A Necessary Evil (Book 1)

Epilogue

Cold and numb. I felt cold and numb. Everything around me was burning, too hot. Too hot! My breathing was ragged and I could feel my body tossing and turning. It was overwhelming, experiencing the sensations of having my flesh burned off my body by flames. Wouldn’t death have brought me some comfort? Or had I sinned so much I ended up in hell?

Was caring for an evil man a sin?

I heard a high-pitched scream, one of a deep-rooted agony. With a start, I realized it was my own. I was screaming, but I was unable to make it stop. I was unable to make any of it stop.

“Make it stop, make it stop. It burns! Make it stop!” I heard myself mumble, but I was frozen in my mind. My body was moving on its own and I was powerless to make it stop.

My eyes flew open the second ice cold water made contact with my skin. I gasped and finally control of my body was mine again. I was sitting upright, but it took me a moment to get my bearings. My vision was foggy, but slowly everything came into focus. I was in a room, one I didn’t recognize. It was small, cozy. Was I dead?

“You’re awake, finally,” a familiar voice remarked, relieved. Who did that voice belong to? I was struggling to remember where I had heard it before. I turned my head in its direction, grateful to it for putting out the flames that had consumed me not a moment before.

“Am I dead?” I asked, barely recognizing my own voice.

“No, you are very much alive, Lana,” the voice said again. In that moment as I placed the face with the voice, everything came rushing back to me. The blond hair and sparkling blue eyes were hard to forget, even when they reminded me so much of his awful brother.

“Raphael,” I breathed with a sigh of relief and threw my arms around him.

His heartwarming laugh shook through his chest. “Glad to see you too, girl.”

“What happened? How am I still alive? I remember burning. I remember dying,” I said, my thoughts still a confused pile of unsorted information.

“You passed out from the smoke, but I got there in time to save you. I was able to convince your parents and the royal family that you were dead, and they let me take your body. I healed you as I carried you away as my magic is powerful enough to still work even on palace grounds.”

I pulled away to look at his face. It was a mask of sincerity. “Andreas didn’t come?” I asked, my voice small.

Raphael’s expression turned grave. “I’m so sorry Lana, I warned you but you didn’t want to listen.”

“What happened, Raphael?” I asked, my heart beating faster.

“Your brother ran to go find him, believing him to be your only chance at survival. But when he got there, Andreas refused to help. He told your brother that you weren’t his problem and that it would have been a lot easier for everyone had he just let you die the first time.” Raphael looked away, shame in his eyes. Was he ashamed for crushing my hopes?

“I- I don’t believe you,” I said, getting out of his arms immediately.

“Lana,” he started, trying to comfort me, but it was too late. The tears were already rolling down my cheeks.

My one hope was diminished. Andreas didn’t come to save me. He didn’t even want to. Everything came crashing down. I let Raphael put his arms around me as he comforted me.

At least now I knew. Andreas played a deep game. He had claimed I was his, only to let me burn to my death without a second thought. Everything between us had been a lie, just as Raphael had warned me not too long ago. I was just the girl in the prophecy that had to be eliminated.

I didn’t want to believe it, but now I had no choice. There was no saving Andreas Scott Grigoli. It was time I moved on with my life.

“What happens now?” I asked Raphael in a meek voice when my fears finally died down.

“Now you become the person you were always meant to be. Under my guidance, you should be able to progress with your magic faster.”

I nodded. It was going to be hard to accept that no one wanted me dead anymore as they already thought I was. It was going to be hard moving on from Andreas after everything I had been through with him. In my heart, I still cared about him, but my head told me I was being foolish. He hadn’t tried to save me, and if he truly cared he would be sitting next to me right now and not Raphael.

“I’ll let you get some rest,” Raphael said before kissing me on the forehead and leaving the room.

I closed my eyes and suddenly had the strangest sense of déjà vu. Once again I was on the stake, in my final moment, though I knew it was impossible. It was the moment I succumbed to the flames, letting them take me to the world beyond. I wondered why this moment would replay in my mind. And then I heard those words again. The words that followed me into the dark abyss. They had to have been from Raphael when he came to save me.

“LANA, NO!” the voice shrieked and suddenly my eyes flew open. My whole body tensed and I sat up rigidly on the bed.

I didn’t know if my mind had been playing tricks on me or if it was actually real. But the voice didn’t belong to Raphael. The moment I drifted into unconsciousness, it wasn’t Raphael pleading for me to come back, it was Andreas.

It was Andreas’ voice calling to me, begging me to stay.

And if it was real and not something my mind conjured up from hope, it meant Raphael was lying to me. But why? What could he gain from it?

What if Andreas had come to save me, but he thought he was too late? What if he now thought I was dead?

I quickly shrugged off the thought. Raphael had no reason to lie to me. At least, none that came to mind. The fact remained that he was here and Andreas wasn’t. If he had tried to save me, Andreas would be here. He wouldn’t have let someone else take my body. Hearing his voice in my final moments, was just my subconscious wishing he had been there, trying to reenact the fantasy I had in my head. My own hero moment. My hero who never came. Perhaps my mother had been right; in real life heroes didn’t exist and we just had to learn to be happy with what we were given.