Valerian Empire

He took her to the mansion’s garden and went to start moving the leaves on the ground to reveal two doors. She looked at it amazed, it was as if the entire mansion was made of secret passages, hidden away from the main authorities eyes which not even the Lord and the Lady knew, except for the two siblings.

She got inside and he followed behind her, but not before locking back the little doors. She heard two stones flick against each other and there was light in the passage as Malphus had lit the little torch.

“The torch won’t sustain until we reach the end of the tunnel and we don’t know if someone will notice the passageway we came from, we will have to be fast,” Malphus said taking the lead.

“I heard the witches are going to perform their witchcraft in the forest,” Katie relayed the information to him.

“That only makes it more urgent that we hurry up before we are caught in the middle of it. One mistake will cost us lives tonight,” he murmured and then asked her, “Do you know that all this while I had been wondering why you were able to bring me back from my grave.”

Katie had asked herself that question initially but had never found the answer to it. At one point she had also doubted if she was related to the witches.

“You must have already known that Lord Alexander is the son of a white witch. But when a vampire marries a witch the resultant offspring has a higher, unimaginable power. Rare ones you could say. The locket that you have around your neck was made by him to protect you,” hearing this Katie felt her brows furrow. Alexander had made it for her? She looked at the locket in the dark as the blue stone glowed, “He has been in love with you for sometime now,” she could hear the smile in his voice as he turned back to grin at her.

“I don’t think he expected it but when you spent quality time cleaning my grave, the charm stone must have spilled out some magic from it on my grave, enough to bring me back from the dead,” he explained.

“Is it true that you cannot kill the undead then?” she asked him.

“It’s not. The nature has a theory of itself where it believes that the ones that live are destined to go back to where they belong. Everyone will die in their own given time,” he said as the light began to flicker, “Lord Alexander must have known and had taken precaution knowing that the witches would have cut down any possible means of communication from this land to another. Though I wasn’t given any details as to what and why. When I met Silas I persuaded and asked him to make sure I died when you were in the same room. And that he would be the one to take my body out of here without any guards. Please do forgive me for kissing you,” he apologized to her.

“A-ah, that’s alright,” she replied awkwardly. She had forgotten that he had kissed her before he had died.

“Even though you aren’t a witch, you have enough magical spells protecting you which has been transferred through Lord Alexander. As you were the one to bring me from the dead, it was necessary that I take the same source of magic before I died which would bring me back to my ghost form in Valeria. It wasn’t a sure and tested idea, but fortunately it did work in the end. Knowing how possessive he is and instead of saying it directly, he had only hinted about the possibility. Luckily I did figure it out when we were in the cell.”

“I am glad you are alive,” she said making him chuckle.

“So am I, little lady,” the light flickered again, this time ready to fizzle out as the flame grew smaller and smaller, “It’s good that you didn’t spend much time in the doll makers house. Can you imagine a bunch of deranged ghosts after you?”

“What about Silas?” Katie asked him suddenly.

“What about him? Did he do something?”

“Ester said that he told her the truth. About him helping Lord Alexander and that he was actually on their side,” she said worried.

“He must have changed the plans. That idiot,” Malphus muttered. The torch dimmed out after a few seconds, and they were surrounded by darkness again.

“I feel like we are going to commit suicide.”

“Why do you say so? Life isn’t that bad you know-”

“You do know that the massacre is going to be done to the town. In and around this land.”

“That’s not suicide that’s a sacrifice,” he corrected her and they both saw light at the end of the tunnel, “I think you are right,” she heard him say when he stepped out and she wondered what he was going on about.

When she looked outside, standing at the end of the cliff she found nothing until she looked where Malphus was staring at. Taking a step forward her eyes went wide seeing the ground below them, where the fire was lit brightly with more than hundred witches standing there, one of them she recognized was Ester.

“Should we go back?” he asked her but she held his hand.

“Look there,” she said pointing towards a woman tied at the other side of the fire, “It’s a white witch, isn’t it?”

“But we can’t go there and whisk the woman in the presence of God knows how many witches are there. Even for a ghost like me it’s utterly impossible.”

“But we can’t leave her here,” Malphus gave her a dead look and she returned the look, “Okay, may be you are right.”

“Ssh!” he placed his hand on her mouth as the witches went absolutely silent, “They are starting the ceremony,” he said as they heard them whisper spells.

Ester pulled the lamb that was tied next to the white witch, bringing the knife she had closer to the lamb’s neck and slicing it’s neck as blood poured out. The witches again continued with their incantation before a random black witch was pulled from the crowd and her head was separated from her body, making most of the witches laugh and cheer. Katie found the whole act to be barbaric. The witches had no soul, no single piece of mercy on their own kind. She realized that even though they had begun the ceremony, they needed Alexander’s blood to complete it.

Just when Ester placed the knife over the frightened white witch’s heart, she was interrupted,