Chapter 19 #2
Staring directly above her, past the High Priest’s wrists, blood dripped down from the ceiling onto the columns and down into collection bowls.
Rigged high into the curve of the cathedral, was a mass of bones and flesh.
A raspy breath echoed from the mass. Shackled chains shook as sinewy wings attempted to stretch down and around the walls of the cathedral’s room.
Following the wings to the body, Griselda ended up making direct contact with two abyssal wells in the midst of a large dragon skull.
Its lower jaw was completely gone, but that didn’t stop chains from being wrapped around its upper maw.
A discolored tongue hung limply from the hole of its throat.
Horror itched up her spine at the realization of what was laid before her.
“There, my child. Rejoice in the new found glory that will bathe us all in due time!” The High Priest removed his hand, dragging it over his newly skeletal mask.
Griselda’s face blanched and her heart thrummed rapidly in her chest.
The High Priest was completely undead. No flesh remained on his bones.
Yet here he was, talking and prattling on as if nothing had changed.
His robes were no longer such a pristine white, but instead a darker grey with the same golden trim.
Ornate rings were welded onto his finger bones.
Jewels were inlaid into his teeth. A strange flickering orb danced around the sockets of his eyes.
With her intense silence, he turned and stared at her. His shoulders were hunkered over under the robe and his head was cocked on its rickety bones.
“Child? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost. Was the vision too much? I can summon something to ease your stomach if needed. Know the women taken have been set up peacefully in their own rooms as they service this cathedral to their very soul.” His voice was pinpoint and devoid of emotion.
He didn’t know.
Griselda tried to gather her emotions. She had to do everything to keep him thinking she still saw the illusion he somehow kept over this area.
“Sorry, Father. I’m just not used to such an ability being performed on me. This is all very… new.” She rubbed her hands together and locked her eyes on the High Priest’s face.
He tsk’d, clicking his tongue against his teeth and cocking his head in a mocking pout again. The light of his eyes bounced around the hollow sockets as though to check around and confirm if his illusion was still in place.
“Very well. I will send for someone to take you to a room for the night. I’m positive you’re beyond exhausted after such an arduous travel from Mistveil.” The robe around him cinched tight as he crossed his arms and began to walk up to the right door.
“Wait! How do you know I come from Mistveil?” Griselda took a step closer toward the stair well before being met with a lecherous gaze from the High Priest.
His bones rattled as he walked back down the steps until he was but a few inches above where she stood. Griselda pulled back when he bent to put his rancid face inches away from her. A heavy air fell between them as though a veil blocked the outside world.
“I always keep track of those I create. Honestly, I’m surprised you never questioned your difference.
One with the ability to control certain beasts,” he sneered, the orb of his eyes bouncing down to her necklace and back up to her face.
“Surely, you didn’t think it pure coincidence that such a marvelously disgusting creature became smitten over someone like you? ”
Griselda immediately clutched the scale pendant and attempted to step back, unknowingly backing into an invisible force. Her pulse rang in her ears.
There’s no way. He’s a liar! A twisted necromancer!
“Did you really think you were something special, child? That you were more than a mere vessel to bring one of the few remaining of that damned dragon’s lineage to me?
” One of his decaying fingers caressed over her cheekbone, tracing down her jawline until it landed on her chin and tilted her up to stare at his sinful visage.
“Everything has been planned for a reason. It just took some decades for all the pieces to fall into place. To simply take the essence of my darling, rest her dense soul, and mix it with that of the very beasts I wish to execute— Why, it was a simple matter when their own males threw themselves to death for the chance of battle. And you’re welcome for your existence, Griselda.
I heard you’ve been putting yourself to good use at that meager village. ”
Her pupils pinned. The world shook around her vision with the beat of her increasing pulse. Every muscle in her body felt paralyzed.
This isn’t possible. Him? The Father, your father? I’m… part dragon?
A deep laugh bubbled up from the pit of her stomach. A psychotic, cruel, high-pitched sound that tore from the core of her soul.
That’s gold. Created in both the image of whatever tortured soul loved him and the poor fool of a dragon that trusted him? You couldn’t make this up.
The High Priest pulled back, seemingly in his own form of disgust as he placed his hand against his chest. Had he had lips, surely they would’ve been curled.
Griselda shoved her hands into her hair, digging nails into her scalp before wildly staring up at the High Priest with a dangerous glaze over her eyes.
“So, you’re telling me, every fault of my life— No, every error.
Every fuck up. Every stab, kick, bite, rape, and ounce of obedience was all to deliver some scaled bastard to your doorstep because you didn’t have the fucking gall to leave your holy castle and handle your own dirty business?
” Red tinged the edge of her vision. “You’re beyond a pathetic old man.
I don’t give a shit if you’re a semblance of my father. You disgust me.”
Her teeth began to chitter as chills took over her body in a weird form of
“Slaughter.”
The word whispered in her mind, soft and gentle compared to her emotions.
She stepped closer toward him, no longer holding back behind a guise of false religion, and grabbed his arms.
“How dare—”
“Silence.”
Chains from above rattled.
“Shut the fuck up.” Griselda interrupted him, reaching to shove her hand toward the bouncing light in his skull. “I’ll show you the pain you’ve inflicted me with. I’ll make you regret ever creating me. You think your illusion still exists?”
His body stiffened. Griselda’s hands crawled up to the collar of his robe and tugged him closer.
“Suffer.”
“I see you for what you are. What a shame that the very thing you created ends up being immune to your pathetic visions,” she snarled.
His form was lighter than she expected, and it sent horrid thoughts through her mind. Of all the things she could do to him, throwing him on his own altar and splitting his bones was the kindest.
The door on the left slammed open, jolting both of them as their heads snapped to see who decided to interrupt what would soon be a deserved murder.
“Lazarus, sire, we have a problem!” A disfigured creature in haphazardly thrown on armor panted through splayed arms in the doorway.
Its horned head raised in confusion at the sight of Griselda holding the High Priest, or rather, Lazarus by his robes.
“Destroy.”
Griselda glanced up, noticing a glimmering aura sparkling around the height of the ceiling.
“Invoke. Your. Wrath.”
The words whispered through her, kissing the darkest corners of her mind.
Griselda’s hands began to spark against Lazarus’ robe. Glints and glimmers similar to what she saw in the water at the pool in the cavern danced around her arms, trailing up to her shoulders. She stared back at the decaying dragon.
“Become. Their. Fear.”
Lazarus ripped himself away from her, falling to the ground and scrambling to make it to the other door as pools of blood and pus gushed down from the ceiling. The cisterns on the columns began to overflow, pouring onto the dirt floor.
“You will know pain worse than what you’ve inflicted onto these poor beings,” Griselda stated blankly, staring at her hands as swirls of air manifested around them. “And I’ll make you regret taking my love from me in the guise of some futile effort to harm him.”
Turning toward the now shutting door, she threw her hand in the direction that Lazarus was running. The beast escaped, but managed to cut off the one freedom outlet Lazarus knew he had.
Jolting from her fingertips, icy shards slammed into the door and froze its hinges in place.
Griselda’s fingers went numb. Without thinking, she pointed her other hand at Lazarus’ feet. Pale blue globs formed along his ankles as they stretched higher to his robes.
As much as she wanted to enjoy torturing the one person that created her sole source of agony, she knew it wouldn’t bring any solace. Staring up toward the dragon, it somehow seemed to be closer to the ground than before. Its glowing orbs darted between her and Lazarus.
“Free. Me.”