Garden Of Poison

Raylen flew as swiftly as he could back to the castle, and considering its close proximity, he landed directly through an open window with his wings vanishing to accommodate him passing through. He took a deep sniff of the surroundings and proceeded to run in the direction where Emily’s scent was strongest.

Westley and Lauren caught sight of their master rushing through the castle corridors, and promptly followed him.

"Master, is everything alright?" Lauren inquired with concern.

"Where is Emily?" Raylen questioned, arriving at the door of the room where Julia was being held captive.

"She hasn’t left the floor since you departed, Master," Westley answered, and then added, "She’s probably been in the company of the traitor."

But when Raylen pushed the door open, it was just as he feared. He whispered, "Logan has taken her from here."

"He was here? It isn’t possible. We would have seen him," Lauren insisted, her frown deepening. "I will go take a look upsta—"

"Logan tricked us all." Raylen’s jaw clenched as he interrupted her, his frustration evident.

Raylen knew that Logan had switched his own body just before the moment of his death, such that even though he believed he had killed his first half-brother, Logan had somehow preserved himself. Similarly, he had taken over Julia’s body, using her skin and face to conceal who he truly was, aided by demonic black magic.

"Through and through, he only proves that he is her son," Raylen commented bitterly, acknowledging the cunning and twisted nature of his half-brother.

"But the map showed his location to be in the middle of the forest." The deception left Westley gobsmacked.

"I discovered his old clothes in the cave, where I just went. There was an additional finger and blood placed on Julia’s dead body." And the woman’s rotting corpse seemed to have been there for many hours, which meant she had died long ago, thought Raylen to himself. "When Julia stayed in the castle, she must have gotten her hands on Logan’s belongings, knowing that if magic were to be used on them to track him, it would prove futile."

He then started to walk out of the room when Lauren inquired, "Should we draw another summoning locator, Master?"

"No. This time I will hunt him down without it," Raylen declared, a look of chilling determination in his eyes.

When Raylen disappeared from the room, Lauren whispered to Westley, "We should still track them down to make sure we are on hand if Master and the Princess require any help."

Westley couldn’t agree more, even though something told him that Raylen wouldn’t need it. However, when they attempted the tracking ritual again, the entire map went up in flames, refusing to reveal where the Princess might be located. This only heightened their concern about where Logan might have taken her in such a short span of time.

In a place shrouded in darkness, Emily awoke to consciousness to find herself surrounded by a setting that seemed hauntingly familiar from her past. When she tried to get up, she realised she was seated in a chair with her wrists and ankles securely bound to it.

"You are finally awake," came the eerie voice from the shadows, causing Emily’s heart to grow anxious. An orangish-red light began to emanate from a corner of the room, casting a faint glow and illuminating some parts of the space.

Emily finally saw Logan step forward, his hands grinding something within the bowl he held. There had been many times in the past where she had been terrified of the possibility of an eventual meeting between them, if it ever happened. However, she now realised that she wasn’t as scared as she had once been.

"Where are we?" Emily asked, her voice unwavering.

"We are in a special place that is only for you, me, and my mother." Logan smiled creepily, his gaze shifting to her right. Emily turned her head in that direction, and her mouth went dry. Seated next to her was a mostly skeletal corpse, which had merely a few remnants of muscles clinging to its frame. "She looks lovely, doesn’t she? I have been tending to her since I brought her here, making sure everything suits her taste."

This crazy bastard, Emily thought, unable to move from her seat, and she looked away from the deceased woman beside her.

"You are not going to get my soul, Logan," Emily declared firmly to the disturbed individual before her.

Logan laughed, his smile unsettling as he addressed Emily. "A little too late to be saying that, Emily. You don’t want a soul like yours to go to waste, do you? It was created to be used by those in need, and your refusal is against the natural order."

"Waking up someone from their eternal slumber isn’t right either," Emily retorted, hoping to buy herself enough time to stall him until Raylen arrived.

"Don’t say that," he replied softly. "I heard your brother, Dante, brought someone back. It would be unfair if only a select few people’s wishes came true."

"What happened to Julia?" Emily inquired as she listened to him continue grinding something in the bowl with a small pestle.

"Oh, Emily, you already know the answer," Logan responded with a chilling smile. Silence filled the room, and she couldn’t hear any sound from the outside, and the place was cloaked in darkness as if it were already night. He then said, "She had served her purpose, and she wanted to be of one final use to me. So, I bid her goodbye."

Emily realised that it wasn’t Julia but Logan, who had callously killed her friend and many others on a whim. The look in her eyes hardened, and she asked,

"Do you truly believe bringing back your mother is going to make everything better? That there won’t be any consequences? Your mother won’t remain alive for long."

The mention of his mother struck a nerve in Logan, prompting him to impulsively throw a knife at Emily. The knife whizzed past the side of her face, its sharp edge grazing her cheek and slicing some of her hair, before it flew behind her and lodged itself somewhere in the room.

"You are upsetting Mother. Look, she’s frowning," Logan said with a frown of his own before his face returned to his previously tranquil expression.

Emily didn’t know if Logan had more than a few screws loose in his head or if what he said was true. After all, he had managed to steal his mother’s soul from Hell with the intention of reviving her. She felt a twinge of pain in her cheek and wished she possessed a useful ability. Unfortunately, her soulmate bond granted her the ability to hear from people and things, which wasn’t much help in her current situation.

"You know, Emily, I have been patiently waiting for you to bloom, and you have turned into such a pretty flower. And to make sure you reached your potential, I read the scroll," Logan hummed, placing the mortar and pestle on the table.

"Scroll?" Emily asked, not knowing what he was on about.

"The Scroll of Destiny. Did you know that there’s a scroll that contains a list of who is whose soulmate?" Logan asked her, turning his back to her.

He continued, "And then I discovered that my dear and gentle Emily was matched with an archdemon from Hell. I knew it would be troublesome for me to cultivate your soul to fruition and acquire it later. So I had pushed him just in the direction where it was needed. Making Layla sick and weak wasn’t hard, and time did the rest of the work. And everything was going according to plan until Raylen decided to turn you into his soulmate!" He pushed something off the table, and it crashed to the ground, shattering and spilling thick liquid.

Emily felt his anger in his words, and she braced herself, refraining from instigating him further. If she couldn’t rely on physical strength, she would need to depend on her wits. But just as she wondered how she would escape from him, he picked up another knife from the table.

"Enough of chit-chat; it is time to make the transaction," Logan decided, as he couldn’t wait to see his mother living and breathing once more in the flesh.

No! The thought raced through Emily’s mind as she desperately wished to keep him far away from her.

As Logan advanced towards her, a slightly transparent barrier materialised out of nowhere, surrounding the area where she and the skeleton of his mother sat.

"What is this?" Logan questioned curiously, and when he attempted to touch it, it burned his hand, causing him to quickly retract it. His eyes narrowed at her as he realised that, with the barrier in place, he couldn’t get close enough to run the knife into her chest and open her up to use her soul.

Emily felt a slight coldness emanating from the pendant she wore around her neck, and she glanced down at the lone snowflake, which had begun to twirl. Raylen’s pendant had saved her, at least for now.

That was until Logan stated menacingly, "I was making it easy for you, but if you want to die by burning in fire, then so be it."