{CoRW: Book 3} Chapter 103: A Prelude to Devastation *Rough Draft*

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Chapter 103: A Prelude to Devastation

The swarm of Charu butterflies divided themselves up curiously amongst the three veiled women. Carina was not surprised to see that more than half of the glittering specimens settled upon the veiled woman to the far right. However, she found it odd that six of the remaining fifteen insects split off to land on the veiled woman to the left, while the woman at the center was completely ignored. The remaining nine Charu fluttered off toward the Pope, which the Duchess had anticipated, given his relationship with Hana.

However decadent and delicate these glittering butterflies appeared, they were far from harmless. Their glowing dust concealed wings as prickly as a holy leaf, hooked feet that resembled a minuscule fisherman’s hook, and a sharp proboscis (tongue) that could puncture skin as easily as an iron needle.

The two veiled women barely stirred as the well over two dozen golden insects fluttered and climbed along their veils. The Charu moved in a frenzy, searching for access to the sacred blood they had been raised to crave, yet denied by a thin layer of enchanted cloth.

Unlike the women, Pope Jericho was not covered from head to foot. His pale-golden eyes surveyed the butterflies warily as they hovered above him. He recoiled in surprise when the first pair landed on his shoulder and brushed them away, only to flinch as another crawled up his collar to nip at the base of his neck. The Divine Heir snarled as he slapped the predatory butterfly, then just as quickly yelped in pain before flinging the crushed insect to the ground. Drops of blood followed the twitching butterfly, whose sharp wings had left tiny incisions across the Pope’s palm.

The remaining eight Charu reacted to the scent of blood by swarming toward the opening wounds. Ripper stepped in swiftly, flinging his cape over the butterflies and stomping them to the floor. The Duchess frowned as Jericho hastily clenched his injured hand, tucking it out of sight.

‘Wasn’t the Pope supposed to be capable of healing such minor wounds?’

“What is going on?” Nicholas yelled in alarm. “What are these pests, Kirsi?”

“My apologies if you were startled, your Majesty,” Carina replied smoothly. “They were a gift prepared for his Holiness. A rare specimen of butterflies that reside along the borders of old Zarus and a legacy left behind by the Third Saint. I thought it might please his Holiness to see a living relic of his ancestral bloodline.”

In truth, the Duchess had obtained the butterflies to prove Hana’s connection to the Saint’s bloodline. A desperate last measure to ensure Hana’s safety and perhaps even secure her freedom should Carina’s other plans fall through. ‘They might still serve a similar purpose for me now. Thanks to their keen sense of smell, I know which is the real Hana.’

She passed this information along to Percy, trusting the Earl to ensure the message was conveyed to all necessary to avoid any harm directed at the Viscountess.

“Whatever your reasons, these—butterflies—appear to have harmed his Holiness!” Priscilla pointed out indignantly.

“I’m alright!” Jericho interrupted sharply. The Pope stood, leaning against his golden staff momentarily as he pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and brushed it over his injured hand, removing the blood and revealing the unblemished skin beneath. “I was simply caught off guard by your unexpected gift, Kirsi.”

The audience of nobles murmured in awe, some even applauding as if this were all some pre-arranged theatrics meant to entertain them.

“So it seems,” Carina replied with a modest bow of her head. “My mistake. I had assumed that as Saint Harmonia’s Heir, your Holiness would have the knowledge and ability to control them as she did.”

Of course, this wasn’t true. Completely the opposite, in fact. The church had done its best to mask the details of Harmonia’s curious hobby. For a Saintess to grant her precious blood to mere insects might undermine her sacred image amongst their believers. But given that they liked to claim the Saint’s descendants had inherited many of her divine abilities, Carina doubted they would so readily confess otherwise in public.

Unsurprisingly, Jericho did not try to correct her, even if his glare suggested he did not buy her story.

The nobles' attention and whispers returned to the Charu butterflies, which had folded themselves into the curious design of a fluttering crown around the Viscountess’s head. The golden dust from the insects’ wings fell down Hana’s veil like a curtain of divine glory.

“Someone should remove them,” Priscilla whispered, still unnerved by the insects' ferocious display earlier.

“Let's just get on with it, shall we,” Nicholas retorted, his glare directed at Carina rather than the butterflies or Royal Consort. “Don’t you have something to say to me—Duchess?”

