The Dark Witch And Her Knights

54 | Gavrial

Gavrial

Something was very wrong. The tether that connected my soul to Sable had snapped. I had felt it deeply since the night I broke her curse. Our souls, our destinies had become entwined as one. They had become two strings braided together in an unweavable mess. A prophecy foretold unraveling. I did not feel pain but only this vast empty void as if my soul mate had just been ripped out of existence. That was impossible, unfathomable.

The wood floors cracked as my knees collided with the hard oak. My sword clattered to the ground as my hands found purchase in front of me. Everything around me slowed to a halt. I tried to inhale only to find the air around me was gone. Arbor appeared in front of me. His mouth was moving but all I could hear was the vast void of silence. My hand clutched my heart as I rolled over onto my back trying to ground myself. I grappled to regain a sense of the world around me. As the strangeness ebbed his words became clearer.

"What happened?"

"She- She's gone," I tripped over my words trying to comprehend this new well of emptiness I had never experienced before.

"Who's gone? Gone where?" he made a show of looking around the empty training room.

The doors clattered open with Belenos charging through them in haste. "You know; you felt it?" he said stopping in his tracks at the sight of me on the ground.

"Know what?" I asked turning to glare at him.

"Not you too. What in the fires of hell is going on? Who's gone?" Arbor questioned us.

"Sable," we both said breathlessly.

***

My fist banged against the wooden door abandoning the knocker entirely. My fear and rage were rolling off of me in palpable waves. The hour was late and travel took us two days to arrive at Atropa Hall. We had been lodging at my manor temporarily on the way to the Tower of Caelum. We had planned on freeing those trapped, in hopes they would join the ranks of the small clan of witches, warlocks, seers, and oracles we had already recruited. That plan was currently on hold until we could figure out what happened to Sable.

A mousy-like serving girl opened the door with a lantern showing the sleep still clinging to her like an essence all its own. Her eyes widened and the sleep shirked back from her features at the sight of three very imposing men.

"The hour is late. What has happened to bring three strangers to the door?"

"We have very direr news to deliver to the mistress of the house we are old friends of hers and have ridden for two days straight just to give her the message promptly." I jumped right in taking the lead.

"The mistress is not in. It will have to wait until she returns." The serving girl went to shut the heavy door. Her weak frame struggled just enough for me to wedge my foot in the way and grab hold of it before she could close it.

"Please, it is very important we speak with her," I said.

She looked at me with half fear and half annoyance at my audacity.

"It is fine Marry. Let them in. We have a long overdue conversation." Marry's grip on the door slackened and I pushed it back revealing the red-headed figure I was all too familiar with. Standing deep in the shadows of the hall's entrance was Tovias with a slight grin on his strangely handsome face. He wore silk pants and a matching robe that was left open revealing his sculpted chest. I hated him. "Don't you think, Gavrial?"

"Yes, I do, Tovias." I tried to mask my shock but I wanted him to know I too knew who he was. I remembered the scrawny young boy who used to turn over beds at the inn I had stayed at several times. Now he was the man currently basking in the pleasure between my little witch's legs when it should have been me.