SEQUEL OF GYMNOPÉDIE
The war is inevitable. Wizards, witches, pick a side, pick your ruins. Because in the eye of war, brothers shared no blood though came from the same marrow, families strayed and abandoned, heart ostracized from mind, and you mi...
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WARNING: This chapter will include topic such as child abuse, torture, and violence readers' discretion is advised.
The moon dimmed above Martin's sunlight hair as he ventured deeper into the orchard's aisles. Every tree pruned, bare against the breaths of winter, and the twigs crooked, weaved into an endless labyrinth. Around him, thick, clammy fog emerged from the lightless edges, slowly obscuring his vision. Still, he waddled through it as everything turned wan.
The fog surrounded him, forcing him to a halt. He stumbled back, flattening the browning bushes underfoot as he glanced around. He heard an owl hoot, distant but the echo haunted the labyrinth, and the nicotine kick had vaporized from his brain, leaving his tongue bitter in each heave of breath. He cursed for needing more. Levy had been right, he should quit smoking, he grew anxious without it. Such thing was a poison through and through.
"Gemma!" Martin called, though he failed to receive a reply saved for the echo of his own voice.
The snow was thin beneath him and he could hear a tear between the trees as he spun. He kept his eyes peeled, following the echo of this melancholic lull, carried throughout the aisle.
Martin saddled a hand on his wand, slowly pulling it out. "Who's there?" A crack. Footsteps, he was certain, steady and nearing. "Who are you? Where is Gammaliel?"
The footsteps died with a stump, softer in the snow. There was a beat there, the fog stilled, and the owls went quiet, he could hear his own breath. A sound tore through, hisses. "I hate that name."
As the distance between them narrowed, he saw the outline of a woman, sleek and svelte as a black cat. The fog was lifted, uncovering a head full of midnight locks and sun-browned limbs. There was softness in the way her dark cape brushed the earth. When she slipped to the moonlight, her heart-shaped face was unveiled. Feathery brows, black eyes, red lips—it was unmistakable.
He refused to believe it at first. Gammaliel's grand tale of an enchanting witch who could tame a battlefield at her feet sounded like a hoax, but now it all seemed feasible. She parted the sea of men just as she parted her lips, the witchery of her eyes bruised your bones tender, and her allure, soothing like nicotine, so devilishly tempting he grew dizzy of it.
He raised his wand at her.
"You wrote that message, didn't you? Tell me where she is!" Martin demanded. A threat, meant to sting. His jaw stiff with anger.
