Few nobles saw Iliana as any different from those serving them, and as such, it hadn't been hard to creep away from the crowds. And within moments, she found herself creeping through the servant corridors.

Between her dress, which left little to the imagination, and lack of anything else, she had been forced to store her bow and arrows back at the inn. That shouldn't have been an issue, since she only intended to gather information at this point. But seeing her sister, not just alive but paraded onstage had ignited something within her.

Storming down service corridors she received some sideways glances from the servants, but they knew better than to pry into the doings of nobility, and as far as they were concerned, Iliana may as well have been nobility.

And whilst she was obviously a chimera, plenty of noble families had elevated their purchased chimeras to important positions, so questioning one, especially at an event like this, would’ve been bold.

She took a turn and found herself in the kitchen, surrounded by dozens of pots and cookers with their chimneys stemming out of the building like pipe organs, and their busy attendees flying from pot to pot in the crowded room.

Holding her head low, Iliana quickly passed through the room and into the next.

A storage room of thick brick and concrete lay beyond, with a noticeable drop in temperature. She gripped her arms and glanced around at exotic food goods from across the kingdom and beyond.

Another door caught her attention, and Iliana hastily slid past the haphazardly stacked crates of goods.

In the next, more crates filled the room, but as she narrowed her eyes and took a closer look, Iliana realized that vials of toxic-looking tonics filled many of the opened crates. Iliana glided her hands over the precariously stacked poisons.

This was The Mother's work, there was no mistaking it. But of course, she already knew that. Everything was part of her game, the poorly hidden clues, her sister, and this room.

Shaking her head, Iliana took a step back.

She had to clear her thoughts. They wouldn’t let her just take her sister back, nor would the path to that witch be easy. Traps were already in place, that much was certain.

As amber flickered across her eyes, she noticed a door at the far end of the storage room. She felt stuck and uncertain.

“You want to play with me?” Iliana mouthed as she stormed towards the door.

Holding her arm out, she slammed through the door and into the next room.

It was a hole, several feet across and crudely dug through the ground, tiles and bricks crusted into its sides.

She hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t this. Iliana stared down into the pit that disappeared into darkness. Even with her superior eyesight and the flicker of her vision ability, she saw nothing.

The hole wasn’t one of the new scars, she knew that much. Blood stained the dirt across several spots, and it was clear that the broken dirt had been upturned due to digging, and that something or someone had been dragged below.

She wasn’t going to get an answer standing here. With another flash of her orange eyes, Iliana slid against the dirt wall and descended into the pit in a controlled manner.

The stench of blood and rot met her senses immediately, and Iliana had to fight back a sudden gag reflex.

“It smells as if the demon of shit and pissed died down here,” Iliana inaudibly murmured.

Iliana threw off her black dress shoes and produced a thin stiletto dagger she had smuggled into the event. It wasn't her chosen weapon, but she had little choice.

More blood stained the tunnel, and the remnants of crude digging continued straight through the ground, lined by equally crude timber supports.

Patches of blood continued to dot the ground, leading further inward.

Iliana sniffed. Fresh.

Crouching, a shiver cascaded down her spine. She couldn’t turn back now.

"You'll pay for what you did to us," she mouthed as she took a silent step forward.

A figure flashed past in the darkness, and she swung around, tightly gripping her dagger.

Then another.

Her eyes flashed amber again as she tried to get a read on the figures.

The creak of a boot sounded.

Iliana turned, her eyes widening for only a second as the club, inches from her face, crashed down.

She had no idea how much time had passed as she groggily forced her eyes open. Her head pounded, but that was the least of her issues.

Chained up in the middle of a room filled with blood-stained beds and tables covered in crude medical instruments, she spotted him; Eblor Caetil, surgeon assistant to The Mother, the Blighted Bitch - Retchis.

“I’m so glad you’ve returned to us, patient zero-four-five-seven. Mother was so worried about you.”

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“Shut up, you monster. I only came for Annabey!” Iliana sneered, fruitlessly struggling against her chains.

“But she’s such a promising patient. Would you really wish to deprive The Mother of her?”

Iliana spat. “Fuck you!”

“Oh my,” the one-eyed doctor replied, placing an offended hand against his narrow chest. “With language like that, however, will I be able to present you in front of Mother.”

“She’s here?”

“Of course, she is. Who else would be able to perform your latest alteration?”

Iliana’s mind raced. She knew she would be walking into a trap, and she had gone along with it nonetheless.

“What’s that look in your eyes, darling? Is it only just making sense to you now?” Eblor snickered, running his hands over his crude instruments. “You’ve done well, and for that, The Mother wanted to reward you. After all, you were incomplete when you ran away.” His glare traced down Iliana’s frame and stopped at her hands.

They were going to take more of her humanity, one of the few things she had left to hold onto.

Iliana didn't know what she had planned to do, coming here. But she couldn't have left her sister, not if she knew where she was going to be. Iliana sunk. At least she had tried.

Dignity was all Iliana had left as she restrained herself. She would remain silent throughout whatever was planned for her. Only that would deprive the witch of her satisfaction. That was her only means of striking back, now.

Filtering into the room came a variety of different chimeras, representing all kinds of different shapes and animals. They prepared tools, buckets, and towels - whilst the surgeon made rounds testing them. Most of it was for show, likely instructed by Retchis herself, watching on from somewhere out of sight. More popcorn for her bloated mouth.

Witches were usually cruel by nature, and the hundreds of years they spent living in their wretched forms served to twist them further. If they weren’t trying to gain more power, strengthening their mana bonds, or toying with their lessors, they often found sick ways to fill the void.

