When Blood Runs Cold - Chapter 277

“The pain is temporary,” I assure the girl without looking back, glaring at the hazy shadow of my winged reflection up against the pristine marble of the prison wall. Inwardly, I grimace.

“It will be over soon.”

And yet looking around, I find there is no escape from it. No way to cast myself away from the screams and the agony that is surely to come. But it is not that in which I loath to hear, more of what it comes with- the memories.

This place is not one I often bring myself so willingly to. It is… stifling.

Trying to contain those tingles of dark magic that worm their way over my skin, I give one more glance to the dishevelled girl, feeling a strange kind of pity for this helpless creature whose life came so close to ruin.

“Once you have been turned, those memories of pain will shortly fade. You can be reunited with your family. You will not become a monster. Bear this in mind as you are turning, perhaps it will keep you on the right path,” I instruct her, knowing full well that in the heat of being turned, it is very difficult to keep yourself in any mind set aside from how greatly you wish for it to end. Screams of ‘kill me’ are not uncommon to ring out upon such a ceremony. In fact they are rather common.

Clenching my nails into my palm, I stiffly prepare myself for the inevitable.

“Make sure you give her enough of your blood, too. There must be enough to overpower Azrael’s. If you must, you also have permission to bite her several times too. Whatever it takes to keep her, well, not a halfling.”

With a grim silence, Fangorn bows his head in assent. But the girl, who regards most of this language as a foreign concept, looks nothing short of petrified.  Good,  I think to myself.  It will keep her heart beating.

Turning away to allow Fangorn some privacy, I remove myself from the scene.

“I am sorry, sweetheart,” Fangorn whispers, his voice swimming with a doubtful hope that this plan might actually work.

A soft, wet sound pursues- the sound of his fangs clamping down against her skin, her flesh splitting from the pricks of his fangs. Then starts the screaming, that droning hum of terror that reverberates around the room like a ring of an executioners bell.

Closing my eyes, I dig my fingers further into my palm and shut my eyes from the world.

***

(Serena’s perspective)

“Todays the day,” I inform Ingrid over a cup of steaming camomile tea at the farthest reaches of the palace gardens, just at the edge of the hollow forest. We are far enough away from the palace (and Azrael), that the lights coming from his room high up on the third floor appear nothing more than a glimmering spot of light. Down here under the cover of the dark stars, we are shielded from the world, and from the prying eyes of his glamoured people. This I had made sure of.

And today is the day indeed.

For the past few days I have embarked on a mission to pretend to be Azrael’s advocate, to ‘convince’ Ingrid of his integrity, and attempt to inform her that Azrael is not the big bad villain that she supposes he is. All the while, Ingrid has been working her way closer and closer into the system of the palace under the ruse of trusting Azrael, allowing her spirits to do some fishing around, and for us to make…  preparations. Although we have been cautious, given that Azrael hasn’t got the flame, we have yet to face a real risk that might put Ingrid under certain danger. With her soul being safe for now, we have been keenly more brazen with our endeavours, and just a bit more willing to take a few risks.

For after days of planning, this is the day that we manage to get ourselves out of here.

Of course, that isn’t what Azrael thinks I have been doing. No, he suspects something else- talking of envisionments of our future, coercion and settling ‘misconceptions’ between the soul and I. To him, I have even managed to gain her so called trust enough that she has taken to sitting in the most recluse spot in the palace with me- the gardens, where we currently dine alone, sipping hot mugs of tea under the canopy of stars and nightly frost.

My work so far has pleased Azrael greatly, so much so that he has even diverted his attention from finding the fifth soul for the time being, and more on gaining Ingrid’s ‘trust’.

All this is going to be broken today.

A few paces away, Reshma paces nervously, watching out through the bushes of the gardens and over the fields of rare flowers in hopes of spying anything that might lurk against the darkness. Occasionally, she takes to the skies, her wings blotting out the stars as she soars across the darkness to ensure her suspicions about the spies of Azrael’s palace are correct.

But today, it seems she senses nobody, nor does Ingrid, for we have been sitting under the peaceful veil of the night drinking tea for the past fifteen minutes. But time is ticking, and Azrael is soon expecting me to be back. Our discussion must be rounded up, and quickly.

“You have done well building up Azrael’s trust by using my influence,” Ingrid muses, taking a long sip from the rim of her cup, her eyes fluttering shut. One of her spirits- this one a strange cat like creature, comes to prowl around the bottom of the table momentarily, curling past our legs with a rush of cold air.

“It was a smart move. If my predictions about the situation we are in are correct, his faith in your abilities, and his control over you, are near unwavering by now. You have proven to him that you are a valuable asset to him by forming an agreement with me, and dissociated yourself enough from Soren that he no longer perceives him a threat. Truly remarkable,” she affirms proudly, her long bony fingers slinking once more around her cup. Bowing my head deeply, I take another sip of tea.

“One can hope so. I mean, he invited me to sleep in his chambers tonight, so I am hoping this is not a formal invitation to my own murder,” I laugh hastily, taking another sip, but the soul does not laugh.

“Don’t say such awful things,” Reshma says, stalking over to claim her own cup on the table, content that for now the perimeters of our meeting area are safe. She takes a swig of boiling tea, grimacing a little as it burns her insides on the way down. “I have seen the way that… monster looks at you. It would please him greatly to have you spread out across his bed like a three course meal. No, Serena, he does not want to kill you. He wants to do much worse.”

At these words, a little shiver of fear runs through me. Up until today, I had not really taken in the gravity of the situation I have put myself in, but now being faced with only a few hours to spare, the whole thing is beginning to feel awfully real.

Tonight I am spending a whole night in Azrael’s chambers- an invitation I agreed to in order to get the key. But I am spending that time alone. With him. It doesn’t take a genius to deduce the rest.

“Well, either way, I have only got one shot at this. Azrael trusts me now, but after that key goes missing from his room, it’s going to be a manhunt until he finds us again. Of course, Soren’s hell hounds will be there to help me, but even then I am uncertain of what they can really do for us, aside from guard the key once we get it.”

To that, all three of us fall solemnly silent. One shot at escaping, with odds that are less than on our side. And if we don’t… Well, we remained trapped here with Azrael indefinitely, and he certainly won’t be falling for the same trick twice.

As for the hell hounds, they had arrived to me some time ago with a suggestion hatched by Soren, acting as a means for communication between us. As it transpired, Soren had asked them to help find the keys for us, saving us the trouble of having to face Azrael head on. But with Ingrid’s knowledge of the keys location, in a set of drawers, that would be exceedingly difficult since the wolves have no opposable thumbs. Coincidently, that idea had to be scrapped rather quickly. However, luckily the wolves are still of some use in our plans.

“The spirits tell me he keeps the key in the lowest draw on his desk. There is a hidden compartment inside of it, but it should be relatively easy to crack. The key itself is well known amongst my people- a goldened rimmed key with a heart of jadeite on the top.. It’s big, and won’t be easy to miss.”