"This is for your sake, you understand that, don't you, my daughter?" The witch's voice was velvet and steel, her eyes gleaming with a fierce resolve as she pressed a cold kiss to Evelyn's trembling forehead.
Evelyn's heart pounded in her chest, each beat like a drum of defiance muffled by fear. But before she could speak, before she could beg or plead, she felt the shove—a swift, unyielding force that sent her tumbling backward into the abyss.
She fell, the darkness swallowing her whole, pulling her down and down until—
Splash!
The impact jarred her bones, cold liquid soaking through to her skin. Gasping, Evelyn surfaced, strands of wet hair clinging to her face as she clawed for breath. The pool she stood in shimmered, dark and viscous, and it stank of iron and dread.
Above her, perched on the high stone platform, her mother's silhouette loomed, black against the flickering torchlight. Her voice, sharp and relentless, cut through the silence. "Cut."
Evelyn's breath caught in her throat. The command was a vice around her chest, squeezing until the air seemed to thin. She looked down at the reflection trembling in the blood-streaked pool, her own eyes wide with terror.
She shook her head, the movement small, defiant. Her mother's gaze hardened, and the temperature in the room seemed to plummet. The witch's displeasure was palpable, coiling around Evelyn like a serpent ready to strike.
Evelyn swallowed, her fear a bitter taste on her tongue. She was afraid—afraid of the pain, of the blade's bite, but more afraid of her mother's eyes, sharp as daggers and colder than winter.
With trembling fingers, she took up the knife, its metal hilt biting into her palm with a chill that felt like death's whisper. The blade met her wrist, and the first line of fire blossomed, red trailing down to mingle with the pool below. It glistened darkly as it fell, a crimson offering to the silent room.
The wound closed almost as soon as it opened, healed by the cursed magic woven into her very core. Evelyn's chest heaved as she raised the knife again. And again. The ritual was a dance of torment and obedience, each cut a surrender, each healing a command to continue.
The pool below grew darker, fed by her sacrifice. Tears blurred her vision, but she blinked them away, not daring to let weakness show. The room felt smaller with every heartbeat, the cold stone walls closing in as her mother's voice echoed, unyielding.
"Again."
And Evelyn obeyed, the sound of the blade whispering through the silence, the crimson river a reminder that even in her power, she was bound. Bound to a legacy she could not escape, bound by blood and the echoes of a mother's will.
Again and again, until the pool was more red than dark, and her reflection in it was something she no longer recognized.
"Hmmm," Evelyn's mother mused, her eyes cold and calculating as they swept over her daughter's quivering form. The flickering torchlight painted jagged shadows across the chamber, making her expression seem more monstrous. "Engrave the souls onto her back," she commanded, her voice ringing with the finality of fate.
Evelyn's heart clenched in her chest, the pulse of fear beating so loud it drowned out rational thought. Before she could react, two witches stepped forward, their faces expressionless, eyes glazed with the zeal of their task. They seized her arms, iron grips pinning her in place.
The blade they brought forth was different. It was longer, its edge wickedly sharp and black as the void. It caught the dim light in a way that whispered of curses and cruelty, promising pain that would cut deeper than skin.
"No... no, please—" The plea escaped her lips before she could swallow it back, a thin, desperate thread of sound. But the room held no pity, only the hollow echo of her own voice.
The first slice carved into her back, and agony exploded, hot and merciless. The knife moved with a deliberate precision that sent her muscles seizing in protest. Evelyn's scream pierced the silence, raw and guttural, the sound of a soul being flayed.
But the physical pain, searing as it was, did not hold the sharpest edge. No, the true torment was in the memories. The blade carried them like whispers of the damned, ghosts bound to her flesh with every cut.
Visions flooded her mind, vivid and relentless.
A young girl, no older than six, eyes wide with terror as she was dragged to a cauldron. The heat licked at her skin as a witch chanted, the child's screams swallowed by crackling fire before she was consumed.
A boy, legs pumping as he ran through a moonlit forest, branches whipping at his face, breath ragged with terror. Behind him, a witch with eyes like coals pursued, a gleaming axe in her skeletal hand. The memory twisted and shattered as the axe found him, silence falling as the night claimed the pieces.
Evelyn's own body seemed to mimic the fates she felt—her flesh rending, bones creaking under the strain of pain. Her back burned, not just with the sting of the knife but with the echoes of lives stolen, memories carved into her very being.
Tears streamed down her face, mingling with the blood that dripped from her open wounds. She clenched her jaw, trying to silence the sobs that threatened to rip free. But they came anyway, choked and helpless.
The room spun around her, a blur of stone and flickering shadows, but the faces in her mind were sharp, their fear as palpable as her own. The witches' chanting grew louder, a dirge that filled the space, reverberating through her body as they worked their grim art.
And through it all, her mother watched, eyes devoid of warmth, as if sculpting a masterpiece out of suffering.
"You do understand, don't you, Evelyn?" Her mother's voice slithered into the silence after the ritual, low and almost tender, like a serpent coiled around a lullaby. "This is your destiny. You are the one who will surpass even the Witch of Time, the one who will bring boundless glory to us all."
Evelyn, shivering from pain and exhaustion, dared to look up. Her mother's eyes blazed with fervor, an unnatural light that made Evelyn's insides twist. The fervor wasn't love, nor pride—it was hunger, an insatiable craving for power that eclipsed any semblance of maternal warmth.
"But your will," her mother continued, her voice taking on a musing tone, almost thoughtful, "your will is weak. A slight issue, perhaps."
Evelyn's breath hitched. Her muscles tensed, but she was too drained to move, too shattered to protest. The smirk that curved her mother's lips promised only pain. She leaned in, fingers reaching out with the gentleness of a caress but weighted with the promise of something darker. Those cold fingers pressed against Evelyn's chest, just above her heart.
"But there is a solution to everything," her mother whispered, the smile widening into something that made Evelyn's blood turn to ice.
The room seemed to close in, the torchlight flickering wildly as if it, too, wanted to shrink away from what was about to come. Evelyn's body trembled, anticipation mingling with dread, a thin cry lodged in her throat that refused to break free.
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Why are you here?" Evelyn's voice was steady, but a tremor ran through it like an undercurrent. She stood facing away, her back rigid, eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the flickering lamplight. The familiar hum of mana brushed against her skin, electric and relentless. Of all the souls in the world, his was the last she wanted to feel standing behind her.
In the silence that followed, she could hear his footsteps, deliberate and unyielding. Lancelot moved closer, and she felt the weight of his gaze as it roved over the scene: villagers suspended in shimmering webs of arcane energy, their eyes wide and blank, limbs bent like marionettes in a grotesque puppet show.
"This was well done," Lancelot said, his voice as calm and cutting as a blade. "A masterful act. I was taken in for longer than I'd like to admit, and even a Golden Dragon Knight Captain fell prey to it, along with his men."
Evelyn's breath hitched, but she didn't turn. The room felt colder, shadows pooling in the corners like ink as Lancelot raised his spear. The weapon glimmered with a sharp blue light, the resonance of his mana flaring to life.
"Let's end this, Evelyn," he said, and the words were not a challenge, but a statement, firm as stone.