Chapter 63: Secrets and Uncertain Steps
He decided to try and explain, though he wasn’t even sure he understood it all himself. He chose his words carefully, trying to make it sound less terrifying, less like he was possessed by some unknown entity.
"Actually," Eric began slowly, looking down at his hands, then back up at Alina, his golden eyes filled with a mixture of honesty and apprehension, "it’s... it’s a kind of hidden power I have. A part of me, I think." He fumbled for the right words.
"It... it seems to take control of my body whenever I’m in extreme danger, whenever I’m unable to protect myself, or... or others."
He thought back to the moment at the Baron’s, the overwhelming rage and helplessness he had felt when he saw Alina captured and heard the Baron’s cruel threats.
"Back there," he continued, his voice heavy with guilt, "at the Baron’s palace... when I saw I couldn’t save you, when I thought they were going to hurt you... I... I think I instructed this inner power to protect you, at any cost."
He hesitated, the next words tasting like ash in his mouth. "And... and I also... I also instructed it to... to eliminate all the soldiers who were there."
He couldn’t meet her eyes now, shame and regret washing over him.
"From what you said just now, about me bringing you here... and seeing all these bodies... it sounds like... it sounds like my power actually did it. All those soldiers... they were really killed, weren’t they?" The weight of that thought was immense.
Alina listened quietly, her expression unreadable. She was taken aback slightly by his open admission, by his attempt to explain the unexplainable. She silently pondered his words.
’His inner power?’ she thought, a flicker of confusion in her mind. ’Does he really not know about Adam? Does he not realize it’s a separate consciousness, a different person taking control? Why is he calling Adam ’his inner power’?’
A part of her wanted to question him further, to ask about Adam, about the name he had spoken just before Eric ’returned’. But she quickly pushed those thoughts aside.