Chapter 42 Witch
ZORA
On our way back, we found a lake. As if Marissa wanted to make me feel better, she led me towards it despite the need to get back before the break of dawn. By the lake, she sat me down and treated my wound, but each time she cleaned it with the water, blood oozed out again.
“This is terrible.” She mumbled under her breath.
“You can't even walk properly, and this isn't gonna heal overnight.” She tore parts of her gown from the hem and wrapped it around my wound.
As I watched her in silence, my little pride in the mud, I wondered if I had become weaker than a human. Perhaps I was depreciating. I've gone from a weak wolf to a human-like state.
What next?
What if I suddenly fell gravely ill and die?
What if it wouldn't be long before that happened?
What about my children and best friend.
Marissa patted my dressed wound and, with a satisfied grunt, turned away from me to clean her hands in the water.
What if I never get out of here and I close my eyes forever?
What if I die as nothing but Ryker's plaything?
“Alright Zora, let's get moving. With the way your knee is, I don't think we can move any faster.” Marissa put her arms around me to help me to my feet, but I brushed her off. My stupid action led me to stagger into the water.
The icy chill of the water stabbed my insides down to my bones mercilessly, and my teeth chattered, nearly making me bite my tongue.
I tried to get myself out of the water, but it was a pathetic futile attempt until Marissa pulled me out. Ninety percent of my clothes and hair were drenched and dripping wet. I blew angry breath through my lips and, without a word, began limping my way back to the palace.
Marissa lingered behind me like a shadow. Up ahead, I spotted a set of guards moving for ground patrol. This meant the break of dawn was only a few hours away.
My window loomed into view. It was still open. In my current state, it was more inviting than outside where I was but bad news. Some guards, about a group of five, were underneath it discussing. I froze, syill hidden by the trees, wondering how long they were going to stand there. I glanced around, getting worried, trying to look for another safe way in.
Another set of patrol guards were going to be dispatched soon, and if they happen to take this route, they'll sniff me out, and heaven knows what Ryker would do to me. Going out without his guards.
I don't know which might tick him off finally, because even this past few days that I've been running around, searching for history concerning the bond, I feel like he's just watching me, waiting for me to make a tiny mistake.
Maybe that mistake is now.
“I'll distract the guards. Immediately, they move away from the window. You should get going like your life depends on it because it does,” Marissa said.
Grateful, I gave her a weak smile before she left me.
Something dragged noisingly across the floor, breaking through the dark morning's silence. Marissa was at work. This caused the guard to look up, ceasing their discussion. They glanced towards where the sound was coming from, then at each other, and then they started moving.
The disturbing sound came again, and the guards broke into a jog and I into a sprint. I winced at the sharp pain that shot through my thigh, but my whole body was aware that I couldn't stop right now, no matter what.
“Hey!” I heard one of the guards yell as I climbed my way up. My injured knee made me slow. I made several grunts until I could scramble back into the room through the window. My body landed on the floor with a dull thud while my chest heaved up and down. I lay on the floor until I caught my breath before I thought of Marsissa.
I hope she was okay. She didn't do well under pressure, most especially if the pressure was going to end up coming from Ryker. If she gets caught, she'll be interrogated, and then she'd give me away.
I didn't allow myself to think of all the consequences I'd face if she gets caught. Instead, I dragged my body to the bed and collapsed on it. Exhaustion eventually took over, pulling me into sleep.
My thoughts switched back and forth from what Marissa had said to me about the Goddess festival to Julie until my eyelids got top heavy and my kind too weak to stay conscious.
I felt my eyes close, and all I saw was darkness, but I heard heavy stomping and chants. Low at first but growing louder by the second.
I concentrated my hearing, hoping to catch at least a drift of what they were saying.
“Kill that witch! Kill that witch!! Kill that witch!!!”
What the-
I tried to move, but I was constricted. Something bound me together, keeping me fixed in some place while the stomping and the chants grew louder.
I forced my eyes open. Cold breeze greeted me.
Where was I? And what was going on?
There was a crowd, and they parted in the middle to create a way for the people who were stomping and chanting.
“These evils do not deserve to live! They are not one of us and, therefore, should not be spared.” A woman spoke, addressing the agreeing crowd in a booming voice. Her back turned to me so I couldn't identify her.
“Yes!”
“The ban should not be lifted!”
“Yes.”
“They do not belong here!”
“Yes.”
“We will make an example and pass our message clearly to their kind. What do you want?”
“Kill that witch! Kill that witch!! Kill that witch!!!”
What witch?
The woman who addressed the crowd turned around, and I nearly got a heart attack.
Julie!
“Kill that witch!” She yelled and set a stick on fire. She approached a bunch of wood and set the dry sticks with the torch in her hand before passing it on to the other members of her group.
“Kill that witch!!!” They all screamed as they it the bunch of wood ome after the other, eyes glinting passionately.
I watched the smoke curl up and rise slowly up a pair of legs tied to a stake.
“No.” I heard a sob. “I'm not a witch.”
“Please.”
The smoke rose higher, up her dirty and bruised body. “Please. I'm not a witch.”
“I'm not a witch!!” She screamed as the smoke engulfed her from her chest to her throat and to her face.
My face.
“I'm not a witch!!!” My face screamed, tears strolling down my cheeks. Suddenly I was her yet I could see myself like I was standing among the crowd. I was the one tied to a stake, my skin being lit by flames.
The pain was unbearable as I continued to scream. I turned my head skyward as the heavens darkened and the moon shine bright. I released a cry that's sounded like a hoarse howling roar.
I jumped out of bed in fright, air wheeled in and out of lungs like an asthmatic attack. Despite how much air I was drinking, I still found it hard to breathe until I saw the familiar window, closed now.
I took in my familiar surroundings, and my heart slowed back to its regular pace. I wasn't in the middle of the street getting burned in a stake.
Marissa was still absent, but the window was closed. It was a bright morning, and the glint of the sun could not be mistaken. There was no dark sky. It was a nightmare, it wasn't real. Yet my mouth felt as if my teeth had been drawn out. My eyes landed on a cup. I hurried to it, hoping there was water in it.
No, I wasn't thirsty. Relieved there was water in it, I ran to the window and looked at my reflection in the water watching as the last hint of red colour faded slowly back into the natural colour of my eyes.
At that moment, I realized the pain in my knee was gone, and when I took off Marissa's torn piece of clothing, it was as if the injury never happened.