CHAPTER 393: LEAVE ONE HERE-II

Despite its luxury, inside the witch’s manor was quite empty. Filled to the brim with old artifacts and furnitures, but cold as though each corner of the manor never once bothered to be warmed up by the fireplace. The sense of the room being filled to its utter brim with the furnitures while the emptiness of the human presence held a stark difference, highlighting the emptiness of the manor even more.

The cold wind brushes to the back of Renard’s neck, enough to make him shiver as it felt as though a woman had stood behind him and blew her breath to tease the back of his neck. He snapped his neck, looking over his shoulder to find the empty hallway while Lastor who sensed him stopped had also stopped to look at him.

"Did you see anything?" Lastor questioned while turning around his head, Renard replied with a gruff shake of his head. Thinking of finding out any secret while he was there, Lastor turned his focus to the butler, "Is it true that the Avalanche will only push those people the witch does not allow entering the forest?"

"That is indeed correct," Craven answered, "Though the avalanche would normally kill people if they are buried under the snow for longer than a quarter of hour, the witch had made sure to only scare them away, preventing the snow from killing and allowing them to be pushed to the warmer entrance of the forest."

"Our company was there," noted Renard, slightly bitter as he spoke, "How can the witch be sure that none of them would die from the snow? They look and felt real."

"They are real," confirmed Craven, "But all the snow in this forest are made by my mistress, they act and behave according to her wish. To kill or not to kill, the snow is capable of it, certainly," he chuckled, "But she had moved the snow to simply push the unwanted guests, showing her mercy."

"How can you call it mercy when there is a chance of killing those people?" Renard noted with a frown over the butler’s confidence that no one was going to die over the snow when Renard could tell the Avalanche was real and could kill recklessly.

"How can you blame her? Especially when they had came to her domain knowing it is a place that she settles with weapon and filled with those dangerous intention of killing her if she decided to deny your King’s request."

Startled, Renard’s spine straightened when he heard Craven’s words. He knew and the witch knew. They knew what they had came for and they knew that some of the men he brought are utterly loyal to Cassius, and would do anything even if it means killing the witch to receive a cure that Cassius so desperately searching for Arabella.

"My mistress has been waiting here," Craven then stopped passively in front of the door and eyed the two before his gaze lingering at Renard for a long time, "As a word of advice, my mistress is merciful but that doesn’t mean she would want to help anyone as she wishes. Everything requires a payment after all."

Ominously, the butler pulled his lips into a wider smile despite not smiling the slightest ever since he had opened the door. He then held the door knob and pushed it open, showcasing a room with four chairs around a round wooden table with intricate dolly placed on top of the table. The window behind the chairs were bright and white, covered with haze of snow yet bright as if there’s a sun right behind them. The rest of the walls and floors were covered with leaves and vines, crawling from the brown pot that settled on the corners of the room.

As they entered, the two search with their eyes for the Witch. But she was nowhere to be found which made them to frown.

"Are they pulling a trick on us?" the wary Renard snapped, "That butler, I knew it, he smells like blood despite being in a place without a single human here." And when he walked toward the door to pull it open, a harsh clack resounded and he realized it was the sound of the door that refuses to open. "Damn it. I knew it," stressed Renard with a click of his tongue, "That damned—"

"As playful as Craven is, he does know manner and wouldn’t lock you up or lies where I am, be at ease," the delicate voice rang and when they both turned their head to the source of the voice, they were met with a beautiful woman with the silver hair.

She sat lazily on the couch, legs crossed while her hands sway around her chin, playful long tapping on her chin with her long blackened fingers.

If one have to compare, her face was similar to Arabella for Renard while to Lastor, her face appeared so much as Lady Circe. A similar face structure but a beauty that was different. Her round face and wide set eyes with those button nose, she appeared like a doll, a deer, but a killer at the same time.

Her green eyes studied the two and that was enough to set them on edges and they stood stiff in their spot, unable to move out of the sheer pressure of the air.

"How adorable is your face," she spoke while looking at Renard’s face, "You seem to work well, an obedient little wolf who would die for your master. Seems that you have sacrificed your body many times in battlefield for him, to the point that most of your scars came from protecting him. Yet you think of those scars as reward don’t you?"

Startled, Renard questioned in his head of how the woman could know, how could she tell.

"It’s not too impressive, I haven’t read your mind," the witch replied as if seeing his head, "It was merely an observation but I can tell you other things that didn’t come from an observation. Such as the fact that you devoured your parents, but well, they did deserve that don’t they? After all they were the one who sold your younger sister to a man who had killed five of his wives for not bearing him a son. Your sister was still, well, too young. The age of eleven marrying a man thrice her age..."

Renard’s face turned grave as the truth about him killing his parents by drinking their blood dry was something no one else had ever known. No one. No one but Cassius.