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{CoRW: Book 3} Chapter 95 {Part One}: A Gathering of Ghosts *Rough Draft*
🕑 Added 2022-07-10 20:00:04 +0000 UTC♝♝♝♝♝♝♝♝♝♝
Chapter 95 {Part One}: A Gathering of Ghosts
The pale moon, overshadowed by heavy rain clouds, extended its ghostly beams of light across the palace grounds, casting each structure's dark windows and white mortar walls in a deathly pale. The Duchess, accompanied by her escort, Captain Beaumont, passed beneath the lifeless windows, unseen by those who slept within, blissful of the coming storm.
Despite the absence of a torch, Carina had no difficulty finding her way to the Royal Garden. The moonlit leaves of the hedge bushes reminded her briefly of her first scriva, Lumi, and how they had traveled like ghosts between Rose Palace and this hidden paradise.
Fireflies swirled away the Duchess’s velvet skirts as she stepped through the arched shrub doorway. The twilight scent of fading flowers lingered upon the milky fog stretching across the landscape of immaculately trimmed trees, bushes, and ferns that lined the garden paths.
A soft and delicate sound, like the wrinkling of old parchment, preceded the blanket frost that stretched over the quiet garden at the Duchess’s command. Her footsteps crunched upon the frozen path that glittered even in the absence of moonlight as it wound its way towards a single table with half a dozen chairs prepared beside a cherry tree. Three figures waited beneath the upturned branches whose buds appeared ripe for a second blossoming, the seated Spymaster and her two hooded companions whose cloaks did little to conceal the swords they carried at their waist.
Madam Maylea set her chalice of wine upon the simple gray tablecloth embroidered with white vines and simple flowers and rose to greet the approaching Duchess. The two men behind her seemed unalarmed by the appearance of either Carina or Beaumont and moved to a discrete distance at the Spymaster’s command.
“Lady Maura,” Maylea greeted with familiar fondness tempered by the assessing gaze of her peculiar cloudy eyes. “A side effect of nearly drowning at sea,” the Spymaster had confessed during one of their private meetings. Beneath the fading moonlight, those morid white eyes possessed an almost otherworldly stare as they focused on the Duchess with a welcoming smile. “Oh, but wait, it is Duchess Kirsi Valda now. So I suppose I should refer to you as your Grace.”
“It has been a long time. I thought you occupied in Strugna,” Carina replied coldly as the Spymaster offered her a courteous bow.
“My business there concluded right around the time you successfully assassinated Ambassador Haemish,” Maylea replied with a cunning smile as she straightened and gestured to the four unoccupied seats. “Please, your Grace. There’s no need to stand on my account.”
‘Just how many guests is she expecting?’ Carina wondered uneasily before she turned and gestured to the knight captain behind her. “Madam Maylea, this is Knight Captain Beaumont–”
“The King’s formidable bodyguard,” Maylea interrupted with a bemused smile as her ghostly eyes focused on the silent giant’s stony expression. “I am aware of him.”
‘Of course, you are.’ Carina kept her annoyance in check as she continued her introduction. “Captain Beaumont, this is Madam Maylea, a spymaster with connections that stretch throughout all the five kingdoms.”
“You are one of Duke Stryker’s bastards, are you not?”
Carina blinked at the woman’s unsettling bluntness and quickly glanced back at Beaumont. The knight captain appeared unaffected as he stepped forward to pull out a chair for the Duchess. ‘But Beaumont isn’t related to Duke Stryker, merely adopted. I would have expected Maylea to know something like that. Perhaps she was testing him?’ Carina settled into the offered chair with a strained smile as she focused on the Spymaster. “Your message said that you had critical information you wished to share with me?”
“That is correct, your Grace,” Maylea replied over her half-empty wine glass. “You are aware that I have taken up residence in the cathedral with the Pope and his subordinates.”
“I am,” Carina replied sharply. “Perhaps you could explain your newly forged alliance with the Church. I certainly never took you as a follower of the Saints.”
“Surely even you cannot doubt the existence of the Saint, Lady Kirsi,” Maylea replied with an almost mocking smile. “Not when you have kept the descendant on one so close to your side.”
The Duchess’s jaw tightened as she repressed the impatience nettling against her chest like jagged glass. “Perhaps we should return to the reason you summoned? The hour grows late and tomorrow promises to be a very strenuous day.”
The Spymaster bowed her head almost apologetically before responding, “I invited you here, your Grace, to warn you of tomorrow’s Coronation Ball.”
