“My help?” Aethel asked. “You want my help after you sent your little pet abomination to murder me?”
“Murder you?” Ailbe asked.
“Yes, Lianza. She injected herself with a serum only you could have produced and turned into a werewolf.” Aethel said, her voice filled with anger. “She would have killed me if I hadn’t fled to Gawain’s ranch.”
Aethel heard Ailbe mutter a curse under her breath, her face scrunched up in anger. “She was never supposed to attack you. Ever.” Ailbe said. “She was only supposed to bring you and Craeft here when no one would’ve noticed you were gone. I had thought it had been taking her too long, and was going to send a message to her tomorrow, but it seems she went and betrayed me.”
“Oh, so you only wanted to abduct me and my son? I feel much better.” Aethel replied, sarcasm practically oozing from her words.
“Now don’t be like that Aethel.” Ailbe said. “I would have never let any harm come to you or your son.”
“Sure.” Aethel replied.
“It seems you have decided to have this reprehensible image of me in your mind. I am not evil, Aethel, on the contrary, what I’m doing will benefit not just mankind, but everyone.” Ailbe said.
“Now, as for what I mentioned earlier, I do need your expertise in runes to help speed up production via modifying my test tubes. I would’ve hired someone else to do it, but I can’t trust anyone else. You on the other hand,” Ailbe said with a smile on her face, her hand once again finding its way onto Aethel’s cheek. “I believe you can help me do this, and together, Aethel, we can create a better world. Besides, you’re my best…well, only friend really.” Ailbe admitted, a hint of sadness leaking into your voice. “My status as a cursed witch left me little opportunity for making friends or lovers, as I soon figured out with my husbands. My talks with you were the most time I’ve had merely enjoying myself with another human being in a while and you were even a fellow noble as well.”
Ailbe frowned for a moment, before her face returned to a small smile, trying to hide the pain the loneliness brought on. “But I digress.” She held her hand out, amulet glove glowing with magical power. “If you swear your loyalty to me, I will not only free you and your child, but will give free you from your debt to me and,” She pulled out her crown card, “I can pay you handsomely as well. All you need to do is swear to never reveal my secrets, and help me with my work, and I’ll make sure you and your son live a life of luxury, as someone of your noble bloodline should.”
Aethel’s eyes were wide as she stared up at the woman. She had certainly not expected this out of the noblewoman, and she would admit she was a bit tempted to agree. But she knew that a magical oath would bind her to the woman, and the magically binding contract would kill her is she disobeyed it. Not to mention, that if that virus was released, none of those riches would matter anyway if she and her son were a corpse. “No. I’m not going to participate in this…this madness!”
Ailbe sighed. She should have known that it would take time before Aethel would come to her point of view. Perhaps a few days of staying in her cell should do the trick, make her a bit more open minded. And if not, well…she was sure she could cook something up. “Then you’ll be spending a bit more time down here Aethel. But do net fret. I believe that your time in this cell will help you open your mind to all the possibilities joining me brings you.”
Ailbe was about to leave the cell, but flinched as a loud sound echoed throughout the room, the sound of metal crumpling under the sheer impact of a powerful force.
The noblewoman growled as she stood up and pulled her talker out of her lab coat, and tapped it several times. Leas face appeared on the screen, and though she couldn’t see it, Aethel swore she could hear a hint of nervousness tinge his voice. “What do you need ma’am?” He asked, as if nothing was wrong. Ailbe felt the anger pouring through her blood at the casual attitude he kept.
If only he wasn’t so effective, she would’ve made him into a guardian and called it a day.
“What was that?” She demanded, her voice harsh and eyes hard as she looked at Leas through the talker.
“Uh…it seems your guardians are stalking the halls again, so the kids have probably broken out. Not to worry though, I’ll have them back in their room in no time at all.” Leas said.
“You’d best see to it, or you won’t be getting any crowns from me.” Ailbe said before she hung up her Talker. She shoved it back into her pocket before turning and heading towards the exit of the cell. “I’m sorry that I’m going to have to cut this conversation short, but I really should go check up on the situation at hand.”
