Chapter Text
Imogen was a woman possessed. Not literally, of course. As far as she knew, her mind was as much her own as it had ever been. Maybe the better term would be consumed. She was a woman on a mission, consumed with a righteous sense of purpose and, if all was honest, a concerning black and white mentality lauding ends justifying any means.
When she Sent to Fearne a couple of months ago, apparently the group had been ecstatic to have her back. Surprised at first, of course, but overall a positive reception. It was hard to get caught up with only a handful of words at a time, but their evening conversations helped put things in perspective.
If Imogen helped them with taking down the Bloody Bridge and bringing down Ludinus’ army on Ruidus, maybe she’d be powerful enough for what lay before her. Maybe she’d be powerful enough to fix all the things she’d broken, everything, everyone she’d left behind.
They didn’t ask any questions about why she was ready now or what she’d been doing in their time away from each other. Whether that was because there weren’t enough words in their spells or it didn’t matter or she avoided any topics anywhere close, who knows.
Maybe they should have.
She wouldn’t have told them about how she used that letter from Eshteross and barricaded herself in the Starpoint Conservatory stacks for several weeks, only relenting when the staff kicked her out into the fading light of evening. She appeared before the library staff even arrived to work and waited outside the door, not willing to waste a single second of precious time.
She poured over books and dusty old tomes, everything from wizards’ diaries to textbooks on spellwork. After leaving Gelvaan, she’d learned that the more she used her powers, the more power she seemed to be able to pull from. Since her magic didn’t come from learning like all these wizards, it was harder to piece together how to get stronger, how to find more power to fuel her endeavours.
If she needed to use them to get more, what better way to do that than heading right back into the fray with the Hells?
Only after Imogen had taken all she could from the Starpoint Conservatory library – once the copies of Magical Items You Should Know and Advanced Spellcraft were pushed haphazardly back onto a dusty shelf – and she had a fully thought-out plan, did she finally ask Fearne the question.
“Where do I find you?”
As they faced down Ludinus Da’leth, hopefully for the last time, Imogen prayed that her research hadn’t led her astray. It had been a grueling almost two months to get to this point – past an infiltration on the moon, past Fearne’s Shadowlord dad – two months so tightly packed with combat and information overload that Imogen’s head felt like it would be spinning for the conceivable future.
Only to end up back on the fucking moon.
Still, aside from all this fucking Ruidus nonsense, if anyone on Exandria had the gem Imogen was looking for, it’d be that pain-in-her-ass wizard. It was exactly the type of powerful artefact he’d collect. She just had to hope that in his misguided quest for power, he hadn’t used the siphon on it.
If he had… his death would not be quick.
It would be the last thing she had to savour. He would have to beg her to make it stop; a last monologue to tire her with. Although, perhaps she would remove his tongue before he could bore her to death.
Imogen released the sudden tension from her whitened knuckles.
Her hypothesis so far had proven correct: the more she used her magic, the stronger she became. She could cast spells now that she could never dream of before. Like, she could cast Teleport without the help of that damned staff. They have still gotten a bit off-track on occasion, but at least she hadn’t crumpled to the ground because the staff needed to collect its due.
Ludinus almost looked at ease within the confines of Dorian’s Forcecage, spouting nonsense about honesty as he once more peddled drivel towards the Hells. It was his suggestion that someone should become the vessel for Predathos and his pointed look that had power buzz menacingly in Imogen’s fingertips.
Without a second thought, Imogen cast Misty Step and ran down the tunnel before Ludinus disappeared from his temporary prison. She whipped a Psychic Lance at him, but missed, and a growl rumbled through her chest in frustration. Imogen watched the Hells spring into action; Ashton dove into the rock, Fearne’s hand crafted a spell, and the rest of them set off running towards Ludinus who had his hands outstretched toward the glyph-covered wall.
The room devolved into chaos. Spells were flung every which way as a Ravenous Void opened up and tugged the Hells mercilessly toward its endless maw. Imogen and the Hells were picking themselves up off the ground after a particularly nasty Chain Lightning from Ludinus’ condescending smirk when Imogen broke.
“Enough!” she bellowed, the Power Word Stun exploding out of her chest and for the first time Ludinus was still and quiet. It was enough for Orym’s vines to yank him closer and for Seedling to slide through his vocal cords. They hadn’t expected it to be over so quickly. She certainly hadn’t thought it would be so fast and she knew the rest of them must have been shocked, too.
Imogen was the first one to recover, lunging forward to rifle through Ludinus’ pockets, desperately rummaging around until she found a little pouch. She pulled it out and stuck her hand in, ignoring what she was sure would’ve been a protest from Orym as she fished around.
