Feral Mage Book 2: Chapter 33

Isabelle hummed happily to herself as she entered the Red Lace. The girls had greeted her as soon as she neared the building, updating her on everything from how much they were making to whether any customers were potential trouble. Usually, her girls could take care of most bad customers. They were all pretty flowers, but she made damn sure their thorns were sharp.

By the time she reached her office, they had already split away to handle other matters. Isabelle was glad that little would require her attention today. She had plans after all.

She pulled out the lock of Bryce’s hair and ran it under her nose, smelling his scent. She was growing fonder of him each time they met, and to think she had initially intended to kill him after he broke up the fighting pit. The fat lard of an underboss who ran it fibbed about what he did, but Isabelle was intrigued by the powers he described Bryce using.

He was like some monster!

Those words sealed his fate. She inquired more about the man who had burned down her fighting pit. That’s how she learned her underboss had planned to murder two merc guild members, violating one of he fundamental laws of Witchbrook. You don’t fuck with the guilds.

So Isabelle delivered a little present to ensure she patched up everything with the guildhall, and met the man she had heard so much about. As soon as her eyes connected with Bryce’s, she could feel the souls stirring inside him. She even knew what kind of monsters they were.

She licked her lips as she locked the door to her office. She smelled the lock of hair again, trying to lock Bryce’s scent to memory. How she wished she could go on another date with him before he left, a real one.

Their little visit to the circus was just for her to verify what kind of man he was. After all, the harbor was the best place to dispose of a body, should she learn she was wrong about him. She smiled as she held the lock of hair.

“He’s perfect,” she said to herself.

Then Isabelle moved from her office door to the center of the room. There, she lifted the rug on her floor away, revealing a hidden hatch. She always considered it a bit cliché, but it had originally been a smuggler's tunnel used by the previous owner before she killed him. Now it led to the shrine for her Goddess.

Isabelle hummed as she descended the stairs in the hatch. She followed them as they led below the Red Lace into part of the drow tunnels under Witchbrook. She had sealed this section of the tunnels years ago, changing it to suit her needs. Now it was a large and spacious room with a deep pit in the center. Before the pit was the marble statue of her Goddess, a cloaked woman with four eyes. Chiseled into the marble of her cloak were the images of various monsters that grew in size the closer they got to the floor.

Isabelle bowed deeply to the figure to show respect. The statue of the Goddess had saved her life all those years ago, after all. The only divine to ever answer her prayers. When she stood, she looked to the side of the room and smiled.

“Hello again,” Isabelle said, waving. “I’m glad to see you didn’t try to escape.”

Four assassins were chained to the wall, still in the black armor all of them wore. One of them, a human man, glared at her while two more looked at her with fear. The fourth, a forest elf man, stared at the statue, trembling.

“Horrid bitch! The organization will come for your head!” the human said, spitting in her direction. “You’re dead, dead!”

“Shut up, Nick!” the elf, staring at the statue, yelled, his voice trembling. “Just shut up!”

Nick sneered.

“You shut up, Wes! She’s going to torture and kill us. I’ll at least go out calling her a whore!”

Wes shook his head.

“She’s a heretic,” he said before looking at her. “That statue is of the Mother of Monsters. We’re going to be sacrificed, aren’t we?”

Isabelle laughed.

“Heretic,” she said the word as if it were the greatest joke, and perhaps it was. “I know my Goddess exists. She has protected me, spoken to me, and has done far more for me than any of those fake Gods and Goddesses in the temples have.”

She knew the truth. Most of the Gods and Goddesses worshiped within the kingdoms were fabrications. Created to gather donations, their granted powers were little more than the soul and the ambient magic of their believers.

The real gods and goddesses were not as servile, tending to the needs and whims of the insignificant lives that worshiped them. The real gods and goddesses few would want to gain the attention of, and most of those who did would die painful deaths. The few, though, who managed to spark the interest of the real divine and gain their favor would benefit greatly.

