"Or at least we thought you did..."
The next part of Evangeline's words struck Damon with a sensation that left him suspended between confusion and relief.
They didn't think I had died?
But he had died. Thoroughly, unmistakably. He couldn't have been more dead if he tried. Not just dead—obliterated. On the brink of being erased from existence itself.
What changed their minds?
If it was fear of him rising as undead that held them back from burial, they could've simply cremated him and been done with it. Yet they hadn't. And Evangeline continued to speak.
"We had initially assumed the Keeper was the one who killed you… so in a fit of rage, we tried to kill him... but as you can imagine, we lost…"
Leona bit her lower lip, her expression tightening. Humans—so often driven by emotion—seldom considered odds when grief clouded their minds.
"The Keeper let us go… he just left. He had someone to mourn, so he let us mourn our own fallen…"
