Despite the humidity, Lady Rae wrapped a shawl tightly around her body—and shivered. The sun shone brightly beyond the window; but her expression, and the dark corner they sat in made the room seem especially dreary.
Lux pulled a translucent scroll into the air, manifesting a bright, golden quill to transcribe every word they were about to exchange. She rested Lady Rae’s letter on the table between them, pointing at its lines, “Here, you wrote that your daughter’s soul must be saved within three months—how long has it been since then?”
Lady Rae didn’t meet Lux’s eyes, instead, her gaze floated over the gold tint of Lux’s light brown skin—lingering on the Lea-Bethel sigil on her wrist, watching it light up with each note the floating quill took.
“It’s been roughly. . ., two weeks, I believe,” Lady Rae’s voice was quiet; almost cowardly. She breathed in shakily, “So, starting from today. . ., until September the 30th, you have about two-and-a-half months.”
“I take it the 30th is the date you intend to hand the Avaritia house to your son?”
“Yes. . ., typically Abigor wouldn’t be a suitable heir—every heir before him has been albino—I know it sounds strange, but it’s a long-standing tradition,” Lady Rae’s voice trailed off, “yet, with Azazel’s curse. . ., and my deceased youngest son; Abigor is our only remaining option.”
“He’s already well-prepared, so we’ll been handing him the Avaritia house on his twenty first.”
Lux nodded, “from what I’ve heard, your province's political relations with the Folivore Commonwealth are complicated, right?”
Lady Rae let out a weak laugh, “very.”
“How old is your daughter exactly?”
“Twenty-six,” Lady Rae watched Lux strip the coat from her shoulders, eyeing the sun embroidered onto it’s back. The same symbol cascaded down Lux’s Academy uniform, sewn into her blouse, her stockings, and necktie. She wasn't at all dressed for summer. Finally, she muttered, “And you’re. . ., still a student, I recko—,” she choked on her words, burying her dialect, “I suppose?”
“I’ve already completed my curriculum,” Lux said, “your request is the last I have to answer before graduation,” Lux leaned back, her posture firm and unfeeling—a far cry from Lady Rae’s silhouette, that seemed to shrink despite being far taller than Lux’s own. If it weren’t for the markhor horns atop her head, Lux might’ve assumed her a mouse instead of a goat. “However, you can be assured I am far from under-qualified. I have already obtained the title of ‘Scholar’ amongst the Upper-Plane— a title most don’t achieve in the first place—and I am the youngest angel in history to do so,” she resisted the urge to sneer, apparently that wasn’t enough for the Headmistress.
“And this curse you speak of in your letter,” Lux continued, “you’ve never determined who cast it? How they did so? Neither what kind of magic was used?”
Lady Rae’s eyes dropped to her lap, shaking her head, “No. . ., I’m sorry, truly sorry.”
Twelve years, and you haven’t been able to find out at least one of those things?
Lady Rae’s frown irked Lux; the broiling in her chest immensely familiar. The same broiling she’d felt countless times as her classmates passed their lackluster work onto her; pleading for her to fix it—without putting a drop of effort into fixing the damn thing themselves.
“What about the doctors, the witches you had examine her curse? Did they have any hypotheses?”
Lady Rae shook her head, breathing in, “none of them.”
Found anything?
She breathed out, “ever returned.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Lux’s expression harshened, “. . .. What exactly do you mean by that?”
Lady Rae swallowed hard, hugging herself tighter, “Azazel, she—her curse I mean. . .. It consumed them.”
Lux’s quill stopped midair, transcript lines teetering off into nothing as their silence created the pause.
Sensing Lux’s caution, Lady Rae’s breath hitched, “Involuntarily—,” she coughed out, “this consumption is entirely out of her control, I swear by it—I wouldn’t have asked the Upper-Plane for assistance otherwise—,” she sighed slowly, “. . ., we’ve adapted the entire manor to accommodate her curse; keep from feeding it; but there have been. . ., incidents, over the years,”
“‘Incidents’ in this context, means deaths, correct?”
Lady Rae gave a slow nod, pushing up against her knees to stand, “Come along,” she motioned toward the door of Lux’s suite, “I’ll show you what this ‘consumption’ looks like.”
Lux’s eyes stayed glued to Lady Rae back, walking through a creaky corridor lined with locked doors. A prism of iridescent light shone at the end of the hall; the light reserve within her spirit that had yet to adjust this new altitude, begging to bask in it.
Lady Rae stepped right under the light, reaching out to a door made of stained glass—a six-petaled flower patterned onto it. A hexafoil.
“Just out here—now watch your step, alright?”
The door opened to a cramped ledge between the slanted rooftop. Lux’s spirit warmed as Lady Rae welcomed her outside, refueling with the light it seized from the sun. She shut the door behind them, watching Lady Rae step aside until her heel hit the brick behind her, putting as much space between them as possible.
Lady Rae raised her hand, pointing as she trailed it across the manor’s distant walls, “My Azazel stays in the east wing of the house; she’s the only one allowed there—and she’s not allowed to leave—for all of our safeties.”
Below them was an expansive courtyard—bringing together four distinct wings of the manor in an endless painting of cliffs and trees. Before Lux could listen to their breaths, Lady Rae spoke over them.
“You’ll see, the further you closer you look to the east wing. . ., the flora begins to die,” Lady Rae’s hand came to a still over the courtyard, crafting the illusion that she was holding it herself, “. . ., that used to be Azazel’s garden.”
The vines that curled around the manor’s walls decayed the further Lux followed them. The garden, unattended; left to rot into nothing but dried out sprigs. Everything that should’ve colored in deep green was ashen and stained in—.
Black?
Splatters of a black substance she couldn’t quite recognize covered the courtyard, crawling up the walls of the manor’s first floor, covering the windows with filth.
Lady Rae’s gaze was fixed on the large sunroom that stood between the manor and the woods, as if looking for something beyond the sheer curtains. “The manor is large enough that her curse generally doesn’t reach beyond the courtyard, however. . , recently—her curse has been growing hungrier," she said, "the flowers we kept in the north wing have wilted—all our rooftop gardens have rotted with them.”
Lady Rae’s voice began to break; her breath becoming frenzied, “just last month, one of the laborers working on the manor’s renovations came too close to the east wing—and he survived but. . .,” she swiped at the tears gathering in her eyes, “he’s been hospitalized ever since.”
“And his condition?” Lux’s gaze stayed fixed to the sunroom—swearing she saw a shadow move inside it.
“His right side has. . ., rotted, for the lack of a better word,” Lady Rae said, “the rot started in his hand, worked its way up his arm in minutes—the doctor amputated who his arm in hopes of keeping the rot from spreading to his organs told us that the blood that spilled during the procedure was black.”
It was just then Lux realized what the splatters of black across the courtyard were—blood. Traces of the life Azazel’s curse had devoured.
Lady Rae sucked in the remainder of her tears, turning to Lux, “you’ll save her, won’t you? You are our very last chance.”
“Yes—I will,” Lux said without so much as a hint of hesitation. Yet, there was no warmth behind her eyes. “And I’ll get started right away.”
Lady Rae wiped away her tears one last time, feigning a fragile smile, “then, you’ll be needing this,” she reached her hands behind her neck, pulling a gold chain above her nape, snapping open the lock. A gold key gleamed at the bottom of the chain.
“This is a master key—for the entire east wing of the Avaritia house.”
The wind began to shake the trees surrounding them with new vigor, sending a chill crawling up Lux’s spirit as the key with its chain was dropped into her hand. Just then, she caught the subtle scent of dead flora that only made her wonder; Headmistress—what have you bet my diploma against?
