Under the vampire Lord's protection-Chapter 502: Helpless
Arabella pressed her forehead against the metal door for a second to cry the weight that clung to her shoulders out, but Zarah had different plans, interlacing her fingers into the young woman’s hair to yank her head up, forcing her to look through that small window.
Inside the isolated cell where Silas’ feet were maintained inches off the ground by nothing other than thick, silver hooks.
"I said open your eyes and look, whore!" the old hag grunted through tightened jaws as though spitting venom, "I heard that once upon a time, this man... Well, this blood sucker was a great warrior, that he made generals rethink their strategies as soon as word of his involvement reached their ears. He decimated entire battalions on his own in daytime! Daytime! A time when our kind is supposed to be at our peak! And yet... Behold what he’s become today! Behold what you have done to him!"
Those holders pierced from his wrists, to elbows, shoulders, chest, abdomen and even his legs and feet. All in the goal of keeping him suspended in place.
Arabella’s eyes trickled along the torn silver embroidery that decorated his once beautiful vest. The same one he had donned the last time she saw him...
"Silas!" very meek his name came through as though her throat had shrunk upon itself, "Silas!?" it came a tad stronger.
"He can’t hear you," said Zarah, her hand still buried in Arabella’s hair, puppeteering her head at will, "He is so deep in slumber that even the end of the world itself wouldn’t call him back to reality, I am afraid,"
The oddest thing was the blood staining his clothes had long since dried up. None spilled out of his still open wounds and around the hooks pinning him in the air.
However, the time wasn’t for such questions as Zarah tugged back at the young woman’s hair coercing her to look at the damp, dark rocky ceiling above them.
"We all have a destiny to fulfill, written from the day our cries first resonated through this world. The slightest deviation from that path can yield devastation beyond what a frail mind like yours could ever comprehend," The hag paused for a breath before adding, "I know I am wasting my breath with you. Your constitution wasn’t meant to hold such refined discussions,"
Instead of commenting on her most recent speech, Arabella put the remainder of her energy to use on a different topic, "What will you do to him?" she murmured as soon as her eyes caught another glimpse of him.
"That will be for his highness to decide," she scoffed, pulling Arabella back by the hair before tossing her to the ground, "This filthy animal dared attack our dear prince after everything he already did. After everything you did to humiliate our country! And all that when his grace came to you in peace," the older woman shook her head, eyes unblinking and strictly down on Arabella who continued to cry on the same ground she had been thrown to.
The searing pain from the impact still coursed her bones, but what did it matter in the grand scheme of things? Zarah was right!
Arabella had brought that blight upon everyone she ever loved. Everyone she once called family...
"Stand to your feet!" Zarah growled, forcing the young woman up by nothing but her hair again. Although, that time around the old woman stopped to truly glare at those layers of soft curls she had been manhandling all along, "Such beautiful hair! Such a sad, sad waste you are!"
Arabella did her best to trail behind as Zarah dragged her along, past those same guards who stared into her soul with those cold, hungry eyes of theirs and then right back up the dungeon stairs again.
She was taken to a small room and once again left on the floor to weep some more while Zarah, back turned to her, tinkered on a crowded stand with tools Arabella’s vision was too bleary to identify.
"Stand up!"
It wasn’t until the hag towered over her figure and barked the order that she was able to distinguish the knife and small bowl of water in her hands.
"Come," she turned around, heading for a long and unlike the stand she had visited before, an empty wooden desk nearby.
The young woman did as told and marched behind Zarah who placed the bowl on the table before acknowledging Arabella once more, "Give me your hand, wench,"
She did not dally and obeyed, caring very little for the knife that Zarah held. Sure enough, without an ounce of leniency, the old woman slashed a cut into Arabella’s finger and yanked at it in order to hold it above the bowl of limpid water.
The blood dripped, mingling with the water only to hang flimsily in its loose fabric, yielding not the slightest change.
That result got a strange hum of satisfaction from Zarah who smirked at the sight.
"At least we have that,"
She gave no explanation about those actions, leaving Arabella to wonder whether a witch stood before her.
Odd thing it would have been since... Aside from the big, crooked nose eating most of the space on her face, Zarah shared not another trait with their kind.
But that was the least of her worries for that moment being as images of Arthur’s lifeless eyes, those that showed the horror and despair that lived in her grandfather’s and finally, the fresh memory of her husband’s body hanging helplessly like a pig in a slaughterhouse... Those images kept on flashing before her gemstones, granting her very little time to consider anything else on her path.
"Stand straight and don’t slouch, whore! I was told you were taught better!" Zarah’s hand wrapped around her chin, nearly crushing it as she tugged her upwards, "Rejoice for you are now ready to embrace the honor of meeting the prince himself! I would have disagreed but alas ’tis not my place to argue orders,"
