Chapter 50: The ethereal figure with long golden hair...
He immediately returned to his room and found Victoria rummaging through his drawers. She held a letter in one hand, and in the other, a small wooden box. She took a necklace out of the box, lifting the pendant to the light. It was the gift Luci’El had sent him. The necklace with half of an eight-pointed star.
"Seeing this necklace with this pendant... You are having an affair with a witch?" Victoria asked, frowning.
Daemon did not deny it. He approached, took the necklace from Victoria’s hands, and put it around his neck.
"Indeed. Now, if you could leave..." he said in a calm voice.
Victoria crossed her arms. "This relationship will serve no purpose. The witches have taken a vow of chastity."
Daemon raised his head. "Huh? But the Great Witch has a daughter, right?"
Victoria passed by his side, her perfume of dried flowers floating in the air. "She is special. She was a virgin when she gave birth... Anyway, sooner or later, you will see that I am the only person who truly cares about you, Daemon."
Daemon looked at her fixedly, his face impenetrable. "Even if that is the case, I will in no way tarnish her memory. I promised your brother that..."
Victoria snorted: "He has been dead for a decade. Are you going to blame yourself for the rest of your life? You sound like Kristian..."
She shook her head, picked up her cape, then left the room without turning back. The door slammed behind her.
Daemon remained motionless for a moment, then he headed toward the balcony. He opened the glass door and stepped out into the icy air. Down below, in the courtyard, he saw Victoria getting into her carriage. The carriage slowly started moving, crossed the gate, then disappeared on the snowy road....
Daemon leaned on the railing, the cold biting his bare skin. "I may have someone else who cares about me... Even if I do not know why", he murmured to himself.
An icy breeze made him squint. From the corner of his eye, he thought he noticed an ethereal silhouette with long golden hair, over there, between the snow-covered trees. But when he turned his head, there was nothing but the snow.
He suddenly remembered the feeling of warmth he had felt when that ethereal silhouette had embraced him, while Blood Moon stabbed him in the stomach. That body against his, that reassuring presence in the darkness. He brought his hand to his neck, touched the pendant.
"I wonder, when I think of her, does she also think of me?"
***
*Return to the present.*
The fire crackled in the center of the room. The group had set up a makeshift camp in this room that they had deemed sufficiently safe, at least for a few hours of rest. The bags were placed in a circle around the hearth, and the weapons rested within reach, ready to be drawn at the slightest alert.
Katelyn was sitting a little further away, leaning against a stone pillar. She was slowly grilling a piece of dried meat over the flames. She bit into the warm meat, chewed for a few seconds, then turned toward Kristian who was sitting opposite her.
"She has changed a lot in recent years", said Katelyn, lowering her voice. "I had not even noticed if it was this Victoria."
Kristian nodded: "It is true that she no longer looks like the introverted little girl I knew. Before, she barely spoke to Daemon... But the years have made her quite bold with him."
Katelyn shrugged. "Bold is one word. I would rather say brazen. But well, it is not my problem."
Meanwhile, a few meters away, near the dark end of the room, Daemon was shirtless. He had moved away from the fire to have some privacy, and he was cleaning himself with a damp cloth to remove the disgusting blood of the Daugrs he had faced earlier.
The blackish and viscous matter had dried on his skin, forming thick crusts that were hard to remove. He rubbed harder on his right forearm, where the bandage was stained with nauseating fluids, then he threw the cloth on the ground with a grimace of disgust.
"The smell is really horrible..."
Victoria approached him without making a sound. She stood with her hands behind her back, her head slightly tilted to the side, and she leaned toward him to better see what he was doing. Her cyan blue hair cascaded over her shoulder, almost brushing Daemon’s bare skin.
"What are you doing?" she asked in a soft voice.
Daemon did not look up. He took a new cloth, moistened it with water, and continued cleaning. "I am avoiding getting sick", he replied in a neutral tone.
"A rudimentary wash is better than nothing. In this putrid place, if I let this blood dry on my skin, I will catch an infection before the end of the week."
Victoria moistened her lips. "Hmm... You are right. I can help you with your back."
Daemon stopped for a fraction of a second, then he shook his head. "That will not be necessary. Tell me, Lady Victoria, what are you doing around here?"
Victoria did not answer immediately. Her eyes slid to his neck, where the necklace with the pendant shone faintly in the light of the distant fire.
’It seems that Daemon had not moved on from his relationship with that famous witch.’
Victoria was a talented beautiful girl, she knew it.
She came from a great family, the elemental water house, and she had suitors. But if Daemon thought he was the center of the world, that she would wait for him indefinitely, he was sorely mistaken. She had other options.
She could set her sights on a high-ranking noble, a count or a duke, to maximize her power and that of her family. After all, in this world, people rarely married for love. That is what she thought while looking at him.
She straightened her head, her face returning to a neutral, almost distant expression. "I think we have nothing more to say to each other", she said coldly.
Daemon nodded without looking at her. "I think so too."
He had barely uttered these words when a nauseating odor swept through the room. It was a stench they now knew all too well: the smell of the Daugrs, that rotten flesh and that corrupted chi that clung to the nostrils. The smell came from the north entrance of the room, and it grew stronger by the second, a sign that several creatures were approaching.
"I am really getting fed up with the daugrs..."