For a moment, all her attention was into pulling at the chains, the dream pulling next to her, ripping and tearing at what she hoped was the Chained Man’s flesh.
Painfully slowly, the chains started coming out, tainted red. Not her red, from her own blood, but a wholly different red, small pieces of shredded flesh clinging on them. Using magic, she made that bloody flesh fall down from her chains into her lap, starting to converge into a small ball.
“Tsk.”
That sound of annoyance didn’t come from her, and neither from Frenese nor Lothrigern, and yet, it sounded as if the speaker was next to her. From the start, its owner had remained mostly detached from the fight, acting more like a machine than a thinking, aware being.
But now they clearly pushed one too many buttons, most of them pushed by Lothrigern, the reason why the complaint was directed majorly towards Him. A complaint made more than clear when the Deriliam came crashing down, a green flash slamming against the ground, the sheer strength of the impact killing several Devils in the process.
So, in case Lotrigern’s avatar getting potentially destroyed, and Andras Apolyon no longer worrying about His creation’s lives wasn’t sign enough for her to pack it up, the following thing certainly was.
One of Andras' fallen flesh pieces distorted, bulging and increasing in size, molding into a human shape, the Deriliam choosing to dispatch an Avatar instead of healing His main body.
Not that that was a bad choice. An Avatar was all He needed to deal with both Velvet and Frenese.
…
Creftalia paced around the room, mopping the bloody trails Winter had left by entering and leaving.
The Luacae… how soon is soon? She didn’t exactly trust Winter’s way of counting time, yet she said they were arriving right now, so…
“Creftalia.” A voice called her from behind, making her jump and screech, quickly turning around to be met by Igern’s frown, her scream dying in her mouth, which remained open before she closed it with a snap.
They stared at each other in silence for a moment, before Igern continued speaking. “Winter sent me to pick the Raticheo.”
“That’s the mage corpse… there.” She pointed to the corner of the room, where she had put the body so as to not bother her. “Are the Luacae already here?”
“Yes.” Igern said, walking to the corpse and lifting it up, making some blood clots fall into the clean floor, to Creftalia’s dismay. Yet Igern moved his hand, intending to use ice magic to block the wounds.
Before flinching, and stopping, lowering his hand.
Creftalia opened her mouth to ask if he was alright, but closed it back down when Igern started to leave, silently following him, before stopping when he turned to look at her, questioning.
“The Luacae are bringing someone that can read memories.” She said, sounding almost…
Hopefully happy.
…
Creftalia followed Igern to the entrance, her eyes meeting Winter’s as she looked at her with a taint of worry. As if she wasn’t happy with her presence.
So it’s him who they really brought. Unable to keep her smile from creeping over her face, her eyes moved to the five figures in front of Winter, all of them covered in white robes, their heads covered by veils, locked in place by silver crowns made of vines.
The Luacae, the sorcerers under Arhontissa, blesseds by her. Her priests and acolytes, residents of the Luachra, the Sky Tree where the goddess resided.
And not only that, for the Luacae wasn’t only the name of the priests and priestesses worshipers of Arhontissa, caretakers of her temples, but also the ones tasked with guarding the Silver Cages.
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In fact, one of the Luacae, the highest ranked one, due to their silver crown being more elaborated, and their robes having some silver motifs depicting leaves, was carrying a cage, like the ones used to keep birds, covered by a white cloth, like their veils.
None of the Luacae spoke, not that Creftalia expected them to, since any Arhontissian knew that they were under a vow of silence, never uttering a word.
Even so, Dianthus had told her once that the vow was only while they wore the priest attire outside the Luachra Temple, and that inside they very much did talk to each other.
Creftalia had zero proof of that being the case, but… he was the one born and raised there, not her.
And, aside from the vow of silence, the Luacae also had a vow of celibacy.
