Chapter 5 #3
When I enter the city square, I see more dead bodies.
Each and every one of them is torn to pieces, savagely destroyed.
Limbs and organs decorate the square. Dried pools of blood surround the bodies.
Where the fuck did these humans come from?
I see saturated vampires and gleeful Blood Witches walking around the square, pleased with whatever attracts these people, not even glancing at the corpses, as if it’s completely normal.
Crows are cawing in delight as they pick at the bodies.
Valorya’s citizens casually step over a lone leg, almost as if it's a nuisance that it’s there.
I wonder who’s going to clean it all up.
A well-dressed male vampire comes near me, then growls as he realizes he cannot touch me as he did with the others.
I snarl back at him, scaring him off. He probably thought I somehow escaped the vicious attacks they released on those who arrived today out of thin air.
Then suddenly, he smiles at me eerily, his razor-sharp teeth stained with blood.
My eyes flicker briefly to his bloody canines, then back at his unnaturally handsome, pale face and his red eyes.
“Aurum, pure Aurum,” he purrs as he slowly circles me.
“Where did such a young human like yourself get that? Isn’t that utterly expensive?”
The words roll off his tongue, and I can’t place his dialect. I guess he’s centuries old based on how he speaks and dresses. I walk around him, pretending not to see him, ignoring his question. He stalks around me, following my traces.
“Don’t ignore me, boy,” he hisses. “It’s impolite not to answer a question, especially one from someone who can break your neck within a fraction of a second.”
His eyes widen in excitement as he keeps interfering with my route, remaining at a distance, and I try to ignore him and get to the inn's entrance. I pause, unsure how to circumvent him; each path I try to take, he seems to block.
“Get lost, you fucking bloodsucker, it’s none of your damn business,” I scowl at him, but he doesn’t back away.
The vampire seems infatuated with the fact that I have access to Aurum somehow. I step toward him, but he tiptoes so swiftly to the other side that I can barely register it. He’s taunting me without the intention to touch me, unlike that vampire in Sadelaer.
“Leave the boy alone, Lucian,” a familiar female voice says behind him.
He turns to her, and her bright red hair comes into sight, a stark contrast with the vampire's dark hair.
“Blood Witch,” he purrs as he creeps around her now, his eyes focus on both of us, flicking between us.
“Is the boy a friend of yours? He seems like an interesting friend to have.”
Caria looks at me. I know she can tell the disgust for her kind in my aggravated eyes after I saw her join the killing frenzy this morning.
The memory of this morning and witnessing her in that act of irreverence still gives me a sour taste—her lack of respect and remorse for the passing of an innocent human.
A part of me wants to justify her behavior; she can’t help herself.
It’s part of her nature. And I didn’t see her kill a human; they were already dead when she took the heart… right?
“No... not a friend. He's just a customer. Now let him be, Lucian. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
Her shadow markings whirl around her in warning to the vampire as she speaks her words carefully. I feel a pang in my chest at the way she is addressing me as if I am not important to her.
“Hmm… are you sure, little Blood Witch? You seem rather protective of your… customer,” he muses. “Perhaps you can tell me where the boy can access such pure Aurum.”
Realization hits her, understanding the magic that protrudes from me—the stench. Lucian does not miss the change in her facial expression, and a loud booming laughter erupts from his chest.
“You didn’t know, did you, Blood Witch? Didn’t you smell it on your human friend? You’re still a youngling, aren’t you, Malefica Mortis?”
The last word rolls off his tongue. Caria grits her teeth, narrowing her eyes at him as she composes herself.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m a youngling or not. My magic is still deadly to you, vampire, and you know it. It might even hurt you worse, be more torturous, as I would just let it wield itself.”
Her shadows are pulsing around her now dangerously, dark and ominous, ready to pounce if she decides to release them. A dark part of me wants to see her unleash her shadows and rip the vampire to bits.
His eyes dart to me and then back to Caria, unsure whether to take on her threat or not. He eyes her up and down and watches how the shadows coil around her, eager to find their way to him.
“Fine, fine, little Death Witch, have your human. I will seek him out later without you as his watchdog.”
He doesn’t wait for Caria’s response and disappears into a fog, his words lingering. Her being my watchdog. It makes me wonder how fast that news will travel throughout Valorya and perhaps outside the city walls—the boy with Aurum, protected by a young Blood Witch for some unknown reason.
“Are you okay, Fynn?” Her worried expression and the fact that she helped me melt some of my hatred and calm me. I nod.
“You smell better again.” She smiles at me, and I smile back a little.
She looks at me tentatively, clicks her tongue, then shakes her head.
“Let's get you inside before that creep returns.”
