The next thing Belladonna knew, her blindfold was ripped away from her and she was tossed roughly to the floor, her hands and knees bearing the brunt of the action. She expected pain but that never came.
Oh, of course.
The room was lit with red dim lights, however for Belladonna who had stayed in the dark for too long, the light felt blinding. The structure of the hall seemed like a throne room but it was of such an intricate design that she had no time to access it, the only thing that caught her eye was the strange, massive, dangling bed-like structure with curtains, connected with a chain to the roof of the hall; she could only assume that, it was too dark to see into the distance above.
She rose to her feet and froze when she heard growls and gnashing behind her and she turned to look back, frightened. This beast, she had seen it before. Four-legged with three heads of mighty wild dogs, rough rocky skin with visible maps of the lava contained within. Vicious and ready to kill.
This was the very beast she had seen back in the inn in the Dragon’s realm.
Then this was certainly the hall of the Wielder of the Death Specter, the Lord of the Underrealm.
“What message do you have for me?” The voice echoed all around her and as foreign as fear now felt to her, it held her hostage. She watched as his black cloak swept over the heads of the beast at once and they purred in response.
She looked up but the sight could only see so far, he was a giant towering heights and heights over her. Now she understood why everything around her was so massive.
More fear.
How had Eli even been able to fight that creature?
“Who sent you?” He asked and took a step forward. She rushed back in fear of being trampled upon, watching his boots like they were instruments of death.
But he took another step above her and she soon realized that as he walked towards his throne, he seemed to get smaller and smaller till he almost had the natural height of a tall human, a height closer to what dragon people looked like.
It was obvious that he was a very different creature, trying to fit into an image that seemed similar to hers as much as possible.
She couldn’t tell if he was being kind or was just so confident in his power that he didn’t need the size to be intimidating. She didn’t know and honestly, she didn’t care. She was more concerned about conjuring up a message.
“Do you not speak, ghost?”
Ghost? She knew she was dead, but it was still so strange; to be called that felt so strange.
“Or was your journey here not enough for you to conjure up a lie?”
Belladonna’s heart dropped and she looked at him sharply. He was a bundle of black cloaks, a hood over his face, and his scythe Eli had stolen in his hand. There was nothing of the way he actually looked like that she could see.
She balled her hands into fists behind her. He knew. Well, there was no need to further her lies. He must have brought her here as a form of amusement, she had to ensure to make more out of it.
“I am here to drive a bargain.”
“You have nothing that I want.”
“I will do anything that you ask.”
“Why?”
“For the release of the one that stole your scythe.”
His control snapped and the image he had forced himself to uphold broke along with it, as he sprung up back into his massive figure in a flash, his scythe jamming the ground with a force that felt like an earthquake, making Belladonna fall to the ground to regain stability.
It all happened so far and soon enough, he was back into the more familiar image. He sounded angry now though.
“Fools. Both of you.”
He stretched forth his hand to her and for the first time since she died, she felt pain. She cried out in agony as she felt like she was being ripped into shreds by invisible forces pulling her in different directions at once as if to rip her open in order to collect something she held within her.
“Spare her for my sake?”
The pain stopped suddenly and Belladonna crumbled to the floor, turning in the direction of the voice that had saved her. There was a woman on the bed-like structure, her legs dangling in the air as she set the curtain aside. She was equally a giant as he was, and she seemed to also have the ability to shrink like him. She looked human-like and beautiful.
The Wielder walked away from her to the woman. “My love, you should go back to rest.”
The woman looked at Belladonna instead and with her eyes, she begged for her mercy. She didn’t know why the woman wanted her to be spared but that didn’t matter, not for now.
“Spare her only for now,” the woman said, looking away and back at the Wielder.
“You promised not to interfere any longer. Your mercy interrupts me,” he said in a hushed whisper.
“This is only the second time,” she replied almost silently as if they didn’t want her to be an audience to their little argument.
“The first time has brought enough disrespect to my reputation, everything that I am. If the first one hadn’t happened, there would be no second.”
The first one? Eli. She must be the reason Eli had been given time and had not been hunted down immediately.
The woman frowned and walked away from him before smiling to Belladonna and the Wielder sighed in defeat.
“Their love is almost as interesting as ours, don’t you think? We used to be them.”
Their love? Well, it made sense now.
How could she use that? This love. How could she use that fully to her advantage? How could she use that to buy her mercy and sympathy?
“Not now, Ama.”
“Give her to me!” She rushed back to him excitedly, “and if she fails I will return her, just as I returned him and you may do with her fate as you like.” The Wielder didn’t seem to budge but something about the whole situation made it obvious that he would give in. Belladonna was seriously counting on that. “Please. I won’t interfere after this, I swear.”
“Never again?”
“Never again.”
He handed the Scythe to her and immediately she ran to Belladonna, pulled her to her feet, and pressed the tip of the scythe blade into her heart. It was quick, just as quick as the paralyzing cold that took over her at that moment.
The woman happily returned the Scythe and soon enough she was pulling her out of the hall. She stopped to give the Wielder a kiss that lasted uncomfortably long, before bolting out of the door, his call of her name escaping into the hallway behind her, and the beast following behind like a happy dog. There were guards behind her too, Belladonna was certain of that even though she couldn’t see them.
“Thank you for saving me.”
“You have only yourself to be grateful for. You will pay the price.” She said sincerely, her voice filled with happiness.
“What is the price? And what is the price of saving him too?”
“All in due time. For now, you deserve to see him because you will not be seeing him for a very long time, and for the troubles you are about to go through, it will be the least of what you deserve.”
Belladonna had stopped listening when she had mentioned her seeing Eli.
Her heart was
filled with happiness.
Eli.
She was going to see Eli.
By Ignas, everything was falling into place.