DECREE: Today, by the mandate of the Seven Elders of the Witch Seers of the Seven Independent Packs of the Iron Coast, we hereby decree and solemnly declare that the Screars Pack shall be executed, erased from the annals of history, brandished as the damned, and cursed by generations to co.
REASON FOR DECREE: Classified and to be only accessed by the Seven Elders of the Witch Seers.
ZINA
"Mmm... say which do you think will be faster," the woman mused, clicking her tongue, "the jaw, or the arrow?"
Strangely, Zina found herself looking between the two; the open jaw of the black wolf and the arrow that Marcus had just released.
Which would be faster? It didn’t take much to see the answer to that. While indeed Marcus’ silver arrow would cause significant damage to the black wolf, it wouldn’t prevent the already opened jaw from snapping her neck.
Everything was already in motion, and there was no stopping it. And yet, here she was, watching the very scene that was supposed to cause grave harm to herself frozen as if hanging in space.
"The jaw," Zina mumbled more to herself than to the woman, "the jaw will be faster.
The strange woman chuckled, causing Zina to blink once, and then twice. It occurred to her that she had been so subrged with the scene playing out before her that she had forgotten the most important thing which was to know the woman’s identity.
"Who are you?" She asked, staring at the woman. Yet again, the uncanny resemblance was nothing short of unnerving. How was it that this woman resembled her so much?
When the woman didn’t answer her but instead kept on laughing like she found sothing Zina wasn’t aware of particularly humorous, she pressed forward.
"And what do you an by I called you?" Zina repeated her earlier question that the woman had ignored. She frowned, "surely, you’re not the moon goddess?" She said hesitantly.
That got the woman to stop laughing abruptly, and fierce eyes rested on her, brimming with anger... and tears.
In a bitter voice the woman spoke. "If I were the moon goddess, would I be in so much pain?"
Zina recoiled back under her fierce stare that was like a whip coming down on her back. Not knowing it, she stepped back away from the woman.
"You’re in pain?" Zina repeated, confused, her voice small.
The tears in the woman’s eyes instantly dried up like it was not there even for a mont. A dark shadow crossed her face while she appraised Zina with a lazy stare.
"Surely you must know that you’re asking all the wrong questions?" She snarled, "should you not think about how to escape the jaw?"
Zina was listening to her, but all of a sudden she was no longer listening. Her mind went back to the few things that happened before she was transported to the place with white flowers.
She could rember holding out the hair pin, and then she could rember screaming in a bid to conjure the sa effect that happened when she had been in Daemon’s office.
Even though the effect she had been intending for didn’t happen, Zina had felt sothing move in her body. She had been so engrossed with the dark wolf that was coming for her, so she hadn’t thought about it much. But now, she really thought about it.
It had been like she had been doused with hot water... very hot water. And yet, the sensation wasn’t exactly cruel, but it had been slightly uncomfortable.
Zina’s eyes widened as she looked at the woman once again. She was sneering at her, and was obviously displeased with Zina’s lack of response.
"Are you... are you from the Screars Pack?"
The woman’s sneer fell, replaced by an almost indecipherable expression. Yet again she ignored Zina’s question and instead gripped her by the arm.
"Concentrate and think of how you will live!" She scread, and Zina caught the desperation beneath the words. This ti around she wasn’t distracted by the woman’s sneers, nor her anger.
She just concentrated on desperation.
Zina looked frantically in the woman’s dark eyes. Eyes dark like the night that shined like the stars.
With much difficulty she spluttered, "Are you... perchance are you my mother?"
The woman stilled, eyes widening from slight shock. Her grip on Zina’s arms began to slip, so Zina gripped her instead, aghast at the unsettling revelation.
"So you’re my mother?" Zina cried out, unable to contain herself in the face of the woman’s silence, "how is this possible? Are we even in a real place? Where are you?! And why did the Matriarchy have as a child?!"
It wasn’t supposed to make sense. In fact, it made no sense. How was she there? How did it all happen? And how was it that this woman who looked ten years older than her was her mother?
Logically, none of it made sense. But deep in her soul, Zina knew she was facing a harsh truth.
A tear slipped from the woman’s face as she stared at Zina with the kind of horror a person committing an evil deed would. But then, all her conflicting emotions disappeared, replaced by a stone cold face.
She gripped Zina by the shoulders as one would do a petulant child. "I do not have much ti! You have managed to activate the Screars Ruins and that is the only way I can be here!"
Zina stared wide eyed, a million questions on the tips of her lips.
"You must escape this doom!" The woman scread, staring at the wolf that still hung mid air, ready to pounce. "You must use your powers to avert this fate! You are currently in a projection spell that you created using the Screars Ruins, I have not the ti to explain further, but look around, what can you do to stop the jaw from getting to you?!"
With tears streaking her face, Zina looked around, searching her mind for what she would do. The woman before her seed to be ti constrained, and if she was truly her mother, the only she could get to spend so ti with her was if she figured this out faster.
"This projection spell you speak of..." Zina trailed a bit before she continued, "are the people inside real?"
The woman nodded, "they’re as real."
"Then the only way to stop the jaw from getting to is to kill it. If I push it out of my way, the arrow would fly for ." Zina reasoned, nodding frantically.
The woman smiled grimly, "projection spells have strict rules to it. Whatever you’re to do, whatever harm you can cause must be done with an elent attached to the projection. This ans aside from what you’ve managed to project, you can’t use any other thing from this garden. The garden is an illusion after all... and all of this, the illusion and projection have been made possible by your sight."
Her last words were tinged with sothing that almost resembled pride. And despite the fact that Zina had been seeing visions for soti now, the way she described so of the elents to her powers made her feel like she was properly learning her powers for the first ti.
Like Zina was her protégé.
Zina, suddenly filled with a determination not to fail the woman, rembered that she was holding a hair pin. She raised the pin up, and aid it for the Wolf’s neck, but stopped short of causing any actual harm.
She turned to the woman. "If I do this, the projection will end, right?"
"End it already." The woman growled in a voice tinged with... pain?
"Why are you in pain? Are you hurt?" Zina asked, panicked. "And where are you?"
The woman smiled a painful smile, "Where I am is not for you to know, nor for you to find."
Reviews
All reviews (0)