"Been a while, hasn’t it?" The withered mother’s body propped back up on its feet like a spring returning to its form. A smirk cut the view through her long messy hair, and the child she lifted with one hand and the two laughed in unison with a haunting yet familiar voice. "You want your daughter? Kahkahak~ Take her!"
Holding the babe towards June, the woman snickered to herself.
"Who is that?" Brien tried to step up to resolve the issue, but with Raven’s hand propping up in front of him, he was forced to stand behind the group. "Do you know her?"
"Slaver, answer us!" Stomping her heels, Ellia directed her attention to the slaver instead of the party. Yet the man frozen in fear could barely move a lip, much less speak. "What is the meaning of this? Why do you have a child in a cage?!"
Her screams were left unheard as the caged woman pushed the demented child right in June’s face. Smiling crookedly like an adult with a full set of teeth, the little girl parted her lips and spoke in her mother’s stead.
"Where are you, mother? e save me, please?"
"Aurora!" Blinded to the deception by her daughter’s voice, June almost leapt forward with her arms open wide. Only to be pulled back by her husband and forcefully moved into Hannah’s arms. "That’s my girl!"
"NO, IT’S NOT!" Red with rage, Aradin drew his waist knife and pointed it at the laughing woman. His hand quivered with the force, itching to drive it through the monster, through the horror conjured by the stirred spell of negative emotions. "AND YOU NERVA’S PAWN–"
"A pawn?" The woman’s eyes narrowed, boring deep into the scout’s skin. Letting go of the child midair, she turned it into glittering dark dust before taking a step forward. A shimmering miasma of violet twilight washed over the woman’s portment. Burning away the dust and the grime to reveal the same abyssal dress in which she’d crashed another party. "Do you not recognize me, child? You have even been bathed in my blood, ohh~."
Pressing the back of her right hand on her forehead and resting the other on her chest, she buckled.
"How dreadful~ Woe’s the mother whose children forget her." Spitting at her dramatics, Aradin swung his blade at the bitch goddess.
"Wait," grabbing his hand, Raven stopped him from provoking the goddess, just yet.
"Wait for what?!" Aradin hounded, snapping his hand out of the hero’s grip.
"Look around you, Aradin; we’re not doing this in the middle of a city," Raven placed a hand on the man’s chest and put some pressure on him to step back. "Most of these folks don’t even know who she is; the last thing we wanna do is provoke her into a fight."
"Oh don’t worry," grabbing her face like a mask, Nerva threw it on the ground instead of simply wiping the spit off. A gaping hole of shimmering dark lay beyond the discarded skin, looking into a mirror to the present moment, not through their own but through the goddess’ infinitely spanning gaze. "I don’t anger easily with my children."
"Why are you here?" Glancing sideways at Brien, Raven made a gesture to secure the area.
Although Brien wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, he grabbed Ellia by the arms and snapped at the slavers and traders to gather up and follow him right there and right at once. Some tried to plain, however, sensing something far more perverse than any phantom or a nightmare from the woman, the high elves asserted their authority as consulate members and forced them to adhere no matter what grievance they might’ve had.
"Now my audience is gone," Nerva’s voice echoed through the black hole of her face like a siren’s song trying to lure lost souls. Her head turned towards Raven for a brief second while she tugged on his shirt. "How goes the preparations to infiltrate my lair, my child?"
Slapping her hand away, he looked at his soul mother.
"You already know what you need to know; now stop bothering us. And if you wanna play this game or if this is some tactic to scare us, why go through this depraved mess? You want a fight? Just say it, and I’ll bring it to you, soon enough."
"When did I say that I wanted to fight?" Again she tried to grab Raven by the hand, but this time it was Aradin who stopped her by slicing clean through her left hand. As a puff of smoke was emitted through her dead veins, she turned to look at her impatient child. "Your daughter is in good hands, child. I’ll raise her to the best of my ability; alas, her fate is sealed, so be prepared for your reunion at the end of the world. She’ll make a fine intermittent demon lord before my son takes her head."
"I’m neither your son nor Aurora will be a demon lord, you witch goddess," giving Aradin pause from punching the goddess was Raven’s swift denial of all that she had to say. "And as for our plans, why don’t you try to peek into our heads again? What happened to being able to predict every move?"
The thought had been troubling Raven for quite a while, and finally he had the chance to confront the woman about it. For once, he noticed a scowl appearing on her face. Her frustration was palpable enough to give him the answer he sought.
"So Athenia found a way to stop that little peek, huh?" Laughing out loud, he placed a hand on Nerva’s shoulder and whispered. "See? Not even you are invincible. Now move along, our tour isn’t over yet."
Washing away her apparent frustration, Nerva wore her smug look once more and looked at the pale mother huddled in another woman’s embrace.
"Don’t look at her, June!" Hannah advised, pulling June’s head away from the witch goddess.
"Your sorrow, oh it’s so sweet, my darling. Cry and plain more, your little Aurora will be nourished by your tears." Swinging her head at Aradin, she crossed her arms around her chest as if she was holding a little kid. "But fear not, your girl is nurtured by the corruption that plagues you. And soon she will fall into my embrace, the void of unbeing where there is neither suffering nor joy. In plain unbeing we will reveal and nourish ourselves quietly until this world rots around us."
"I finally got it," to Nerva’s surprise, Aradin’s expression remained stiff. "You’re trying to pit me against the general and corrupt the mind of my wife with your lies and deception. I should’ve known that a mother whose children are all monsters born from corruption of the human soul would try something like this."
"But can you resist it, Aradin?" Smiling yet, Nerva unveiled the ultimate truth of the human soul. "You are a mortal, a human at that. A being of infinite potential is susceptible to both the good and the evil, but evil’s draw is unlike any other. And I know that humankind, including you, will bring an end to this so-called holy war, the gods, and in the end, even to yourselves. So why not help me expedite that end? Avoid the suffering and reach your ultimate end? Accept me, child; return to your mother, I want to hold y–"
Slicing through the goddess’s words with a blade crossing her neck, Aradin silenced her before her words swayed him further. Her offer was tempting, especially to someone like him; the suffering was too much to bear, but to give in to the whims of a monster who kidnapped their child, at least he had the sense not to fall for it.
"She was just saying what we’d wanna hear," he said, turning around and urging his group to walk away.
On the ground, Nerva’s false body lay lifeless for a spell. Until eventually it too turned to dust, but not before Raven noticed her smiling despite having her head cut clean off her body.
’We need Athenia to stop her from popping up in this city.’ Despite his spirited mood just a few minutes ago, Raven knew that it was time to get back to work and truly secure Aurum from the grips of their greatest enemy.
User Comments
0 comments from readers