Something With a Prince

Chapter Fifty-Three: The Archer

Lansing

I examined her from where I was, her long, imposing form towering over me. A quick glimpse at the bottom of her dress, then back up to her eyes, had me clenching my jaw. The witch recognized this.

"What? Spiders got your tongue?"

Moving cautiously to rise off the floor, as I had my breath once again, Saorla clicked her tongue in disappointment. Her voice invaded my skull in a way that felt like something was scratching behind my eyes. Still not one for playing games. Shame. My fingers, trembling from the coldness of the water, gripped the bow and arrows tightly in each hand. Saorla's eyes flickered down toward them, her ebony lips splitting into a serpentine smile. Her teeth sharpened as they were put on display. Everything in my mind and body was careening at being before her again. Only someone with a death wish would come here, she was right about that. Unfortunately, I think I have been that person my whole life. And for what?

"That does seem to be the question, doesn't it?" She spoke through the crack in her face, lips joining the horrendous scar that flickered in and out of view. Stepping around me, stalking me I should say, Saorla began to sing. "Lansing prancing, is oh-so dumb...Lansing prancing has no one."

Knowing better didn't keep me from being surprised. Thea was right, we would never truly escape her, this place. The fact she had been watching our every move, hearing even the slightest words that passed between us, let alone everything that was more than words had me burning. My stomach jolted down, and sickness swept back in as if Thea's hand were pressing into the skin of my chest once more. Still, I pushed the arrows back into the quiver and straightened my shoulders.

Then I began to talk in such an easy way that it may have amused both of us, had I not been standing in a literal death trap. "I'm here to make a deal. To talk."

Her dark eyes filtered in with red as she heard my heart hammering in my chest, then they went to the weapon in my hand and she chuckled, quiet voices joining in with her words. "Never tell boring lies, Lansing. They have a bitter aftertaste."

Water was dripping off me, creating a puddle at my feet, and I was worried that being in the lake had warped my bow. But I had stood here once before with a weak bow, and that ended...well the point is I lived. What I needed to find was somewhere in this room, I just had to do it with as little suspicion as possible. Then I could use it against her.

Time felt so different here. The cathedral was darker, and more ruined than I remember it being, which seemed drastic since it had only been a day and a half. The beams were rotted out in black mold, more windows were faded in coloring, not the vibrant pictures as before. Even the witch, who was stunning as a goddess before, could not hold back her ghastly face for long. It began to shimmer through. Damming the angel beyond.

Naturally, she read my thoughts and responded, prowling about me, "I'm losing power." Her voices seemed to wheeze, not like before, but like it was tired. "When you are a creature of reputation, it takes a toll when the stories start to change. I will fade out as generations stop talking about the witch in the forest... the wraith. You see, I've been waiting for Tallethea so long... I've lost my flair, my usual habits. I used all my saved-up energy on you two, and now I'm running out of storytellers."

"You get your power from stories?" I watched her, my face scrunching in confusion. Her steps were silent, the only sound was the slow drag of her dress taking up leaves and dust.

"Don't sound so disgusted," she smirked, "You've been obsessed with them for years, little Prince." She finally approached me, wiping water from my cheeks with the back of her finger then licking it off. "Besides. There are a thousand kinds of ways to tell stories...some people sing about me, others write poetry. There are paintings, drawings, cautionary-tales, novels, sketches...and nightmares." Her eyes melted out of her face, skin cracking audibly into that bark-like texture, and spiders bubbled out of her open mouth like water.