Driven by panic, she crawled through the mud, praying the creature that had kept her imprisoned was still in deep sleep. Like a maniac she had tried to loosen the pin within the lock of her shackles. A hair needle had helped although she had pricked herself numerous times while working on her escape. Her own husband had sold her to a necromancer—to get rid of her once and for all now that she couldn’t bear him children anymore. No surprise really; that man was a demon himself and gruesome beyond belief. Never would she have imagined that there were even more bestial beings. This wretched soul she was fleeing from should prove her wrong. He had forced her to drink some stinking elixir, prolonging her suffering indefinitely. Her wounds wouldn’t heal, get worse, yet she wouldn’t die from it. Witchcraft of the foulest sort. Parts of flesh on her left leg were missing—peeled off and eaten before her eyes. She was even forced to eat some of it herself. Sick she became by just thinking about it.
Deeper into the Red Forest she crawled, feeling the pain of dirt rubbed into the festering wounds. I told you not to go with them, rang the words of Baba’s last letter through her mind. I can’t help you so far away from my domain.
“Babaaa,” she started whimpering, her eyes filling with tears. Each time she repeated Baba’s name, her voice sounded more high-pitched and sore. Ghostglade was not in reach, yet she desperately meant to crawl towards it. Through the darkest corners of the moor, she’d crawl to find her way back to the mighty oak where she had taken her oath. And if she wasn’t meant to make it, she’d at least die in the moorlands.
Her beloved swamps. They’d always offered a place to hide when she was still Cneajna’s prime assassin. Oh, how Ruxandra missed those days in Wallachia. The ordeals she had gone through since leaving her homeland for a worthless promise—all of them stabbed her heart at once, as she remembered what she had lost. And she’d lose some more. Necrotic tissue had started to grow around the open flesh wounds on her leg. A gnawing reminder of the warlock’s bites into her body, never to leave her again until the rot had consumed her to the bones. Should she give up?
They said there was a shrine somewhere around here. Its female priesthood had been raped and slain by the Witcher Kings’ minions. A lost place, right below Rayan’s sacred mother tree. She could see its mighty stem casting its shadow through the maples’ canopy. Magic still must have run through the once sacred grounds. If she was careful enough, staying off the main road, she could reach it. Her body felt heavy to pull forward. She’d be completely defenceless in this position. Not even a weapon did she carry with her. He would just have to stab her once and that would be it.
Mulishness was keeping her alive when she stopped crawling and started limping—first slow, then faster. Hopping from one tree to another on one leg, she progressed way quicker. It worked for a while until the moorlands gave space to rolling hills. Up and down, they went, with plenty of rugged terrain in between but little wood to find support at. Stubbornly, she made an attempt to walk it through. Each move ached and let her feel uncovered, inflamed flesh. It was nothing compared to the pain of sorrow hurting her soul while she thought about her little girl. Left behind in unhealthy environment, Ruxandra could envision her little one crying for her mother. There was no use in brooding over it; she couldn’t turn back, no matter how much she desired to.
Out of breath and willpower, she reached the corner of the last hill. Weariness clouded her perception as she took the last steep descent where she fell over a large rock so unluckily, that she’d tumble downhill and hit the gravel floor. A bloody sky the maples’ autumn leaves shaped to her downfall—from a queen’s handmaiden to a king’s whore to a warlock’s sacrifice goat on the run. Ruxandra couldn’t stop the tears as she laid on the ground, bleeding from the back of her head. This was it—her final moment. Her rotting leg was broken now. Although sweating intensely, her brain felt like running cold to the pounding pulse of her veins leaking through a crack in her skull—dripping onto a rune of old that had been cast millennia before she was born yet recognised her as familiar.
Where her blood seeped to, she couldn’t see; where she lay, she didn’t realise. Closer to the shrine she was than she knew when her red water summoned the Red Raven. An entire lake of crimson rested behind the bushes, sending a cool breeze over the waves to a rune awakening in equal crimson light. Liquid magic of ancient days, uncertain which realm it belonged to now that a mortal woman had called upon it by accident. She didn’t belong here, yet she bore the mark of the priesthood. Sudden steam gathered up on the lake’s surface, departing from the world maple it washed around to reach into another domain.
Ruxandra blinked. The maple leaves were changing their colour and shape. Their pointy edges became rounder, their tone brownish yellow. “Oak… leaves?” Her dying senses were playing tricks on her surely.
“Fiica rătăcită nu-și uită drumul spre vatră.” [1]
She flinched. What was this? A female voice was whispering to her. Turning her neck anxiously, she recognised that she wasn’t in the Red Forest any longer. This was a way more familiar place, the grounds of Fogwood’s sacred oak Zak’u’Rav. Small sparks of crimson glow shaped up in the air next to her. They grew to a swirl, then to an oval surface in size of a mirror. Her escape? Once again, she mobilized her last reserves to crawl towards it. Almost, she had reached it. But with every inch she moved forward, her broken, rotting leg became heavier, just like a stone. In despair she meant to pull towards the portal anyways when a shadow towering over her should draw her attention away from her alleged salvation. Too scared she was to look around at first. Too high were chances that the warlock had traced her, now binding her leg with his filthy witchcraft. Ruxandra had to find all her remaining courage to face the shadow in her back, just to be surprised. Red wings unfolded, illuminated by the shining light of the oak’s shrine, Cneajna’s handmaiden had visited so often with her mistress. Now, a veiled man carrying a sword in his right and prayer beads in his left hand was bringing back all the memories. Undefinable mantras he mumbled whilst going over the beads with two fingers. Their material resembled bones.