Iliana closed her eyes and steadied her breathing. She wouldn’t partake in this game.

As if in response, a grinding buzz filled the room; it was one of Eblor’s tools. She would do her best to drown out the noise. If she couldn’t withstand the surgeon’s provocations, she would have no chance at withstanding Retchis’s.

“Let’s start the preparations for The Mother,” Eblor said as he slowly walked towards Iliana. “The teeth seem like a good place to start.”

The chains loosened and hands gripped at her arms and legs. The assistants dragged her over to one of the tables, and strapped leather belts across every one of Iliana’s limbs.

“Perfect.”

Taking a pair of oversized pliers from atop a dirty rag, which was spread across a nearby table, the surgeon approached Iliana.

“Open them,” he commanded, and fingers from several hands reached into her mouth, their claws prying open Iliana's mouth.

Instinctively, Iliana resisted at first. But even that would give The Mother satisfaction, and so she relaxed and let them open her mouth.

The rusty tool gripped her canines and pulled.

Pained rushed through her, and she felt as if Eblor was trying to rip her entire skull out through her jaw. She groaned. Iliana cursed herself, but it was beyond agonizing as tearing pains traveled through her skull. It felt as if the pliers were ripping at her very self, and the sharp, throbbing agony dug into her as pain spiked and she felt the tooth torn from her jaw, the throbbing sensation impossibly deep.

Iliana was panting, mouth agape and she focused as much energy as she could bear in a desperate attempt to hide her pain.

“Time for the next one.”

Over the next hour, the entirety of Iliana's front top and bottom teeth had been removed. And she had endured all of it, never once passing out.

“Now, the arms.” Eblor chuckled, picking up a rusty saw.

No amount of mental fortification could prepare Iliana for what happened next. Screams reverberated throughout the underground surgery as the rusty saw cut through flesh and bone, emanating a sickening grinding sound – not that it could be heard over the screams.

As blood loss threatened to take her life, and her consciousness, Retchis entered, dragging her flowing black gown behind her. A cantrip escaped her lips with a wave of her hands, and the blood stopped.

“We can’t have you falling asleep for this next part,” she said with a gargled chuckle. “I can’t wait to see how you look.”

The bleeding might have stopped, but the pain hadn’t. It dug into Iliana’s very senses, an aching that ran into her nerves and stabbed at her. She couldn’t speak. She knew either screams or whimpers would come out if she tried.

Carried into the room, a wolf-like chimera brought a new pair of limbs. They were grey and leathery with inch-long claws. When they were brought to her, Eblor sewed them on.

Retchis watched on with a satisfied grin, and when he finished, she took a rusty scalpel from him. With harsh, jagged movements she drew her runes; a circle followed by pentagrams and demonic writing. And when she was done, she channeled her foul magic into it.

Then came the fangs. Dagger-like rows were set into her bleeding mouth, and Retchis repeated the process, carving her runes into Iliana’s already bleeding gums.

Slumped like a lifeless corpse, Iliana groaned, slipping in and out of consciousness.

“How beautiful you are, now.” Retchis snickered, running her dirty, blackened fingers across her new limbs. “Oh, how I wish your sister could have bore witness. Perhaps you can come along when we perform the same treatment for her.”

Iliana stirred at the threat. For everything that Retchis had done to her, the thought of her doing the same to Annabey turned her skin. She couldn’t allow her little sister to experience this nightmare again.

“I’ll rip your fucking heart out, witch!”

Retchis’s smile curved up, this had been what she wanted all along. “Oh, but don’t you want your sister to be beautiful like you? It would be unfair to deprive her, don’t you think?”

Iliana spat, her saliva blood red. The pain had overwhelmed her senses and she no longer thought rationally.

“Not very ladylike of you. Then again, you’re not really a lady anymore, are you?”

Iliana snarled, but as her face bent, pain erupted, and a whimper escaped her lips.

“That’s okay. Take your time and rest up. You’ll need your energy for when the show begins.”

Eblor approached Iliana with a vial, wrapped his dirty, blood-stained hand around her mouth, and forced it open, pouring the contents inside.

Iliana coughed as the offensive liquid entered her, and within seconds her eyes grew heavy, and she drifted off.

Stabbing pains awoke Iliana. She went to thrash at her bonds and her limbs effortlessly shot out.

Wearily opening her eyes, she looked around. The surgery was empty.

It had always been just another game. If they had freed her and left, Retchis had a plan.

With great care, she picked herself up and sheepishly lowered her feet to the ground.

Iliana groaned. No amount of care would prevent the pain that stabbed at her nerves.

She would have to bear it, Iliana knew. She groaned with every step as she hobbled away from the surgical bench.

She kept a keen eye on her surroundings, not that it mattered, if they wished to capture her again, they could.

Iliana had to keep going and ignore the pain. Somehow, she would find a way to pay Retchis back for all the pain she had caused, and it would be glorious.

That witch would regret the games she played. She would beg for mercy as Iliana dissected her. These were the only thoughts that kept her going right now. An infernal rage burnt within, one she thought she had conquered years ago.

When she discovered her sister was still alive, hope blossomed inside of her, but it had led her here, and there was a part of Iliana that wished she never had. Wished she had left the past behind. Now there was no ignoring it. She couldn’t run from Retchis if Annabey was alive, she knew that. She had no choice but to face her past.

She thought about Fane and Earon, she hoped they were alright, that they had found a way to survive everything that had happened. But she couldn’t help them, and they wouldn’t be of any help to her, not against someone like Retchis. The only hope she had was bargaining with someone more powerful.