Ginny soon returned home with her father, the first thing she did was to cook a healthy meal for him and watched him finish it all. Once her father ate his fill and went to sleep, Ginny carefully tucked him in and took out a very old robe that her mother used to wear when she went on a nightly rendezvous while her father wasn't home.
' A siren is born to seduce, my dear.' That was what her mother used to say while she used to apply the reddest lipstick on her lips. ' Use your beauty to your advantage instead of letting it become a curse, men will come after you no matter what —— so instead of resisting learn to enjoy it and take what they have to offer.'
Excuses were what came to her mind when she heard her mother say those words. Who said that sirens could never be faithful to their partners?
At the young age of three, Ginny learned that her mother was having countless affairs behind her father's back who saved her from being caught and sold as a blood bank to a mage. But her mother was never once grateful to her father, she believed that with her beauty and powers she would have been saved by anyone and that Count Harlow never loved her.
But her father did love her mother or else he wouldn't be here suffering while her mother was—— a devious glint flashed in her eyes as she clenched her fists and felt a delicious sting as her nails dug in her palm and woke her up from the memory of that horrendous day. Her father wouldn't have been like this if not for her mother but never mind that she will one day make Everdeen regret the betrayal they once gave her father.
" Young miss where do you want to go?" Since her destination was a bit far, Ginny had to take a carriage. Though the wasteland was not a good place to survive, humans were relentless —— like cockroaches, in her mother's words. They never gave up and would look for a way to pave way for life even in hell, so even though the wasteland was a territory that was filled with gloom, the people here learned to live a decent life like the one in the capital.
Ginny took out her notepad and wrote her destination causing the brows of the carriage to hit the roof of his carriage as he awkwardly smiled and shook his head. " Young miss that place is not for someone like you, you should stop playing around and go back home."
She knew that no one would agree to take her, which was why Ginny was already prepared, she took out a gold coin and handed it to the carriage driver. The rent of a carriage ride wasn't much just a few taels, so of course, when she handed the gold coin to the carriage driver, his eyes glinted with greed as he took the coin and hurriedly put it back in his pocket worried that Ginny would take it away. "But I will only take you to the entrance from then on you have to go in on your own, got it? Don't you cry and cling on to me."
' Who is going to cling on to you scaredy-cat, just look at your legs, they are already shaking.' Ginny thought as her gaze fell on the trembling legs of the carriage driver, who followed her gaze and coughed lightly. " I have a problem while controlling my nerves nothing much."
Ginny nodded and got in the carriage, and just as she sat inside the carriage driver raised his hand and whipped the horse. The drive to her destination was a silent one, and why would it not be? No one liked to come to this place. As the surroundings started to get darker and darker, Ginny mentally prepared herself and when she thought that the surroundings couldn't get any darker, the carriage came to a stop and then the sound of footsteps echoed in the clearing as the carriage driver opened the door of his carriage and smiled with fear imminent in his eyes. " We are here, young miss. If you are ready then you can get out of the carriage now ."
Though that was what the driver said, Ginny could hear the unsaid plea in his voice, if he wasn't afraid of staining his male ego, he would have already asked her to get out of his carriage and let him go.
But since she wasn't here to test the guts of a carriage driver, Ginny walked out of the carriage and stepped down the steps with the help of the driver who immediately got in his carriage and took his hat off in a goodbye greeting. " Now that you are here, young miss. I will be going now, alright?"
Then without waiting for Ginny to say anything, he raised the whip in his hand and drove his carriage away like he was being chased by bloodhounds.
' So much for just weak nerves,' sniggered Ginny inwardly as she looked at the forest in front of her. The trees in the forest were malady black like they were rotting with a strange disease, specks of poison were sprinkled around the roots of many like fairy dust and she could hear the howls of wolves and the grunts of trolls despite standing a good ten feet away from the forest as an artificial blood-red moon hung in the sky.
The swamp of the Blood moon.
It was a prison that was especially confected for the darkest and most treacherous traitors of the Empire lived, the house of Duke Terranova.
But Ginny wasn't here to see the Duke, she was here to meet—- her old archenemy and the abandoned empress of the Edessa Empire, the red witch of the southern magic tower—- Leilani Ambrose.
Who will help her find a befitting cure for her father's curse and why —— because Ginny was going to give her a new life since the last one was destroyed by the unfaithful Crown prince.