Immediately, Ruxandra was reminded of the stone sculptures on her homeland’s graveyards, watching over the deceased like guardians. She remembered when she visited them after poisoning the young heir to the throne of Hungary. Nobody in the palace had taken notice of a new face in the kitchen, closely involved in preparing the young king’s meals. Feeling remorse for her actions she did not, but she felt sorry for the boy king. He didn’t know what he had gotten himself into when he took the crown that was meant to sit on a voivode’s head.
Her dark angel didn’t move as his sword’s blade was catching fire out of nowhere. No explanation was required for Ruxandra to be aware of this blade being meant for her. Burning judgement awaited her for all her sins and mistakes in life. What did she regret the most? Thoughts immediately started spiralling back to her little girl, who was now alone with her disgraceful father and all the boys that had started to adapt his demeanour. No words of begging for her life Ruxandra dared to speak. Her girl’s face alone before her inner eye was enough to obediently lay the rest of her decaying body to her already lifeless leg. A strike to her heart or neck she expected. But the dark angel decided otherwise. Heaving the burning blade up while still speaking his mantras, he intended to break a warlock’s spell. Severing her doomed extremity below the knee with a single blow, the dark magic trail of stench for the warlock to follow was disconnected. A sacrifice for passage through the portal.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
When Ruxandra gained consciousness again, she found herself at the doorstep of an impressive building. No skulls or skins propped on the outer walls like in the horrid castle of her husband. No screams of tortured hostages and slaves, only the quiet of the night and a few ravens to announce her arrival. Inside the mansion, lights were burning bright, making the estate shimmer like a jewel in the dark. It was too big to be a witch’s hut, even though its pointy roofs easily gave it a mysterious character—way too elegant and noble for a crippled woman. Her weakened arms struggled to keep her torso off the ground. Something smelled of burnt flesh. Roaming down her thigh with one hand, it dawned on her what it was. The burning blade had cauterised the wound. Now she realised something was missing.
“Was this worth it?” a question was raised behind her. “To sell your country, queen and clan for wealth and title, I genuinely want to know.”
Ruxandra shook. She felt as if she heard the voice of her former mistress. Steps were taken towards her on high heels. The Dragovaste did not dare to answer. She knew that she had made a big mistake as soon as they left the carriage to pass a dark portal somewhere in the mountains. Fearsome was its event horizon, just as empty as all the promises. Neither she nor her clan sisters wanted to enter it. Reckless male hands of the Witcher Kings’ soldiers had to force them through.
I told you not to go with them. Baba’s echoing words seemed so real at this moment. She could’ve almost been the one coming closer had the voice posing unpleasant yet justified questions not sounded way younger than the raven witch. Scolded by a letter and an inquiry, Ruxandra grinded her teeth, not allowing for any pain her amputated body caused to get a lament out of her. She had no right to it. All decisions she had made on her own and now, they bore a bitter fruit hard to swallow. Remorsefully, she turned around to look at a female ranger, who was dressed in the traditional hunting uniform of Wallachia. A mask shaped like an iron beak covered most of her face, except for her fierce glowing red eyes. Contemptuously, the huntress looked down on Ruxandra with a face so similar to Cneajna’s, that no one would’ve doubted fate playing its rightful part in this confrontation.
“Juzstina’s little girl,” Ruxandra smiled, tears suffocating her words. An attempt to stand upright was made but ended with the Dragovaste having to seek halt at the banister.
No visible motion was extended towards the crippled woman. A slight breeze of disappointment maybe, but that was all. “I am here to bring sentence for your betrayal,” the woman let her know. “This shall be your place of redemption. Make the most out of it.”
Ruxandra would embrace the judgement like a blessing. She’d never leave this place again. Exile right in front of Ghostglade’s borders—too far away to interfere with history another time, close enough for the raven witch to keep an eye on her disgraced priestess. After what the Dragovaste had gone through, Baba’s verdict brought but peace to her tortured soul. Bowing down deep before the royal messenger, her gratefulness was expressed through humble silence. Lifting her head again, the lady ranger was gone. Yet alone, Ruxandra was not.
“Are you the midwife my husband went to get me?” another female voice rang from the entrance portal of the mysterious house. A pregnant woman stood in the archway, softly covering her belly under her morning robe.
Ruxandra turned to her, still clinging to the banister. “Oh. Yes, milady,” she replied. “Please excuse my dishevelled appearance. I must have lost my… wooden leg somewhere on the way.”
The pregnant woman smiled at her gently. “We shall find you another.” Offering one hand to the nightly visitor, the landlady invited Ruxandra into her home. “You shouldn’t have travelled through this darkness. It is not a safe time we live in.”
Some fresh tears rolled over the Dragovaste’s cheeks. “I know, milady. I shouldn’t have.”
Looks were exchanged, then the pregnant woman escorted her guest inside. “You’re lucky my husband’s rangers are all around this place protecting it. Come.”
Never would Ruxandra forget this evening, nor her dark angel and his flaming sword. It was the raven witch’s warden, who had relieved her of that cursed leg and guided her into safety. Just one thing he could not undo: the life prolonging effects of a warlock’s elixir.
[1] Romanian: A lost daughter never forgets her way home.