The Ruby Weave Gem, she thought despairingly, willing it to be there, to be within her grasp. Something cold settled into the palm of her hand, her fingers stretching around sharp edges, and she wrenched her hand from the bag.
A red stone with a hundred different facets sat lightly glowing in her fingers.
“Exit plan, now!” Imogen called out, tossing the bag toward Orym as others picked up what they could from Ludinus’ corpse. She grasped the gem so tightly in her fingers that it felt like the edges of a dozen blades against her skin.
Imogen nodded meaningfully at her mother and they mirrored each other, hands swirling through the air, until everyone was aloft. They drifted upwards under the influence of a Fly spell.
“Fearne?” Imogen said loudly, focusing on holding the magic steady.
Fearne was already working on it, her eyes aglow when Imogen flicked her gaze over to check in.
The world beneath them broke apart with the strength of Fearne’s Earthquake. Tremors shook the ground, rifts opened up before their eyes, walls crumbled as the ceiling fell to bits. Fissures sprang up everywhere, swallowing the ground whole upon itself.
Through it all, their group rose through the shifting debris and rubble, burying Predathos’ resting place. Ashton kept Fearne from being pelted with rock, Braius held his shield over Liliana’s head, and likewise, Orym held his over Imogen’s. They could come back later, really make sure no one could find this place again, raze it to the ground a dozen more times, even.
First things first, however.
When Fearne’s eyes returned to their normal shade of green, they all converged to take one last look at the damage. Imogen held the ring from Lady Vex’ahlia tightly and dropped Fly to cast Teleport instead, trusting her mother to uphold her final part of the plan.
In a burst of magic, Imogen tumbled onto fresh, dewy grass, groans chorusing up around her. She shook her head and saw her friends sprawled in a radius, Chetney and Orym half-lying in garden beds. No one made any move to get up.
The grass was soft under her back – too soft, too comfortable. Even in a sea of Fearne’s limbs and Braius’ horns, it was too lonely.
She didn’t have her. The unbidden thought burned in the back of her throat.
“Just leave me here for a month,” Ashton whined, rolling onto their back with a grunt. Imogen blinked back the tears gathering in her eyes and gritted her teeth.
Vex? I’m back, Imogen cast Sending instead of opening up her mind beyond the circlet. It was a bit easier on her head. We’re in the Widow’s Garden.
The reply came swiftly, if a little harried. It was accented in all the right yet wrong ways. Be right there.
Imogen stared up at the night sky, the few stars she could see against the odds of the castle lights before she sat up and examined the gem in her hand. She took a deep breath, unwilling to take her eyes off of it. The gem was the culmination of all her research, the linchpin upon which her whole plan rested. If it couldn’t do what she needed it to…
All would be lost all over again.
It was the second-most precious thing she’d ever held in her hands.
“Vex is coming,” she told the group, voice hoarse and croaky. The result was a combination of moon dust and hard emotion lumped in her throat.
“It’ll be nice to finally get a decent night’s sleep,” Chetney declared, but the edge was missing from his usual cantankerous nature. There were mild grumblings of agreement, but a somber veil had fallen over the Hells.
This was either the eve of Imogen’s greatest atonement or most significant failure. It was a heavy thing to consider, heavier still when all of the rest of them knew what was at stake, what failure would cost them. Well. Almost all, perhaps.
Not tomorrow, but maybe the night after – if everything went well – they could haunt a bar for a couple of hours. If everything didn’t go well… well, they would have to go on without her.
Agitated footsteps echoed along the stonework and Imogen turned her head towards the incoming bodies. Orym had already perked up and relaxed, seemingly content with whoever was hurtling towards them.
Vex appeared carrying a torch, resplendent in an open and fluttering blue dressing gown and robe, flanked by a guard and a middle-aged woman. Vex’s braid was regal behind her, despite the absence of feathers, flowing down her back. Percival lumbered after her, relying heavily on his cane and looking particularly bedraggled. His hair was unkempt and his spectacles hung askew. There was a touch of facial hair whitening the lower half of his face.
She looked so much like her, and yet not at all similar. Maybe their shapes could map onto each other – vaguely – but they carried themselves entirely differently, wholly different weights of the worlds upon their shoulders. She’d spent enough time with each of them by now to be able to trace her finger along their divergent seams.
It took Vex less than a second to survey them all. “Come along, let’s get you all into a bed for the night,” she said, sounding all sorts of motherly. It reminded Imogen of her time in that cabin – lost, adrift, looking in all the wrong places for what needed to happen next.
Hazel eyes found Imogen’s as everyone got up off the ground. The group ambled to follow Vex’s direction and let Jeanine show them to the guest wing and rooms they could use for the night. Slim, dexterous fingers caught hold of Imogen’s wrist as she went to pass by Vex and Percy. Her mother paused beside her, a concerned look on her face.