“Caria… why did he call you a Death Witch?”
I can’t help myself. I saw her face whiten when he called her that, almost as if she were in denial about the truth herself.
“And why did he call you a youngling?”
She bites her lower lip, darts her eyes around, and tells me to go inside; she’ll explain it to me when we’re back at the inn.
“Look, Fynn, I don’t know how much you know about Blood Witches or witches in general.”
She looks at me as she sits on my mother’s bed.
It is the nearest she can get to me before the air around me starts burning her throat and insides.
I tell her I don’t know anything really, just that they hunt humans and drain our blood for their damn rituals and whatever else they do.
I hear the revulsion in my voice as I speak to her.
She swallows before she starts to speak.
“There used to be White Witches and Blood Witches. We existed next to each other, a thin line of balance separating us. Our practices revolted the White Witches, and my kind loathed them for looking down on us. Because of that, there was always much secrecy around our methods and misunderstandings on the White Witches' side. Before the Witch Wars, my kind would only use the blood of willing participants. Our magic wouldn’t work otherwise; the human had to want it, to sacrifice their blood for us. After the war, many things changed, and with that, so did our magic. With the removal of light to balance our magic, the magic within us darkened, and the devilry deepened its roots. Instead of freely giving blood, we required unwilling blood. Forcing us now to spread terror and kill. Some covens went as far as to use violently obtained blood. Due to the differences between covens becoming more evident, to restore some form of balance, our magic turned into markings on our skin, depending on how dangerous or savage the coven was.”
She looks at me as I listen to her in silence.
“Do you want me to keep going…?”
I gesture for her to continue. She inhales deeply.
“As you might have guessed, my coven gains its magic from death, from corpses, necromancy. We are Death Witches. These shadows that lie on my markings have their own will; the older you get, the more they will listen to you. Witches from my coven can live up to hundreds of years. Our eldest member is now well over five hundred years old. I’m a youngling—a baby witch.
I just turned 20, nothing compared to others in my coven.
My shadows are erratic, playful, and very much have their own will. ” She laughs at that.
“That’s why Lucian decided to play his cards right and leave me alone. My shadows are unpredictable, but he knows one thing for sure. They crave death. But they might have gone after someone else instead. Like I said, incalculable.”
“That’s why you saw me taking that heart; that man was already dead. From time to time, I eat human organs to keep my shadows at bay in hopes they will not just go and kill someone at random, such as a witch from a different coven. Not all of us witches are insane.”
She gives me a smirk and stands up.
“I’ll leave you to digest all of this. If you still want to talk to me tomorrow, I’ll see you downstairs.”
With that, she leaves the room. I’m alone with my irrational thoughts, trying to comprehend why I enjoyed the company of a witch, a Death Witch.
Part of me wants to call her back, ask her to lie with me, and let us try, but I'm unsure what I want her to try with me.
Sleep with me? Date me? Start a relationship?
I look at the door she just left through, which is still slightly ajar; she confides so much to me without me even asking.
She trusts me, and besides taking that heart in the square, she hasn’t done anything to betray my trust in any way.
If anything, she came to my aid, scared of that vampire freak, Lucian, despite her not knowing if her shadows would obey her.
I sit back on the bed as I conjure up the image of Caria in my mind.
Her breathtaking beauty, the alarm that flashed into her eyes briefly after Lucian mentioned the Aurum to her.
Her inexperience is evident, and I can tell she dislikes it.
She knows not to come close to me when my scent is too strong for her.
It would burn her from the inside out. The magic clouding me works in peculiar ways, it appears.
When it comes to vampires, my skin works its way through theirs as if I am a reincarnation of the sun itself, strong enough to burn through whatever magic allows them to roam freely during the day, not bothered by the rays of light from the sun.
With witches, it works differently, albeit I have no desire to test my touch on Caria and see the effect my hold will have on her skin.
Witches are repelled by the smell the magic conjures for them.
Caria has told me it is so putrid it makes her almost throw up, and if I come closer, the burning sensation gets hold of her windpipe and lungs, making it hard for her to breathe, suffocating her.
Yet, for unknown reasons, she can come nearer to me than any of her kin.
Then it dawns on me: it is because I want her closer to me. I want to be near her and touch her.
I lie down on the bed. The thought of being able to suffocate witches if needed, simply by being close to them, is comforting.
DIARY ENTRIES:
She said her first word at 10 months. She said dada. How can you do this to me? How am I to survive this? HOW.
He, too, said his first word. Of course, dada. Keir is a proud father, and he dotes on them as he dotes on me. When I look at all three, my heart swells with pride and love. None of this is fair. How am I supposed to live my life like this? I hope you enjoy my wallowing.