't realize that it was this bad.

'An evil sorceress?' Gil hummed in thought. Come to think of it, didn't she try to drug him on their first meeting? He smirked at that memory and turned to see how Medea would react to such an outrageous claim.