"So are you doing to help or not?" Cherry asked Coral.
Coral stood there and eventually ca back to reality.
"I’m going to help." Coral said.
"Wise decision." Cherry said as she returned back to searching through her things.
She pulled out different drawers and rummaged through them.
Where had she put it?
Then she looked beneath her desk and saw it.
She pushed a panel in the wall, revealing an open.
She put her hand in and pulled out a small bottle.
It was a vial.
Bound in blood.
Sothing she had kept for rainy days and ant for summoning.
She hadn’t used it in years—had sworn she never would again. But if she was going down, she wasn’t going alone.
"I gave everything for this kingdom," she whispered, slicing her palm open and letting the blood drip onto the vial. "And if they want war... I’ll give them one."
The candles in her chamber flickered.
And sowhere far away, sothing ancient stirred.
Coral gasped as she wrapped her arms around her.
"Aunt what’s that?" Coral asked but Cherry ignored her as she began making incantations.
Her pupils dilapidated and the air beca cold.
There was a harsh wind blowing through the room.
Coral stood in anxiety as Cherry continued making the incantations.
Then everywhere beca still and soon a dark figure appeared before them.
Coral gasped and clutched her pearls.
The aura was so dark and evil.
Cherry stood up to her feet and faced the figure.
"You summoned ." The figure said in a deep voice.
The figure had no visible face or body.
It was simple dark shadows in the shape of a wolf and had red fiery eyes.
Coral was terrified.
"Yes." Cherry said. "I need you to shadow soone. I need you to shadow my sister. There is sothing my sister knows. That she isn’t telling . I don’t know how, but I want to know everything."
"Of course." The figure said. "But it cos at a price. You know what it costs."
"And I will pay up once you have delivered." Cherry assured.
The figure turned around and ran to the door and disappeared in a puff of dark cloud.
"What was that?" Coral asked her hand on her chest, still very much terrified.
"That is our ticket to get out of this ss." Cherry said.
"It said sothing about costing you." Coral asked after a while. "What did it an."
"It doesn’t matter." Cherry said and walked away, leaving Coral standing in the room.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was already night ti and Rose was in her room about to sleep.
She tossed in her bed as she thought of all that had transpired today.
She couldn’t shake away the mory of seeing those children dead.
The guilt that she had led them to their death and that whoever had done it was still hanging around the castle.
Was still within her ho.
The only thing she looked forward to, was finding her granddaughter.
Scarlett was alive, she was going to eventually find out how.
But for now she wanted her granddaughter that was all that mattered.
She wondered how the poor girl was even living.
Without her mother.
She held the small fragnts of the necklace to her chest and prayed to the gods.
She had lost her daughter and yet she had been blessed with another.
A grand child.
She went to sleep with the prayer that all was going to be well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unknown to Rose the figure was waiting for her to fall into a deep slumber.
Once she was sound asleep, it erged from the walls.
It seeped through the cracks of the windowpane, flowing like smoke across the floor—inky and silent.
It slithered upward, hovering just above Rose, its red eyes flickering to life.
It wasn’t in its wolf form but simply as a dark cloud.
Rose didn’t stir.
The shadow hovered lower, inches above her face.
Then it made sure she would not wake up before delving into her soul.
And soon the shadow began to look through her mind.
A low hum filled the air, barely audible, as the shadow began scanning.
Images flickered in her mind—mories, thoughts, secrets wrapped in mory.
Then it found it.
It found the mory of the stranger from the previous night ago.
It saw everything.
The shadow continued to search for more when the door opened.
"Rose I needed to check on you-
It was Hildegard as she ca in.
But she didn’t see the shadow.
It had already disappeared before she ca in.
She stopped and looked around, suspicious.
She felt as though sothing was amiss.
She went to Rose’s side who was still sound asleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cherry paced impatiently, hands clasped behind her back. She turned the mont the smoke thickened—and then the shadow reappeared before her, silent and swirling.
Coral stood up alert once she saw the figure again.
"Well?" she asked. "What does she know?"
The shadow’s voice rasped, deep and hollow. "She knows more than you feared."
Cherry narrowed her eyes. "How much?"
"She knew about the poisoning and then she knows that her daughter is dead. She also knows that her daughter left a grand daughter for her. She is looking for her as we speak."
Coral gasped in shock.
Cherry’s jaw clenched. "How did she know this?"
"There was a mage." The shadow went on further. "The mage found her. The mage had been in the pack over twenty years ago but disappeared after the disappearance of Scarlett."
Cherry couldn’t rember any such person.
"What does she even have to do with any of this?"
"She had been searching for her this entire ti." The shadow said. "And now your sister knows that her grand daughter is sowhere and she would do everything to find her."
"Oh goddess." Coral said as she put her hands in her face.
"She doesn’t trust you." The shadow told Cherry. "Not anymore."
"Is that all?" Cherry asked angrily.
"Yes." The shadow bowed.
"You know where to find your paynt." Cherry said.
And then the shadow disappeared out of the room.
"What are we going to do?" Coral wept. "If mother finds out about everything? Worse that Jasmine is her grand daughter. It’s going to be the end for us."
"She wouldn’t." Cherry said.
She knew just what to do.
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