Ailbe left the cell, the sound of her footsteps echoing as she went out the door. Almost immediately, Aethel bit her thumb, hard, causing a small trickle of blood to leak down it and slowly move down to her wrists where she was held. “Air…Force…Into…” Aethel said, muttering the names of the runes as she used her magic to force the blood onto the cuffs on her wrists. The blood formed into a circle with a five-pointed star on it, before a line formed from it, connecting with a newly forming symbol, a six-pointed star.
Aethel felt the air rush across the cuffs on her wrists, the air forcefully causing oxidization of the metal, causing them to creak and quickly turn brown as they rusted. She tugged on the cuffs, using all her strength to try and break them.
Once.
Twice.
Three times, seemed to be the trick as they broke apart, the oxidization having ran its course leaving the cuffs as useless hunks of metal. She stood up and ran towards the door where Ailbe had left.
Aethel would not let her get away with this.
Not as long as she was alive.
Chapter Twelve
“Yeah, I’ve got her chained up in one of the cells. Got the other one, the redhead down in a different cell near the labs. And-you want me to what?” Leas paused. “Go guard the redhead? Are you sure? I mean the rune crafter was pretty big and-“ He sighed. “No, I am not talking back to you. Fine, I’ll go guard him. But remember, I’m only as loyal as long as the cash keeps flowing. Leas out.” He shut off the talker and walked away, his boots clicking against the tiled floor.
“…Is he gone?” Craeft asked, the boy stuck in a small room after he and Mona had broken into Ms. Alcott’s study room. It had the bare essentials. A bed, toilet, a few books. It seemed more of a fancier cell than the ones him and Mona had passed when the guardians that followed the pinkette all the time had “escorted” them down there.
The air vent creaked and groaned, before several strings of flesh leaked down through it and onto the floor, the sentient mass reforming itself into Mona. “Yes. He was talking about your mom and a redhead.”
“Yeah I could hear him through the door.” Craeft said, before he began to pace. “I guess we’ve gotta go help them now too.”
“What?” Mona asked, her yellow eyes wide with disbelief. “You heard him. He’s going to be guarding the redhead, and I can feel the guardians walking about. If they catch us, they’ll shove us right back in here and we’ll never get out.”
“Oh come on, we’ll be fine. Besides, you’re talking to a future member of the knighthood here.” Mona huffed at his words, causing him to frown playfully. He had explained to her of his goal to become one of the strongest magic users in the Ascean Empire, one of the Ascean Knights, and while she supported his goal, she seemed to doubt his ability to make it in. The competition was tough, and even then, he’d have to eventually fight the lusus, vicious creatures that they were, but he knew he could overcome anything with his powerful magic. “Besides,” A bit of frost built up along his arms, the air super cooled. “They get near me and I’ll freeze them in an instant.”
Or at least, Craeft hoped so.
If not, he was sure that they would be shoved into the room again at best, and at worst…well, Mona’s mother would probably show him the same “mercy” she showed those guardians.
Namely, none.
“Tha
t’s all well and good Mr. Knight,” She mocked playfully, a small grin spread across her face. “But how are we supposed to get out of this room? I can slip through the vents, but I can’t open this door.”
“Yeah, but I can weaken it,” He laid a hand on the keypad-locked door, and after a few moments, she could make out a few frost crystals forming on it. “Mom sometimes had to use fire magic to weaken the material so she could cut into it with her chisel, and she taught me a lot about how temperature differences can weaken the material. So, I’m thinking, that I’ll freeze it, and you take those cool powers you got, and morph into something that can smash it open.”
“It could work, but we’ll have to be quick about it.” Mona said. “If we break something like this, it’s going to make a lot of noise, and then we’ll either have the guardians on our tail, or Mr. Leas. Both of those are pretty awful.”
“It’s either this, or we stay in here till your mom comes down.”
Mona agreed and so once the door was frozen, she morphed her body. One arm became massive and encased in bone while the other seemed to shrink into her body, along with part of her leg. Craeft stared at her in a mixture of awe and a slight bit of horror as the sound of bones and flesh ripping and crackling as it reformed filled the room.
