"Interesting. You command the ancient blades ofCinaed. You are not of fae blood, so you must contain some sort of magic within you." A greedy look passed through the necromancer's face, the face that was now slowly healing the scorched skin on his face. Disappointment weighed on me.It is impossible to kill.
"Not for us,"the shadows inside me answered.
"You are going to pay," I promised as I clashed my twin blades together and stalked toward him. I was not going to let him hurt anyone or these women anymore. Over my damned dead body.
"There is no need to marry you when your power can be used to fuel me. Pity... you are a beauty." The necromancer shrugged and with a flex on his wrist. His wives were no longer smiling. They all looked at me, their eyes only saying one thing.
Kill.
They charged.
"It's going to be hard to kill innocents. Isn't it? Give up now and I will make your death easy," he spoke, walking over to the prince. Gripping his jaw and throwing his face to the side.
"No!" I shouted, panic overwhelming me as I saw him take out a curved dagger and hold it over the prince's heart. I tried my best to deflect the girls, shoving them back, their nails clawingagainst my face and all the skin exposed from my dress. The blood from my scratches dripped onto the white dress.
He was right—I wouldn't be able to kill these innocents. My heart wouldn't let me. Anger and panic overwhelmed my senses. "You coward!" I mocked him. "Fight me if you are so mighty. If you defeat me, then I am yours to do as you wish." The necromancer paused his blade that was nearly sunken into the prince. "Unless you are unable to defeat a small girl like me." I picked at his pride some more. His wives stopped their assault on me and stepped away.
"Now, how did you suspect that I liked challenges?" the necromancer playfully asked, pulling his blade out of the prince, and stepping into my direction.
“Interesting, so do I.” I twirled the blade in my hand.
He was rot. He was decay. Yet he was not death. No, hemanipulated it.Changed the laws of nature and went against the sacred law. He had taken over the lord's body and did unspeakable things to innocent people. He stalked toward me. I moved in a circle around him, waiting for his first strike. He had stolen magic on him and with a push of his hand forward. The force of his magic pushed me hard onto my back. The air was knocked out of me, and one of my two fire blades were knocked out of my hand. I scrambled to sit up but was forced onto my back. The necromancer watched me struggle to get up with glee. "This was going to be much easier than I thought." Anger filled me. The anger I had felt for this abomination to Terran.
The anger I had felt for him manipulating these people's hope. Using their love as weakness. Hope filled me. The hope that these innocents must have felt for their sisters, their daughters—even their wives. Love filled me. The love I had for Red. For his sister, Kya, for my family at the arena. Rhey...
Ezra... Fala.
I looked to the prince at last... still unconscious. With difficulty. I held my fist down on the stone floor, using it to push myself up. I breathed in harshly and let out a suffered groan, moving myself up to my knees. Chest heaving as I looked into the necromancer's eyes with hate. He seemed startled at first and then let out a bitter laugh.
"Stubborn one. Aren't you?" He was in front of me in a flash. Holding me up from my throat. I still held onto the fire blade in my other hand. My legs dangled as I struck with my fire blade. He bared his decayed teeth at me and caught my wrist that was about to strike him. The necromancer's hair seemed to grey and wrinkles began to purge his face. It seems like he was using all his power to fight and not keep him as youthful as he tried to seem. He looked victorious when I arched in pain, squeezing the arm that held the fire blade. I wielded the fire to burn brighter, stronger, knowing the fire wouldn't hurt me. The necromancer held onto me stubbornly as the fire burned his rotten skin and flesh, squeezing onto my throat with force. Tears escaped my eyes, and I would have choked from the smell of his burning flesh if it weren't for my air supply being cut off. Black dots painted my vision. And by Nocturna's grace, the necromancer let out an ear shattering wail and dropped me, holding onto his charred arm in pain. I choked and gasped against the floor. The strain from holding out against his magic weighed on me. I dragged myself against the floor.
"Run. Outside. Run,"the shadows whispered.
