Chapter 7: Horror Of Horrors

MOON

Seraph took off Zina's blindfold and her white formless eyes stared back at the servant. Almost immediately, she fell to her knees, trembling like a shaking leaf.

Zina was startled at the movement. Even more confused by Seraph's next words. "You're the one whom the gods have blessed!" She exclaimed in awe.

Zina smiled a bitter smile, "I do not believe myself to be blessed." Zina might not know the colour of her eyes, but she was well aware of the reaction it evoked and it was nothing like the servitude that Seraph was showing her. Far from it.

"In that case promise me great seer," Seraph continued in a voice that shook like a person who had seen the ghost of a late lover that had been yearned for for years, "promise me that I'll get to serve you by your side on the day of your rising. Please, do promise me."

Zina's bitter smile twisted into something even uglier. She didn't bother arguing the nonsense the girl spewed, "you may do as you please. Although I believe it will be a miracle if I walk out of here alive tonight." she muttered the last part more to herself than to the girl.

The girl didn't say anything as she went about washing Zina's eyelids. And despite Zina's lackadaisical attitude, Seraph's tenderness with a part of her that she had deemed cursed moved her heart strangely.

What exactly did a girl almost four years younger than her see in her that she could not see in herself? Try as she might, Zina couldn't find the answer to her query.

Zina was dressed in a white flowing dress, her white hair brushed till it was falling in waves over her shoulders. "Miss, it is already time to make your way to the Arctic Palace. The carriage awaits downstairs." Seraph announced after about an hour Zina got dressed.

"It's already time?" Zina asked in a voice that was deathly still and spoke of her determination to do what she must do that night.

"Indeed it is," Seraph answered with a glee in her voice, "the full moon peeks out tonight. Tonight, the Arctic Wolves shall dance and bask under the moonlight."

Zina smiled, she had never seen the moon, but she felt what it was like.

The moon came with feelings of joy, hope, faith, love, power, destruction. It was said that when her pack members picked her, the crescent moon was out that night and it hung askew in the night sky.

Seraph led her downstairs of the inn, and into what must have been her second carriage of death. It seemed Zina was making it a habit to enter carriages that led to the underworld.

"You're the one leading me to the palace?" Zina asked Seraph mostly because she was surprised. She might not know much about traditions that existed in the palace, but Seraph seemed to be too small of rank to enter the mighty Arctic Palace she heard of.

"Indeed Miss. My superior was actually in charge of you, but the task was delegated to me as she felt unwell." Seraph finished with a weak voice that Zina knew about all too well.

Zina grabbed Seraph's hands and tugged the girl closer to her. The girl squealed from pain, although the cause of her pain wasn't from Zina's grabbing; it was from something else entirely. Zina frowned, causing her blindfold to crease as images assaulted her senses.

Scenes of a petite girl who she imagined was Seraph being hit and flogged with an infamous cane that was decorated with tiny thorns that dug into the flesh. Seraph's assaulter was a burly woman with thick arms, and who spat spittle whenever she spoke. Those burly arms of hers flogged Seraph with all her might until she caused her flesh to tear. Then those fat lips of hers spat water on the cane to make the floggings even more painful.

It would seem as though Seraph's superior had quite a unique way of subjecting Seraph to submission.

Once their carriage came to a halt, Zina released Seraph's arm. "If you were to serve me, no man shall flog you like a beast."

Seraph gasped, her hands flying to her mouth as if she couldn't quite believe how Zina came about the information. "You're a great seer indeed." she said in amazement just as she guided Zina out of the carriage.

Zina, still clutching to her staff, stretched her senses to her environs. She could hear the heavy steps of Epsilons marching about in guard of what must be the Arctic Palace.

Seraph, as if hearing her thoughts said. "We are currently standing before the greatest Palace in the North. The Arctic Palace is built out of blocks that resemble glaciers of ice. It's almost shiny and reminiscent of a glacier, but it has a more otherworldly edge to it."

Zina nodded. She could feel the otherworldliness that Serah spoke of. It poked at her like an errant thing, whispering forbidden words in her ears as Seraph guided her. Her environment felt foreign and out of place. Only the staff she clutched at felt familiar.

Ordinarily, she wouldn't have had a need for her staff if she was in a familiar environment, but for some reasons she didn't understand herself, it seemed she made it a habit to take the staff wherever she went. It reminded her of a lot of things that she vowed she must never forget.

The sense of foreboding and guilt came back to her, and this time it was fiercer. One thing became abundantly clear to her, if she were to go through with this, she would never remain the same.

Seraph, who was not familiar with the environs, was glad for the Epsilon that guided them to the grand hall for the Alpha King's birthday. Even as she led Zina deeper into the palace, she was left in awe of the grandness of the Arctic Palace, for its opulence was nothing like she heard of.

The Epsilon walked too fast for them, and combined with leading Zina, they were considerably too slow. Seraph attempted to tell the Epsilon to walk slower for their sake as the corridor they were now in was filled with people rushing to the festivities and they could easily get lost, but the impatient guard was now too far to hear Seraph's plea.

The servant girl scowled at his impudence, and Zina observed the irritation she emitted with amusement. True to Seraph's fear, they came about a fork in the corridor where people were streaming from. Zina clutched to her staff tighter, just as her body collided with that of a wall?

Seraph was knocked to the side and Zina started to fall freely when a hand wound to her waist, stopping her less than graceful descent. Any breath she had was knocked away from her as the hand seared into her fabric, burning at her flesh like an errant thing.

Zina gasped, her other empty hand instinctively darting up to wound against the wall's neck, and her hand with the staff coming up the wall's chest. Like a scene of deja vu, the man who graced her visions almost every night assaulted her senses.

Dark hair tousled by the wind. Graceful and yet wearing the clothes of a commoner. Eyes deep like they could sear into her soul. The demeanour of a king.

Except this time around, the man in her visions was no longer standing upright as he always did in her visions. Neither was he dressed in the clothes of a commoner anymore. In fact, the man she now saw in her visions was a younger version of himself.

That younger version of himself was clad in a regal attire, a gold crown sitting on his head. But the man himself was sprawled on the floor, vomiting blood as the god of death knocked at the door of his dying self. Horror engulfed Zina at the thought that the man in her visions would meet his death much earlier than his dignified, rag-clothed self that Zina was used to in her visions.

But why was the vision coming to her the moment she touched the wall before her?

Could it be…?

No, it couldn't possibly mean…?

As if to confirm her horror of horrors, the voice of the Epsilon who was leading them spoke hurriedly to the man that held her waist… the man who could be the subject of her visions. "Lord Daemon, I apologise for this."

The cruel joke took her breath away as she felt her heart stop beating. The gods… this couldn't possibly be happening to her? There was no way this could be true…right?

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