CHAPTER 633: ANNIHILATION

AUBURN’S POV

Auburn paced the room, her gown trailing behind her like spilled wine.

Her nerves were already bad enough Jasmine was alive. Xaden had left the palace.

Everything she had planned for.

Everything she had dreamed of, it was coming down at her knees.

Her dress being burned?

Jasmine’s powers that she had never known existed was now forcefully coming out.

She loved this life!

She couldn’t go back to where she had come from now matter what.

He turned to Cherry who had been sitting on a chair wiiey.

"Do you think we should poison her?" Auburn whispered sharply. "Or maybe set her up? Setting her up might be just the best option and then-

She turned to Cherry.

Cherry didn’t answer.

She was sitting at her vanity, her raven black hair pinned in silver combs, staring straight ahead.

"Cherry?" Auburn stepped closer. "Did you hear me?"

No reaction.

Cherry’s spine was rigid.

Her breath... completely still.

"Hello?" A puzzled Auburn asked

Nothing.

Auburn reached out hesitantly and touched Cherry’s shoulder-

Cherry’s eyes rolled white.

Fully.

Completely.

Like pearls with no pupils.

Auburn’s scream strangled in her throat.

"Cherry?" she whispered.

"Cherry? Can you hear me?"

Cherry did not blink.

Her face was frozen, carved in cold marble.

Auburn’s panic spiked.

She grabbed Cherry’s shoulders, shaking her violently.

"CHERRY! Wake up! What’s happening to you?!"

No response.

Cherry’s body stayed upright, stiff, eyes locked into the void.

Auburn stumbled back in terror.

"CHERRY!"

But Princess Chery was already gone.

Her body was here.

Her mind was elsewhere.

Dragged... violently... into another realm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

CHERY’S ASTRAL POV

The Cave of Chaos

Chery’s eyes snapped open.

The stench of sulfur choked her.

Fire crackled in the endless tunnels.

Metallic screams echoed off the stone walls.

Her nostrils flared.

"No."

She knew this place.

The Cave of Chaos.

The realm of eternal judgement.

A prison of torture for traitors and monsters.

A place she would have been sentenced to if she hadn’t been cunning.

She hissed under her breath.

"Who dares—"

A voice rasped from the shadows.

"My Princess... my savior... finally... I reached you..."

Cherry spun.

Uther was there.

Or what remained of him.

His flesh was charred, bits hanging from bone. Chains wrapped around him, dragging him across the burning rocks.

His left leg was gone, severed above the knee. His skin blistered, fresh wounds ripping open and healing, only to rip again.

The first stage of eternal torture.

His thousand years had begun.

Cherry curled her lip in disgust.

"Uther," she spat. "What are you doing here?"

He sobbed and there actual relief in his tortured voice.

"I called for you. I.... I needed you."

She stepped closer, fury in her eyes.

"You’re in the cave of chaos. Why?"

He screamed as fire burst across his back.

"They.... Xaden.... he found out everything! He sentenced me. He sentenced Anna too. He sent us here!"

Cherry froze.

"He sentenced his own sister?"

Her voice sliced like glass.

Uther coughed blood that evaporated before it hit the ground.

"Yes... he knows... he knows you were behind everything..."

Cherry’s jaw tightened.

"How."

"I don’t know," Uther cried. "I couldn’t say your name. The binding spell my tongue burned anytime I tried to speak."

"Good." Cherry hissed. "If you said my name, I would have burned your soul myself."

He cried harder, the torture flames biting into him again.

His screams echoed.

"Princess Cherry ?"

Cherry turned.

A figure writhed deeper inside the cave.

Anna.

Her body hung suspended by chains of white fire. Every few seconds, flames roared beneath her skin, burning but never killing.

Her voice was shredded from screaming.

"Cherry!" Anna begged.

"Please! Please help me! I’ll be good! I’ll do anything AUNT PLEASE!"

Cherry rolled her eyes.

Pathetic.

She stepped towards her slowly, savoring Anna’s terror.

Anna trembled.

"Save me... please... they they’re burning me alive"

Cherry smirked.

"If your very own brother with whom you shared blood with didn’t have mercy on you what makes you think I would?"

Anna’s face crumpled with agony. "Please-

Cherry raised her hand.

Anna’s chains tightened around her throat.

She choked, body convulsing.

Then Cherry lowered her hand slowly.

"No," she purred.

"You don’t die today. You have a century of suffering left before the flame stage ends."

Anna sobbed as Cherry leaned in, voice dripping venom.

"And when the hundred years are done... I’ll visit again."

Anna screamed as the flames roared back to life.

Uther crawled closer, desperate. "Princess... save me... please..."

Cherry turned, eyes colder than the deepest abyss.

"Did you involve me?"

"No!" he cried. "The spell wouldn’t let me speak your name! I swear—"

Cherry smiled.

"Good."

His face twisted with relief.

"Then you understand," she whispered, raising her hand...

"That I don’t need you alive."

Fire erupted across Uther’s chest

not the torture fire,

not the judgment flame.

Her fire.

Black fire.

Soul fire.

He didn’t even have time to scream.

He disintegrated.

His ashes blew apart in the cave’s eternal wind.

Anna shrieked in terror, watching him crumble into dust.

"You YOU KILLED HIM!" she wailed in horror

Cherry turned to her slowly.

A smile ghosted her lips.

"And you’re next.

Just... not yet."

Anna cried, voice raw and echoing through the pit as Cherry’s body blurred

And vanished.

~~~~~~~~~

AUBURN’S POV

Cherry slammed back into her body with a violent gasp.

Auburn jolted.

"CHERRY! Oh my goddess you scared—"

Cherry’s hand shot out and grabbed Auburn’s wrist.

Hard.

Her eyes were burning with rage.

"We change the plan."

Auburn swallowed. "W... why? What happened?"

"Xaden knows." Cherry snarled.

"He knows somethings at least.."

Auburn paled. "H-how?"

"Doesn’t matter." Cherry paced the room like a storm, her gown snapping behind her.

"Uther is dead. Anna is burning in eternal fire."

Auburn staggered back.

"W-What?!"

Cherry whipped around, eyes blazing with red fury.

"If we don’t move now," she hissed, "Xaden will destroy everything I’ve built."

Auburn shook. "W-what do we do?"

Cherry’s smile was slow... wicked... murderous.

"We bring down the royal pack.

All of them.

Immediately."

Auburn’s breath froze.

"And Jasmine?" she whispered.

Cherry leaned close, her voice a deadly whisper.

"She dies first."