Illithic could not finish her offer when splinters flew through the air as every wall of the cabin shattered. Even the roof suffered such a fate, and I fell into a ball to shield myself from the falling debris.

But the debris never fell over me and never sliced my body to ribbons the way it should have. Instead, there was a clean circle around my body, lacking even a speck of dirt. It was as if the splinters meant for me redirected themselves towards the Winter Witches, and their state showed it.

Illthic’s body was bleeding from dozens of gashes, and I saw her body sprawled out across the forest floor. Merthic could still stand, but I saw just as many, if not more, gashes littering her body.

Through clenched teeth, the younger woman scanned the surrounding trees to see who or what could have caused such an attack. She did not have to search for long.

Standing throughout the trees were the statues, once again animated into action. Despite their faces being carved from stone and hidden behind a helmet, not one of them looked pleased. Each one looked insulted that two strangers dared step onto their land.

I saw those in the front brandishing spears, axes, and swords, and those further back had bows and crossbows. Regardless of the weapon, they were all pointed at the witches, ready to be used if they so much as moved in a way that dissatisfied to them.

As I marveled at the sight, a blinding flash of red light erupted from the sky above, bathing everything below in its hue.

“I believe this goes without saying, but don’t move,” a familiar Serbian maid suggested, walking out from between the boyars.

While Dragoslava’s clothes did not differ from what she wore around the mansion, she had the addition of two metal gauntlets encrusted with large amethysts below her knuckles, and a saber rested at her hip.

Once she made her presence known, she raised one of her hands, causing the gem in it to glow. Seconds later, the splinters littering the ground did the same as they floated into the air, pointing themselves at the two witches.

“Let’s not spill any more blood, shall we?” she inquired.

A flash of hatred filled Merthic’s eyes as she realized how outmatched she was, and they started darting around for an escape. They settled on me, which was enough to spur me into action. To my misfortune, it was too little, too late, and the woman was on top of me in seconds, moving with inhuman speed.

As she wrestled me into position to use my body as a human shield, her body became a blur of movement as another blur rammed into her, sending her gliding across the snow. Where the witch stood seconds before was Dragoslava.

“You will do well to keep your hands off Lady Guinevere, wretch,” she advised, placing herself in between me and Merthic.

Instead of taking my maid’s warning to heart, the woman plunged her fingers into the ground, causing the surrounding ground to freeze and ice to grow around her feet.

Not willing to see what the spell would accomplish, Dragoslava drew her saber and pointed it at the woman. In an instant, the statues’ projectiles let loose. Surrounded with nowhere to hide, she could do nothing as arrows, bolts, and a few axes and spears pelted her body, finding purchase in every square inch.

I was not expecting myself to vomit upon seeing such a thing. Having seen Andreaki’s body, I thought I was used to such things, but seeing blood shoot out of her body and hearing sickening thuds was leagues ahead of a corpse. It was strange to feel happy when my legs gave out, as it took my eyes away from the sight.

Compelled by a morbid curiosity I could not control, my eyes drifted to the sight, hoping something changed. As I raised my head, however, I saw a trail of ice sliding across the ground, creeping towards Dragoslava’s feet. Following it to the source, I saw Illthic’s body. She was still face down where the initial blast sent her, but I saw her fingers in the ground.

“Watch out!” I screamed, pointing at the yet unseen threat.

The time it took Dragoslava to look at me, then to where I was pointing, was too long, and by the time she realized what was happening, the trail had reached her foot. Ice shot up from the ground, snaring her leg like a bear trap, where it continued to crawl up her leg. Instead of pulling away, her saber slashed across the ground, severing the ice from its source. Following said source, my maid laid eyes on Illthic’s body and saw what I saw.

“Stand up, Winter Witch. For as becoming as playing dead is for you, it is insulting to me to think it’s working,” Dragoslava declared, pointing her sword at the elderly woman with the statues following suit.

She continued playing the part for a few seconds longer before realizing how futile it was, and she dragged herself to her feet. Were it not for the sight in the corner of my eye, I would have heaved at the sight of her skin pulling itself together as her once numerous wounds healed.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Medvedev's loyal bitch sniffed us out. Still, I was hoping to have a few minutes longer,” she said.

“What did you do to Guinevere?” my maid demanded.

“Nothing pup. We just had the heart to tell her what her parents never did. Or could. Who knows with those two? Perhaps their precious Nest forbade them. Perhaps they wanted to control the narrative she was told,” Illthic answered.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Guinevere, I want you to forget everything they told you. Nothing they say can be considered true; do you understand me?” Dragoslava ordered, keeping her eyes trained on her target.

“How convenient it is for you then, hound, that you can just toss away anything we have to say, that we are simply liars who lack even an ounce of truth!” the older woman mocked.