Carina’s fingers paused over the delicate embroidery of the tablecloth.
“You should know,” Maylea continued, “That for the past several hours, the Pope’s Witch hunters have been hard at work layering every knock and cranny of Lily Palace with enchants meant to strip even a pure-blood witch of their power should they step inside.”
The Duchess’s gloved left hand coiled against her stomach while her ice-blue eyes narrowed at the Spymaster. “You expect me to take you at your word and do what exactly? Avoid the ball entirely? And why should I believe you? After you joined hands with my enemies, then betrayed and murdered your own father!”
Maylea raised a pale brow and shook her head with an almost disappointed smile. “Flesh and blood do not a family make. You should know the truth of this better than most, Maura Turnbell.”
The Duchess flinched but ground her teeth silently as she held the Spymaster’s gaze defiantly.
“As to the death of Colonel Isaac,” Maylea resumed with a subtle, indifferent shrug. “It was a necessary calculation to procure the Pope’s trust, which is vital for me to carry out my true objective.”
“And your true objective would be?”
The Spymaster’s empty smile only twisted Carina’s anger and impatience deeper. “My efforts until now have gained me the privilege of caring for the Pope’s youngest sister, Lady Nesta.”
“Hana?” The Duchess unclenched her fist as she leaned towards the table. “How is she? Will she be at the ball tomorrow?”
“She will,” Maylea replied in a measured, puzzled tone. “Lady Nesta’s presence is required for the Pope and his Cardinals to use the Saint’s holy artifacts effectively.”
The sharp inhale of the knight captain’s breath sent a shiver of fear down Carina’s spine as she straightened in her chair. “What—holy artifacts?”
“How many are we dealing with?” Beaumont interjected as he stepped closer to the Duchess’s chair.
“More than a few,” Maylea replied as her ghostly eyes danced between them. “Knowledge of these artifacts and their uses is difficult to obtain, even for me.”
“The Saint’s artifacts will prove far more troublesome than any net of enchantments the Witch Hunters have prepared,” Beaumont commented grimly. “Was there a scepter among them or a staff?”
“A staff?”
“It would be one of lavish appearance,” the knight captain clarified. “Crafted of pure gold and far too heavy for any mortal to wield. The head resembles three dragons clutching a diamond egg. In the Saint’s hand, the staff has been known to change its shape into a weapon best suited for its wielder.”
“You are referring to the Staff of Dominance, said to be able to neutralize the power of even a coven of witches?” Maylea shook her head. “I have not seen it. But if the Pope had brought it, I doubt the Witch Hunters would spend their last remaining hours of preparation laying out their magic nullifying trap.”
Beaumont's violet eyes narrowed before he nodded in agreement. “The Staff would be but a useless trinket even in the Pope’s hands. Only the true Saint can wield it. Otherwise, the kingdom of old Zarus would not have fallen so easily.”
“The Pope has been looking for a way around that limitation,” Maylea murmured with an almost guilty expression. “And he may have found it. He has taken to drawing a great deal of Lady Nesta’s blood in an attempt to awaken the artifact's abilities.”
“Which artifacts specifically?”
The Spymaster shook their head ruefully. “The Pope does not conduct his experiments in front of me. Beyond a few pieces of old jewelry I have seen—I do not know.”
“And Lady Hana,” Carina interjected, her voice hoarse with anger and uncertainty. “How is she fairing through all of this?”
Madam Maylea lowered her gaze before responding. “The daily bloodletting has taken its toll on her physically. Lady Nesta continues to refuse her brother’s attempts to awaken the Saint’s power within her, but she is in a dangerously weakened state. I fear exposure to either magic or violence might push her over the edge entirely.”
‘Over the edge into what exactly? Awakening her powers as the Saint or death?’ The Duchess pressed her lips together, afraid of either answer. “Then we must act now. If we can free Hana and get her away from Lily Palace, the Saint’s artifacts will be rendered useless, no matter how much of her blood they contain.”
“Attacking the cathedral would be pointless,” Maylea countered swiftly. “It was built by the second Saint and is practically littered with enchantments that weaken a witch's power.”
“Which is why they’ve duplicated those enchantments at Lily Palace,” Beaumont replied dryly. “To break the enchantments, we would need to destroy any physical surface they are anchored to.”
“But before you could do that, you would have to get past the Pope’s Witch Hunters. Even Lady Nesta is heavily protected at all times. Commander Ripper has assigned his second in command to her security. A man from whom the hounds obtained their name. The Master of Beasts–” Maylea shuddered as she uttered the name, “Terik the Soulless.”
