Rowan needed to release the disorderly souls to the Aether where they could cause no more damage. He had many songs, but he didn't have a song for this. He closed his eyes, and reached into that secret place deep in his heart, the place that he'd long identified as the source of his ability. The answer had to be within. After a moment, he began to sing, uncertainly at first, but then with more confidence when he saw the reaction of the spirit-vapor.
It surged toward him with a faint hiss that echoed the sound of the river behind him. He changed the melody, not sure where the tune was going but trusting that it would take him to the right place. The words fell unbidden from his tongue like so many rare pearls.
With a final push, the spirit-vapor swept up his arm. As soon as the last drop of the creature's soul left its host, Rowan severed the cord. The body disintegrated, leaving nothing but a grease-grey smudge on the ground below. The soul in his grasp seemed to know what was coming, and it began to resist. Black tendrils lashed at his skin, stinging him like a swarm of angry wasps.
He steeled himself against the pain and kept singing, somehow keeping his voice as sweet as ever. Unexpectedly, the soul vanished in an explosion of white, finally released from the constraints of this plane.
Rowan stared at his blistered arm, then at the swarm of corpses around him. He wasn't going to have an arm left by the time he was done.
As he walked through the site of the massacre, stepping over bodies and sticky puddles of drying blood, he caught sight of the souls he was supposed to harvest for regrowth. The much more familiar—and much more comfortable—human souls gave off the faint silver glow of the sort he was used to working with. There were six adherents in all. They must have have been taken by surprise, because their bodies had fallen right next to each other. He hadn't seen them at first because the black spirit-vapor was so thick, it seemed to warp the air with its very presence.
Rowan decided to collect the soul-seeds before dispatching the rest. He told himself it was purely to honor the fallen, not because he was dreading so many repeat performances of what he'd just been through.
He sang again, making quick work of the first body. This time, the spirit-vapor shone on his fingers like a ray of sunlight. As before, the body disintegrated once the soul had been severed, a bed of forget me nots sprouting up on the ground. Instead of releasing the soul to the Aether, Rowan sang more urgently, his brow sweating with concentration. The energy compressed in on itself, tighter and tighter until it lay in his palm like a warm stone. He squeezed his fingers around it, and when he uncurled them, a perfect, pearl-white soul-seed had taken its place.
He pulled his locket from inside his shirt and enclosed the soul-seed inside.
He did this again and again for each of the fallen adherents. Each time he said words of thanks to no one in particular as he stored the souls in his locket.
Then came the unpleasant task of dispatching the creatures. For the second time today, he did what he needed to do, prepared to suffer whatever consequences came later. With the children, the punishment was at the very least a tongue lashing. With the creatures, it ended up being an arm almost rubbed raw by vile magic.
He'd worked with death magic since he was barely more than a teenager. Despite what everyone else believed, death magic was beautiful in its own way. This, on the other hand, was truly horrible.
When he'd finished with the last corpse, he sucked in a breath between his teeth as he looked at his bloodied arm. Was it possible for him to be even more unclean than before?
"Are you finished yet?" Alaric's voice floated down from his station, right on cue.
"I'm fine. Thanks for asking," Rowan said, his voice too quite for anyone above to hear.
His body felt like it was on fire. His muscles ached to the point where even breathing sent whipcracks of pain through his bones. He always felt pain after using his magic for more than a parlor trick, but never anything like this. Maybe he'd done something wrong. Maybe he really was the failure Ciprian told him he was.
Unclean. Unworthy. Failure.
He shook his head, trying to clear the mental fog of magical exertion. He was well-accustomed to his self-doubt taking the lead when he was tired, not that he disagreed with it. But now was not the time to listen. He could do that when he was back home tucked into his bed, unable to sleep from the agony he'd taken into himself.
Slowly Rowan walked one last time around the site, scanning the air for any lingering spiritual energy. Nothing.
He turned to rejoin the others the way he came down, but his legs screamed in protest as he tried to climb the slope of crumbling rock. The wind blew, and his arm stung anew when the air touched his skin. Sometime during his work, a chill had stolen into the night under the canopy of starlight. The moon shone down like a white mirror. Reflections of the other side still fogged his vision. A wisp of cloud passed before the mirror's surface, and Rowan froze. A shiver swept over his neck. His skin turned to goose flesh.
When the cloud passed, the mirror-light of the moon seemed to fall on a path that was invisible only heartbeats before. Lured in by something unknown, Rowan released the sapling he was using for leverage on his climb and followed the newly-revealed path.
He walked a few paces, tripping over roots and rocks. Alaric's voice called to him again, but he couldn't hear it. Not really.
Rowan stopped. He thought he'd cleansed the whole area, but a faint, red glow lit the ground before him. Even with his altered vision, he might not have noticed it except for the moonlight's magic assisting him through an opening in the trees. He pushed aside the layer of old leaves and broken sticks, his hand instinctively seeking out the strange soul-shine.
The red pulsed brighter as if awakened by his approaching touch. It covered the ground in a fine mist, and before Rowan could think of danger, he reached for it. It flared again, soft as an opened wound, glittering like a ruby. For an instant he hesitated. The soul-shine seemed to sense his reluctance, and it blossomed again, almost pleading.
Rowan dipped his fingers into the red and closed his eyes. This was a human soul. But it was something else, too.
As he was pondering what to do with this new discovery, the soul-shine decided to act on his behalf. It began to gather at the tip of one finger, running in sleek rivulets through the grass. Belatedly, Rowan began to sing. At the sound of his voice, the energy quickened. He cupped his hand, and the soul practically leapt inside. It throbbed against his skin, hotter than spilled blood. He shuddered, finding the sensation not entirely unpleasant.
Just as he was going to close his fingers around the soul, it climbed sleekly up his arm. Rowan gasped and fell backward in the grass. He thought it was an attack, but then he realized the soul had coated his arm and nothing more. It caressed his welts and laved over the raw skin, filling him with a pleasant burn from his fingers to his neck. He couldn't help but sigh as it obliterated his pain.
Then, as suddenly as it had advanced, it retreated to his palm and stilled. He blinked down at the soul, so closely resembling a shining, pool of blood.
Hesitantly he began to sing again, squeezing his fingers around the red in his hand.
If the soul-mist had gleamed like a ruby, the seed was a dark garnet, a jewel like a beating heart.
He removed his locket and held the seed over the opening. It gave off the same crimson glow as it had when he'd first seen it. Rowan placed it gently inside and latched the locket closed. The shell rested against his sternum, radiating a warmth that didn't exist when it only held the souls of the adherents.
Seven souls, but all the way back to the compound, he could only wonder about one.