Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

Chapter 54: Annabelle Craven

BY THE THIRD DAY OF THE FEASTING, ale went dry. Piss on the other hand, sloshed runny and full in the gutters. Alley rats were fat off the trail of gluttons and the mongrel dogs, fat off them. The Queen had to institute by the raw force of her Gold Cloaks a city wide sanitation cleanup. It was not enough to command it.

Giselle had lost enough good men in the battle of Skyfall, she wasn't about to lose even more to poor drinking habits and a hygiene forgotten at the bottom of the many empty barrels. It was the sight of the marching, overseeing, caped officers that spooked the citizens into picking up a broom. Or in the case of the poor bartenders, a mop.

"These lot fought blue fucking giants and prevailed. Now I ain't about to go spitting on my grave by not cleaning my gutters," one man said.

In a kingdom full of beautiful creatures like Eldoria, three major things mattered: Fear, power, money, when you had all three, you could gut a Templar monk and swear it was your pitbull that did it. Either way, the fest continued, and some idiot docked a ship full of fresh wine barrels at the ports.

Giselle kept her patrols on the streets.

It was on the evening of the third rites that Rafel finally summoned Annabelle to his Study. He had not moved her from the dungeon, but he had kept her on a cumbered chamber. One of the few rotund stone rooms below the Landing that had once served as the bunker hideout for a prisoner of war. This windowless cavern was ventilated by the cool humors of a running aquifer.

It led onwards to a [Wreath Circle]: a currently dormant portal to the otherworld, otherwise known as the Seely Court.

According to lore, a realm of celestial providence where flowers spoke like men, trees sang, sprites grew as tall as Irokos, and of wood nymphs that could curse or bless objects with their eyes.

Rafel had ordered Mia the helping fairy to keep charge over the Huntress as wardess, and although he had dropped the chains on her wrists he was still skeptical of her origins and legend. He never trusted an Immortal—especially one who had totally colorless eyes and had been living since the First Men. Time made rogues out of kings and [Cruella]s out of damsels.

Annabelle's room was below the Manor but was no less opulent.

Aya Naamah had gone there and worked her magic on it, making the bunker into a home. Corazón set up the eternal [Magic Lamp] as illumination in her chambers and a cozy hot bath eroded over decades by the spring water served as her jacuzzi.

It was better and homelier than her wreck of a cabin in the woods. In the hundreds of years Annabelle had lived, she had never seen a man who cared and was equally as cold to his prisoner. Perhaps, it was because she was sexy as fuck. Rafel let her stay though.

He spared not his bullions to Cora's purse to ensure the Bone Huntress had everything she could possibly need, so that when they were finished with the stone chamber, it smelled like a spa and looked like an Inn's best suite.

The day was waning into dusk and the drums of fresh festive energy reached from the Capitol up to the Manor. The cold winds blew the celebratory sounds up North. Standing by an open window overlooking the kernels of his monster Hellhounds, Rafel sipped softly on a mug of warm tea. He could hear the bells tolling for the start of yet another night of debauchery.

He smiled into the scarlet skies as he heard knocks on the door.

"My Lord Grace." Corazón entered. "May I present, Annabelle Craven."

Rafel turned from the window. "Thank you, Corazón, and thank you for the tea."

"Always my pleasure to serve you, Your Grace."

She turned to leave but Rafel stopped her.

"Please Corazón, do stay. I wish that you listen in on our conversation."

He waved Cora to a near cypress chair. She looked on him for a moment and pink entered her cheeks. If Cora said she wasn't honored at Rafel asking her to stay, she'd be lying. She took the seat, leaving the chiffon long sofa for Annabelle to sit. Rafel did not join them. Rather, he leaned against the mighty polished surface of his desk, colored ash, and leveled demonic yellow eyes on them.

[? I Put A Spell on You – Annie Lennox.]

The scent of sandalwood and clean papyrus filled the Study room.

"My Lord, you summoned me," Annabelle said respectfully.

Rafel crossed his arms. The Huntress was perched modestly on the long sofa, not even taking a quarter of the space. She was rather frail for an Immortal. But again, everyone was small compared to Rafel. He met her pale stare.

