4 Reborn.

"Look at this," complained a young and masculine voice. "I told you to not use those weird strange plants on those ointments you like to use so much. What if he doesn't wake up? Just look at—"

"You think I don't know what I'm doing?" interrupted the feminine voice with the same arguing intensity. "You know nothing about our herbalism practices. Shut up. Enough is dealing with your regular complaints."

William's eyes slowly began to spread, seeing blurry and faint light. His nauseous stomach was made a knot, and something sticky was adhered to his lungs and respiratory tract, forcing him to cough like someone that was about to drown or a newborn baby.

"Hey, he's waking up!" noticed the masculine voice. William swore he had heard it before, but his mind was concentrated on turning on and throwing out whatever obstructed his breath.

"Get him up, dumbo," ordered the female voice.

William's vision hadn't cleared up. He felt a pair of hands helping him lean up to rest diagonally on a puffy pillow behind. His lungs were now clear albeit sore. The first thing he noticed was how clean and fresh the air was. The blanket and pillows at his feet emanated a soft floral aroma.

"Hehehe," chuckled the masculine voice, gripping his shoulder. "I knew you were going to make it! Oh, you must be tired and thirsty. Here's a bucket of cold water."

"C'mon, give him a moment to breathe," insisted the feminine voice, forcing him to put down whatever he raised from the floor.

William took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes, his vision finally clearing up. He was inside some humble room made of a yellowish material —similar to sandstone or granite— that was mildly illuminated by torches, giving it a warm and safe feeling.

Sitting next to the bed he laid in, two human figures faced him.

One of them was a young female of long black hair and olive skin, with bangs on her forehead, slanted eyes, and a frondous scarf of red and purple colors that looked like a fishing web or a shemagh, covering a simple dress made of beige cloth.

But the male by her side made Willliam's skin goosebump and pale, a knot tightening in his chest. First, his voice, that shaved head showing a grey layer, and those unmistakable green eyes.

Yes. It was him! He was almost unrecognizable, seeing him clean from the mud and filth that covered both back in that ship. William's respiration agitated before he noticed, feeling his bloodstream race a marathon.

His memories returned: he had been captured by a strange group of sailing warriors covered in insectoid armor, and then was taken to a strange and remote place thousands of miles away from home alongside a reduced number of prisoners.

They were to be hung, and that young man was with him!

And William himself was killed. A pirate impaled him with a spear and then he got shot by a crossbow; the immeasurable pain of getting your bowels kicked on his mind for a second. He died! And he was now there! What the hell was going on? Was he in some kind of afterlife?

The green-eyed lad got up and grabbed him by the shoulders, tucking him softly into the pillow at his back at the notice of his expression. He then returned to his seat.

"Hey, relax! man, you look as if you've just had an epiphany. I know that many things must be happening in your mind right now, and you still can't believe this is real, but I bet the pair of pants full of holes I'm wearing right now that it is. Welcome back, William. Was that your name? I've got to call you Willy ever since I brought you here, two weeks ago. Feels like it was yesterday..."

Being real? Two weeks ago? William stared with confusion repeatedly at both. What the hell was going on? How could he and that green-eyed man be there? And in what remote corner of the world did he just end up? he looked up and covered his face with his palms, unable to process the situation.

"Yeah, that helped a lot," the female looked at her companion with sarcasm. She then looked at William and softly smiled at him. He looked at her, but his lips were too dumbstruck to move a millimeter.

"I see you're not the talkative type," she continued. "You're safe now, William, please relax and don't worry. Before anything, let us introduce ourselves: My name is Miris. Miris Ates. It's nice to meet you."

"And I am Artur. Artur Asgard," his former cellmate straightened up and nodded at him. "I know it's weird. We traveled in that stinky boat together and I didn't even tell you my name. Forgive me. I'd ask you how you're feeling, but I bet you feel worse than a wet cat covered in oil. Anyways, it's nice to meet you, even if we've met before, I guess."

Their words didn't help calm William's worries and concerns a small bit, but her controlled words were, in a certain way, calming, at least compared to how overwhelming Artur's were.

Miris Ates. It was obvious by her name and looks that she wasn't native to Sunia, or any part of the western continent.

But Artur Asgard was clearly Sunian. He arrived at that land named Reniram just like William, unaware and doubtful. How was he there, acting as if he knew it? And how did he evade somehow getting executed by those pirates? Where was the rest of the prisoners right now?

The truth was that those questions paled with the one fiercely bouncing in William's mind: How in the heck did they bring someone back to life? That was impossible! he almost wondered if remaining dead was better compared to whatever was going on there. He gulped his own saliva, breathed deep, and pronounced his first words.

"...W-what's going on here? they killed me and they were to kill you too…" he looked at Artur, who looked as if he kept an explanation behind his green eyes. "And… two weeks? what does that even mean! I died… How am I back here just like nothing?"

Artur and Miris traded looks. She got up and reached for a sandstone table at one of the middle walls of the room. William looked around and realized: the room had a hexagonal shape, the walls rising up like a prism until they reached a prismatic vault at the ceiling three meters above.

Even the door, which was made of ashen grey wood —just like those pirate ships that brought him there— was hexagonal. He'd almost kept staring at that architecture he had never seen before if more important questions didn't occupy his thoughts.

Miris returned, sitting on her seat and passing William a small cup with a steaming liquid inside. "Please drink it," she extended it to him. "you must be agitated. It's going to help you relax."