Mona steadied herself, leaning on Craeft slightly as he grabbed her to help hold her up, cocked her enhanced limb back.
And hit the door as hard as she could.
The door crumpled just enough from the impact to allow a small child to go through. “C’mon Mona, let’s get out of here. I bet everyone down here heard that.” He turned towards her as he heard the crackling and tearing as she reformed herself once again.
He gave her a confused look as she seemed to look like a large fleshy slug with tentacles. He didn’t have a lot of time to think about it as she wrapped her tentacles around him and pulled herself onto his back. “H-hey, what are you doing?!”
“We’ll be able to go faster this way.” She said, one of the tentacles having opened up to form a facsimile of a human mouth. “Now just follow my instructions. I’ve been down here a lot, so I know my way around.” Craeft nodded as he crouched and slipped through the opening in the door.
“Quickly, there is a room all the way at the end of the hall!”
Craeft followed her advice, running towards the door. It thankfully wasn’t locked, so he slipped inside, eager to get away as he could hear the guardian’s loud stomps echoing throughout the hallway.
It was dark inside the room, but not too dark that he couldn’t see. Large tubes and vials filled the room, with another door at the other end, and Craeft gulped as he saw several contorted beings of flesh inside, their bodies containing human features that were like caricatures of a normal person. “W-what are those?” He asked Mona. He had grown a harder stomach after seeing the girl distort her flesh and bone in so many ways, but seeing that had made his stomach churn in disgust.
Mona was silent for a moment before she replied. “My brothers and sisters.” Her tone was riddled with grief as she continued. “Mother had several children before me, but they were all stillborn. She tried to bring them back to life, but…well…you can see the results.”
Craeft shuddered as he moved forward. He forced himself to look away from the grotesque nightmares that were Mona’s siblings, and looked at the vials, full of a strange green liquid. He held one up in his hand, but Mona’s scream stopped him.
“Don’t touch those!”
“Ok, sorry.” He said as he put the vial back down on the table.
“I’m sorry for screaming at you, but those…those vials are full of a virus.” Mona continued on, clearly becoming more distraught as she went on. “Mother saw me as some sort of specimen and used my DNA to create that mixture in there. She never told me what it does, but...with how her experiments usually went, it can’t be anything good.”
“DNA?”
“It means my flesh. She made it from my flesh.” Mona replied. “It hurt so badly when she would take out chunks of me. Mother would always say that I would always feel better, that I could just regrow it so I could quit crying, but feeling parts of me being ripped away hurt.” Her voice went down to a whisper. “It hurt so bad.”
Craeft was quiet for a few moments as he stared at the vials. He had known that Mona hadn’t liked her mother since she always clammed up when he asked about her, but he hadn’t known why. Now he did, and it disgusted him to his core. “Is that why you were so happy when you were over at our house?”
“Yes.” Mona replied, “It was a relief just to get away, and I even got to experience what it was like to have someone that cares about me, if only for a week.”
“Mona…” He whispered out. “I’m sorry I was such a bad friend. If I had known your mom was treating you like this-“
“You couldn’t have done anything Craeft. Mother is of far more status than you and your mother, and it would’ve only ended badly if either of you tried to intervene.” Her tentacles wrapped around him tighter in a strange hug. “Besides, you’re here now, and that’s all that matters.”
Craeft’s chest felt tight as he heard her words. “Yeah, I’m here now, and you won’t have to ever be with your mother ever again. That’s a Knight’s promise.” He heard her let out a wet chuckle, Mona’s form breathing quickly on his back, as if she were crying.
He hated it when she cried.
“I’ll hold you to that Mr. Knight, but we’ve got to-“ Craeft heard the stomping sounds of her Guardians, the hulking monstrosities searching for her. Panic began to fill his mind as he quickly looked for a place to slip under. “Quick, you’ve got to hide.”