Carina offered a political smile as she folded her hands at her waist and stepped towards the waiting page and Duke. An impatient tug at her connection to Isaac revealed the scriva had moved beyond the palace walls, still searching for the missing knight captain’s scent.

“Your Grace?” Stryker arched a thinning brow warily at her continued silence.

“Perhaps she needs a moment to remember the words,” Jericho commented with the same overly familiar yet hostile tone.

Carina returned her focus to Nicholas and drew in a short breath. “Before I begin, I would ask a question, your Majesty—”

“What?” Striker interjected quickly. “That is absurd!”

“Ask it!” Nicholas snapped as he rolled his eyes toward the painted ceiling. “Why not? I have a question I would ask your Grace as well, regarding the plague witch that you’ve kept hidden inside Bastiallano’s Fortress.”

The Duchess did not flinch at the brief but charged silence that followed, only to be ripped away by the noble’s torrent of angry protests and demands for answers.

“I have given shelter to no plague witch,” Carina replied evenly with one inclined brow.

“But you have concealed a means of ending this plague from me!”

“I have offered shelter and safety to the plague victims—nothing more.”

Nicholas’s dull expression cracked into a cynical smile. “You’re lying.”

“Perhaps someone else is lying to you, your Maj—” The Duchess blinked as the King’s empty bottle of wine shattered against the floor to her right. Broken glass shards bounced harmlessly off her dress and the startled Duke’s boots and trousers. Stryker quickly turned to face the platform with a scowl.

“You are withholding the truth for me, Kirsi,” Nicholas snarled as he advanced toward her. “As you have always done. Your origins, your identity at Frost, even your witch blood!” The Witch Hunters at the platform's edge turned to restrain the fuming monarch while the nobles around the ballroom whispered in confusion. “I always wondered how you knew about this plague so far in advance as to prepare hospitals and trade connections for medicine. And now—it all makes perfect sense. No one benefited more from the plague than you. Frost’s soap industry, herbalist shops, hospitals, and political influence with Strugna and Ventrayna. You needed the plague to weaken my support so you could swoop in and steal my throne!”

The outward mask of calm Carina faced the flailing King with could not be further from her true feelings of disgust and disappointment. ‘How much of this does Nicholas actually believe, and how much is for show?’ Sheexhaled slowly, her gaze returning to Hana, still covered in golden butterflies. The Duchess’s connection to Isaac grew thinner as the scriva drifted further from the palace—in pursuit of something. Beaumont’s scent, maybe?

“Might I ask my question now, your Majesty?”

The King’s hazel-blue eyes blinked as if he were waking from a dream. He laughed darkly, stepping back from the restraining push of the Witch Hunter’s as he waved at her permissively. “Please, your Grace. Ask your question. But know that it will cost you the royal pardon I granted you under false pretenses.”

It was a sickeningly familiar feeling, rather similar to slowly drowning at sea, trapped in a box with a shrinking pocket of air.

‘It’s not like I didn’t see the possibility of Nicholas betraying us once Jericho had obtained his weakness. If anything, I expected it. No, what I’m feeling now isn’t disappointment or even resentment. How many times have Kirsi and I tried to rewrite the ending of this story, only for the world to dance at the ends of Ramiel’s strings and paint us the villains—yet again.’

The Duchess clenched her jaw, a mocking smile twitching at the corner of her lips as she unclasped her hands and met his gaze. “Where is Captain Beaumont?”

Carina felt her chest tighten at the guilt written clearly upon Nicholas’s face. Her mouth went suddenly dry as her thoughts raced to grasp the endless possibilities that would have prevented Beaumont from being found anywhere inside the palace. In those rapidly depleting seconds, the simple dream she had once had of escaping Lafeara with Hana and living a simple life on the edge of the world somewhere, or perhaps even within the safety of Bastalliano’s Fortress walls, crumpled like a dry castle of sand before a crushing wave, leaving only the clear, cold, and crimson path before her.

‘If becoming the villain is the only way I can protect the people I need to protect—then I suppose that means you win, Ramiel. Even if I come to hate myself for it—I see no other way forward.’

A legacy of futile struggle, agonizing deaths, and incomprehensible betrayal filtered through Carina’s tired soul as a warning ring pierced softly against her ears. She exhaled sharply, the ghost of her breath evaporating as swiftly as it appeared, and yet—the Witch Hunters behind the Duke edged back cautiously.

“Why?” Carina murmured dully, numb beneath the drunken, familiar sting of resignation. “Why would you betray him?”

