Anastasia stumbled back. The girl's body was ebony, as if it was made from black frosted glass that was broken and then reconstructed. Her skin shone under the moonlight. She floated in the air, her raven irises between the white pools, focused on Anastasia. Her white hair and white eyebrows were in contrast to her ebony skin.
Anastasia's heart plummeted to her stomach.
The witch's dark tongue forked out from her cracked lips. She said, "I am the dark witch." She floated nearer to sniff her, her pointy white teeth clacking as she breathed. She circled Anastasia and went to stand right behind her. "Aren't you dying to know who I am?" Her claws lengthened and she dug them in Anastasia's arms.
"Ahhh!" Anastasia cried. She tried to get out of her clutches, but the more she tried, the more the witch dug her claws in her flesh. "Leave me!" she shrieked, trying to summon her magic. But nothing surfaced.
"You are an eyesore, Anastasia," the witch said, her voice like a screeching sound of nails against glass. "Because of you, things have turned complicated." She removed her claws from her flesh and licked her finger that was tipped with her blood. She smacked her lips. "So tasty. I would love to kill you, drink your blood and that would only add more power in me!" Her hair streamed higher in the cold air. "Why did you escape from Vilinski," she said as her white brows drew together. "You should have married Aed Ruad." She floated to Ileus and looked down at his still body. "Look what you have made me do?" She let out an unearthly laugh. "But it was long overdue. I had to kill him because I need the kingdom." Suddenly her voice changed. It was like coming from a thousand souls trapped inside her. "We need to rule the kingdom."
Dread skittered down her spine and hair rose on her nape. Anastasia knew that the girl was a necromancer. "Who are you?" she asked, fear stuttering her brain.
The witch ignored her question. She met her gaze. "You are the biggest threat to my plans. You have always been the biggest threat." She floated behind her and before Anastasia could react, the witch touched her head. Pain exploded in her head and on the back of her neck. It was so sudden and so devastating that Anastasia gasped. And the next she knew was that she was falling into a deep, dark abyss.
'Whip her Maple
Whip her
To the otherworld we will ship her
I will watch her bleed
And then eat.'
A cackle of laughter sounded as Maple whipped her. Blood pooled beneath her feet and she could feel the witch licking her blood. 'So tasty, it's life."
Anastasia woke up gasping. She took in deep breaths of air that was filled with dampness and metallic smell. It was dried blood and mold and something she couldn't make out. She jerked open her eyes into darkness, wanting to shove the horrible nightmare, and found herself surrounded with piles and piles of bones. She got up immediately to run out of that place when she was jerked back as something around her wrists and ankles arrested her movement. "Argh!" she winced as pain shot through her wrists and ankles that burned with every move. She realized that the less she moved, the less the pain would be.
Her headdress was gone and she was in her tattered silk gown. A sudden chilly gust made her shiver like someone threw a bucket of ice on her. She looked down at her hands and found herself bound with iron chains, which sizzled with magic. She tried to remove the chains, but her fingers burned. "Ahh!" She tried to call her energy, but it felt arrested in her chest. Stunned, she stumbled back against the hard and cold wall. She followed the trail of the chains and found them coming from the wall. Forgetting the pain associated with moving with the chains, she attempted to pull the chains, but her throat became dry when she realized that the chains slithered and twisted and resisted her pull, as if they had life in them.
Ice panic drenched her body when she looked around. There were only skulls rolled around and bones strewn like they were eaten and chewed. Horror filled her heart. She was in a cellar inside a cave. She felt her chest tightening. She needed answers, she needed to get out. She didn't know for how long she was unconscious or how she came here. Last she knew was that the witch behind her and Ileus—
"Ileus!" she called him. The image of his body lying on the ground flashed across her mind. "Gods!" she said aloud as her heart constricted with pain. So much pain that tears rolled out. Driven by the urge to go back to him, she got up, only to be pulled back by the chains. "Aaaa!" she cried as her skin burned yet again. She could smell the burn of her flesh.
She sucked in a sharp breath and tried to calm down, trying to push her terror down. All she needed was to get out of here and kill the dark witch or whoever she was and then find Ileus. But who was she and how did she know so much about her? Right from the fact that she was supposed to marry Aed Ruad? What plans was she talking about? The witch was a necromancer for sure. Was she the necromancer whom Ileus and Kaizan were talking about? So many questions flooded her mind that she yelled out of frustration. Where the hell was she?
"Calm down Anastasia," she muttered. "If you won't calm down, how will you plan? Think, think. How will you kill her?" She promised herself again and again trying her best to shove anxiety from her heart. She slumped against the wall trying to figure out a way to move past the chains. The moment she moved her wrists, they sensed her movement and slithered like a snake.
"If I were you, I would never test those chains."
Anastasia's head snapped in the direction of the voice of the female coming from somewhere deep inside the cave she was in. The voice came from the other side of the bars of her cellar. "Those chains aren't normal chains. Those are serpents converted into chains. They slither and they are repressed. Every time you move, they throw their venom on your skin, which burns."
Anastasia smiled and slumped against the wall. She tilted her head.
A deep laughter boomed from the caves and Anastasia froze. The voice sounded familiar. It was like screeching nails across the glass.
"The serpents are not normal. They have magic inside them," the dark witch said. "Do you know how long I have waited to capture you, Anastasia Lachlan?" She floated inside the cellar as the bars bent to give her way.
Anastasia tensed. She wanted to press her hands against her ears because the witch's voice would bleed her ears. She clucked her pointy teeth and licked her lips.
"Do you know that it was impossible to shackle you in simple chains even after they gave you green pills?" the witch said. She snapped her fingers and an old, worn-out candle flickered to life on the side.