It took the first rickety step before crashing into pieces beneath her and withering away.
She had almost made it to the bed.
Belladonna attempted to crawl her way forward but she was too tired and starting to feel really dizzy.
Too many things had happened that night and it seemed that the magic she had just performed had further drained life out of her.
Everything was moving too fast in her life. Also she had noticed that she didn't need to chanel to Xinora anymore.
What she had just done was the same thing she would usually do with the creation of the shadow warriors. She had tried to give life to something before but it hadn't worked. But this time, it did even though that wasn't what she had planned at all. Dogori using her to summon that undead army might have something to do with it. Although, it clearly didn't last as long. The Death Gem was still needed.
Belladonna wondered if it only worked on wooden structures.
But those were how far her thoughts could get before she finally succumbed to the fatigue and fell asleep on the floor.
____
____
(Three days to the Blood Moon).
Morning came by too fast.
It was needed.
Belladonna woke up feeling tired but she couldn't allow herself to rest. She still hadn’t been able to send Alaris any letter using her Shadow warrior because of Dogori.
She had spoken to the White King about leaving the Castle for lake watching; before they noticed her presence, though, she had overheard Dogori proposing something about sealing the ground to ensure that shadow warriors wouldn't be created.
But that was as far as she had heard them before the White King had called her.
“Child, come in. How are you feeling?” He had asked with a smile as if he hadn't just killed his wife and the other leaders of the Houses.
Belladonna didn't care about any of them, though, and it was rather annoying for her to put on her act that she would love to perform a burial ritual for them since they had fulfilled their purpose.
Jyris was waiting for her at the door. He greeted her with a smile and they left.
“One of them is missing,” Belladonna heard Dogori say with a sense of unease.
“Find it immediately,” the White King commanded, the rest of his words fading away as Belladonna went further down the hallway and finally out of the castle.
Belladonna could feel a chill run down her spine. She was close to freedom. She would leave this castle and never return.
She waited for Jyris to shift and get her out of the castle to the inn he must have chosen after she had told him that her uncertainty about how the war would go made her want to spend some time with him. However, he didn't shift. Instead, he had gotten them a carriage.
Belladonna had gotten in hurriedly, her mind filled with thoughts. Once they would arrive at the inn, she would have to find an excuse to be alone so send a message to Alaris, then escape afterwards.
So far, everything was going smoothly. But time still wasn't on her side, she couldn't allow herself to feel victorious yet. Victory was still so far away.
But with the bottle of herbs that contained two chances of fire manipulation, the blood dagger, and the more enhanced skills of her life gem, her hope was more than she had before.
___
___
Indeed, Jyris had brought them to an inn. On the way here, Belladonna had noticed many things. The first thing was that Jyris had made no advances toward her. Maybe he was finally realizing that killing his father wouldn't return his elder brother to him and now he had one more person to grieve for.
She had also noticed that the people of the kingdom were suffering. Most of them looked hungry and many had swarmed the carriage begging for food and money. There were so many beggars on the road; they looked homeless, too. There were soldiers maltreatment people and traders getting their goods pushed into the dirt because of some fine they hadn't paid yet.
The inn, though, was beautiful, like nothing that was going on around it affected it.
This was terrible.
Belladonna sympathized with them but she didn't have the time to do more than that. Immediately, she could get time alone in the bathroom - which was surprisingly easy because Jyris wanted to be alone too, claiming that he felt terrible for the death of his father - she wrote a letter to Alaris and gave it to her Shadow Warrior, who departed immediately.
Belladonna had written down everything she had discovered in the Castle. The only secret she kept to herself was that the tattoo keeping Xinora away would expire soon and she might have to kill him to acquire his gem so that she may retain the control of her body.
She had no plans to kill him, however she wasn't certain how Alaris would take the information. If he were to see her as an enemy, he would kill her. She was sure of it.
So for now, she would hold onto that information until she was sure of what to do with it.
After her Shadow Warrior had gone, Belladonna reached for the door, planning not to return to the room but to head out and send her carriage in one direction while she would go in another so that Jyris and the White King’s soldiers would go off the wrong trail trying to find her.
However, when she pulled the door open, she was faced with someone who was about to barge his way in.
A thief.
She quickly tried to attack him with her blood dagger but he was clearly experienced and had seen the attack coming. He knocked it out of her grip and pushed her against the small old table in the corner of the bathroom. It crushed to pieces at the contact, a piece of it cutting through her palm as she tried to shield herself from the fall.
“Where are they?! Your bags of gold!”
Belladonna was breathing heavily, the cut in her hand bleeding. Just as she had done last night, a wish crossed her mind and the piece of wood in her hand pulled out with a quick force and jammed right into the heart of the thief.
The light left his eyes and he fell forward, missing her only by a bit.
Belladonna picked up her dagger and rushed out of the bathroom. She felt faint, the consequences of the power she had just used already catching up to her as the wood withered away on the bathroom floor.
When she rushed into the hallway, she discovered that the inn was under attack.
There were thieves in the hallway along with Jyris. They didn't see her, and she retreated immediately before they would, but just at that moment, Jyris grabbed one of the thieves, and something about him changed.
Something?
No, everything!
He was just like the undead warriors that Dogori had summoned, only that instead of a thousand red embers for eyes, he had just two; he had no structure, only darkness and a black cloak with a hood over his head. Where his hand came in contact with the thief burned and he burnt into a pile of ashes pretty quickly. The rest tried to run away, but he was too fast, and he started taking them down.
Belladonna didn't stick around to watch. She ran down the stairs as quickly as she could.
Dogori had said one was missing. Now she knew what he was talking about. He must be the missing one of the undead army.
Jyris was possessed and she didn't care. All she cared about was getting out of here.
The door was only a distance away
when he was suddenly in front of her.
By Ignas, this wasn't how she had planned her smooth escape.