The Scent of Myrrh and Sage

10. Cursed Life

Hongjoong gathered himself. Tried to think of where to start and how his tale of magic would make the most sense to Seonghwa.

Apprehensive, Seonghwa hugged his arms around his body. He was scared Hongjoong might lie to him. Might try to get him on his side. But a small part inside of him hoped to understand.

Ultimately, Hongjoong sighed and settled for the beginning. Mindless fingers played around his bone staff and its dangling light source swept over him hauntingly.

"I was born 200 years ago to a humble family of peasants."

Right away, Seonghwa almost lost his footing despite being halfway seated on top of the table.

"Two-" He gasped with a hand before his lips. Hongjoong snickered, aware of their big age difference. But it was barely to be noticed, with an ageless creature like him.

Hongjoong continued, voice nostalgic over a distant past. A different lifetime.

"In early years, we discovered the magic in my blood. I had a morbid fascination with death. It was fun for me to kill the animals in the fields, to take them apart and mix their blood and guts with water and herbs. I didn't know back then what I was doing, but it was my blood calling to me."

Seonghwa shuddered at that sentence. He could envision it vividly. The small child with the pointy features, hands splattered with blood as he made his potions with anything that came into his hands.

"Necromancy isn't inherited. It's a learned skill. Some say the children growing up to become necromancers are often ill and have a close relationship with death, so they teeter on the edge of life and death. Befriend the dead. I was also ill and wasn't expected to get older than my twenties."

Worried, Seonghwa eyed him up and down. Nothing of that illness remained visible. Had he suffered how the people in the village had? Did his necromancy eat at his livelihood?

Hongjoong continued, no longer attached to this part of him. He brushed it away, as if falling sick and wanting to save his life wasn't a valid reason to reach for the helping hands of magic.

At least to Seonghwa, it was.

"I received schooling at the royal court of this castle. The court mage was no necromancer, but he taught me to harness my magic and hoped I would use it for good. I largely worked as a healer for a couple of years. But every day, I coughed up more blood."

Seonghwa's hands clenched in his lap. His heart ached at the vision of Hongjoong as a young adult, barely starting life when it already declined. Was he cynical back then? Did he hate his fate? Or were his eyes full of hope?

Seonghwa wanted to see below that blindfold.

Steady on his tale, Hongjoong's hollow voice weaved Seonghwa into the fabric of his story.

"I knew the end was coming, so I dabbled into the magic inherently my own. Felt how easily it came to me. Its rush of power. I made sure my death wouldn't be permanent. That I would come back into a stronger body."

"This one," Seonghwa whispered, finally understanding what was off about it. Hongjoong had died long ago. His blood ran cold and his heart stopped beating. This body wasn't alive, it was just his shell to live in. 

"I built this form. From the bodies of this tomb, I took their strong legs, their lean chests. I shaped myself a body that wouldn't easily fall sick and crumble. Only my face would remain my own. And when I passed, my soul made its new home."

Somehow, his story was full of sadness. How long must he have felt alienated by himself? By his pale face on a collection of foreign limbs? Did he feel cold? Or was he no longer tied to such mortal concerns?