Chapter 50: Witches Coven!!

**Nora’s POV**

“Catacombs, Old palace. Ornith is calling me!” I replied.

As these words escaped my mouth, I could observe Ronin’s muscles constrict as his hold on my body turned rough, his jaws clenched, and he gritted his teeth in anger. He was eyeing me warily as if burning in jealousy.

“Are you out of your mind? What has been wrong with you for the last few days? You are getting weirder and weirder day by day. All you can think about is Ornith. Why are you so obsessed with him? There is no way I am letting you go to that old palace. It’s not a good place for you,” he shouted.

The tone of his voice and his refusal triggered the darkness around me as if changing me inside out. I began to hallucinate, and all I felt was anger, rage and murderous intent for him in my eyes. I outstretched my hand towards him, holding his neck, “How dare you? I will go to my Ornith, and who are you to stop me? I dare you to touch me and bark orders, and I will kill you. I am craving for the blood dripping through your vein,” I snarled, releasing my clutch on him and pushing him back.

He was too dumbfounded and shocked to react or defend himself. He looked at me as if he had seen a ghost. My eyes diverted towards Rorik as his feet remained frozen in awe. As the darkness subsided, I realized what I had done, “Shit! What is happening to me? What did I just do?”

The tears welled in my eyes. Rorik held me by my shoulders, trying to soothe me, “It’s okay, calm down. Take deep breaths.”

“I am so sorry; I don’t know what is happening to me. Ornith came into my dream; he kissed me and told me to come to the catacombs. I have to go there. Please! He must be waiting for me. He wants to show me something. He will get angry if I don’t go. Please, I beg you” I started crying.

“You are unbelievable. Ornith had died. He doesn’t exist now! You are just hallucinating. It’s just your fucking imagination, fucking up your brain,” Ronin growled at me in a predatory manner, and for a second, I thought I had gone too far. His eyes pierced me, and I thought the blaze I saw there would swallow me whole. It made me take a few steps back as I was suddenly fearful of what might he do next.

Rorik sensed the tension escalated between Ronin and me and quickly came to my rescue.

“It’s okay, Ronin. Let’s go and check. This is something which we cannot ignore. Didn’t you realize the way she knew the exact location of the book of Ozarius is something beyond our understanding? We have to trust her. Maybe, Ornith is trying to tell us something through her. Perhaps he wants us to know the whereabouts of Rebekah through Nora or to bring the light his true story with Rebekah as to why she killed him. There is no harm in going there. And regarding Nora, we both are with her; we can take care of her and protect her.”

Ronin pondered for a few seconds and then agreed as we rushed out of the palace towards the rover. In a few minutes, we entered the main hall of the old palace, passing through the two big halls and a series of dark passages. The old palace looked terrifying and haunted at night.

We reached the far end of a hall where a series of stairs were descending towards the basement, leading to the catacombs. The torches lined up on both sides of the steps. Rorik lighted a few of them for a clear view ahead. My steps became heavy with heartbeats at their zenith as we stooped low, and my stomach clenched with wild goosebumps. The stairs were deep and steep, almost like a hundred in number, so it took a while to reach the passage at the other end of the stairs leading to the catacombs.

“Looks like Ornith ditched you at the last moment. We have already reached here, and yet no sign of him,” Ronin taunted me, rolling his eyes. Rorik hushed him to remain quiet.

I was standing near a left wall of the passage. A dark figure emerged from beyond the shadows. He was only wearing loose pants that hung low on his hips. His bare torso was tight with muscles, giving him a slim, athletic build. His long hair looked messy. I took a torch from Rorik’s hand and moved it in front of the shadow, and his features came into view. His face turned towards me in a predatory manner. He was,

‘Ornith!!’

The darkness surrounds me, ultimately enslaving me. I move in a trance with my eyes only for him. His naked torso chiselled muscles were creating sparks within me. The way he chuckled, looking at me with that handsome unworldly face, was enough to drown me in his charms as he held my hand. I could hear the murmurs of Ronin and Rorik behind me.

“What is she doing? There is no one here. Who is she looking at and pretending to hold hand?” Ronin spoke.

“Wait!! Don’t touch her! She is in a trance. It must be Ornith. We can't see him but she can”, Rorik gasped in a whisper.

“Fuck You!” Ronin muttered under his breath.

But I ignored them. As Ornith didn’t exist for them, the same way, they also didn’t exist for me for now.

Ornith gestured me to do something. As I looked at the passage, I understood what he meant and commanded, “Soleus!”

The word worked like a spell as a rumbling sound emerged through the wall as it opened in one direction like a slider moving in one way and slowly unfolding the view on the other side.

“Shit! It’s a fucking door leading to a hidden secret passage. See, I told you! Ornith is communicating with her through the dreams and visions, trying to show her something,” Rorik gasped from behind. I ignored him as Ornith smiled at me, and we moved ahead, taking another torch with combustible material at one end and rubbing it across the frictional surface, igniting the fire. We moved across the cold and damp passage hand in hand while igniting the remaining torches.

The stairs at the far end of the passage descended spirally deep into the cellar. I could feel gasps and grazes of Ronin and Rorik as they followed us in awe. The end of the staircase directly opened into a black room, smelling like rot and rancid. The light of the torch in the room unveiled a horrific scene in front of us. The ceiling was lined up with hundreds of hanging, decomposing, ghostly people. All that remained was their skeleton, with the occasional piece of rotten flesh surrounding their bones. Their eyes sockets were empty, but jaws were full of monstrous white teeth as if laughing at our misfortune. Few bodies were decapitated and tied upside down. I felt a terrific chill, dread and foreboding, a major case of creep.

There were some pretty dark things written on one wall, mostly some ancient symbols along with the symbol of a three-headed serpent on the crescent moon. The scariest thing in that room was the giant, black and dirt-laden statue of Serpent God. The most striking feature of that statue was the eyes as if they were alive and piercing directly through me. This was the statue of Serpent God which is connected to God itself with the help of evil spirits. A pentagon was drawn on the floor with a series of rotten candles lying on it. The four corners of the room had big, dark and rusted cauldrons. There was a small table on the left corner with a series of glass vessels filled with strange coloured liquid.

“Witches Coven!” I heard Rorik saying as I came out of my trance with Ornith disappearing. I turned over to look at them as they both were exploring the disturbed site in front of them, occasionally glancing at me in disbelief.

As Rorik walked through the room, his leg struck the booby trap, and it triggered the sprinkle of aerosol drops from small pockets at four ends of the ceiling. As these drops touched my body, I screamed in pain as if they were piercing through my skin, burning me. I cried, shrieked and yelped in pain, trying to cover my body. Ronin came towards me, holding me, “Nora, what happened?” he was shocked as those drops were only affecting me and not them.

“Her veins are turning black”, Rorik snapped as Ronin lifted me in his arms and carried me out of that room.

“What is she?” Ronin asked with desperation and fear.

“Not sure, maybe a witch.” Rorik retorted in shock.

Don’t tell anyone, or they will kill her. We will handle this in our way,” Ronin muttered as I lost my consciousness.

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