“Gone” described Sorin’s situation in his current state as well. Both physically and spiritually, it seemed.
It reminded Ben why he was here. To find the Forgotten Truth.
Miss Seventh didn’t outright say it, but she implied that doing so would help bring Ben closer to the answer to Sorin and Ere’s predicament.
Ben steeled himself to focus on the task at hand, instead of worrying about what he couldn’t control.
“So, uh, who is this enemy we’re here to break out?” he asked. It seemed like a pertinent piece of information.
“Liger Beast,” came the gruff reply.
Ben’s eyebrows climbed up in surprise.
“As in, the offspring of a male lion and a female tiger? I’ve never seen one in my world, though I’ve watched YouTube videos. They’re extremely rare and only exist in captivity.”
Zai slid him a narrow-eyed glance, which Ben interpreted to mean that he didn’t understand what Ben just said.
Ben waved a hand to brush his comment aside, thinking out loud.
“I suppose they’d exist in the ‘wild’ here, so to speak, if they’re animal spirits. They’d mate in their human forms, after all.”
Zai grunted, as if to say “no shit, Sherlock.”
Really, Ben was getting downright fluent in Zai-speak at this point.
“So…why are you and the liger not the best of friends?”
Zai was quiet for a long time before he spoke again.
When he did, he stared at the tankard of beer in his big, rough hands, heavy dark brows lowered in that perpetual scowl Ben was used to seeing. Though this time, it was laced with something other than general grumpiness.
There was regret as well.
“I was the Master Hunter for the previous Queen,” he said at last in brief, staccato sentences.
“I hunted his Kind. I excelled at it.”
Ben got the gist without further explanation.
“And now you want to free the liger because…you want to right a wrong?”
Zai huffed and downed the last of his beer, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm.
“There is no righting of wrongs,” he growled, lips twisting in a snarl.
“The dead cannot be brought back to life.”
“No,” Ben said slowly, considering, as a shiver tingled down his spine.
Hadn’t Ere and Sorin been brought back to life? More than once? Beings with Pure souls could be reincarnated, but Ben counted that toward a new beginning.
Was there a limit to how many times a soul could be resurrected? Had Sorin’s soul reached that limit?
He mentally shook his head to stay in the present and focus on the matter at hand.
“But you want to create a different future,” he deduced what Zai didn’t spell out. “With different choices and actions.”
The warrior didn’t confirm or deny, simply scowling at his empty tankard.