Bound by Roses (The Bound Series Book 1) (12 page)

The Witched waved a slender hand before the Mirrored doorway. Golden bangles Asena had ignored before jingled as they slid down the Witches slender arm. The Mirror sparkled, rippled, and before her eyes a shadowy, ghostly image appeared. The fog was heavy. She waved her hand thrice more, but even her magic could not penetrate the magic being cast. The Witch’s eyes lit up and her lip twitched.

“The House of White is not as foolish as Dame Mother perceived them to be,” the Witch talked to herself, “Very clever indeed.”

“I have told you everything I know. Return the Bloodstone!” Asena barked from the floor. The bark turned into a cough, as her throat remained sore. The Witch stared at the Mirror, contemplating, scheming.

“Yes, quite Wolf,” The Witch dropped the Bloodstone. Magically it rolled to the naked Asena’s feet. She ignored the beast and continued to talk to herself.

The Wolf laughed to herself, which turned into a howl as she clutched the Bloodstone close, “Now that I have the Bloodstone, we are slaves to no one!” Asena held the Bloodstone between two fingers tightly. The sun hit and illuminated the room in a dull red glow, her pale skin on fire.

The Witch cackled loudly to herself turning upon the woman. The fog faded as it does as her gaze ended, “you will get no where with that trinket, Wolf.”

“What have you done to it?” Asena’s teeth glared at the Witch. Incisors sharp, ready to tear flesh apart. Feet dug into the floor.

“I have done nothing. You, who are so blinded by your attempts to reunite your fractured Empire, will gladly take anything that resembles the Bloodstone. I assume, to make sure it was never found again,” the Witch barely looked at the Wolf.

“They made copies!”

“
So the mongrel can think and understand,
” the Fairies wisp commented. Asena growled at the wisp as it floated about her. A strange cool numbness came over the flesh as the creature touched her skin.

“That would have been an idiotic thing to do, but so it seems,” the Witch shrugged, and continued to stare at the woman, “The jewel would have been of better use to them whole rather than fractured. But father never did understand such concepts.”

“How many?” The Wolf Queen demanded. The Bloodstone still held out before her, tight in two fingers.

The Witch looked at the beast with disdain. The snap of her fingers resounded like thunder in the circular room. The Wolf Queen winced slightly. She hated the sound of thunder. Before the sound ended the Bloodstone glowed. She released it from her fingers where it burned bright within the air. Faint, ghostly echoes cast itself out in a circle from the original. The echoes orbited around. The Bloodstone burned brighter than the sun. Asena wanted to look but could not. The ghost image turned into six before five disintegrated away.

“It would seem six copies in all were made of your Bloodstone, Wolf,” the ghostly image shattered. Remains were both cold and warm to the touch. It sprinkled down in glittering snowflakes, “I have gathered five, that were, lets just say, not well protected by the proper enchantments.”

“Where is the last?” Asena queried as the Bloodstone fell into her open hand. It was ice cold, but glowed as if it should have been on fire.

“That,” the Witch folded her arms and walked to the window. She pushed past the Wolf Queen, “ is beyond even my power.”

“Then you are not all powerful as you say,” the Wolf howled at the Witch, teeth bared, legs prepared to pounce, one swipe to kill her, “to which the Wolves have no use for you!”

A thick strand of hair slapped Asena across the face, before another wrapped and writhed its way around her neck. The Witch had the Wolf Queen above the floor. She struggled, like a fly caught in a spider’s web. “Release me!”

“
Hold your tongue
!” A deep voice called from the mist that the Wolf Queen ignored.

The Fairies mist disappeared in a flash brighter than the sun that shone through the window. The mist blew about. Asena sneezed violently. When the mist cleared, a tall, imposing statue stood, dressed in tight black leather cloaks and robes. Bright opals ran down as buttons to the floor. Arms crossed across a thick chest. Ophiuchi stared at the Wolf Queen with hungry eyes that unnerved Asena, for they were prismatic, and possessed no irises. The creatur
e’
s skin was pale, but with the shimmer of rain damp stone.

