A Hero of Realms(40)

I still wasn’t sure where he was going with this, though I understood why he was talking in such a hushed tone. He didn’t want Aisha to overhear what he was saying.

He held the potion higher and looked at it thoughtfully. He let out a slow, deep breath. “This potion,” he said, “I considered taking it a number of times after the war with the Elders, and after I lost half of myself…” His expression filled with bitterness as he eyed the stump where his arm had been, and gestured his head backward to his missing wing. “The physical pain was only half of the agony. It was the mental pain that crushed me. The feeling of defeat, it was enough to destroy anyone’s soul.” He twisted to face me fully and caught my gaze again, his sharp eyes filled with intent. “Do you know what this is, Benjamin?” he asked, more quietly than ever.

“Why would I know?” I looked back at him warily.

“Would you like to know?”

“What is it?” I asked, taking the bait.

“It’s a remedy administered by witch doctors. I picked up this bottle from Uma’s sister while we were on her island. It’s intended for those who no longer wish to live, but are too afraid to die. It allows for a kind of existence between the two states, in that elusive place between life and death. Where there is peace, lightness, absence of pain… ”

Slowly I caught on to his train of thought. “You mean, like… a ghost?”

He looked pleased by my question. He nodded. “Like a ghost. This remedy detaches a person’s soul from their body and allows him to continue living in a subtle state, without a physical, tangible form, and hence also without pain.” He must have noticed the dazed expression on my face. “Understand, Benjamin, that there is much more to all of us than flesh and blood. There is the mind, the consciousness, the soul. Do you really think that when this body expires, you cease to exist? That you fall into some oblivion, as if you had never been alive at all? No. There is a place beyond death for all of us, whether we be humans, or supernaturals… But as I said, most aren’t willing to find out.”

He paused, and as he did I realized just how engrossed I had been in his words, in spite of how strange they were. I found myself impatient for him to continue.

He nodded back down to the potion. “Those who take this elixir wish to stay in their former lives, but without the burden that comes with the physical body.”

My mouth felt dry as he picked up the vial and placed it on the ground, close to me. He stood up. Again his movement was casual as he glanced down at me, though his eyes were anything but. “Just something to think about,” he said, before turning and heading back to the fire, where he resumed his seat in front of it.

I stared down at the small glass bottle. The firelight danced in the innocent-looking light blue liquid.

My mind was still reeling from what Arron had told me. Ghosts? And this potion… That was what he’d seen Uma’s sister for. A potion created by the witch. It appeared as though, if there was any truth in Arron’s words, supernaturals used this potion as a kind of mercy killing… except it wasn’t exactly killing. The person was supposed to live on as a ghost.

My fragmented mind, already blown to pieces by revelation after revelation over the past few days, had just splintered further. I didn’t know how much more my brain could handle before it exploded.

So ghosts really do exist? But, according to Arron, not everybody became a ghost. When a human or supernatural died a normal death, they left for… the beyond, wherever Arron thought that was. Becoming a ghost wasn’t a natural consequence of dying. It had to be forced… by this potion? Could this really be true?

If taking it separated a person from their body, if I took it and became a ghost, my vampire form would become a corpse I guessed. Elders couldn’t inhabit the corpses of vampires. Corpses were useless to them. That much I knew from what my parents had told me of the creatures, and all that I’d learned so far from the oracle and the jinn. Elders needed both body and soul together in order to take over. That was why they abandoned vessels when they became too weak from habitation and the vampire expired.

Despite myself, I reached toward the potion and held it in my palms.

Could this small bottle of liquid really contain that sort of power?

I wondered what taking it would feel like. Would there be pain? Would it be like dying except you remained conscious? Can other people see ghosts? Can ghosts even see, talk, or feel in any way?

I shuddered, disturbed that I’d fallen into thinking in such depth about Arron’s words. I swallowed hard, a part of me tempted to plant the bottle right back down on the ground where Arron had left it.