Married To Darkness-Chapter 385: Using Her Divine Powers

Jennifer!

Still nothing.

Lucius stared at her like she’d lost her mind. "Salviana, stop this. You don’t know what you’re doing!"

"I have to do something!" she snapped. Her voice cracked, raw with sorrow. "They’re gone, Lucius! If I don’t try... who will?"

She tried again. And again. Her voice grew hoarse, the desperation clawing out of her throat like a living thing.

She...sank to the ground again, her voice breaking on a final, ragged cry.

"Jennifer... please."

The silence that followed was deep. Deep enough to swallow her.

The wind stopped.

The trees stilled.

Even the restless waters of the lake below seemed to still their lapping at the cliffs.

Lucius froze mid-step, sensing it too.

Then—a sound.

A whisper, like breath against a windowpane. But it didn’t come from beside them. It came from everywhere. All around. Beneath. Above. Inside.

"Who... calls me?"

The voice was not a voice. It was layered, ghostly, hollow and echoing through the bones. Salviana gasped and clutched her chest.

Lucius turned toward the lake, where the fog was thickening again, swirling upward in unnatural coils. It coalesced—not like mist, but like thought made visible. Like memory. Like wrath.

A shape began to form.

First a face—blurred, haunting, with hollowed cheeks and black eyes that shimmered like ink under water.

Then hair—long, trailing through the fog like ribbons caught in the tide.

Then a body—tall, regal, and wrapped in shadow-drenched garments of centuries past.

She hovered inches above the lake’s surface, her feet never touching ground. Her presence was terrible. Beautiful. Otherworldly.

"Jennifer..." Salviana breathed.

The specter tilted her head, like the fog she controlled she circled Salviana in thick fog immediatelly. "You wear sorrow like a crown," she said, eyes locked onto Salviana’s. "And blood like perfume."

Salviana’s fingers curled around the now-empty vial. Her knees threatened to buckle again—but she stood firm.

"I want them back," she said. "Alaric. Jean. The fog took them. You took them."

Jennifer’s head lifted, expression unreadable. "Many have been taken. Few returned. Why should yours matter?"

"You’ve never taken a person, why take Jean?" Salviana wondered out loud.

"Well she was curious," she spat.

Salviana frowned. "Curious?"

"Her mind... she searched and found me," Jennifer sounded intrigued.

"Let them go!" Salviana whispered.

"No,"

"I’ll burn this whole cursed land down if you don’t!" Salviana shouted, her voice tearing from her throat like a war cry. "You hear me? I don’t care what you are, or how old, or how powerful—I will drag you into the light if I have to. Give. Them. Back."

The ghost was quiet. Then she... smiled.

Not kindly.

"I like you," she said. "You remind me of a girl I once was."

"Help...help!" the wails of her children suddenly started sending goosebumps down Salviana’s arms, she gulped as she started, "Jennifer, you need to let go of the hurt and rest,"

"How dare you!" Jennifer screamed pushing Salviana steps back with the force.

"Look at your kids!" Salviana screamed. "They’re tired, in pain"

The witch scoffed, "I feed them, I still hunt for them, everything I take is for them, they are happy." she said.

Teary eyed, Salviana said to her, "But they’re not happy, the help your children are asking for isn’t from the people who had burnt them or the ones you’re stealing from, they’re asking for help from you,"

"They want you to let them go, they need help away from you." Salviana completed but the pained mother wasn’t having it.

"You are a liar, shut up. "You know nothing" she yelled and Salviana had to hold her chest in pain.

"I will help you,"

"No."

"With the power bestowed upon me as the divine lady of the myth across four lands and cities of Wyfn-Garde–"

"Shut up! You have no such powers, I will take you too and maybe my children will finally be full and they won’t ask for help no more"

"I wish you peace. Go to rest Jennifer, you have suffered enough"

Nothing happened for a few seconds, Jennifer stopped shouting and tears started falling down her pale face, slow and heartbreaking. Salviana’s chin shook from holding back her cry.

"Thank you," Jennifer whispered lightly. Then, with a slow, deliberate wave of her hand, the fog behind her parted. She had been in pain too but the agony and betrayal leading to her death makes her stay for revenge not realizing she was ultimatelly still suffering herself and her children.

Salviana finally let the tear drop.

Floating above the lake, suspended like puppets on invisible strings, were two bodies.

Lucius gasped. "Alaric—Jean—"

Their eyes were closed. Their skin pale. But they were breathing.

Alive.

Just barely.

"They do not belong here," Jennifer said.

With a shriek like the tearing of silk, Jennifer vanished—scattering into mist that shot upward like a rising tide. The fog followed her, swallowing the lake again, then puling out and freeing the lake.

The bodies dropped.

Lucius sprinted toward the edge, ready to jump—but Alaric’s figure shimmered, then landed in a blur beside him, holding Jean protectively. He collapsed to one knee, breathing heavily, soaked in lakewater and blood.

Lucius rushed to pick Jean and placed her head on his thighs.

Salviana let out a strangled cry and rushed to them, falling to her knees beside Jean.

She was cold. But her heart still beats.

"You came back," Salviana whispered, tears slipping down her cheeks again—but this time, with relief.

Alaric smiled faintly. "I said I’d get the water."

Jean fell to the ground beside them, staring at the fog retreating over the lake like it was alive.

Jennifer was gone, she found peace and would rest with her offspring.

The lake shimmered with ghostlight, pale and trembling, the surface disturbed only by the last ripples of mist as it rolled back like an obedient tide. Morning broke over Wyfhaven in pink streaks and lavender sighs, casting a soft glow over the exhausted group.

Alaric however, Soaked to the bone, black cloak clinging to his sculpted form, pale skin even paler under the moon-turned-sunlight. "How did you find Jean?" Salviana whispered to him as she moved hair away from his face.