It didn’t take much Healing magic to get her to open her eyes, and that was the joy of Healing Wands, just taking a wee bit of skill with magic to activate, no need to follow all the strictures of Life Magic and whatnot.

  Her eyes blinked slowly, her system still mostly shocked, if working it off slowly as the temporary damage was eaten away at Level/hour speed. She’d be utterly fine in three or four hours, tops.

  “What? Where?” she started to splutter, sitting up abruptly from the bed she was in. Her eyes turned to the sole person in the room, waiting there silently for her. “Mick?!” she blurted out in shock, staring at him, dressed so differently from what she last remembered… and with silver suddenly appearing at his temples and in his beard. It looked quite distinguished, really, and there was an awful sadness and darkness in his eyes that she didn’t remember, which eased only a little bit on seeing her wake up, although the roguish smile was almost exactly as she remembered it.

  He reached over to the top of the desk next to the bed, took up the mirror, and turned it around so she could look at herself.

  Her hands flew to her face in utter shock. “My hair! My eyes! My face!” she exclaimed in disbelief. She held out her hands in front of her, flexing them in disbelief, then looked down at her chest. “My bosom! Where did it all go?” she wailed, on the edge of hysteria.

  “Ye died, me love,” her Mick said quietly, sliding down to his knees, reaching out and taking her hands with very strong hands. Stronger, if anything, than she remembered.

  They were very reassuring, those hands. Bunita found herself calming down, clutching at those hands for strength and steadiness, staring at the dark eyes looking up at her, eyes full of things she didn’t know or recognize.

  “I… died? Truly died?” she repeated, in some disbelief. Things were a bit hazy after that time on the hill. “What, what happened, my Mickles?” she asked, pulling him in, bending down to plunk her new forehead to his.

  There was no revulsion in his eyes at her face, although she did not think she was anywhere as beautiful as she had been. She did not think she could have borne the pain if her Mick had denied her right now…

  “Nae fifteen years ago, there were… let’s call it an event. A Fall. The ley lines surged with power, an’ most every item with a mana storage capacity exploded. For ye, that meant that Necklace ye loved so well.”

  Her hands pulled free of his and went to her neck. Her Necklace had three Legendary Cantrips on it, plus two Mana-tier Protections! It was one of the finest magical items in the whole of Dereth!

  It was no longer around her neck, of course, although she had never taken it off.

  Her Mick nodded slowly to her. “It killed ye, me love. Blew yer head right t’ blood, brains, and bone shards in me arms. No trip to the Deathstones. Ye just died right there… and so did many, many others.”

  Bunita swallowed at the image that presented. Almost ALL the magic items that were charged with mana stones had been destroyed? That, that was unthinkable!

  Wait! “F-Fifteen years?” she stuttered in shock.

  “Well, seventeen an’ change, now.”

  She was utterly stunned. No wonder her Mick had silver in his hair now! Still, he did not look so old as that, but… “Deathstones? Not Lifestones?” came out despite herself, teasing him.

  “Deathstones,” he corrected her with a bloody iron in his voice that wasn’t aimed at her. “Those folks what died first were recalled to the Deathstones, just as they exploded. Every soul o’ them perished at the same moment, caught in that moment when the Stones be spinning a new body for ‘em. Naught but bones all melted and melded together remained o’ them for years an’ years, in black pits fizzling with the energy o’ the stones, spirits trapped an’ wailing their fates, an’ we couldnae free them.”

  Bunita took a deep breath into new lungs, picturing how horrifying that much death must have been. “And now? Why am I back now, looking like this?” She gestured up and down, almost dismissively. “I am not this woman…”

  “Ye are now, because ye’re not precisely a woman right now. Ye’re a Summons,” her Mick told her softly.

  Bunita blinked. “A… Summons?” she asked uncertainly.

  “The monsters that pop up in all those places, an’ ye kill ‘em, only for more t’ pop up? Stand there through rain or snow, not eating ‘r pissin’ ‘r kissin’, attack anything in a stupid manner what comes by?

  “Aye, the magic took yer soul an’ stuffed it into one o’ those Summons t’ make its life easier. Ye’re in the shell o’ one o’ the Mercenaries what were in the Heart o’ Innocence Dungeon, if ye remember that place. Probably a reflection o’ some o’ the things ye did when younger that, like me, ye don’t talk about.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Bunita found herself flushing slightly, but he didn’t probe deeper, even when she nodded. “Yes, I did things when I was younger and stupider and desperate. I knew Itala back then…” She looked at her hands again. “What does it mean, being inside a Summons?” she asked uneasily.

  He rose, turned the chair he’d been sitting in around so the back faced her, and sat down, crossing his arms atop it. “It means ye’re not truly made o’ flesh an’ bone right now. Ye’re a Summons, made o’ ectoplasm.” She opened her mouth, and he just held up a patient finger for her. “Ye know how the monsters we killed be all fading away in a minute or two once dead. Blood, bones, body, armor, weapons all, save the loot they dropped… which would also fade away if ye didna claim it. Just… gone, like a dream?” She nodded slowly, remembering it happening so much, so often, it was just a thing that happened, much like how one’s old body faded away when one was sent to the Life… Deathstones.

