The Path of Giants

tell anything specific,” I said. “Just that it’s strong.”
“I swear I didn’t do any harm,” Hadley said. She looked as if she wanted to flee, though I made sure to stand in her way.
Kataleya was sniffling, wiping away a few tears. She tried to take a couple of breaths, but it seemed as if something internal was preventing her from getting air. “Please,” she wheezed out. “I can’t take this. I feel like I can’t breathe. Just tell me exactly what you did with my father’s body.”
Hadley appeared empathetic. She muttered, “It didn’t affect your father’s soul in any way. That already left his body. All I did was take his essence.”
“Damn you!”
Kataleya surprised me by attacking Hadley in a fit of rage, slapping her a couple times before grabbing the smaller girl and throwing her to the floor.
“Damn you, witch!” she yelled.
Hadley held onto the moonstone as she put her arms up in hopes of defending herself. She didn’t seem to have an ounce of aggression in her, refusing to hit Kataleya back even as Kataleya got a few openhanded blows against Hadley’s face. One hit her square in the nose.
“Ow!” Hadley yelled.
Kataleya was manic as she slapped and punched. Eventually, Hadley found me looking on and doing nothing.
“You’re just going to stand there?” she asked in a panic.
“I trust Kataleya will stop when she’s done.” Besides, I could heal Hadley if Kataleya really did serious injury, but she seemed to lack the physical strength and coordination. Most of her strikes were slaps half blocked by Hadley’s wrists as she held up closed fists.
“Stop!” Hadley yelled. “Please stop!”
Kataleya attacked her a few more times, striking her nose again, which caused Hadley to scream out in pain.
Then Kataleya finally stopped, climbed off Hadley, and pushed herself up with great effort. There was a bit of blood on her right hand as well as some coming out of Hadley’s nose.
“Get up!” Kataleya said.
Hadley watched Kataleya’s hands as she got up in a way that moved herself far from Kat. I only noticed then that Hadley had bathed and changed. I didn’t know if the servants had given her these loose clothes or if she had saved a clean set. She touched her nose gingerly and hissed from obvious pain.
“You had no right to take the essence of my father,” Kataleya said. “Jon, make sure she stays here.”
Kataleya stormed out, leaving me alone with Hadley.
“Is she going to get the guards?” Hadley asked.
“I would assume so,” I told her.
“What are you going to do?”
“That depends.”
“On?” she asked, her eyes darting toward the stairs a short distance behind me.
“I’m wondering why you didn’t ask before you took the essence of her father. I’m thinking it’s because you knew you would be denied.”
“Of course I did! That’s why I had to do it before someone could stop me. Now what are you going to do? I came here because I thought I could trust you to keep me out of the dungeons.”
“I was going to, but that was before you did this. Now I’m not sure what to do with you.”
Kataleya came down the stairs with three armored guards behind her. Hadley looked around desperately.
“You made a choice,” I told her. “You can’t run from it now.”
“I did make a choice, and that was to take the essence and deal with the repercussions. Escaping is not the same as regret. I expect you to get me through this if you want my help.”
Kataleya stopped in front of us and pointed at Hadley. “I want her detained and held here until the king’s men can come. She’s going to rot in a prison cell for desecrating my father’s body.”
“I didn’t desecrate anything! Your embalmer already did a fine job of that, stuffing your father full of spices like a pig before roast. That’s not natural.”
“Oh, and taking the essence of him is? The next thing you’re going to be telling me is that curses are natural as well.”
“Taking his essence is not natural, but it’s not unnatural, either. It’s nothing. I expected someone clearly educated like you to understand after you got through your initial anger. Don’t you know what an essence is?”
Kataleya’s face softened a bit. I could see her wondering the same thing as me. What exactly was an essence? Perhaps neither of us really knew.
The only time I had seen an essence being used was when Eden had taken the essence of a bat. She had done so when enchanting a callring. The corpse of the bat had lost some color and looked a bit more deflated when she was done, but I had never asked exactly what the essence was.
I couldn’t tell if Whitley’s corpse looked any different, as I hadn’t seen it before Hadley had taken his essence.
“So that’s why you’re so angry,” Hadley said. “You really don’t understand what I did.” She sniffled to stop the blood running from her nose, then took out a handkerchief and dabbed at it.
Her tone was calmer when she spoke again. “Your father’s soul had already left his body,” she said. “I’ve done no harm to it because it wasn’t there any longer. The soul leaves an imprint on the body, like a memory. Taking the essence is my mana taking this memory and transferring it into something else that can hold it, a moonstone in this case. But like I said, his soul had already separated. He’s in a better place now.”
Kataleya pointed at the witch. “Stop patronizing me. You can’t possibly know about his soul.” Then she told her guards, “I want her held in this cellar. I want my father’s body moved elsewhere while she is here. Oh, god.” She seemed to realize something. “I just remembered we need to have a funeral. And my brother hasn’t even found out yet. I can’t possibly let my mother take care of everything.”
She put her hand on a table as if her legs were too weak to hold her. I was quick