To Bewitch a Devil

281 Run Away

After a bit of time, the witch’s chants grew louder and more urgent, and that was when Freya fell to the ground.

Neera shook when the first scream tore from Freya’s mouth.

The witch’s chant rose, a mesh of words in a language Neera didn’t understand, and the more her voice rose, the more Freya screamed, a raw, guttural sound. It took everything in Neera to not yell at the witch to stop as Freya writhed on the ground as if given the worst of punishment.

And the green smears all over her body turned a bright red color, and if Freya’s screams were loud before, the ones that came from her now were blood-curdling.

“Freya!” Neera registered someone calling her name, and it took her a while to recognize it was Zavian’s voice, and he was approaching the hut. Quickly, Neera ran outside, blocking the entrance before he walked in.

“I can’t bear it. Her screams are too much, I have to stop the witch,” Zavian said.

“She has already begun, she can’t stop now.” Neera said.

Another scream seared through the hut, and Zavian almost pushed past Neera to go inside.

“Zavian!” Neera’s palm rested on his chest, and underneath it, his heart beat wildly. “Look at me.”

.....

But Zavian was looking above her, worry clouding his eyes.

“Look at me,” Neera said again.

He looked down at her then.

“I am with her, she will be okay,” Neera promised. “I need you to stay away. You know how this goes. She will only feel this once to be okay. I need you to listen to me, and trust what I am saying.”

Zavian stared at Neera, and for a short, beautiful moment, she was enraptured and transported to a place beyond the coven and beyond Freya’s screams. It was just the two of them, encapsulated, away in a world where they only existed.

Neera felt a strong pull toward him, and she couldn’t tell who was closing up the space between the two of them. Zavian was looking into her eyes but staring into her soul, and inside her, the words, I love you, whispered to him, and it magnetized them closer together.

One scream was all it took for their bubble to pop, and they were catapulted into their reality. Neera removed her hand from his chest and noticed their bodies were almost touching. What was wrong with her? How did they get lost like that with Freya screaming just behind her?

“I…I have to go back in,” Neera said. Zavian’s face was tight when he nodded. He thankfully walked away, Neera saw Azriel not too far off, staring at both of them.

How long had he been watching them?

Quickly, Neera hurried back in. She was shocked as the bright red had diminished on Freya’s body and with it the wounds. Freya was covered in sweat, her hair plastered all over her shivering body, and she was gasping on the ground as Anna kept chanting.

And suddenly, Anna’s head flung back, and Freya screamed like she was being exorcised, before her entire body wracked with tremors, and stopped moving.

Neera grew alarmed. “Freya!”

Anna stopped chanting, and she stumbled, hitting the table and some jars rolled over and broke. She wiped the sweat on her forehead, and her eyes looked dazed.

Neera rushed to Freya and shook her. Not one single movement from her.

“What happened?” Neera asked, panicked.

“She’ll be fine,” The witch groaned and tried to steady herself. “She will wake up, just give her some time. You can take her back now.”

Neera removed her cloak and draped it over Freya’s naked form. She stepped outside, and Zavian was hovering nearby to rush in when Neera beckoned on him.

He crouched next to his sister’s unmoving form and put a hand to her nose. His shoulders fell in what looked like to be a relief.

“How soon will she be awake?” Zavian asked.

“I can’t say,” Anna said, sitting back in her chair sloppily. “But not for long. She is brave for even attempting this.”

Zavian pulled the cloak closer over his sister’s bare shoulder. “She is.”

He lifted Freya off the floor, and she hung limp in his arms, and Zavian carried her out to the carriage. Azriel came in and took the mirror reclining against the wall.

“We’d still be needing this,” Azriel told the witch, a wry smile on his lips as he left the hut.

Neera was about to leave when a hand gripped her arm. Alarmed, she turned and met the serious face of the witch.

“Be careful,” Anna whispered.

“Of what?”

“The things you do,” the witch said. “Stay away from anything of the Underland. From Lydia, from Aloysius. Do not seek them, my Queen.” She came closer to Neera, her body pressing against her arm. “Leave if you can. Run away.”

Leave?

Azriel’s head reared at the entrance, and Anna stepped away so fast, bowing her head to Neera.

“We are leaving, your Majesty,” Azriel said, coming into the full frame of the door. The suspicion rolled off him, looking between the two women.

Neera wanted to ask so many questions, but when she looked at Anna, the witch was already seated at her table, picking up the broken shards of the glass jars from the ground.

….

Be careful.

The warning rang like a never-ending bell since they left the coven. Neera didn’t know what to make of it. She needed to summon Lydia through the mirror, but why would Anna ask her to run away when everything needed all the answers they could get?

She could imagine how it would look like, she running away because of the fear of a warning, Zavian having more belief to suspect her. The witch’s warning had no context, and Neera promised to give Zavian every support he would need, whether he asked for it or not.

Run away. Anna had said. And to where? For what? She made a mistake, and she would stay to correct it.