  “That’s what ye are. If ye die now, the System o’ Magic here takes ye again, mayhap sticks ye in another random shell lookin’ like a random Isparian woman, mayhap keeps ye in some limbo until it do.

  “I dinna know how many times ye’ve been killed an’ reborn as a Summons, me love, nor how long ye’ve been in that one. Truth, no one knew the System was recycling the souls of the dead inside Summon shells until recent-like, or that we could break them from the System’s control.

  “When we did, we went looking for ye.”

  He reached around and drew a long dirk from a scabbard, the blade a metal she’d never seen before, but wound about with spirals of color she most certainly had.

  She jumped in shock when the Dirk’s blade suddenly expanded to over three feet long, and buried its point in the floor.

  Runes glittered along its length. Blackfire Jewels burned in its runnel. Lost Light spiraled about it, and glittering Elemental Stones glowed on its guard and pommel, waiting to be put into place.

  There was a snap and pop, and something came free from around the Prismatic Stone currently inset into the pommel.

  She recognized it instantly, how could she not? With a trembling hand she reached out and reclaimed her wedding ring from his fingers.

  There was no magic in it, no power, and her new ring fingers were too large for it. Still, there was no mistaking it for what it was, and she started to put it on her little finger resolutely.

  “Dinnae do that,” her Mick said softly, and for a moment her heart plummeted. But the roguish smile was in place, the one she knew and could rely on. “Our vows be until death did we part, aye? And ye died, me love, sure an’ true, an’ I buried ye fast on that hill in Mayoi, an’ did visit yer grave every full moon an’ talk with ye all night long fer years on years. I did mourn ye, an’ I did turn that grief into a weapon against all the gods-be-damned things which set upon us an’ tried to kill what the magic goin’ crazy did not.

  “Ye’re not alive in the true sense right now, me love. Ye don’t age. Ye don’t need t’ eat or drink or even sleep. If ye die, ye’ll fade away like a dream. Ye be not the woman I married… but ye be her soul, an’ I’ll wait for ye to be a woman again, I will.”

  Bunita’s heart was doing flip-flops, thinking her Mick had found another in those long years, and she could hardly have blamed him, if what he said was true. Certainly he’d never hurt for a lack of lovers… but that was not the case here.

  “What, what do you mean?” she asked, trying not to be distracted by the swirling presence of the fantastic Claymore in front of her. She’d never seen the like, not in any Quest Weapon or loot drop!

  The Sword flipped back to the size of a Dirk and spun around his hand before being sheathed at the back of his belt. He scooted the chair forward so he could take her hands again, strong and reassuring once more.

  “Me love, ye can become real again. Yer body does all the things a living one should. Ye don’t need t’ eat, but if ye do, it’ll take what ye eat, an’ turn it inta flesh an’ blood an’ bone once more, bit by bit, piece by piece. Ye’ll trade the fruits an’ labors of the land into flesh an’ bone once more. Ye’ll start t’ age, ye’ll need t’ sleep once more… an’ ye kin have children, if ye dare.”

  She flushed deeply at the question. “I… have to eat?” she repeated.

  “Aye. Though ye be not hungry. Every day, eat an’ drink, like a normal person or more, turn the stuff o’ dreams to the stuff o’ the living, an’ become real once more.”

  That didn’t sound so bad. “That doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy ourselves, does it?”

  His smile turned somber. “Nay, lass. We already know that the Summons got no drive for the bed, either.” He began to massage her hands as he had in the past… and her own face began to fall as the excited little thrills at his careful touch and strength and gentleness utterly failed to materialize.

  She, she didn’t want him like she should.

  She swallowed. She had few inhibitions about having sex, enjoying it for the sport and pleasure it was, despite knowing that a trip to the Life… Deathstone, aye, so appropriate, would spell the end for any child in a womb, too.

  But to have no desire at all? She felt… like a thing, not a woman!

  “So, all Summons are virgins?” she managed to ask, with some spirit.

  His face lit right up at her reply, such a delight to see. “Me love, when ye can sleep in me arms, when ye want to hold me in yer arms, when the monthly bleeding be a pain in the arse again, an’ ye have t’ piss an’ crap an’ stuff yer face or starve as we mere mortals do, I’ll take ye t’ wife again, as be right an’ proper.”

  She didn’t know when she started crying, but the tears were coming down now. “I’m, I’m not as pretty as I was, my Mickles…”

  A hand came up to trace the tears on her cheek, sad and sure and gentle in a way she’d never really known him to be. “Me love, I took ye t’ be me bride for yer fire, not fer yer hair an’ hips an’ lips an’ whatnot. Could’ve had me fill o’ lovely ladies these past years, but those what compared to me Bunita? Children an’ fragile things what never crawled through the muck o’ life an’ came through to the other side.

  “Me love, I waited for ye then, an’ I’ll wait for ye now, have ye no fear.”

  She wanted to want to kiss him so bad it was making her heart race, but there was nothing arousing her at all. She just didn’t want him that way right now.

  But she could get that back!

  “Then my first meal is going to be a really good steak!” she declared fiercely to him, and her Mickles laughed aloud, and helped her to her new feet.

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