Craeft didn’t need to be told twice as he quickly slid under one of the desks. The door slid open, and the guardian crouched down to allow its hulking frame into the room. Its cold eyes gazed over the place as it walked, its footsteps making a loud thump that matched that seemed to match the loud thumping coming from Craeft’s chest.
He felt his heart pounding as it walked through the room, bending down to look under the desks, searching every possible place for its target. Craeft’s felt like his chest was going to explode as it got closer and closer, but instead of feeling fear, a sense of resolve filled him.
He promised Mona he was going to make sure she never went with that monster she called a mother again. He may have been young, but even he knew that she would meet a terrible fate if she was captured again, and so would he. So as the guardian ducked down, it’s pale grey eyes looking at Craeft with a disgusting sense of pride, much like how when a dog found a nice toy to chew on, and it’s arm reached out to grab him, Craeft did the only thing he could.
Ice coated his fingertips in nice sharp points, and he drove them into the Guardian’s eye. It didn’t let out a cry of pain, for it could only recognize pain as a way of being attacked, but it did recoil back, granting Craeft a few precious seconds to run up to the door at the end of the room. He thanked Miion as it slid open, and the boy dashed out with Mona on his back.
He ran as fast as his legs could carry him towards another room but as the door opened, a large hand grabbed him by the front of his shirt and held him up. Craeft saw the blonde man from before, the one that had been speaking outside of the room they were in, and struggled as hard as he could.
“Ah ah ah, where do you think you’re going?” Leas said, a small smile on his face as he held onto Craeft. The boy looked up at him with eyes full of hate. “I have to commend you for making it this far, but it’s back to your room for you brat.”
“Let me go!” Craeft tried to slash at the man with his ice encrusted fingertips, but it was to no avail. The last time he had seen him when he had been escorted down, he had been simply wearing a fine red robe that held tight against his chest, and long brown pants.
But that had been then, and clearly the man had armored up at some point. Now, he wore tough blue metal armor that seemed to shift around his form. It was one of the most beautiful things he had e
ver seen, the etchings on it seeming to make it seem as if water was flowing across it as it rose up to his shoulder where a painting of a bearded man’s face was displayed. On his chest was the sign of the hunters, a werewolf skull with a circle around it glowing a bright yellow against the dark blue.
Craeft’s eyes widened at the sight. “Mithril.” He mumbled out, his surprise overwhelming his sense of danger as he beheld the legendary material. It was only for the rich and the Ascean Knights to have, yet this man, someone who was the furthest from the chivalrous knights, had it on him. “How can someone like you have that?!”
Leas let out a pleasant laugh. “You’ll find that being a hunter, I can afford the finer things in life.” He flexed his fingers with his free hand, Craeft’s eyes wandering to it as the blue metal seemed to shift over his figure, as if it were a second skin. “People pay good money to get rid of beasts after all. Now, where is the girl?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about!” The boy quickly said. Leas rolled his eyes, before he noticed a tentacle seeming to come from the child’s back.
“What the-“ He didn’t get the time to finish his question as a bone-like protrusion formed on the end and slashed at him. However, he wasn’t a hunter for nothing, and simply dropped the child and bent backwards, allowing the sharp tentacle to pass over him. “Clever girl.”
The momentary distraction had allowed Craeft to get past him and into the room he was guarding. He spotted the man his mother had hung out with so many times, clothed in a ragged brown shirt and pants. “Rayan!” Craeft cried out as he ran up to the chained-up man, a collar around his neck connecting him to the wall, with two more cuffs, one on each wrist, keeping him there as well.
Rayan’s eyes widened as he saw Craeft running up to him, Leas slowly walking behind him. “Craeft, you’ve got to get out of here!”
“No! I’m gonna get you outta here along with mom!” Craeft grabbed onto the chains and filled them with as much ice magic as he could, feeling exhausted as he pushed his magical core to its limits. The chains were covered in ice in moments, and a satisfied smile was on his lips before he heard Mona cry out. He felt the tentacles around him cling onto him as she was pulled backwards along with him into Leas outstretched hand, his amulet glove thrumming with power.
A New Life Page 13
