Necromancer's Descent

70 - Fate Askew

Mia's Point of View

"Love? When did I ever make you think I really loved you? If anything it was mutual use of each other wishing for power."

The much too familiar walls of the hallowed shrine of ends and beginnings from the game surrounds me, as Claudius pushes me down on the altar. The white silk dress flutters in the stench of mold and rot.

"Wait! No! I can do better!"

"Better? You lost too many men, caused too many sacrifices," Henrietta answers as she roughly grabs my ankle and puts it in one of the metal cuffs bolted to the stone altar. I scratch at the stone surface of the altar, and try to squirm out of their grips.

"Wallis!" I screech to him for help, but rather than helping me, he looks in the spell book for the summoning ritual expressionlessly. All he ever cared about what a cure, not me. I feel my stomach sink, and look down at the black stone underneath me, stained that way by the blood of those sacrificed before me.

"You left us no other way," Asten says like he's pained, but this eyes are empty, as he detaches his heart from me, while chaining my neck to the altar.

I look to Johannes as the last one, but his eyes are cold and arrogant.

"You let my brother take everything from me. This is just the consequence," he states coldly, as he reaches for the spear they intend to kill me with, once the ritual is over.

They're all cold. They're all insane. I don't deserve this! After all I've done for you!

I struggle against the chains with a scream, but as if they read my movements, they manage to use my struggles as openings, and fully chain me down in the wedding dress.

"Begin the ritual."

"No! I don't want to die! Don't let me die like this! Such a cruel and humiliating death! I did nothing to deserve this!"

The spell circle around the altar activates as they step out of it... bathing the insides of the ancient shrine in bright red light.

I don't want to be the demon king's bride!

Claudius' Point of View

I stare down at the courtyard ground, which is covered in black, misty water. I was in the middle of doing paperwork for the merchants who lost their caravan, when hands of mist descended from heaven outside the window like signs of a tragedy to come... of course I went to the scene, in case it was one of the demon generals... but what is this? Whatever it is, it's not from the mages of Seidrspir.

It feels different. An immensely oppressing, eerie feeling, though lacking spite.

The water is not deep by any measure, it only reaches Mia's ankle... but like there's an invisible edge or barrier at the edge of the door, that makes the water stop abruptly, like an invisible edge that leaves everything inside the door untouched.

The rain has stopped, and has instead been replaced with mist clinging to the top of the water as it seeps out from the triage tent, gently sloshing soundlessly against the edge of the barrier.

Large rats and scruffy looking birds gather around as if to spectate, but the moment they pass the barrier, it is as if every sound they make ceases to exist.