Chapter 22
It was several days before an awakened Soren could talk Shayla into speaking to him. She had refused to answer the phone or the door and placed a spell at every entrance to keep anyone from entering without permission. Soren himself had spent hours trying to get her to answer him through the door and sent countless dreams to her every night, all of which she forced herself to awaken from.
"Now tell me again what happened." Soren spoke into the cell phone pressed to his ear. Everyone had refused to give him any details about the fight with her father, they all thought she needed to tell him herself. However, after days passed with no word from her, it was finally agreed that he needed to know.
Julia's saddened voice came through the line. "She killed her father, Soren. She thought he was evil so she killed him to save us all. When she went to bury him, the demon that had possessed him for who knows how long came out and taunted her with what she had unknowingly done."
Soren pressed the heel of his hand into his forehead. "She likes to hold onto things. She won't let it go easily."
"I know she won't. But you're the only one she's agreed to see. So, for now, it's all on you." The weight felt heavy on his shoulders.
He looked over his shoulder at Shayla's house from where he stood at the end of her driveway. "Alright, I'll do what I can." The snap of his phone seemed so final as he turned to make his way into the hardest conversation he'd ever had.
)O(
"Tea?" Shayla asked quietly. It was the first time she'd spoken since he'd arrived. Half an hour of silence was grating on Soren's nerves.
"That's okay. I just wanted to talk to you." Shayla seemed wary at his words. She'd purposely waited until he sat so that she could take the furthest seat from him.
"How are you feeling? The coma couldn't have been restful." She asked. He could tell she didn't want to discuss anything personal and he had already discovered that she'd erected a barrier around her thoughts. She made it so that he could only hear what she chose to let him hear when she spoke.
"I'm fine. Before Ame and Dillon left they helped healed the psychic wounds Lawrence left." He realized his mistake the second he stopped speaking. Shayla had gone utterly still, her breath barely lifting her chest.
He jumped up quickly and moved over to the sofa where she was perched. His arm snaked around her suddenly shaking shoulders as he pulled her to his chest. "I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking."
Her warm tears began to soak through his shirt. When she spoke her voice was broken. "You know then? About- About what I've done?"
Thinking carefully about his words before he spoke, he tilted her chin up until she met his gaze. "You didn't do anything, Shayla. None of us knew. And I've known him since I was a child."
"But I share, shared his blood. He was part of me. I should have felt it, I should have-" She trailed off and guilt filled her eyes.
"You can't blame yourself. If anything, we all share the guilt. You don't have to bear it alone."
She shook her head rapidly and tried to pull away. "No. But I don't need any of you to make me feel better. I'm used to being alone."
"Not anymore. Open your mind and look. I'm here to stay, Shayla." Soren gestured at the air around them, where there auras were to the magically trained eye.
He knew when she stiffened and a deafening mental cry of 'NO' shrieked through his mind that she'd seen their auras. "We're soul mates. And more than that, our souls are linked. The ritual to link our minds did something strange when it went wrong and tied us to one another."
Her forehead was clammy when he pressed a kiss to it and her face grew paler by the second. She jerked her arms from him and stumbled to her feet. "I don't want a soul mate, or any kind of mate for that matter. I didn't agree to this!" Her voice rose with each word.
Soren stood and tried to reach for her, but she jumped away from his touch. "Shayla please, I know you're scared and you didn't expect this, but is it really all that bad?"
"Of course it is. Now get out. I don't want to see you again." She whispered.
"It isn't that simple. Stop being so damned stubborn." He resorted to treating her like he normally would, rather than treating her as though she was made of glass like he had been.
"I don't care if it's the hardest thing in the world. Get out." Her voice was firm and left no room for argument, so he didn't argue.
"Fine, I'll go now. But I'll be back soon and we'll have to talk." He promised. "You need to call your grandmother. It's important." He turned on his heel and stalked to the door. Before he opened it he looked at her one last time.
"I love you, Shayla."
)O(
I love you, Shayla. Soren's words echoed in Shayla's mind as she sank to her knees on the cold, wood floor after his footsteps faded away. The tears she'd fought against for his entire visit spilled out with a vengeance. He couldn't love her and there had to be a way to unlink their souls. It wasn't fair.
She already knew that she was damned for what she'd done. He didn't deserve to be damned along with her. Even if he hated her for it, she wouldn't let the gods punish him for her crimes.
She'd gladly spend an eternity in hell if he could be spared. She allowed herself to cry until her eyes ran dry and then pushed herself up from the floor. She hoped that either her mother's books or her own would give some clue as to how to separate their souls. Shayla dried her cheeks and walked to her room to start reading. She'd call her grandmother later. She just wasn't in the mood for anyone else to tell her that they could share her burden.
No one else had felt giddy as his power and his life flooded their body. No one else had stood over him as he desiccated.
No one else had his blood on their hands.
)O(
Julia stood at the front of a group of her coven mates and shook her head sadly at the image playing on the large crystal in front of her. Her granddaughter was leaning against the front door of her house, crying as her soul mate, Soren, begged her to let him in. The scene had been the same nearly every day for three weeks. Still the man had not given up hope. Nor had Shayla weakened her conviction.
"She really believes he'll be damned along with her if she lets him in." A shocked voice whispered.
Julia nodded. "She is convinced that she deserves to be punished. But until the gods do it themselves, she's doing it to herself."
She turned away from the heartbreaking image and looked at each of the witches present. They had worked day and night to prepare for the ritual, not to mention the work it took to take care of Marcie.
Marcie was imprisoned in a small cabin at the back of Julia's property. She could do whatever she wished inside the cabin, or within a five foot radius of it. But every night as she slept a spell cast over her would activate and force her to relive every sin and wrong she'd ever committed. Each of them hoped that she would learn from her mistakes before she was too old to live out her life. The only thing she would never recover was her magic. Too many evils had been committed for them to hope that the power wouldn't corrupt her if she got it back.
It had broken something inside of Julia to see Marcie seem so hopeless, but she had left them no other choice. Her thoughts turned back to Shayla and the task at hand.
"She has agreed to the spirit quest, but only so that she can get answers about the demon. She won't hear a word of finding forgiveness from her parents. Is everything ready?"
"It is, Mistress. The final preparation was made this morning." A woman answered.
"Does she know she'll need to take someone with her?" A man called out.
Julia smiled mischievously. "She does, but she thinks it'll just be one of the coven. She has no idea what we've planned."
"Who's to say she won't back out when she finds out?" The woman from before asked.
The Coven Mistress glanced back at her tearful granddaughter. Even at the risk of Shayla's anger, Julia would do what she knew was best. Shayla would forgive her someday. She tore her eyes away and smiled again.
"By then it'll be too late to reverse the spell. She'll have to take him with her. We can only hope that the time alone will push her to let him closer. They need each other. More than they know."
The End....For Now...