The King licked his lips nervously before rubbing his hand along his jaw, eyes avoiding her gaze as he inched back toward his precious throne. “Beaumont—he betrayed me first! He betrayed me for—”

“For me?” The harshness of her tone cut through the sudden chill which spiraled out from the Scarlet Witch like a spectral mist.

“Y-yes,” Nicholas squeaked, eyes widening at the frost which sprouted beneath the Isbrand witch’s feet and spread to coat the floor beneath its glittering domain. “Yes! What did you expect when you sent him back to act as your spy?”

“What did I expect?” Carina murmured as if to herself. “Why did I put my faith in you? Why should I continue to fight against your accusations with my hands tied behind my back by mortal constraints?”

The King flinched as the Duke drew his sword and stepped forward to place it against the Duchess’s metal corset.

“That is enough, Lady Kirsi,” Stryker growled. “Withdraw your magic now, or I will be forced to arrest you—or worse.”

A soft chuckle slipped past the Duchess’s lips as she turned her pale blue eyes toward the Duke. She raised her right hand slowly, running her fingertips along the sharpened edge of his blade. Stryker’s steel-blue eyes widened in surprise as her fingers emerged unblemished, then narrowed as she flicked his long sword away with unexpected strength.

“Step aside, Lord Protector,” Carina growled in a quiet voice only those immediately around her could hear. “While you still have legs to do so.”

The Duke flinched at the prickling chill of the frost magic that crawled up his boots and thighs. With a grunt of effort, he liberated his frozen limbs from the icy grip of the ballroom floor, then inched back behind the line of Witch Hunters.

“We are ready to move when you are, Kirsi,” Percy intoned through the earring. “But we’re extremely vulnerable as long as the anti-magic dome remains active.”

“I’m working on it,” Carina replied with a faint smirk. “Have a little faith.”

The panicked voices of the nobles, retreating from the vines of ice that wove their way meticulously along the ballroom floor, did not go unnoticed by the Pope or his albino.

“It seems the Duchess intends to rebel,” Jericho monotoned as if reading from a script. “Subdue her, Commander.”

“With pleasure,” Ripper snarled, pulling the curiously wrapped bastard sword from his back.

Carina ducked as a cross-bolt, glowing with traces of the aconitum herb, whizzed past her head and shoulder. Behind her, Linby activated the carefully prepared relic medallion, creating a protective frost barrier to shield the Covens. Satisfied they could manage for now, the Duchess teleported to where her frost magic had located one of the anchors for the anti-magic dome. She swiftly summoned an ice spear, wrapped it in the blistering aura of Viktor’s magic, and then slammed its black ice tip into the earth rune. Golden sparks of divine power glimmered brightly beneath her weapon as the enchantment glowed, flickered, then clinked as the first crack finally broke through its magically enforced barrier.

‘Almost strong enough to withstand a direct attack from me. This is more than just the Pope’s doing.’

The anti-magic field around the ballroom weakened, allowing Percy and his purebloods to form an offensive line on either side of Linby and his ice shield. Carina had little time to worry about them as Ripper and most of the witch hunters closed in on her swiftly.

The Duchess decided to wait for them. She offered the church hounds a faint smirk as her frost magic identified the final two anchors. Her smile blinked out of view just as Ripper’s blade cut through the air toward her. When the last anchor shattered beneath her spear, Carina turned to survey the chaos unfolding before her as the panicked nobles rushed to flee through the already barricaded balcony windows and arched door.

‘Looks like the witch hunters disguised as Royal Knights wanted to make sure no one could escape.’

No longer tethered, Percy and his empowered Coven had dispersed themselves around the ballroom to hunt down their enemies. The witch hunters were forced to retreat to the Pope, who cowered behind the three veiled women.

‘Why is Jericho just standing there? Why isn’t he using the holy relic? Just what is he planning? What is he waiting for? For the rest of his men to be slaughtered? Foolish!’

Carina shook her head as she steadied the immortal power, far from satiated, that coursed through her. She met the Divine Heir’s gaze from across the ballroom. He cowed beneath her gaze. His pale pupils appeared darker than normal before a golden light brightened within them.

‘Ah, finally!’

The Scarlet Witch smiled as she strode across her domain of ice to face the mortal representative of her eternal oppressor. She would rid the world of yet another power-blind tyrant and free Hana from Ramiel’s grasp in the process.