“Soulless?” Carina echoed as she glanced between them. While the name had a ring of familiarity, neither she nor Kirsi possessed any memory of the man.
“Terik is a half-witch born into a particularly nasty group of witches known as the Coven of Beasts,” Beaumont explained grimly. “And beasts they were. Rather than marry to purify their witch bloodline as other covens do, they simply discarded any half-witch children into the pits of wild dogs to ensure only the strongest bloodlines survived. Every full moon, the elders would open the pits so that their youngest might hunt any remaining survivors deemed worthy of being eaten for their strength.
“But Terik was no common half-witch. Despite his limited powers, he learned to control the minds of the vicious beats he had been trapped amongst and bend them to his will. When the Coven’s chosen entered the pits, they found only skeletal remains until Terik revealed himself to them. The half-witch fled from his overconfident hunters, leading them into a trap forged of sharpened bones. While the elders watched through the bars above, Terik consumed the flesh of his hunters along with his beasts.
“The elders chose to respect Terik’s strength. They allowed him to live among them, hoping to learn of his control over the beasts in the pit. However feared, Terik remained an outcast, persecuted for his weak bloodline. Eventually, he and his beasts left the village of cannibals behind them until the day the Church came to hunt the Coven of Beasts. Terik seized that opportunity to enact his revenge while also earning himself a place of position and respect among the Witch Hunter order.”
“His legend has only grown over the years,” Maylea interjected quietly. “They say the beasts he controls wear the faces of his victims stitched into their hides.”
‘What a grotesque image.’ The Duchess’s lips twisted into a sinister smile even as her skin prickled with disgust. “So the church would welcome such a monstrosity with open arms yet label me a monster?”
“The designs of their god have long tainted the Church's opinion of Kirsi,” Maylea replied with a subtle shake of her head. “You will always be the Witch of Calamity to them. A herald of the end of days. No matter how many mortals you attempt to save from plague, famine, or war.”
The Spymaster sighed as she lifted her glass for another drink, leaving Carina free to watch the clouds part above them as the moon illuminated the garden below.
“I do not doubt your power or conviction, your Grace,” Maylea murmured cautiously, “But perhaps it would be best to avoid the Pope’s trap entirely. You will have plenty of opportunities to face him and liberate Lady Nesta after tomorrow’s ball.”
“You expect me to run and hide?” Carina demanded with a mocking smile.
“No. I merely question if Lady Nesta is worth the risk,” Maylea pressed with an almost worried look. “If Jericho has found a way to unlock the power of the Saints by using his sister’s blood—then even a pureblood as powerful as you would be in great danger.”
“And how much more of Hana’s life will be drained away if I prolong the inevitable?”
“But that–” the Spymaster stammered into silence before letting out a frustrated sigh. “There is no way to know how long Lady Nesta can hold out. Normally a Saint would have been summoned the moment you recovered Kirsi’s memories and Viktor’s magic. Saint Harmonia’s bloodline has been meticulously preserved to keep those powers intact, but of the three descendants of the Pope’s bloodline who remain, only her blood appears to possess its true power. If Nesta continues to resist her birthright, she may well perish–or be forced by Rameil’s hand to fulfill her purpose.”
“Then the sooner I get Hana away from the Pope, the better,” Carina replied grimly. “We must find a way to deal with the Witch Hunters' enchantments first than safely remove Lady Hana from Lily Palace.”
“Could we not ask King Nicholas to limit the number of Witch Hunters allowed on the Palace grounds?” Beaumont interjected. “The less of them we have to battle with, the easier it will be to destroy the enchantments.”
“Even if Nicholas were to agree to our request, I doubt he’d be comfortable with the idea of you demolishing Lily Palace during his Coronation celebration,” Carina replied with a faint smile.
“It won’t be much of a celebration if the Pope intends to sick his hounds upon you and the rest of Lafeara’s witches,” Beaumont replied, failing to contain the faint grin which tugged at his lips. “Nevertheless, I will do my best to avoid making the situation hazardous for everyone.”
“I’m afraid destroying a few enchantments will be the least of your worries,” Maylea interjected with another defeated sigh. “Which is why I took it upon myself to invite a few additional allies to join us.”
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dotAlice
She returns!
Just wanted to drop a quick note to thank everyone who has been so patient with me. I’m hoping to upload Part Two later tonight. I will shoot out a coupon for WordPress Access for Amethyst Patrons for the month of July at the end of that chapter 😊
