Starting Life From Zero: Far From Home

Chapter Fifty

Warm, honeyed air wafted past Emilia's chin and cheeks, causing tendrils of hair to brush at her skin. She stirred against the dew dotted grass, her body sprawled across an open field shrouded in a golden early morning haze.

She hadn't remembered leaving the capital or outside, for that matter. As she pushed up onto her elbows and then hands to sit up fully, she pulled her fingers through her hair to straighten it. Instinct almost caused her to proclaim her good mornings to Puck, to start her day as she always had. Emilia's heart plummeted as she reached up to touch Puck's glintstone.

Her ears perked up at the rustling of fabric against blades of grass. Emilia turned to see a figure cresting through the fog around her, a pale woman clothed head to toe in a form-fitting black dress that flattened against the grass in a small circle around where the wearer's feet should be.

It had the look of a dress worn by someone in mourning. A simplistic elegance that could have been archaic, but held the air of something new.

The expression on the woman's face was neutral. Even her cheeks held no hint of color. Her eyes were almost black with a glint of bistre in them. The woman had long, white hair that flowed down her back stopping just at the back of the knee. There was an ornate butterfly hair clip just above her ear in one side of her hair.

She regarded Emilia with malice, but it didn't feel like there would be actual, physical attempts to do anything coming from her. The thing that unnerved Emilia most was her white eyebrows and lashes. Emilia could remember looking into the blue eyes of someone with luscious white eyelashes.

Emilia shivered, fighting to push the memory from the forefront of her mind.

"Where—"

Just as Emilia started to speak the white-haired woman cut her off, her lack of concern for what the half-elf tried to say apparent. "Your contract's been severed. You were never supposed to make one so it is a small matter."

"Who are you?" Emilia's brow tightened and her eyes narrowed.

The woman produced a book bound in white leather with gold-reinforced cover corners and began to flip through it. "Hmm, once you've made your way to my tomb I should be able to—"

Emilia sprang up onto her feet, not sure what she meant to do as she hopped away from the woman to put distance between them. On instinct she reached out with her very will-power to produce a massive pair of purple hands that grasped for the woman.

"I asked who you are!" The hands passed through the woman like she wasn't there.

The woman dressed in black glanced down at the unseen hands clasped through the center of her person and the book she held. "Perhaps I startled you. I'm not really here. Neither of us are. I must warn you: further attempts to lash out will only make you look quite impolite." She gave a close-lipped smile as she shut the tome with one hand and closed her eyes. "It has been such a long time since I spoke to someone. I must have been too eager."

"I see." Emilia lowered her head. "My apologies."

She strolled out of the grasp of Emilia's unseen hand with a shrug, passing through the semi-transparent shadowy fists as if they were no more a threat to her than the air or mist around them. "I am called Echidna. Once upon a time I was an associate of your mothers and a genius spellcaster whose arcane knowledge was unrivaled."

At the mention of her mother, Emilia's unseen hands dissipated along with the tension in her body. Things were coming back to her, memories she assumed would be forever lost. Though, the memory of her parents still evaded her. "You knew my mother?"

Echidna bobbed her head in a solemn nod, her eyes still closed. "As you are the daughter of a Witch yourself, you may be familiar with me by my formal title. I am the Witch of Greed and one of the Witches of Sin."