“The Bloodstone is a magical device not of my making, Wolf. It is beyond my powers, I will humbly admit, but it does not mean, I am powerless. Best you remember this lesson.
Well
,” the Witch allowed her hair to wrap tighter.

Asena struggled, pale face blue. Nails clawed at the strands. Feet dangled and swung about wildly.

“A gift, for such wonderful obedience, first, perhaps?” The Witch released her grasp only so that Asena would not suffocate. Hair writhed and wiggled its way around the woman’s body. She became completely encased in a cocoon above the ground.

Asena broke one arm free of the hair. Sharp nails tried to slice through the Witch’s hair. “I want no gift from you!”

“Oh but you shall have it, and not from me my dear, Wolf. But Ophiuchi,” as the Witch pointed back, Ophiuchi moved forward and looked at the Wolf unblinking. Asena struggled more. The Fairy approached and stopped just inches before the cocooned woman. Another strand of blonde hair wrapped thrice around Asena’s hand and pulled it to the side. She winced and yelped as the hair pulled and yanked. The Fairy, with sharp black nail, sliced slowly through Asena’s flesh. Three drops of blood trickled to the Fairies’ open palm.

A deep voice rang out in a singsong fashion, “My gift I give to you is such. That which was lost shall be regained, your Empire and the Bloodstone reformed, but only one shall be possessed by the Wolves while
you
live.”

Ophiuchi waved fingers around the open palm. The blood boiled away into black smoke. The Fairy flicked fingers towards Asena. The smoke followed. It slithered like a snake where sparks of grey, and aqua fluttered all around the Wolf Queen’s head. Her eyes glazed over milky white as she inhaled the sparks and smoke. Her head spun. Eyes fluttered.

The Witch released Asena from her grip. Landing on her side, she shook her head, “You will pay for what you have done.”

Asena growled at the Witch and Fairy before her. They both smirked at the beast before them.

“You have your gift. Now be gone!” The Witch pointed sharply to the door. The Mirror rippled and seemed to disappear. It showed the stairwell down, “Do not return until you have completed your
original
task!”

With reluctance, but acceptance the Wolf Queen lowered her head and removed herself through the Mirror. It rippled and shook as she passed through it. The Wolf shook her body. From her fur a mist expelled itself. She sneezed violently the same mist. Asena ran down the stairs. They appeared in puffs of electric blue smoke.

At the entrance to the tower, the two Wolves remained sitting. Neither spoke as they waited, silent statues. Eyes locked on the vines as they twisted, turned and the stones moved about of their own accord. Asena rushed out into the heat of the desert to her soldiers. The Bloodstone clutched in her mouth. Anger raged in her eyes.

“What word my Queen?” One of the Wolves broke his silent watch and approached.

“They created fakes!” Asena spit the Bloodstone out of her jaw. She howled into the wind and sand. “Cunning sun worshippers!”

“What do we do? None shall follow you if we do not have the true Bloodstone,” the second Wolf growled.

“Do you think I do not know this?” Asena’s teeth glistened as she barked to her soldiers.

“Forgive me, my Queen,” the Wolf backed away, tail between legs, head low.

“Our course of action?”

“The Witch gathered five of the six. We will find and destroy the owner of the final copy. Restore our glory, and then destroy that Witch, Theodora Talisa!”

“Where do we begin?” The second Wolf pondered.

“Away from this wretched tower!” Asena picked the Bloodstone into her mouth, and led her two soldiers away.

With Asena gone from the tower, Theodora Talisa took a seat upon the window. Her silk gowns bottom fluttered and blew in the wind. Her eyes stared into the imposing Fairy that stood near her.

“I wish to be alone, Fairy,” Theodora Talisa turned her head away. A thick strand of blonde hair unraveled and unwound from the bedpost. It slinked along the floor as a snake. The Fairy merely watched it. It snapped outwards and caught a Raven that flew too close to the window.

“So active have the Raven’s become recently,” Theodora Talisa commented as her blonde hair glistened as the morning sun. The brightness disappeared as the thick strand unraveled and allowed the mummified husk of the bird’s remains to blow apart in the wind.

The Witch closed her eyes, and cracked her neck.