Across the ballroom, Ripper noticed Kirsi’s objective and hastily raised a crossbow to take aim at her once again. A crow slammed its talons violently across the albino’s face, leaving trails of blood and torn flesh across the dazed witch hunter’s face before the wing assailant was caught in the Commander’s powerful grip, hurled to the grown, and crushed beneath his boot.

“Bloody bird—” Ripper cut off as he hurriedly raised the crossbow to block a slashing wind attack aimed at his chest. Percy descended beside the albino, hurling one lethal attack after another, forcing the Commander of the Witch Hunter Order into a tense and awkward dance to maintain his limbs and life. The remaining witch hunters were soon split between protecting Ripper, Jericho, and themselves.

A ringing gall of wind erupted through the shattering glass panes of the balcony doors. Kirsi raised her left hand toward the deadly falling glass, shielding the nobles who cowered beneath in terror, with an absent wave of her hand before she shifted her attention to the church’s dogs, who flung themselves in her path.

The Storm Witches, led by Eustice and Serilda, entered the ballroom and surveyed the chaos with matching expressions of glee. Serilda led her Storm Witches to support Percy in suppressing Ripper, who remained stubbornly resistant to all but the destructive force of wind magic. Eustice lingered long enough to clear a path for the nobles to retreat, then moved on to join the hunt for the rapidly dwindling number of witch hunters.

“Ripper!” Jericho bellowed as Carina drew closer, a line of fallen, frozen witch hunters in her wake. Fear laced the Pope’s words as he took in the surrounded and overwhelmed albino. The Scarlet Witch observed the golden staff he clung to desperately. The relic hummed with divine power, the egg-shaped stone stirring with ripples of electricity at its crown.

‘So that’s how they charged the anti-magic dome.’

“You—you won’t get away with this!”

‘How cliché.’ Carina arched a brow as she ascended the practically vacated royal platform. The three women rose from their chairs as the ice witch reached the top but did not approach her. Beneath their golden veils, the impression of their gaze followed the Scarlet Witch’s movements as she moved past them, their unified breathing unnervingly calm.

The Pope’s eyes widened as the ice witch passed the veiled woman. “What are you doing—Stop!” His expression and frantic tone struck Carina as comical. ‘Is he addressing those women or me?’ Her winter-blue eyes quickly narrowed as the holy staff in his hand glowed ominously. “I won’t let you doom this world to Calamity, Kirsi! ᛞᛖᚦ ᛏᛟ ᚦᛖ ᚲᚢᚱᛊᛖᛞ ᚺᚨᛚᚠ—”

Jericho sputtered silently, his lips trembling in stunned disbelief as the hand that held the divine relic towards the Scarlet Witch slid away from his body and tumbled to the floor. Carina reversed the swing of her crimson blade and brought it to his throat with a menacing smile. “A half what, your Holiness?”

The Charu butterflies took flight, their glowing wings coating the Scarlet Witch’s blood-splattered dress in a sheen of gold as they hovered in the air above her before descending to devour the screaming Pope’s blood.

Carina stepped back and watched numbly as the inspects swarmed Jericho’s severed wrist. Their wings and bodies turned a familiar crimson red as they gorged themselves upon the unfortunate man’s agony. The Divine Heir agonized screams turned to panic as the insatiable creatures clawed their way up his tattered sleeve to stab and drain him further.

One of the veiled women appeared to awaken from her trance at the Pope’s piercing shrieks. She rushed towards him but was yanked back by an invisible magic that bound the women together.

The Scarlet Witch focused on the curious energy, coating it with her cold magic until she found a weak cinch in the energy chain. She then cut through the magic with the same sword she had disarmed Jericho, partly to confirm the power's source but also to test its strength. The binds shattered with surprising ease as all three women collapsed. More butterflies flew from Hana’s veiled figure to join their hungry brethren upon the now madly thrashing, screaming Pope, who had fallen to his knees.

Despite their earlier inclination, none of the women dared to approach Jericho. Perhaps they realized, as Carina had, that it was too late to intervene. The Charu butterflies were not above turning on those who interfered with a readily offered meal.

The Scarlet Witch knelt before the only woman to whom a single stubborn Charu butterfly remained. She chased the insect away with a bit of cold magic, the one thing the predatory insects demonstrated any weakness towards, at watched briefly as it joined the blood frenzy. “Hana?” Carina clasped the woman’s head beneath the veil and turned the Viscountess’s gaze away from the gory sight. “Don’t look over there. Look at me. Hana, it’s me—Kirsi.”

