Chapter 1437: Clara & The Alabaster Summons

The brightness came from neither chandeliers nor candles; the hall possessed no great windows through which such light could have entered. It lay within the walls and floor, suffused the air between the columns and illuminated the distant arches, alcoves and galleries with an even, shadowless clarity.

Clara cast scarcely more than a pale suggestion beneath her feet, and the familiar shelter of a darkened corner was absent from the entire splendid expanse.

"Lady Clara! Wait, please!"

The sanctuary softened the voice behind her, taking the sharpness from its echo. Clara glanced back without slowing and found Lady Evelyn attempting to follow at a pace for which neither her clothes nor her composure had been prepared.

Her pale lavender gown belonged in a drawing room, at an afternoon visit or upon a leisurely garden walk. Its layers of petticoats offered considerable resistance to this new employment. One white-gloved hand held her skirts above her ankles while the other repeatedly secured the silk bonnet slipping towards the back of her head. A dark strand had escaped her pins and bounced against her cheek, and the lace-trimmed collar at her throat fluttered with each breath.

"Clara, for pity’s sake, slow down!"

"We haven’t time!" Clara tightened her hold upon her skirts and kept running.

"We have quite enough time to avoid breaking our necks!" Evelyn called after her, finding that sensible advice made very little impression upon a friend already several strides ahead.

"We ought not even to be in the grand hall," she added, breathlessly pursuing her. "If the High Sorceress finds us here without leave, she’ll have both our heads!"

Clara looked over her shoulder again. "If we don’t reach the inner castle and find out where we’ve been at, whether she takes our heads will be the least of our concerns."

"It is morning!" Evelyn stared at her as she ran, her bonnet slipping once more.

"You know what I mean!"

"I assure you, I do not!"

Clara almost laughed. The absurdity eased the tightness in her chest enough to threaten a smile. She turned into another passage, where immense curtains of white silk descended from heights concealed by the luminous vaulting.

Clara ducked beneath one sweep of silk, felt its mist-cool touch against her cheek and hurried on as it slid away behind her. Evelyn was less fortunate. A drifting curtain caught her bonnet, another fold slipped across her raised arm, and she found herself attempting to free her glove whilst retaining possession of both her skirts and her hat.

"Oh, for heaven’s sake! Clara!" Her voice emerged from behind the pale fabric with a muffled indignation that Clara heard perfectly well.

"You’ll live!" she called back, already approaching the next turn.

"That is a very comfortable assumption from where you are!" Evelyn pulled herself free, set her bonnet straight with more force than care and resumed the pursuit.

The same ancient power that steeped the towers in dread sustained this immaculate stillness, and the passage between them had altered her apprehension without diminishing it. Such purity belonged as little to an ordinary dwelling as the shadows outside.

She could run through its light, but she could hardly persuade herself it had been made for her comfort.

She rounded the last corner towards the main pavilion, her leather soles skid upon the polished floor. A hand against the nearest column saved her from falling, and she steadied herself while the great chamber opened before her, so broad that the passages behind seemed narrow by comparison.

An immense hearth stood to her left, carved from ivory-white stone. Its mantel extended far enough for several people to lie along it without reaching either end, and within the opening rose translucent flames of a spectral whiteness. Their color held the pallor of an apparition, distinct from the yellow of ordinary fire or the blue-white brilliance of a spell.

They curled about fuel she could not see, filling the pavilion with a gentle warmth that sank at once through her chilled skin.

Clara listened for the familiar crackle and heard only her own breathing. The hearth burned in complete silence, its white tongues rising through an opening unsullied by soot. Watching it always gave her the peculiar impression of fire recalled from a dream, its warmth preserved while the smoke, sparks and ash had been left behind.

Dozens of opalescent globes wandered through the heights of the pavilion, each softly lit within a pearl-white shell. Some descended towards the floor, revealing delicate rainbow hues across their surfaces, then drifted upwards again. Others passed behind columns and later appeared across the hall, following courses Clara could make little sense of. Their changing radiance travelled over her face as she stood beneath them, watching those captive stars move through the vastness.

