Page 11 of Potion of Deception (Potion of Deception #1)
IN THE MURK OF THE CRYPT
C rows .
Crows had never been a good sign in the human world, however they were highly respected by wizards.
As a symbol of a wise, cold mind, royalty and rigor, it was an honor to have a crow sit at the top of your house and a great privilege to have them as an animal assistant.
But for humans a crow was a sign of death and tragic ending.
They believed these birds would come flying if someone was fated to die soon.
Violette remembered clearly her human neighbor was truly mad and frustrated when crows were choosing her house out of all the houses on the street.
She didn't know why this woman was so convinced about the crows being such a menace to her but she had fought them for as long as Violette remembered.
And it prompted her to think – what if she was alone because all of her friends and loved ones died?
Violette’s mind forced the image of her neighbour, standing with a long broom and trying to get rid of a crow from the rooftop of her house.
The bird was very stubborn and didn't want to leave.
That day the woman told her that all her life they've followed her around and it was never a good sign, as if they were haunting her.
And despite how little Violette was, she started being very cautious about these particular birds, partly because she was seeing how much her neighbor had struggled with them.
Perhaps it made sense that there's so many crows at graveyards – everyone there was already dead.
The black bird, sitting at the top of a cold gravestone, was staring at the guests with curiosity until Dante drove it away, continuing his way.
Violette looked at the crow once again as it landed on another stone.
“If you wanted to bring me to the cemetery to kill, it was actually kind of smart but I would politely reject,” she needled.
A sharp chuckle escaped Dante’s throat.
“I already told you, if I wanted you dead I'd have killed you much earlier. I had quite a few chances already. Remember the robber?”
“Oh, so you hired him. I suspected it, to be honest," she played along.
“And you got me again.” His brows twitched.
The huge old doors to the crypt had no handle, no lever, nothing that could be grabbed onto and unlocked – only ornate patterns in the center that resembled coiled vines with leaves.
Violette was studying the columns when Dante ran his hand over the pattern and they, as if alive, crawled to the sides, revealing a seal.
She didn't have time to scrutinize it as he pressed his palm on them and the doors opened.
The ensuing sound disturbed the centuries-old silence of this place, the sound similar to that of touching a stone that hadn't moved for an eternity. A light night breeze blew inside the crypt and a murky haze slowly began to creep into its depths. The ominous feeling crawled under Violette’s skin, raising the hair at the back of her neck.
It didn’t look like someone had been here recently. Nevertheless, Dante moved forward without hesitation. Violette took out her wand, with a light shake it lit up, radiating a warm soft light.
They went down a long, cold corridor. Old pieces of cobwebs, covered in dust, hung from the ceiling. The smell of a hundred years of mustiness lashed the skin.
Violette's wand was illuminating the stone walls, leading the way deeper into the room. As soon as they entered the crypt itself, Dante lit a lantern and it glinted with a blue ethereal glow, plunging a room in state of night under the light of the moon.
Violette's gaze lingered on a stone coffin in the middle of the room, where there rested a person, apparently of no small importance.
A table pressed to the wall sparkled with jewelry and boxes, covered in a thick layer of dust. On the other wall – an enormous portrait of a beautiful woman whose dark hair was crowned with gold.
“Who is buried here?” Violette brought her wand closer to the portrait to scrutinize.
“A person whose fault it is we are in this situation,” Dante said with an already familiar coldness.
Her eyes ripped off the portrait. “What has she done?”
“She made this mask,” he replied dryly.
“What did you do to her that she decided to curse you?”
“Me?” He abruptly stopped, his back visibly stiffened.
“You apparently made her angry.” Violette gazed at him intently. “Did you hurt her?”
“If I hurt her, it was absolutely her fault. I didn't do anything to be a villain in her story.” Dante worked his jaw and stalked to the farthest corner, with barely lightened walls.
A stone tablet, shrouded in dust, was adorning the wall. Despite the carved words, the darkness made it absolutely impossible to read. Violette’s eyes flashed at Dante as he
shone the lantern on the stone floor. Something glimmered in his hand – a gold pendant with a round, light blue gemstone.
A harsh rumble rang out in the crypt, as if stones were falling from their places or…
something was opening. And as soon as Violette thought about it, the floor in front of them began to move apart, laying steps leading into the depths of the unknown.
“I can't go any further,” Dante said.
She gave him a curious look, on the other hand, lacking trust. It might be the blood spell he was talking about earlier.
A long time ago, blood spells were quite popular and used to protect places from uninvited guests.
It mostly was common between old wizard families who were too afraid for their treasures and secrets, so it wasn't really surprising, and yet Violette decided to remain wary .
Dante pointed the lantern light at the passage. “There should be some information about the mask. I presume her spellbook.”
“Was she a sorceress?” Violette’s lashes clapped.
“Not really,” he answered vaguely. “Go.”
“How do I understand what I'm looking for?”
“I wasn't there, I don't know. You're a witch, you should know where and what is magicked. Don't you?”
Violette looked down the aisle and took a deep breath, preparing for the worst.
“Take the lantern,” Dante aired, his voice lacking any emotions, so impartial and much colder than the blue light brightening the room.
Violette put the wand behind her belt and took the lantern, her eyes raised to Dante’s face.
His facial features seemed as sharp as a dagger, and instead of any words of encouragement or wishes for good luck, only silence accompanied her down.
Not to say that she expected that there would be something dangerous below, but the darkness and the unknown nevertheless had made her heart pound faster.
She went deeper and deeper down and only the echo of her boots reflected from the walls, perhaps it was even for the better – it was unlikely that any other sounds would have made this situation less tense.
She walked downstairs, holding the lantern just above her gaze.
After a couple of steps, her eyes found a stone archway.
An old tangled piece of cobweb hanging above made her grimace, muttering something under her breath.
She stopped for a beat to look back where the dim light was still shining.
And as she turned her head – a loud, piercing sound echoed throughout the room.
“What happened?” She heard from above.
A small black spider was descending on its web in front of Violette's face, her body froze, dread raced through her veins. Maybe going back and running away, forgetting about everything, wasn't such a bad idea? At least there were no spiders outside.
“Little Witch?” Dante called and it seemed as if his voice had acquired new colors. She swallowed and squeezed to the nearest wall, making her way around the spider.
“What happened?” Dante called again.
“Everything is fine!” The loud words came out of her mouth as she walked into the passage.
Everything was not fine, but she had no desire to explain.
In textbooks about magical animals, Violette once read about huge hairy spiders that had disappeared a long time ago, but this thought sometimes had haunted her in terrible nightmares and being reminded of it now only made the situation worse.
She shuddered, as if that spider could now crawl over her body.
The small room looked like a witch's sanctum, except not an old hag who lived in the middle of the forest, but a skilled sorceress. Though the crown on the woman’s head on the portrait and the beautiful painted boxes made Violette wonder if she was something more than that.
Could she have been a countess or even a queen?
A wooden sorcery table with crystal flasks and glass bottles filled with sparkle powder, some of them empty, was centered in the room. A beautiful magic wand resembling intertwined branches laid upon its surface – a magnificent thing to have but utterly useless in the hands of none-owner.
Violette ran her eyes over the old incised candelabras as she passed the table.
Her attention was caught by a beautiful silky cloak in a shade of royal blue, embroidered with silver threads which were making a slender tracery of the moon and heavenly constellations.
A sapphire of a deep color on a collar flickered beneath the lantern light.
Another beautiful cape of dark cherry red color traced with gold flashed before her eyes.