CHAPTER 392: LEAVE ONE HERE-I

A harsh caw split the silence as a black crow swooped down, wings grazing the wooden beams before settling on the angular shoulder of a waiting lady. Absentmindedly, she lifted one pale finger and stroked the bird’s head, her touch as delicate as a whisper.

The silver mirror before her shimmered with light, casting her face in an otherworldly glow. Within its depths, two figures moved across a snow drowned forest, survivors of the avalanche she had conjured with such ease. Their faces were unfamiliar, yet her sharp eye caught the glimmer of green in one man’s gaze. A sorcerer, then. Not of her coven, but kin to witchcraft nonetheless.

Her lips curved, soft and amused, not for the sorcerer but for his companion, the vampire with hair like deep ocean. His expression was disciplined, restrained, but she could taste the scent of death lingering around him. Not his own death. Someone else’s, clinging to him like a shadow.

The crow, delighted by her touch, cawed once more, only this time its voice cracked and shifted, reshaping into words. A man’s voice, learned and old, rich with the polish of nobility.

"Mistress, will you allow them to wander so freely into your domain?"

"Indeed," she murmured, her voice as silvery as her hair, which gleamed brighter than the crow’s stark plumage. "It has been so very long since guests dared to enter my lands. Surely, it is time to warm a pot and greet them properly."

The crow shifted, feathers ruffling uneasily. "I would advise against such indulgence. Hell itself stirs in unrest. A prophecy has been spoken, by the First Ranked Demon no less. To entangle yourself with a witch tied, perhaps, to that prophecy is to invite peril at your door."

Her reflection smiled back at her, cold and luminous in the mirror’s glow. "Peril," she whispered, as if the word itself tasted sweet. "How I have missed it. What was the prophecy, Craven?"

"That a new demon is about to birth to Hell," the crow spoke despite deep down not wanting to share the news as he knew it would intrigue his mistress and his mistress being someone who seemed to love trouble, would dive her nose first into the problem simply to have fun.

"A new demon isn’t new, is it?"

"A new demon who would be overtaking the place of the second ranked demon who had gone missing for over the decades," the crow explained, "A newly birthed demon shouldn’t be able to climb to the rank of power so easily, it bounds to be filled with trouble. A mess, or perhaps a bloodshed."

"How intriguing," the witch moved from her wooden chair, shifting her glowing dress that seemed to be made of a mermaid’s scale, shining rainbow as if it had captured the beauty of the sky inside the fabric. "However, Craven, demons in Hell wouldn’t have anything to do with our world. They live in Hell."

Craven seemed to dip his beak, a look of worry as he spoke, "But I have a feeling that this would cross the sea of Hell, that it involves the witches and creatures of this world."

"Then that should be more reason for me to see them. I want to see how far I can go playing the music of chaos to Hell," the witch reached to her sitting room, crossing her legs as she could hear the voices of two men who seemed to have marveled at the idea that there was a manor left abandoned inside the forest of snow.

Sure enough outside the gray colored manor was both Lastor and Renard.

They hadn’t walked for far and was suppose to reach the place that had been engulfed by the avalanche earlier, now hosting a large manor that seemed to be so empty and cold, left as though it was made as a memorial instead of a place for the living.

"We were here earlier... and such a manor wasn’t here before," Renard said, his red eyes still shaken from the view of the impossibly ethereal castle that held a gloomy air and a rather deadly vibe

"I suppose this mean that the witch has granted her audience to us," muttered Lastor with a gulp. He had heard stories, read about her, but to go as far as to see her? This was his first time and he couldn’t have expected what kind of witch was living inside the manor.

If it was a witch that shares Alice’s interest, they were might as well be dead.

"This is our chance," Renard said as he marched steadfast toward the gate of the manor. His hand quickly pushed the door backward and with a soft creak, the door open wider on its own, letting the cold wind behind them to rush inside the manor.

"You have been awaited," the voice of a man appeared and in front the two of them were a black claded butler with the bright green eyes.

The butler stared at them, noting Renard’s weapons and with ease suggested, "My name is Craven, the mistress’s butler as well as the only one in this house that serve her. Such weapon will fall into a useless hand if brought so such that I suggest for you to leave your weapons as well as other items you do not hold dear at the door."

"If stripped from weapon and danger arrives for both us and the witch, wouldn’t that be a grim consequence?" Renard asked despite obediently stripping the sword from his hips as he knew refusing could endanger Arabella’s life and his purpose was to die today if it means finding a cure to the curse that was about to kill his master’s wife.

"That would never happen," Craven smiled, almost mocking as if he thought the idea of seeing his mistress in danger was foolish.

If the witch was powerful enough that no danger could come to her, why ask him to strip down his weapon?

Because it wouldn’t hurt the witch... but him?