Igern lowered the corpse in front of the Luacae, or, more specifically, in front of the cage, ignoring the blood that remained clinging into his clothes. Then, he took a step back, relea-
“Keep the Raticheo raised, son of Styrger, don’t make this poor old man bend his neck, hahaha!”
Creftalia flinched in panic when that name was said, followed by the crack of the corpse’s bones under Igern’s grip, snapping under the pressure, blood clots creeping down his fingers as he raised his head, eyes bloodshot.
Luckily for them, Winter lunged forward, pulling Igern back, before he was the one doing the lunging, away from the voice inside the cage.
“Carthagia.” Winter said, one hand keeping the corpse raised while holding Igern’s neck with the other, applying enough pressure to relax him by force. “Didn’t the shame of betraying Arhontissa fix that attitude?”
“The only thing that ‘betrayal’ did was make me lose weight.” The Luacae holding the cage looked in Winter's direction, who responded with a nod, making them take down the veil, showing its insides, and the origin of the voice.
A decapitated head was inside, its traits shaping it as a seventy something year old man with gray, disheveled hair. Despite the fact that it was, well, a decapitated head, its purple eyes were full of life, and a smirk creeped through his face.
All of that was thanks to the cage, obviously.
The Silver Cages, the artifacts used to keep mages “alive” after mortal wounds or after being executed for betraying Arhontissa, only used for mages with more than two Escas, that’s to say, Family Heads or Archmages.
Only those could remain alive for enough time after something like decapitation for the artifact to work, after all.
Winter’s mouth flickered, frowning, yet she didn’t answer the head’s provocations. “Who took Dianthus?”
“The answer to that question is rather obvious, no? You wouldn’t have brought me here if the Mergifari wasn’t directly involved.”
“Whoever took him used spells and knowledge belonging to the Raticheos to teleport him instantly inside a pocket dimension, one whose entrance closed without a trace.”
If the Raticheos hadn’t been on their side back then, and hadn’t been executed by Hasdrubal, Winter would have suspected them, but, after everything that happened, it was clear that, like them, Hasdrubal had suspected the Raticheos interference, and, a step faster than Winter and company, he had gone for them.
Because Hasdrubal wouldn’t have left them the Raticheo’s Family Head brain intact if someone else hadn’t gotten there even faster than him. If Hasdrubal himself hadn’t been a step later than someone.
Because, despite the way he had gone about it, keeping them alive as Cheron ate them, he had made sure that she only bit the part of the brain that kept them unable to move. A precision that little monster didn’t possess on her own.
But, what mattered was that Hasdrubal had kept them alive long enough for Winter to obtain their corpses without them dissolving. Especially the brains.
Because Hasdrubal knew she would infiltrate the Raticheo’s pocket dimension, the same way he knew that the Queen would send the Luacae with Carthagia to see their memories.
Hasdrubal the All-knowing, that title wasn’t just for show. And yet, he was trying to use Arhontissia’s resources to find who got there first.
Winter had connected those dots because of the Queen, not being her own deductions, yet they worked the same. If the Queen had decided to play into Hasdrubal’s intentions, then Winter would do the same.
It wasn’t a problem for her, after all. No matter how smart or brillant a knowledge mage was, Winter had yet to meet one that could outsmart a bullet to the head.
The same could be said about Carthagia. A genius in his youth, an Archamge of the Reminiscence Paradigm in his latest years, and, even with all of that, his head had been cut by Winter herself.
And yet, if someone could know where Dianthus was located, it was one of the mages that founded and built the Mergifari.
One whose eyes moved from the corpse to something behind her intermittently.
Ticked off, Winter turned her head around, watching how Creftalia stopped waving, lowering her hand embarrassed, even when her smile didn’t disappear. An interference that annoyed Carthagia.
“Winter, you might be singler than a Luacae after retirement, satisfied by simping over some second-rate Queen your whole life, but some of us weren’t! Don’t try to shame my granddaughter from greeting me!”
“Second rat-” Winter’s face froze, and then, it was Igern’s turn to stop her, helped by two of the Luacae.