“A moment, if you don’t mind?” Vex asked, gesturing with her head just off to the side of the corridor the Hells were making their way down.
I’m fine, Vex thought to her mother and to Fearne who had half-turned back twenty feet along. Just be a few minutes.
She trusted Vex, at least as much as she trusted anyone these days. She had no reason not to, given their history.
“I’ll be along in a moment, Percy,” Vex said. Though he narrowed his eyes, he gave her a solemn nod and followed the group along, recognising it as the dismissal it was.
They stood there, waiting until the crowd had wandered far enough down the hall, before Vex turned her full attention on Imogen.
“How are you?” Vex asked quietly, raising a concerned eyebrow as she stared down at Imogen. There was a depth of care that hurt to look at in her eyes and Imogen lowered hers to examine the bedraggled nail beds of the hand still clutching that ever-precious gem.
“Fine,” Imogen said, voice rough.
“Look at me.” It was soft and just a little bit pleading, like somehow Vex knew the kind of anguish in her heart and was speaking right to it.
“I’ll be better tomorrow,” Imogen said instead, still side-stepping the question. She would. When it was done, when…
She’d be better when her plan had worked.
“Do you have everything you need?” Vex reached down to wrap her hand around Imogen and the ruby, gently stroking the back of Imogen’s hand.
It was so close yet so far from the kind of touch Imogen was used to. To the kind of touch she hoped to find again, eventually, if she could ever be forgiven for bringing this nightmare to fruition.
“I’ve got enough magic to summon the last of the materials I need tonight,” Imogen nodded. “After that, as long as you’ve got that flask and this works,” she moved the hand with the ruby in it slightly. “Everything will be better tomorrow.”
There was no other option.
Vex nodded, clearly holding something back. “Alright, but if you need anything else, do let me know, won’t you?”
Imogen almost smiled, her lips pressed together tightly. “Thanks.”
Hesitantly, Vex lifted her hand from Imogen’s to rest softly against Imogen’s cheek. Her mouth opened, as if to say something, but she just squeezed briefly along Imogen’s jaw and then her hand fell away.
“Let me show you to a room,” Vex said, stepping away and beckoning Imogen down the hall. Imogen fell into step beside her.
“Thank you,” Imogen said again, hand tightening around the gem. “For everything.”
Vex waved it off. “You know I would do whatever I can to help you.”
Imogen did, she’d seen the depth of the guilt and the desire for rectification firsthand in Vex’s mind.
They walked quietly along the stone halls until Imogen could make out the faint rabble of the Hells. “Jeanine will have put the rest of your party down the hall, so this room can be yours,” Vex said, leaning forward to push open the heavy wooden door. “I’ll have an early breakfast ready for you all, I know you won’t want to waste any time in the morning,” Vex added.
Imogen waited at the threshold of the room. She knew she should say something, maybe thank Vex again for her help, but the words wouldn’t come. Ever since… it was hard to find words, hard to find what to say, let alone the right thing to say – was there ever a right thing to say? She always felt like she chose poorly, like she made things worse whenever she opened her mouth.
“I’ll leave you to rest,” Vex said after a moment. “I hope you can get some sleep tonight, Imogen.”
Vex made to move away, but Imogen cleared her throat gruffly. “You too.” The smile on Vex’s face was small – far too small and not as sharp in the teeth as Imogen would’ve liked on a similar jawline – but at least it was there. She gave Imogen a nod and then turned, heading back down the hall.
Stepping through the doorway, Imogen didn’t make it very far before she saw the familiar blanket folded at the foot of the bed. It looked out of place here instead of at Vex’s cabin, but as she sat heavily upon the bed beside it, her fingers sought out the familiar texture of its weave, still grasping the ruby in her fist. She waved her other hand and the door closed solidly.
Imogen hauled her legs onto the bed and then crossed them underneath her. She pulled the blanket over her lap and held the gem loosely off to the side of her thigh. With trembling fingers, she dug around in her satchel for her little notebook. Swallowing through the apprehension in her throat, she cracked the book open to her notes on the new spell she’d taken notes on from the library. It wasn’t quite a transcription, so much as a guiding light about how to feel, how to imbue whatever words the caster chose with the right intention.
She cleared her throat. Keep it short, keep it simple, that’s what the spellbook had said. She kept a lid on everything else she wanted to say, tucking it deep down in her chest.
“I Wish I had 25,000 gold pieces worth of diamonds on this blanket in front of me,” she whispered into the quiet of the night, closing her eyes tightly. Power surged through her, erupting along her arms from some powder keg near her heart.
The burst of bright purple light was obvious even through her eyelids, no matter how tightly she held them. The telltale exhaustion in the aftermath of the spell bowled her over like a tsunami. Opening her eyes was never as difficult as it was then, it felt like every muscle in her body had given up on a will to live.
