Isabella, 1466

The time felt endless in my mind, as though my very soul was drifting into a deep sleep. While the time in my mind froze and what surrounded my soul felt like water, I knew something in me would somehow break this cycle when I was in this fluid state. Was it just me that was doing this, or was it just my dream state forming this around me in my very mind? All I knew was that whenever I was in this very state, things always seemed to go wrong in the real world, so I was doing my best to open my dream-like eyes open to what I would think actually laid before me.

My dream-like state seemed to be in the middle of some sort of warzone. Magic was flying everywhere, zooming past me to attack other people around me. I looked around to see mages sending spells of thunder, fire, and ice to priests and druids alike taking form fighting and healing the many people who had held weapons. While I was seeing all of this unfold, panic rising in my chest, I suddenly felt something sharp go through my back and go through my chest. As I looked down, the only thing that was made obvious was the end of a sword poking through my chest and being pulled back out through my back.

I immediately fell forward and hit the ground in front of me. It took me a moment to finally grasp the realization that someone had stabbed me in the back quite literally and I tried my best to turn onto my back to see who it was. The moment of familiarity hit when I noticed that the person who stabbed me was none other than Ballaban Badera, a childhood friend of mine before he was taken to become a soldier for the Ottoman Empire. The only thing I saw was the look on his face before he walked away, never looking back. Ballaban had the look of shock and panic on his face, but in the end, only showed sadness as he turned away for the last time. As soon as he was out of sight, I barely noticed someone running towards me and had immediately put pressure on my wound. I couldn’t hear much of anything at that point, but I knew that this person was calling for a cleric to come on over and heal my wound. I then noticed a man had looked at my face with a worried expression looming over his features. I never knew that Skanderbeg was ever the type to worry about anyone, let alone me. When the cleric started healing me, I was finally able to hear once again, metal clanging against metal and magic being thrown in the air.

“Isabella, can you hear me?” Skanderbeg said in Albanian.

I nodded in response, blood being spit out almost immediately. The grave look he held only told me that I might not live much longer so I grab his forearm and pull his ear close to his mouth.

“As soon as I die, my soul will go into this necklace and once it glows gold, grab it and give it to one of your children,” I tell him, my voice hoarse and raspy throughout this explanation.

He faces me, concern and confusion hitting him when he responds, “The cleric is going to save you. Why do you think you are going to die?”

“I have no doubt the cleric will try, but I know my current body won’t last much longer,” I answered, fully aware that the cleric’s mana wasn’t going to last much longer.

As if realization had struck him, Skanderbeg’s face saddened and nodded towards me and bent down to put his hand on the cleric’s shoulder. The clerics’ name was Teuta and was my only sister who had used her magic to heal many people and animals before the war had started. I had used my magic to become a mage, one of only a few in my family. She looked up towards Skanderbeg and immediately went pale. She then looked back towards me and I knew she was fighting back tears. I finally smiled faintly to them both the best way that I could manage.

“The next time I return to this planet, I will still be Albanian, but under a different name,” I responded to the both of them, while adding, “I don’t know when the reincarnation will come, but I hope to see you at that time period as well.”

As I recited these words to them both, darkness had taken over, as though I was brought down to the underbelly of the ocean. When I saw nothing but black surrounding me, I closed my eyes and started the incantation that would put my very soul into the necklace. After what seemed like forever, I finally opened my eyes to see a ball of golden light in my hands, and I lifted it above me. As it flew away, I noticed almost immediately that I was brought along with it until I was surrounded in nothing but a golden light. I smiled knowing that the last spell I created before my body died had worked and I closed my eyes into a heavy slumber.