William stared at it for some moments, Artur commenting about it. "C'mon, Will. We wouldn't have gone through all that trouble only to poison you here on this tidy room that Miris takes so much care to keep clean. Give it a gulp. It's moonflower tea. My favorite."

Whatever what flower or plant that was, William finally picked the cup from her hands and sniffed its steaming sweet content before driving it to his lips. He sipped a bit, and its nourishing essence made him gulp it deep until the last drop; it was like getting rehydrated after wandering on a desert for three days without drinking water.

It was also the moistest and most refreshing thing his tongue had tried ever since he was captured, which combined with the time he apparently had been there, made a total of three weeks.

"...Thank you," he gave Miris the empty cup.

Artur spoke. "Alright, now, you must be craving answers. Will, as you already know, those pirate wannabes killed you. That's true. I'll explain to you later how that thing went out. The thing is, we revived you, although that's not an accurate word... You're dead. Just like us."

"Artur," Miris frowned and launched him a stare. "don't tell him that yet. You're only going to scare and confuse him more."

Dead? What did he mean? Was William still breathing and on the same planet as the one on which he was killed? He pinched his arms, but the pain confirmed to him that it was not a dream.

He was still alive. No. Dead. Whatever that meant, even if that was some kind of afterlife.

Artur was about to speak again, but Miris extended her arm wrapped by a saggy sleeve and purple yarn threads hanging on it. She connected her eyes with William's and took a moment to speak her words in the calmest manner possible.

"William, Artur is right," she put her hand above his in a sympathetic gesture. "you're dead. But that's not entirely true either. You're now... a lich, an undead being. We —our order— made an ancient necromantic ritual on your dead body to bring you back as a sentient being. It took Artur a week to bring you here to our monastery, and another two for you to wake up after the ritual was completed. Don't be afraid. You're the same thing as us now. We understand you."

"That's right," spoke Artur. "Bud, it was quite the struggle to bring you all the way back here. Let's say that you're not exactly lightweight. And you surely did also stink. That ritual did wonders to restore your body from all that putrefaction. Puagh."

"A lich?" asked William. He had heard the word before, albeit he barely remembered it. "...What's that?"

Miris and Artur traded looks before she responded. "Let's say for now that, an undead being that has amassed various advantages from being alive and dead through magic. You should rest right now. I promise we'll tell you more later."

Undead? Magic? More added to the fantastically messed situation William found himself in. The magical arts were rather rare in Sunia, and it was mostly reserved to priests and other scholar figures, as they needed certain magical gemstones for the magic to be performed, and they were rare. They were talking about it like some kind of day-by-day gimmick!

"You should check your heart, by the way," said Artur. "Well, you don't have one anymore, but another special artifact instead. It contains, well, your soul. Raise your shirt, don't be shy of being in front of Miris. She's the one that's been taking care and cleaning you for all the time you've been asleep."

William frowned. What did Artur mean that he lacked a heart? He did as he said. The first thing he noticed was how his stomach was clean and healed. There was only a pink scar in the place where that fanged spear had ripped apart his intestines and finished his life.

It was the same on his right pectoral; there was only a pink circle where that bolt had given him the coup de grâce. But there was a metallic aperture near his left pectoral, on the place where his heart was supposed to be.

Miris passed him a mirror, and he looked through the open hole on his chest: flesh and arteries could be spotted, being illuminated by a strange artifact shining light-blue, where his real heart used to be.

It looked like a sapphire or an aquamarine, having metallic heads at both top and bottom crammed with small gears and valves. He put the mirror down and looked up, taking a deep breath.

What the hell had they done to him?! As if it wasn't already too much...

"Don't worry," said Artur. "I was as astonished as you the first time I saw mine. Look."

He raised his shirt, and it was the same on his pale chest: there was a metallic margin looking right into his chest cavity, where a shining gem-like William's stood. It had a mint-green color, contrary to William's.

"Look," Miris did something that neither Artur nor William expected her to do: she raised her shirt and revealed the same image as them, except that hers glowed faint orange.

"...Miris!" exclaimed Artur, trading pale looks with William at the way she just carelessly exposed her humble breasts.

"What? Oh, yeah," she rolled her eyes and let her shirt down. "Foreigners. You, westerners, are weird."

Artur took a deep breath and looked at William.

"Please excuse her. Let's say that here on Reniram, female breasts aren't really a… sexual thing. By the way, as I said, these gems in our hearts are special crystals containing our very souls. It's what keeps us alive, and we'll be dead for good if it's destroyed or it's put off from us, so, we gotta be careful. Aeschylus likes to call it a 'phylactery', though you can call it whatever you want. We aren't picky about names here. Who's Aeschylus, by the way? Don't worry, you'll meet the crazy old man in time."

William rolled his shirt off, leaning back to his pillow with his oversaturated mind. He could swear that being told that he was plain dead by whoever received him in the afterlife would be something easier to process than what they tried to explain to him.

Lich, undead, magic, Reniram… It all sounded like nonsensical things pulled out from a bad trip or a fever dream, but he was starting to believe that it was indeed real.

"Miris? Artur?" spoke a deep and calm voice as the hexagonal door creaked and spread. "How is it going? Are you ready with that?"

Both turned their heads around. William did it too, and another face he saw before being killed in that dead and grey coast was there too: it was the throat-singing man at the top of that hill, his black hair with an undercut on both sides tied on a braid, and a black tunic covering his bulky body of eastern facial features.

He stood at the edge of the door and looked at William in the eyes, wearing the aura of someone who knew him for a lifetime...