But when she did finally muster the strength? There was a glittering pile of diamonds heaped in front of her. She barely managed to brush them into her satchel along with the Ruby Weave Gem before she leaned back atop the bedcovers and succumbed to the inky darkness of sleep.
Waking up suffering from every bit of a hangover without the benefit of drinking the night before sucked. Every inch of Imogen’s body ached, even muscles she hadn’t known she had. She surely had a bruise above her hip where she’d fallen asleep atop her pouch. The light that just started to filter through the curtains is too bright, washing the room out with the swirls of dust reflecting every particle.
Moving took twice as much of her already sapped energy as usual. She didn’t bother to change, just brushed herself off with a few Prestidigitations and called it good enough. Her hands were restless, checking her pouch for the gems, drumming against her thigh, picking at the uneven spots along her skin.
She emerged from her room and didn’t bother trying to find the others. She Sent to Fearne and to Vex, just two words: I’m going. The reply from Fearne said she’d wrangle the others, but the response from Vex made her stumble on one of the castle steps as she fled down them towards the Greyfield.
I’m already here. I have the holy water you requested.
If Imogen had the energy to run, she would’ve. As it was, she could barely keep up the pace of a brisk walk, still tapped from the day before. The books all said it was to be expected – that big magicks could take it out of you for days, if not weeks, and it would sort itself out in time.
She didn’t care, though, not so long as it worked. She would trade all of her magic, all of her power, for the success of one last big spell.
When Imogen arrived, Vex was kneeling before the grave, a fresh bundle of poppies standing out brightly against the drabness of the graveyard. Vex rose, leaving them leaning on the stone, as Imogen approached. She didn’t say anything, for which Imogen was grateful, but she dipped her head in a respectful nod as she stepped away from the plot.
Raising a hand and summoning a bit of her power was more difficult than usual. She had to dig deeper for it, search further inside the well to find as much, but it was still easier than attempting to do the task by hand. The beauty of Telekinesis was that the ground above the coffin was moved by her invisible hand and the strength of her mind, not the weakness of her arms.
By the time she had the dirt gone and the box above ground on a small mound of it, the rest of them had gathered. She could hear Braius trying to whisper softly to Ashton, asking about what they were doing here – what Imogen was doing. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Ashton elbow Braius meaningfully in the side.
She turned her attention to the worn coffin. Not as badly damaged or eaten through as it could be, certainly, which meant whatever was inside would have still been largely protected. But still. It had been a year since–
Well. Since.
With a final burst of her Telekinesis, Imogen opened the box, falling to her knees beside it. She reached for her pouch and dumped out the small mountain of gems. The diamonds, she placed them along the body, following the long-ago memorised instructions of an in-depth diagram from a clerical text. She took out her notebook again and flipped to the last page.
True Resurrection.
Cradling the Ruby Weave Gem in one hand, Imogen whispered so quietly that even the body covered in diamonds may not have been able to hear it if it was capable of listening. “I love you. Please come back.”
A flask was placed against her thigh and Imogen sniffled, rubbing her sleeve over her eyes before picking it up. Bracing herself, she reached once more for the magic inside of her, for the lightning strikes contained in her cells. She dug deep for it, calling the power to her intentions, splattering the body with the holy water from the flask and murmuring the incantation through a wet, sticky voice.
The diamonds upon the body turned to liquid, seeping into the clothes and what was left of the flesh beneath. She placed her hand overtop where the heart should’ve been.
With a final jolt of magic passing through her into the empty ribcage, she finished the spell. Air was pulled from her lungs, leaving her gasping as she reclaimed the oxygen. A pounding throbbing started up in the back of her head and she fought a groan as it burrowed further inside of her brain.
Imogen waited with bated breath, hope beating itself against her heart within its cage to roam freely. She counted softly in her head, the seconds passing, to ten and then ten again.
“Please,” she whispered softly, pleadingly, begging for anything to hear her. Her eyes roamed down the decaying flesh of once-ashen cheeks, down the planes of a sharp jaw and along her neck to where Imogen’s hand rested upon a caved-in chest.
Something pulsed under Imogen’s palm. Her eyes grew large, focused on the tattered clothing against her scars. A gasp broke the silence and Imogen darted her gaze up to that face, watched the skin sew itself back together and fill out. A touch of colour came into the cheeks.
Imogen stared at those closed eyes, willing them to open as the eyelashes straightened themselves out and those that had been lost were replaced with new ones that grew before her sight. Dark eyes flashed open, immediately searching frantically before they came to a satisfied rest upon Imogen’s.
She sobbed, great heaves of relief rattling her chest.
“Imogen?” Laudna breathed, finally, finally.
She was home.