A familiar trembling hand reached up between them to touch the ice witch’s cheek. Carina flinched as Hana’s pale fingertips withdrew, now covered in blood. The Viscountess said nothing as she slowly pulled down the veil between them. Hana’s sunken turquoise eyes glimmered with tears that trailed down her pale cheeks and dry lips. She blinked sluggishly as if still chasing away the grips of a heavy drug, then offered the Scarlet Witch a hesitant smile. “You—came?”

Carina pressed against the cold rage coiling in her gut at her friend’s haggard appearance. “I told you I would come for you. And now I’m taking you away to somewhere safe.” The Scarlet Witch dismissed the bloody ice sword and wrapped her arms around the trembling, pale woman as she pulled Hana to her feet.

“I knew—you’d come—eventually.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long.” The ringing tingle of danger sharpened in the ice witch’s ear. Carina teleported swiftly to the platform's edge, then turned to face the woman who had picked up Jericho’s fallen staff. “Hell’s Teeth—another one.” The Scarlet Witch watched as the divine relic transformed from a staff to a bow in the woman’s grip and swiftly created an ice bow in response.

“No! Wait!” Hana called out desperately as she clung to the Scarlet Witch’s arms. “Don’t! Kirsi!”

Carina frowned, then blinked in surprise as the woman unveiled herself to reveal the familiar face of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed dancer. ‘Isn’t that—Griselda or Lilaru?’

“She’s—she’s my sister. Kirsi. The only family I have left.”

The Scarlet Witch said nothing as the twin—Lilaru if she had to guess based on the madness that glimmered in the woman’s smile—summoned an arrow of divine energy against the bow’s string. The missile shimmered and quivered as the dancer struggled to pull it back.

‘Well, even if Lilaru manages to pull off the shot. I can block it or simply teleport away.’ Carina sighed as she dismissed her bow, much to the Viscountess’s relief. The dancer scowled in confusion and anger, then quickly growled in frustration as the arrow snuffed out beneath her fingertips.

“She doesn’t have enough divine energy to use it properly,” Hana whispered as her head sagged against Carina’s shoulder. “None of them do.”

“I thought Jericho had found some way to force you—”

“He tried.” The Viscountess grimaced and shivered. “It is the way of mortals to try and bend the gods to their will.”

Carina tilted her head at the odd phrasing but nodded in agreement as she scanned the ballroom. Winifred and nobles from the Nocturnem Coven had pinned King Nicholas, Royal Consort Priscilla, Duke Stryker, and what remained of the Royal Knights into the far-left corner behind the platform, where the Coven appeared to be containing them behind a forcefield of magic. ‘It looks like Percy means to keep his word about a bloodless succession after all. How unexpected.’

On the opposite end of the ballroom, the Earl and Marchioness Serilda had pinned Ripper and three surviving witch hunters inside a deadly wind tunnel that scratched the painting ceiling of the ballroom menacingly.

Lilaru appeared to take notice of this encroaching danger. With one last withering glare in the Scarlet Witch’s direction, she turned and fled toward the servant’s passageway.

“It looks like it's just about over,” Carina murmured, ill at ease with the relief that tingled like an unexpected warmth against her frozen heart. Her gaze returned to the bloody mound of Charu butterflies, where the third woman finally removed her veil.

Madam Maylea looked strangely fragile and shaken as she watched the insects devour the man before her. The Scarlet Witch observed the Spymaster silently. Carina didn’t care if Maylea had chosen to continue playing both sides of the conflict after their secret meeting. She had used the Spymaster’s nature to reinforce Jericho’s confidence, and events had played out in her favor. That was all that mattered now.

Madam Maylea’s lips trembled as she murmured something inaudible. Her gaze remained fixed upon the Divine Heir’s body, which had long since stopped screaming or moving altogether. Carina followed the woman’s horrified yet perplexed expression and felt her gut clench beneath the sharp, biting grip of disappointment.

The Charu had begun to crawl away from the dead man’s body. Their swollen abdomens trailed lines of blood across the floor as they returned to the abandoned golden veils of the women. The shrunken corpse that remained was barely recognizable, covered in blood and insect bites, but Carina recognized the man’s face and wide ebony eyes all the same.

She had grown up with that face. Entrusted her secrets and unburdened her grievances and fears to him.

“What are you doing there—Gus?”