the seven virtues [tom riddle]

chapter three

"What if I said it concerns you just as it concerns me?" he inquired, and that seemed to have the witch turn to face him with nosiness.

"Whatever do you mean by that?"

Tom smirked, and then he pushed himself off the table, hands stuffed in his pockets before he halted in front of her. His forehead towered over Varya's figure, and he almost grunted at her obstinate eyes, unimpressed by her insubordination in such moments. Then, he dropped his head and inclined it sideways until their noses were aligned.

It felt foreign, yet so thoroughly natural, and their auras merged into one as souls settled in their respective places, the entangled strings that connected them finally lamenting with ease after being stretched for so long.

Here is where it got twisted— the boy had long ago discovered such threads, and had been plucking at them endlessly to devise a hypnotic tune of sorrow, a call for action. Their connection had metastasized into something different, something real, and Tom had figured out how to manipulate it.

He had opened a channel between their minds, a connection only allowed when two souls clashed in desperation, and their emotions had seeped into each other long ago. Now, he felt her sorrow, and she felt his wrath, the string of existence that traveled through space to unite them even in distance. It was the trading coin of their bonding, something so granular and yet with undoubted significance.

"Let me tell you a story," he mumbled, and his fingers clawed in his pockets when she gazed at him like that, through winged eyelashes that misled a man of credulity, "And it has to do with this little thing you have always sworn by— fate."

"Fate?" Varya's voice came out low, and her back hurt as she fought against the tangible urge to fall into Tom's cataract of lure. Any woman would have done so, especially with the way his lip rested between his teeth as his eyes trailed her over, then a small puff of air left his nose as he put distance between them.

"Precisely," he hummed, then motioned to the table and invited her to sit down. She followed his command with a scrunch of her nose, having gotten used to being the one in charge of such topics, but sat at the table even so. Her cunning essence made her susceptible to mysteries, and her soul tilted with the need for answers.

"Go on, then. Stop dragging this out for no reason."

"My my, so eager to leave my presence?" he taunted.

Her apricot lips parted to ridicule, "Yes, I find myself smothered by your existence."

"Well, dear, you will find your eternity to be quite unpleasant then," Tom declared, and then, with a domineering smirk, he placed something on the table and slid it over to her.

Varya picked up the ring, and the moment her skin came in contact with the metal, she could sense the life that pulsated from it— a broken piece of a soul.

Her eyes enlarged, and she gasped with astonishment as she looked at the stone that stood in the center, so charming and enthralling, and although she could not find reason behind it, her mind jabbed at the sight of the jewel.

Her stare raised to meet his with wonder, expecting his expression to be a twist of cunningness and haughtiness, yet she found that Tom's pupils were swirling with provocation, and something glistened beneath the Dead Sea of his irises— a feeling she had not seen on his face before.

He was glancing at her bare neck.

Riddle collected himself promptly, regardless, and inclined over the table to snatch the ring from her fingers, paranoia already setting in. It was mind-twisting to have your soul broken and placed into an object, and now he cradled it as it was his most precious possession. So, he wondered why she would ever take off her necklace, which bothered him beyond wits.