Chapter 47 Desperation For Immortality
Chapter 47 Desperation For Immortality
Isadora set Clara down on the top step. She stared at her hands as the dark bindings in her forearms glowed faintly beneath her skin.
She had planned for the hunger. Pressing both hands to the wall, she whispered, “The bindings need blood to stay closed.”
The pressure was already building. A slow heat rising in her chest. She needed more. She moved down the stairs, past Clara, out into the night.
The coven was closest. The burn grew worse with every delay.
The first was a young witch walking home alone. Isadora heard her heartbeat from forty feet away and appeared in front of her in under a second.
The girl startled, eyes widening. “Isadora? What are you doing here?”
“I told myself I would stop,” Isadora said quietly.
The young witch took a step back. “Stop what? You’re scaring me. Is something wrong?”
Isadora’s voice cracked slightly. “I’m sorry.” Before the girl could scream, Isadora lunged. She grabbed the young witch by the throat and sank her fangs into her neck.
The girl gasped once, hands weakly pushing at Isadora’s shoulders, then went limp as Isadora drank deeply.
She didn’t stop until the heartbeat faded to nothing. She pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The Great Hall was full of cheerful noise. Sixty witches were laughing and talking animatedly, celebrating the successful completion of a ritual.
Some were still clapping and raising glasses of wine when the heavy door creaked open.
The moment Isadora stepped in, the room fell deathly silent.
She walked slowly into the center of the hall. Fresh blood was smeared across her mouth, chin, and chest, still wet and dripping slowly down her neck onto her clothes.
That was when Elara saw it. Elara’s face went deathly pale. “No…” she whispered, voice cracking. “Isadora… what have you done?”
Only then did Elara speak again, “You were our finest healer. You were supposed to mend bone and spirit, not seek the darkness of the grave.”
Isadora let out a cold, dry laugh. “I did find the way, Mother. I grew tired of mending. Healing is just a delay. I wanted a permanent cure for the fragility you call life.”
She tilted her head, the blood still glistening on her lips. “I became what you said couldn’t exist.”
She stepped into the light, tilting her head so the candlelight caught the unnatural gleam in her eyes.
“I am the very being you said wouldn’t work,” Isadora said, her voice low and vibrating. “You told me a healer’s magic would curdle if it touched the bite. But look at me. I am back… and I am stronger than the life you cling to.”
Elara shook her head in denial. “It is a delusion. A healer cannot walk the path of the parasite. It’s impossible for your gift to survive that transition.”
“Is it?” Isadora asked softly. She peeled back her lips. The fangs were there.
“That’s impossible,” Elara whispered, the shock barely lasting a heartbeat.
“Abomination!” Elara screamed. In one fluid motion, the sixty witches dropped into combat stances.
Their heels struck the ground in unison as they created runes on the air, pulling shards of defensive energy from the air.
Isadora moved like a corrupted sorceress as her fingers traced glowing sigils mid-air.
With a sharp twist of her wrist, she hurled spinning discs of dark magic, slicing through two witches. She spun low and drove a shockwave into a third, exploding her ribcage outward.
She moved between spells, redirecting magic back at its casters.
She tore through the coven, as she drank mid-fight from a screaming witch whose throat she had just ripped open.
But they were too many. “Circle of Thorns!” Elara commanded.
Thorny chains erupted from the floor like living serpents. They lashed upward and sank deep into Isadora’s stitched flesh, tearing through muscle and binding her arms and legs.
Blood poured down her skin as the thorns dug deeper.
“Ahhhhhhh!” Isadora roared in fury, still twisting and carving bloody sigils in the air, but the chains tightened mercilessly, pinning her in a growing pool of her own blood.
Elara stepped forward, her voice cold and filled with finality.
“You have become an abomination, Isadora. We will not let your corruption spread any further. Take her to the Null-Cell.”
The witches tightened the Circle of Thorns. Isadora thrashed violently as they dragged her struggling form across the blood-slicked floor toward the Null-Cell.
Inside the dark cell, Isadora heard the pyre being built outside. She didn’t panic.
Even though the silver needles were no longer visible, she could still feel them beneath her skin.
She pressed her fingertips hard against the bleeding wounds on her arms, coating them with her own blood.
Using the invisible needles as extensions of her will, she began drawing a large Spirit Seal on the stone floor, carefully re-coding her soul.
They dragged her out again, weakened, iron stakes pulling at her shadow. Outside, the entire coven had gathered around a massive pyre of white oak.
Elara stood with a torch, her face set in grim resolve. “We do this to save the memory of the woman you were, Isadora. We burn the parasite to free the healer.”
Isadora looked at the wood, then at the sisters who once called her for help. She didn’t beg. She didn’t fight the chains as they bound her to the center post.
As the first flame touched the wood, the Spirit Seal she had drawn began to glow on her skin.
The fire rose. “Burn the flesh if you must!” she cried, staring directly at Elara through the wall of fire.
“You think you are ending the heresy, but you are only breaking the jar. I have already found a way to survive the fire...You’ve already lost." She laughed as the flames consumed her heart. A violent wave of dark smoke erupted from the center of the pyre.9
Through the connection, I saw it clearly — a thin wisp of dark smoke, the stitched soul, slipping free from the flames. It moved deliberately against the fire, threading through a crack in the wall before disappearing into the shadows.
Elias slammed the Book shut. The room fell into dead silence. I was on my knees, gasping for air, the phantom smell of burning flesh still choking my throat.
“It wasn’t a legend,” I said, looking up at Elias with wide eyes. “She didn’t die. She just lost her body.”
Elias nodded slowly. “And now she has a new one.”
“Seraphine,” I whispered, the pieces clicking into place. “She’s the vessel Isadora has been waiting for.”
I pushed myself up, legs still shaky. “That’s why she needs Rayne’s blood. Royal vampire blood is the only thing strong enough to permanently re-stitch her soul to Seraphine’s living body.”
Suddenly, a sharp tugging sensation pulled behind my sternum exactly where the central needle would have sat centuries ago. It felt like invisible thread being slowly drawn tight inside my chest.
“Wait…” My voice faltered. “During the vision, I felt everything too strongly. My power spiked.”
Elias turned sharply toward the windows. The runic wards etched into the glass, which had been glowing a soft steady blue, were now cracking and turning black, flickering like dying lights.
“Brea…” Elias whispered, his voice tight with urgency. “Your surge… You didn’t just see the past. You broadcasted our location.”
The magical cloak shimmering around the building shattered like glass with a sound like breaking ice.
I rushed to the window and looked down at the street forty-three floors below.
A single figure stood perfectly still on the pavement, staring straight up at our window. We were exposed.