CHAPTER 416: NOON IS HERE

Zina shrugged nonchalantly in response.

Rowan laughed in disbelief probably thinking that she was merely stalling her impending torture. "While I don’t know how you’ve come about the knowledge of the runes, the Pack Runes can only extend your life. So what if your mother managed to put some of it inside of you? That is hardly enough to dispel the nirvana torture."

Zina laughed audaciously. "Believe me, that is not as wonderful as the gift of my sight. Shall I show you true magic right now? True power? What it means to see the future and predict it so accurately, shivers would wrack your body."

She heard Rose play with the whip that was meant for her already battered body. Despite her words, they were still gearing up to torture her.

How foolish they were... because soon none of that would happen... or matter.

"The only true magic here is the ruin that will come to you when Rose is done with you," Rowan drawled, his fingers caressing her face in a way that felt like thousand pins pricking her body. "Trying to talk your way out of it is not the way to go about it. Sit down like a good girl, because this afternoon, you and I will stand side by side on a podium for all to see where true power resides—and that is with us who are husband and wife."

Zina turned to an ice boulder under his touch. But that didn’t stop her from tilting her head up to him. "This afternoon? That is quite unfortunate because night is coming and the sun will retire prematurely. Should we stand on that podium, I’m afraid no one will see us clearly."

The air froze, as if seeing the truth in her words. Tension swirled around them, but Zina wasn’t quite done.

"Before you bring me to my ruin, may I inquire on how long this cave manor has stood tall like this?"

"A few hundred years." Rowan answered dryly, making to leave the room.

But her next words stopped him short of it. "In that case, it’s unfortunate that the Cave Manor will fall today. Should it have existed for a few more hundred years, then it would have turned into a cultural heritage." She finished, sarcasm dripping from her words.

Nothing happened for a second. Zina didn’t hear him or Rose move. Then the Cave Manor bell was struck twelve times successively to announce that it was mid day already.

Zina stilled for a second—if everything went well, then Seraph should very well have returned, and Prophetess Ada should be waiting in her mother’s prison room where the Pack Runes was also stored.

Thankfully, Master didn’t know of its true powers as her mother had explained to her. If he should ever come to that knowledge, then the runes would have long been coveted by him.

But she pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind as she listened to her environment for her visions to come to pass—because everything that she had planned depended on it. First, the afternoon darkness that would come. Then second, the Cave Manor that will meet its unnatural end.

That was when she heard it...Rose gasped lightly like she was beholding something truly shocking and nerve wracking which was unusual for the woman whose usual expressions began with grim calculatedness and ended with grim triumph.

"The sun...." She said, voice twisted in awe and dread at the same time at the realization that Zina’s words were coming to pass just as she had spoken it. "The sun is changing."

Zina heard Rowan whirl around on his feet, retreating back to the room probably to gaze out from the high window that Rose observed the phenomenon from.

That was when Zina dared to take off her blindfold. Her prison was already dark as well, barely lit by the candles, so it didn’t long for her sight to adjust to the sensations. She too looked up to the high window covered with a special kind of glass that didn’t allow sunlight in the room, but still made it possible to view the sun and moon in order to gauge the time.

But Rose was wrong in her predictions. The sun wasn’t changing; it was simply meeting the moon.

"Our Weather Readers didn’t report such!" Rowan snapped, furious eyes turning to Zina who balled the blindfold cloth in her fists.

She knew Rowan’s anger hardly stemmed from the fact that she had predicted something that their Readers couldn’t foresee, but because the sudden force of the unknown was more rattling than the force of the known.

Celestial changes like the Eclipse were after all tied to great changes. Just like the last time it happened months ago, thus ushering in Daemon’s reign all over the Arctic North. Following that, it was strange to have another such eclipse barely five months after the last.

"So what if the sun turns red?" Rowan snapped as if being harsh enough would erase the look of triumph on her face, "nothing has changed. Rose, carry on. I shall see this unprecedented celestial change as ushering in the time when the West will dominate Vraga!"

But Rowan was wrong. That critical moment had in fact changed everything.

And the next sign came when the ground beneath them rumbled, like the thunders of the skies had snuck underground and left their high abode.

At first, the two of them wore confused looks, unaware of what was happening. And it took the ground between them cracking wide open for Rowan to realize it.

"An earthquake...." He muttered, eyes widening as he realized the hidden meaning behind her earlier words.

Zina looked between him and Rose—the woman who stood poised, whip in hand.

"If the Cave Manor falls," Zina drawled, voice dripping with barely concealed sarcasm, "what would happen to the Ancient Oak Tree if it’s buried underneath the bubbles of your precious manor?"

Rowan’s eyes widened, and without thinking, he bolted out of the room without looking back.

The darkness in the room ominously got thicker while Rose approached her, whip still in hand.

"You’ve talent, Theta," she drawled, "but seeing the future will not save you from my hand."

Zina watched as a male servant crept up soundlessly behind Rose without the woman knowing. Then the servant, quick as lightning, put a rope over her neck and then began to strangle her.

The whip fell from her hand, and she struggled... kicking, hitting, snarling, eyes bursting like a ball as she glared at Zina like she was the one responsible for her predicament l.

But even though Rose was strong, the man behind her was stronger and faster. So seconds later, the life left her eyes as she collapsed on the ground like dust.

The servant approached Zina without making a single sound with his feet and bowed. "Prophetess Ada asked me to pass a message to you; since your visions have come to pass, then you must hurry on and do your part."

Then without another word, he left Zina alone with a corpse. It had all happened so fast that she could barely process it. But she had no time to waste.

Should she linger around, Orchid and the gods knows who would come for her. So she carried her dress, and bolted from the room. Going in the direction of the escape tunnel where Seraph would be waiting for her.

Time... all she needed was time and she would put everything back in its place.