“I will only say this once: shut it. You are under arrest for the murder of the dragonoid Andreaki as well as the possession of illegal substances deemed harmful to draconic beings. There are more forces on the way, including the lord and lady of the house. Either come with me quietly, or you can end up like your daughter, and we will take you back in a casket. To be frank, I would like you to choose the latter,” my maid instructed, hatred spilling through her stoic facade.

Illthic shared some of the same emotions as Dragoslava mentioned Merthic, but she maintained her composure with a smile.

“Is that so? Because where I’m standing, I don’t think things will play out the way you want them to, loyal bitch,” she said.

Throwing her hands open, I could see her veins filling with a light blue liquid that glowed through her skin and illuminated her bones. Starting from her extremities, the substance flowed toward her inner body, causing the skin it passed to freeze and crack. I could imagine the pain such a thing would cause a person, yet Illthic showed no sign it hampered her, expanding her smile instead.

Understanding what was happening better than I did, Dragoslava whipped around to grab me and jumped into the air, propelling herself higher than she had any right to.

Below, I saw Illthic’s body erupt into a light that felt hot to look at, encompassing an area twice that of the clearing. The only reason we did not fall into it was because my maid found footing on a platform of air that solidified into a glasslike substance.

She did not wait for the light to die down for her to take action, and my maid raised her sword into the air, causing blades of golden light to materialize above the scene. Compelled forth by the descent of her blade, the larger blades came crashing down into the light. The effect they had was impossible to tell.

“She really is a witch,” Dragoslava muttered under her breath.

Before I could ask her what she meant, the light died down enough to tell what was happening, and what I saw took away any words I once had.

Standing where Illthic had been was a monster of stone as tall as the trees, its face a blank slate while its body possessed a feminine figure far above what Illthic once had. Carved on for clothes was a simple robe, covering what needed to be covered and nothing more. On top of the robe in the center of the monster’s body was Illthic’s, embedded in the stone.

Surrounding the beast was the remains of the trees and statues, both blown to splinters by unknown forces.

When I first spotted her, she laid face pointed toward the ground, but it did not take long for her head to lift and look me in the eye, her’s glowing sickly blue.

“What is that?” I asked, not sure if what below me was Illthic or something controlling her body.

“That would be a demon,” my maid answered, sounding more annoyed than worried about such a thing.

“A demon? Like the things the church is always talking about?”

“Somewhat. More of a possession than an actual manifestation. Looks like she lacked the power to bring him here,” Dragoslava explained, setting me down on a platform of my own. “Stay here, Guinevere. Manifestation or possession, a renegade demon is trouble for anyone. This shouldn’t take long.”

Without another word and without listening to my protests, Dragoslava hopped down towards the demon, more blades of light following her descent. Illthic flung one of her arms toward her falling body, blue pillars of fire following her hand. Each pillar clashed with a blade, canceling each other out.

There was not a turret of flame for the attacker, allowing my maid to crash into the stone and throw the demon back several paces. Backflipping off the body using the momentum of the impact, her saber flashed back and forth the entire way. Invisible slashes made wide cuts across the demon’s body, causing Illthic to cry out in pain as if it was her body that was cut.

Pushing off another platform of air, Dragoslava threw herself into the fray to press the attack.

I watched with my mouth gaping as I watched a woman I thought could do little more than cook, clean, and fold laundry outpace a monster capable of flattening a building. Had someone asked who would win when the fight started, I would have said the demon would win. Now, there was not a doubt in my mind she would emerge victorious. It was only a matter of time.

Like she had promised, the skirmish between the two did not last long, and not even five minutes passed when the stone demon fell to rubble, burying Illthic within its corpse.

Landing to approach the rocks, my maid flicked her wrist, turning the stone to dust and blowing it away in an instant. Laughter rang out from the center of it all as the Winter Witch’s body came into view.

“I suppose I bit off more than I could chew,” she huffed, her voice struggling to make its way to my ears up in the air. “So this is what Medvedev’s bitch can do. Well. It doesn’t matter. My daughter got away, and that’s what matters. You may have captured me, but she will continue our work.”

“Drama queen,” my maid replied, slashing down the woman with her sword.

Dragoslava looked over her work for a few seconds before turning her attention back to me. A wave of her hand drew my platform back to the ground.

“Since when could you-”

“What were you thinking?” my maid interrupted, falling to her knees as her hands went to work looking over my body from head to toe. “Do you have any idea how worried I was when you failed to come from your room, how worried you made your parents with your absence at the table? Your mother thought she would find you dead in a ditch!”

“I’m fine, aren’t I?” I reasoned.

“And what if something happened? These witches killed a dragonoid; what do you think they could do to you? And with a domain set up nonetheless.”

I had no retort and fell into silence as my face burned red, a fact made worse by my inability to look her in the eyes.

Dragoslava opened her mouth to say more, but shot to her feet once she heard the voices of my parents off in the distance.

“Come. Your parents will be relieved to know they won’t be burying their one and only child tonight,” she mustered as she wiped her eyes.