Evelyn caught up and very nearly ran into her:

"Oh, thank God," she managed, bending at the waist with a gloved hand pressed against her ribs. Her bonnet now sat at such an angle that she gave up trying to amend it until she had recovered sufficient breath.

"If we survive whatever absurd business you’ve brought me into," she said, "I shall petition to prohibit corridors of this length."

"You’ve never petitioned anything in your life." Clara glanced at the crooked bonnet, then wisely returned her attention to Evelyn’s face.

"Then I shall make a start." Evelyn attempted another breath.

Clara’s mouth twitched, but her attention had already moved towards the far end of the pavilion. Evelyn noticed the change and followed her gaze. Her hand stilled upon the bonnet, and when she raised it again, she was pointing towards the figures ranged before the distant archway.

"Look." The word came quietly now, her earlier indignation lost as she studied the guardians.

They stood in a row at the centre of the hall, carved from translucent alabaster, enormous folded wings curving about their graceful bodies. Their heads were inclined, their sightless white eyes directed towards the opening beyond them. Against the grotesque, weather-ruined creatures upon the outer walls, these figures possessed a saintly composure, their serene features fine enough to have been fashioned from moonlight.

Clara approached with renewed caution. The loveliness of those faces was little reassurance to someone raised upon WitchBourne stories; she had heard enough to be wary of what her family found beautiful. The wings remained folded, the stone utterly still, yet she found herself reluctant to pass too close to any of them.

Between the guardians rose an immense arch filled from side to side with white radiance. Its stone frame enclosed light so dense that the room beyond was wholly concealed. Clara could find neither the fittings of a door nor any visible means by which the opening might close.

She stopped beside Evelyn, and the sound of their breathing seemed painfully small beneath the high vault. Clara let her skirts fall and smoothed the midnight-blue velvet, trying to restore some order to herself before proceeding.

Evelyn straightened her sleeves and settled her bonnet with a final, determined adjustment, although her gaze kept returning to the arch; they were not allowed on this side but they’d sneaked here.

"Well," she whispered, "this is a singularly poor occasion to recall how much I dislike forbidden sanctums."

"You dislike everything once it becomes dangerous for our sneaking games." Clara glanced towards her, grateful despite herself for the familiar complaint.

"I believe that is generally regarded as common sense." Evelyn kept her eyes upon the light, and Clara’s faint smile faded as she looked back towards it.

Something beyond the entrance had changed. She could feel it beneath the brilliance, ancient and deep, with a character she could not attribute to Mana or any ordinary working of sorcery.

During the night, far beyond these shores, a disturbance had stirred the world, and WitchBourne Castle had answered before dawn.

That response had brought her running. Rooms sealed for mostly every witch but a few for generations had unlocked themselves, and white flames had risen in hearths no living Witch recalled seeing lit. The old wards had trembled despite the absence of any attack. Through it all, the grand hall had awakened, opening its splendid stillness about them, and now the inner sanctum called from beyond the radiant arch.

Clara felt the summons beneath her breastbone. Faint and persistent, it drew her towards the light with a familiarity that troubled her more than any strangeness could have done.

Beside her, Evelyn’s fingers tightened in the folds of her skirt.

The two stood beneath the alabaster guardians while the opalescent globes drifted overhead and the silent hearth warmed their backs. Clara looked at Evelyn, who returned her gaze without another complaint.

Beyond oceans, beneath the sun now shining upon Hell’s Paradise Island, a seventeen-year-old Dragon had awakened the next morning after the Primordial Lotus and had poured World Essence into the world around him. Clara and Evelyn knew nothing of him, or of why his awakening had reached the old ancestral castle.

Clara gathered her heavy skirts again. Evelyn did the same, and together the two little witches advanced beneath the folded alabaster wings, their footsteps carrying softly through the awakened hall as they approached the light.

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A/N:Hello guys, here we are! We’re entering a new Arc that would explore and reveal mythical races and beings of Earth as a realm of its own with its own powerful beings— these beings have been here before the Legacy Families and this is going to introduce us to that world slowly but surely and then the Gods of Earth themselves, hope, y’all are ready!

But do not forget one thing— MY TABOO HAREM!