"That I did," replied Rafel. "You have been a good prisoner. You have managed to endear yourself to my Little Raven, and I hear no complaints from neither Corazón or my slave about you. Still..." He looked to Cora with a pause: her ocean eyes didn't waver on his. And Rafel glanced back at Annabelle. He continued warmly, "...

there's the matter of your origin story. I need you to explain."

Annabelle finally relaxed in her seat.

He wasn't sending her away.

Good Gracious! She pondered on how much it terrified her to leave this man; her captor. When a powerful demon Lord like Rafel summoned you, you couldn't stop your heart from pulsing a mile a minute. Annabelle started,

"My Lord, I get that there are sordid aspects when my legend is told, but myths are after all written by those who haven't lived an ounce of the years I have watched go by. People fear what they don't understand. I will tell my story to you, Your Grace.

I was born Anna Bellisma Craven of the primeval thirteen Valhallan tribes that crossed the Cold Sea to these lands. I was birthed eight hundred years ago. We were a nomadic commune and journeyed wherever the sun went. As we stumbled upon the shores of this realm and climbed out out iron ships, I was merely a child of less than ten summers.

Even now, centuries later, I can remember the land so clean, golden, and full of promise. My father was a great leader of his tribe, sired from the loins of the Drowned God whom we worshipped. He was named Björn Craven. And it is from his [God Bloodline] that I gained this immortality.

My father had led our tribes to victory against the marauders and pillagers many times. His war stories had reached even across the Cold Sea, and so when we banked on its verdant beaches, the mermaids and humans who inhabited the realms were happy for our company. We dwelt many moons in their lands.

Our trades mixed. The bellies of our tribal women swelled with their children, and we lived together in prosperity. We had finally found the land where the sun dwelt and close enough to the water to offer to our Drowned God. I spent time mostly around my father. I had his eyes: these ultra white pupils. Our tribes believed it was the same moon eyes of our god.

Perhaps, I should have spent more time with mother. But alas, even the heavens grow dark in the night.

One sultry night while we camped together with sloshing merfolk, I saw my mother excuse herself to fetch some more wood for the bonfire. It was to be from the close woodland, she'd said. I won't be long, Anna, she'd said. I believed her. I didn't think anything of the great shadows that hung in the forest. We had been hunting in the place for months.

The bears and wolves of the outlands were our Familiars.

That night, I waited and waited.

I heard nothing. Not my mother returning. And not her scream.

By morning, I went into the Woods to check on her. I found her cold and blue, beside gathered logs. She was white with death, forgotten like a ragdoll on the forest floor."

Cora sucked in breath beside her. She touched lightly Annabelle's cheek. It was cold porcelain. The moon-eyed Huntress went on.

"My mother had a large gash in her chest. She was missing her heart. I found few feet from her body a large white Elk kicking its hooves at the crimson earth dried with her blood. It bore the red organ on its proud antlers. My mother's heart I beheld impaled on the long branches of horns.

It wasn't a bear that killed my mother. It was neither a wolf. But a fucking deer.

I don't know how long I stood there in disbelief. But when I finally blinked, people were milling around me. Our tribes. They took the body away. They staked the Elk and burnt with with my mother's corpse by a pyre. Many called it an accident.

White Stags are the totem of Elden magic. So how could the creature of our wildling deity take life from one of ours?

Searching for answers to this mystery killed my father. I was relieved for him when I found him expired on a stone altar of our Drowned God, prostrated and begging the divinity for a sign as to why they took his wife.

None came that day. And not in the years following.

I took what belongings I had and went into the Woods. Fuck leaving my fate to the gods, I thought. Fuck petitioning them! I would solve the mystery of my mother's death myself. I entered into that dim forest some eight centuries ago and never left until that night you put me in chains and threw me in the back of your hunting buggy.

And I probably would've never left if you hadn't showed up."

Annabelle stopped talking and Rafel put his hand to his forehead. It creased slightly.

What was it about beautiful girls and baggage?

It was Corazón who said the words he couldn't bring himself to.

"I'm sorry you had to go through all that."

"What about all the kids?" Rafel asked instead.

Cora was touching the girl's shoulder in a comforting manner. This was exactly why he needed her: to do the emotional shit he didn't have the time for. Cora knew this too on some level. She was more than his Chamberlain. She was his confidanté.