Isabelle strolled toward the forest elf man, who backed up as much as his chains would allow him. She stared down at him, her hand still playing with the lock of Bryce’s hair.

“So, you know my goddess?” she asked.

The forest elf man took a deep breath and nodded.

“Ciarra, the goddess who is said to have given rise to all monsters. The one who is said to be responsible for the destruction of the drows.”

Isabelle smiled at him.

“That’s her, a powerful Goddess who deserves worshipers and praise. Sadly, I think I’m her last devotee,” Isabelle said. “For now. I’m just a humble cleric, but I found a man who could be her champion.”

Isabelle’s hand went to her pocket and pulled out a key.

“No, please no!” the forest elf yelled as Isabelle unlocked his chains from the wall.

She uttered a small prayer, a bolt of faith magic striking the man’s temple. He stopped struggling as she began dragging him to the pit. The spell would only keep him dazed for a few seconds. Once there, she rolled his body into the pit where it struck the sand-covered bottom with a loud thud. She hummed to herself as she turned around.

“Three more,” she said, looking at the remaining assassins.

Screams and pleas came from the pit as Isabelle gathered her supplies. No doubt, they had pieced together what was going to happen to them from the bones scattered among the sands and the gate on the wall. She began setting up for the ritual in front of the statue of the goddess.

She pulled off her white fur coat, casting it to the floor. It was the only gift she ever received from her mother. Not a gift of love, the whore that birthed her had always thought that emotion was a joke. No, a gift to doll her up when she sold her to the son of a Count as a plaything before he wed.

Then the Goddess saved me.

She smiled as she pulled the tunic off, revealing her pale, freckled skin and plump breasts. No man had seen her nude, no man had ever touched her, though the Count’s son had leered at her in his carriage as they traveled to his estate. Only for fear to replace it when the howlers attacked his carriage, slaughtering the driver and horses, Isabelle could still remember his screams as two of the giant horned cats tore him in half.

Then the Goddess guided me.

Her hands undid her trousers before sliding them off with her panties, the trimmed fire red bush underneath appearing between her pale legs. Both of the garments dropped to the floor, and she pushed them aside with her foot.

She still bore a few scars on the soles of her feet from how she had run that day, run to escape the howlers that would no doubt pursue her. The shoes she had worn, pretty and useless, had fallen apart within the first mile, cutting her feet bloody, but she kept running. Desperation drove her to take shelter in a small cave, where she found the statue of the Goddess.

Then the Goddess protected me.

The howlers tracked her to the cave, but they refused to enter. The statue seemed to almost repel them, so Isabelle spent the night there. Sleeping by the feet of the statue of the Goddess.

She ran Bryce’s lock of hair under her nose once more before dropping it in a small fire. Then she took the ashes and mixed them with wolfbane, hemlock, and other ingredients. She stirred until it was a dark paste, and then started painting it on her nude body.

Then the Goddess saw me.

That night, she dreamed of the goddess. Her four pitch-black eyes gazed at her, seeing potential that her mother had never seen in her beyond the profit the slit between her legs could make. She swore herself to the Goddess in that dream, and when she awoke, she could use faith magic.

When her body was covered in the symbols of her Goddess, the most important being her four black eyes, Isabelle pulled the lever beside the statue. The screams grew louder in the pit, followed by a roar as the Howler stepped out for his meal. She knelt before the statue.

“Beloved Goddess, I offer four meals to your child so that your eyes may gaze upon a man and bless him,” Isabelle said as she began the ritual.

She felt her body become cold and the world turn dark. When light returned, Isabelle knelt before a stone throne in the ruins of a castle. Trees and plants grew through the stones that once made up the structure, though all of them were dead now and devoid of greenery.

Sitting on the throne was a woman with ashen gray skin, white hair, and four black eyes. Ever so slightly, the Goddess’s gaze drifted to Isabelle.

“The man’s name is Bryce.”