The Hunt for the Ghostkeeper

Chapter 13: Inferno

Rose gasped.

She watched her blood droplets fall from the cut below her chin to the steaming lava below, sizzling on the reddish surface and quickly evaporating.

"Finally!" Celestia hissed victoriously. "The time has come! At long last, I shall be freed from this hellish prison!"

Rose closed her eyes. After a few seconds of silence, she lifted her head away from the pit so the steam no longer burned her eyelids, and glanced up at the cavern. Nothing had changed- the floor still burned with molten rock, Rick and Chase were both bent over in pain, frozen to the spot, while the tortured people stared at her, placed under Celestia silencing spell once more.

"Did- did it work, my Lady?" one of her daughters asked meekly.

"It must!" Celestia shrieked. "But why is nothing happening? These are the Vexors of 707, are they not?" Celestia grabbed the back of Rose's shoulders and heaved her up face-to-face once more. Rose felt enormous relief as her face broke contact with the poisonous fumes.

"Are you of the Vexors, 707, summoned here by my powers and destined to destroy me?"

Rose stared into Celestia's freezing slits of eyes, blue as the frigid and icy sea, and gathered up the last of her courage to summon one more syllable of rebellion: "No."

"What? What? What do you mean, 'no', girl? ANSWER ME!" Celestia was shaking Rose's body, clutching on to her shoulders with her long, pale claws.

"My name is Rosalina Zarrius!" she said defiantly, "daughter of Jonathan, and heir to the Zarrius throne!" Another bold and audacious exuberance sounded from the tortured men and women around her, and Rose smiled.

Celestia struck the girl again, and Rose fell to the burning floor of the cave.

"No! NO! Bring the boys here, with haste!" Celestia screamed angrily. "NOW! I shall wait no longer! Before-"

Eliza and Elyzia undid the freezing spell cast upon Rick and Chase, and dragged them to the lava pit. Celestia took her knife and slit a cut into each of their cheeks, dropping the blood into the molten rock. But Rose's blood had taken action before the true Vexor blood was spilled: The roof of the cavern opened in a vortex, shaping itself like a hurricane. The night sky was revealed at the top, and suddenly a great wind roared through the cave.

"NO!" Celestia screamed. "NO, STOP THEM!"

But her attempts were too late. The ghosts and spirits that she had locked up and tortured were free- standing, walking, the men and women flew up into the air and were sucked into the roaring twister.

Celestia turned and stared terribly at Rose. The young Zarrius heir looked back at her, and saw the true anger and hate in her eyes. The witch reached out and grabbed her, but she, too, was summoned by the whirlwind. Rose felt herself lifted up as well, and she saw the night sky fast approaching-

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"Circire- something's happening!" Hecata called.

Circire turned around in the snow-covered graveyard, and faced the mausoleum. A shuttering sound was coming from inside it.

"Is it time?" Hollingsworth asked. "Is this it?'

"She's coming!" Circire called to the soldiers who surrounded her. "Stand up and fight them, men and women! This is what we fight for- the good of our people! Battle against the evils that penetrate the good of our society, and pridefully defend your state as your forefathers did!"

The mausoleum literally shook. The aged, rusted gates of the grave rattled, and shot themselves out of the doorway. The Zarrius and Myriad soldiers ducked to avoid the gates, which flew back and landed in a heap of snow.