Annabelle began to reply, "The children are like me, lost souls whose parents were taken in similar absurd circumstances to mine. I usually find them dumbfounded, and parading the Woods, shell-shocked, their pale eyes full of sorrow. They remind me of me. Over the hundreds of years I lives in that cursed forest, I collect them and keep them—because truthfully, they have no one else.

They stand out in their moon eyes. Their mothers killed in ways they can not understand, fathers drinking themselves to early graves...just like—"

"Ravenna." Cora finished for her.

"Exactly!" The Huntress nodded.

"But if these series of weird deaths is some curse that only targets those descended from gods and with moon eyes, why then Ravenna? I mean...I haven't asked but she is fully human by the looks of it, and her eyes are greener than a squeezed spinach," Cora offered.

Annabelle thought on it for a moment.

"Yes, all these is true. Ravenna is the only outlier I have seen so far."

Rafel toned darkly, "Her jade eyes are unquestionable, Corazón. But I wouldn't put a pin on the issue of her heritage. She did tell us her father claimed they were descended from an Angel."

Cora agreed with pursed lips. Her hand was still soothing on Annabelle's shoulder. The Immortal Huntress glanced to her with liquid silver pupils.

"What fantastic beast took her own mother, if I may ask?"

"Unicorn," replied Cora.

"Shit."

"Damn right."

Rafel spoke kindly to Annabelle—not because of her story but for he imagined the kind of connection that had to be between a mother and daughter for her to run into the forest of her death and never step foot out again in almost a thousand years. He said,

"Well, Anna Bellisma Craven, we all at Emberfall are glad to be your chance at reintegration into civilization. I assure you the other children are well taken care of in a summerhouse owned by a wealthy Countess. They would experience once again the joy of being loved and provided for.

But I must ask, Annabelle, besides being an Immortal, do you possess any more gifts or abilities from your...Drowned God?

A power system? Runes? A bloodline magic you can call upon? Anything at all."

Annabelle smiled a little and pulled her hand from Cora's. She was thinking that when the Earl stood and leaned like that on his desk with folded arms, it brought out the strength of his biceps. She could also notice a proud curve further south. She didn't want to dwell on what exactly pushed out such glorious tangent and quickly replied the strapping Lord.

"I control a [Hallowed] Sight System, if that helps. I mean I am no Fate or anything as glorious. I have not cultivated my abilities, but I possess good enough clairvoyance."

"You can see the future?"

"Bits of it, but otherwise yes, My Lord."

Rafel nodded and fluidly pulled up from the desk. He moved behind it and his shadow cast an arc over to the seats of both women. He said nothing else for some time. Annabelle and Cora were staring. He was aware of their heated gazes locked on him, the pregnant silence, and the chiming Grandfather clock in the corner.

"Do you desire to desire to live with us here in the Manor...above ground I mean?"

Cora chuckled and it took Annabelle a while to catch herself enough to respond.

"Yes, Your Grace. I would very much love to be near you...I mean, stay close to you. Shit! In the Manor, I mean. Sorry. I would love to stay in the Manor.

T–Thank you."

Rafel stalked across his polished executive table to Annabelle. Her downcast eyes lifted on the sofa, piercing him with their uncanny colorless nature. Rafel stretched out his hand formally.

"Welcome to the family, Annabelle Craven."

Grinning widely and blushing fiercely, Anna stood and took his hand. His grip swallowed hers entirely. He had such confident grasp.

"Thank you, Your Grace."

"Corazón will keep your bunker for anytime you have need of it and Mia, our helping fairy will assign one of her kin to you." Rafel pulled away his hand. "That will be all."

As Cora bowed softly and dipped out the room, Rafel secretly winked at her. A silent message was passed. Annabelle was already through the door and didn't see it. Nonetheless, once Cora had delivered the Huntress into the hands of the tiny household pixie, Mia, she turned and sauntered for a particular succubus bombshell.

She found Aya Naamah in the kitchen, chewing softly on red grapes. Walking to her, Cora gingerly took the stool beside her on the long island and leaned to whisper in her ear,

"Babe, our Lord Master requests you."

She watched Aya's violet eyes go hot and widen on hers. The next second, the gorgeous brunette was flying out the kitchen and up for Rafel's Study room. Cora smiled coyly to herself and popped a grape into her mouth.

The message had been delivered.