SHE COULD STILL REMEMBER THE FEELING OF DREAD FROM HER CHILDHOOD.
"HelloPrintsessa."
She'd always hated how the word rolled off his tongue, like poison spoken by a viper luring her into a trap. He was a snake. He was nothing but a monster, a plague desperate to spread and consume anything in his path.
His body hunched on a creaking chair, hands gripping the edges of his seat. Only half his face was towards her, the side that was more human. But she'd seen his true colors, she'd cursed him to bear his ophidian nature on the outside. To display his wickedness as it was, for the whole world to see.
"The whispers told me of your return." He spoke once more, his voice like gravel against her ears that hadn't heard another sound other for the rustling winds of the forests. But she didn't flinch. "I knew the day would come."
Lucretia hummed in distaste. "Did you?"
"Of course." Master's lips tugged up in an eerily smile. His face slowly turning towards her, showing her the consequences of what she'd done to him. The violence she'd unleashed upon him so she could make her escape.
A scar so deep rooted ran from his hollowed eye down to his chin, cutting the right corner of his lip. It hadn't heeled properly and it never would either. Without her, eventually, he would lose all he held precious to his dead heart.
She contained the shiver that wanted to ripple across her body at the sight of his emptied eye from the knife she'd lodged into his socket. A sickening satisfaction echoed in her head at the reminder of what she'd done to him so effortlessly. And how she enjoyed it.
"After all, what is a few centuries in eternity." He continued, his scrutinizing gaze staring intently into her broken soul.
A few centuries without her by his side to feed his hungry greed and bloodthirsty ego had left him more monster than man. He would not survive without her, not when his life was bound to her chaos magic she'd kept locked in a cage.
"You look old." She mused, her feet planted firmly at the threshold, in front of the chair he was occupying.
He let out a low chuckle. "Ever the observant one. Not much has changed, I see." But it had. "Why have you returned after this long?"