“My Queen is looking as radiant as ever,” Ophiuchi approached with a wide smile. Theodora Talisa ignored the Fairy,

“I said I wish to be alone.”

Ophiuchi stopped short of the Witch, “but I have brought you a gift.”

The Fairy bowed low for a moment, arms extended out wide.

“I do not wish for gifts,” Theodora Talisa waved a hand to dismiss Ophiuchi away.

Ophiuchi let out a high-pitched chuckle accompanied with a flick of the wrist, “this gift you will want, my Queen.”

A swirling mass of purple and green smoke appeared upon the Witches lap. The weightless smoke gave way to a book. It sank heavily into her lap. Theodora Talisa’s wide eyes shot to the Fairy.

“Where did you acquire this?”

“Along my travels,” the Fairy stated, “I have acquired it as
well
to test the loyalty of the Wolves.”

Theodora Talisa ran her fingers along the silver gilded pages. She enjoyed the pages cool sensations upon the skin. She wanted to open it, but looked upon the Fairy instead, “What do you propose?”

“The Wolves are growing unreliable since they discovered the Bloodstone’s exists still in this Age,” Ophiuchi paced about the room without noise and stopped just before the large Mirrored door. Dark robes grazed the Mirror. The glass rippled. Ophiuchi’s pupil-less, prismatic eyes stared back to Theodora Talisa, “A new servant is require if you are to claim the House of White as your own.”

“Not yet. She still may be useful.” Theodora Talisa put the book upon the sill and rose. A rush of light-headedness and the Witch faltered slightly. Ophiuchi disappeared in a flash from near the Mirror. Theodora Talisa fell to the side. Caught gracefully by Ophiuchi. The Witch began to sweat profusely and breathed heavily. Ophiuchi ran a hand along the Witches body with a glowing aqua hand.

“
Your strength has yet to return fully
,” the Fairies high voice echoed through all the Mirrors. The Fairies strong hand rested upon Theodora Talisa’s chest. The Witches breaths were heavy and shallow. Eyes fluttered. Ophiuchi helped Theodora Talisa to bed, “
Poison still courses through your veins
.”

“
Yes. I must rest
,”

The Witch began to fall asleep, eyes tired. Hand rested upon her stomach. Breaths grew shallower with each intake.

“
You know. What to do
,” Theodora Talisa fell into a sleep so deep it resembled death. Ophiuchi took the form of mist and rushed away from the bed. The Fairy entered the Mirror, but did not exit into the stairwell.

While the Wolves sped away with magic upon their heels, and Theodora Talisa regained her strength through sleep, the Fairy, Ophiuchi traveled faster than even the Primal Winds themselves. The Fairy traveled through a reflective fog. So expansive that one could see no real end. The fog shot out and branched into a corridor, which those would branch into others, like a tree. These passages too the same as the one Ophiuchi traversed, fog reflective as a mirror. Though the Fairy cared not for its own reflection. A reflection that was ghostly as the swirling, dancing mist. Ophiuchi continued to travel down multiple tunnels.

The Fairy would divert down another tunnel that came available. Within these tunnels, an end would appear in the form of a mirror. They hung in the fog, ghostly doorways. The Fairy could make out the frame, but it was so intertwined with the fog, it was easy to believe that the frame was the fog. Sometimes voices could be heard. And if one stopped, one could see into the room that housed that mirror.

For some time, the Fairy traveled these corridors, searching, stopping at a mirror, and checking. Ophiuchi did not linger, always moving after a moment.

It was not until Ophiuchi came to a pitch-dark mirror in a reflective red frame, that the Fairy stopped. The fog itself around the mirror had the same reflective red hue. Almost like a fire it swirled around in the fog. The misty ball stared deeply into it. Ophiuchi’s tendrils caressed the mirror tenderly. It, like all the others gave back no reflection. After a short moment the Fairy entered it.

Ophiuchi came to enter a room lit only by twenty-seven tall black candles. Thick black curtains hung over everything but the mirror. They blocked out all light from the immense windows. A bed rested in the center. Black drapes hung from its banisters down like dark waterfalls. They had a slight shimmer to them. A shimmer that only the candlelight could entice out of them.