AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’d better be right,” I growl, reaching my own hand toward the portal.
The world becomes a condensed array of colors, all branching and separating at random intervals. I have to close my eyes, as the spinning nauseates me tremendously. I can feel my body moving through space, even though part of me feels like I’m not moving at all.
Emerging between two towering tree trunks, I find myself face-first on the ground, feeling more exhausted than ever. Rain falls crisply on the evening ground, a familiar, moss-covered cabin just in view.
Annette studies the cabin, looking over every detail. But unlike the tree before, she never touches its walls, and I sense a strange disgust in her as she looks upon it.
I’m the first to speak. When I do, she startles, as though not expecting me to follow.
“This is-”
“The cabin from before, yeah,” she says. “Funny how that works out.”
I can feel my senses being blocked by something. I’m able to tell that there’s something within the confines of the cabin, but I can’t tell what.
Beyond that, an alarming array of my senses ignites at once. I can perceive a smell of loose chemicals and ingredients, all being mixed in harmonic chaos. I feel a sense of glee emitting from within the cabin.
And then I realize that this must be more magic. Whoever’s in this cabin clearly doesn’t want us to find them and that makes them incredibly obvious to me now.
I approach the house, pushing on the front of the door.
“We have to go in there,” I growl. Even the textures of the wood that make up the cabin seem strange and unnatural to me.
23
ANNETTE
“Wait, are you sure we should go inside?” I ask, grabbing his arm. “What if someone’s in there?”
He stops, turning to look at me.
“Someone is in there. I can sense her. She’s a witch. We’re going in,” he states. I don’t argue, knowing that there’s no way to talk him out of something once he decides to do it.
Rukh blasts the door open with his magic, and the two of us walk in. I expect her to be hiding, but she isn’t. Instead, she stands right in the middle of the living room, smiling at us.
“I wondered when you’d find me.” She laughs. It’s a cruel laugh, but I see right through it.
She’s middle aged but still looks young. Her hair is long and a silverish-white color. Her eyes are as black as can be, and I can’t help but be a little creeped out by them.
“You’ve been killing and posing the bodies as if it were me,” Rukh says. It’s not a question when he says it, but I look at him, wondering how he put that together.
“Yes. You’re a smart one, aren’t you?”
“Smart enough to know that the elves you’ve been killing didn’t deserve what you did to them.”
“Ahh, but why does it matter? Do you not commit the same sins as I? Are we not one and the same?”
“I’m nothing like you, witch,” he spits out.
“You say witch like it’s a bad word, but yet you have one standing right beside you. One who I can tell cares about you very much. But does she know what goes on in your head, demon? Does she know the real you?”
I ignore the implications, sensing that she’s only trying to get me to lose my trust in Rukh. She knows she won’t get out of here alive against the both of us.
“I know exactly who he is.” I speak for the first time since entering the house. “There are no secrets between us, so you can give that up now.”
“Another smart one. But are you strong enough to beat me?”
She raises her hands, blasting us with an invisible force that sends us flying back. She laughs, using the same magic to fling the nearest piece of furniture at us. A small bookshelf and all of its books fly towards us.