"Come to me."Something sang. Something familiar. I turned my eye to the necromancer who dropped himself against the table of blood markings and vials of liquid. He gripped onto a vial—it seemed to contain thick black liquid. He gave me a victorious smirk and popped open the cork and chugged its contents. I stared in horror. As I watched him heal himself, blue veins popping against his skin.
And now, I could taste the very magic he wielded. His strength multiplied by a fortune.
"Run,"the little girl inside me now whispered and I listened. Tripping once as I picked myself up, and then heaved myself up off the floor, my heels stepping into the material of my dress, the sound of it ripping and stretching echoed as I ran for the stairs. A large chair crashed into splinters against the staircase. I hid my face but not in time when a couple of splinters shredded through the skin of my cheek. The onslaught of furniture continued, and I grunted as I made my way up the stairs. My foot had just connected with the last step I had needed to take to escape until invisible wretched hands gripped onto my ankles and dragged me down. I let out a shrill scream and grabbed onto the pillars of the staircase. The silk glove made my grip slip. I glanced a look down and immediately regretted it. It was no longer the necromancer that looked like a lord. The vial he had drunk turned him into something more horrid, viler than what he was. He motioned me closer with his clawed hands. A monster... nothing that belonged to this world. He snarled at me, his eyes black—skin erupting in blue veins and his body massing in height. I growled out a cry and ripped the silk glove out of my hand with my mouth all while holding onto the pillar with my other hand. I grunted in excruciating pain as the monster used his force to fling me to the top of the stairs.
"Outside,"a calming voice inside me repeated. I grit my teeth in pain. My eyes focused on the window ahead. I crawled, achingly too slow. My heart pounding in fear that I wouldn't make it. Faces of all the people that were depending on me flashed into my mind. The floor quaked with the steps of the monster climbing up the stairs. I pushed myself up and gripped the windowsill, trying to use my weight to push it up.
"There is no escaping me, girl," the monster growled. The sound vibrating my entire body as he used his magic to dragme to him. I screamed out hard and shoved the window open at last. The scent of fresh rain and grass enveloped my scenes. And without a second thought, I fell to my death. Wind pushing past my hair, my arms moving out in front of me to grab something. Anything. My legs hit the ground first—excruciating pain shot right through my ankles. I ignored the crunch sound my knee had made when I tried to shield my face with my palms from any thorns that could have struck me when landing in the bush. I moaned in pain and scrunched my eyes shut.
"Oh goddess." I cried out again. I was alive—however, in blinding pain. A dreaded feeling entered me at the same time the doors to the manor burst open in shards of wood. The monster was already here.
"Come to me. Use me. Play me. Sing me."I pushed myself up to follow the voice. I was bleeding. The hot liquid stained my already ruined dress that I could not care less about. I limped and screamed in agony. I grabbed a thin broken branch and bit onto it roughly as I limped across the pathway that led to the stables where all the horses were kept. The monster chuckled and I could hear its nails dragging along the wall.
The sound made me bite onto the branch harder as I limped away a bit faster into the stables. Tears of pain were streaking down my eyes.
"You are a defeated little girl who disguises herself as a warrior. Now, the end of the bargain was that I get to do whatever I please with you." The inhumane voice vibrated against the building, coming much closer. The horses in the stables had become uneasy, already neighing loudly, panicking and jumping against their stable doors. I found my grey stallion.
"Let the ice harden. Let the fire vanquish. Play me. Sing me. Harmonise me,"the voices called from the small brown wooden box strapped on my grey stallion. I stared at it.
"No,"I shouted. Loud thudded steps came from behind me.
"No. No.No. No," I screamed again and again. Tears flowed freely from my eyes for an entirely different reason now.
"Killing you will be easy. But that prince of yours? Oh, how I will have my fun stripping him of his power and ripping him into shreds so that I canfeassston his bonesss," the monster hissed. I panted and turned around to face it. The horror of the thing stalked into the stable. The horses were in a frenzy, needing an escape.
