The One after my Heart

As Brianna walked in through the open gates, she hastened her steps. She laid her eyes on the fort behind the walls. The fortress was more of an oval rather than the usual square or elongated rectangle in shape. This fortress rose at more than a hundred meters high though its height was covered up by the massive ramparts behind her.

There were all sorts of inscriptions, etchings of different animals and beasts, and humans on the panels of the spandrels providing a decoration on the defensive walls.

There were massive platforms, the interiors had high ceilings, and the walls covered in dust with a few untouched old rusty decorative items here and there within the niches.

"With his abilities, dealing with a couple of these stragglers shouldn't hold him back. What's taking him so long?" she thought to herself. "Unless--"

As she thought of something, Brianna couldn't help but hasten her steps into a run as she moved along the narrow stony corridors as the screams and bellows coming from within suddenly stopped.

Soon she found her way towards a doorway that led to an extremely large hall pierced by two large rectangular doorways. This must've been the main hall or court hall as there was a raised stone circular pedestal at the hall's front.

Loud steps echoed in the hallway as her hasty slender figure ran into the hall as she breathlessly made her way towards the hall.

Though the walls were affixed with many of these torches placed at an equal distance from each other, only two of them were burning right now. The others seemed to have been extinguished.

Brianna's hastily running footsteps came to a halt as she entered inside and took in the view in front of her in the dim-lit dark hall. She couldn't help but let out a gasp. The hall looked as though multiple blasts had detonated everywhere. Three of the columns seemed to have cracks all over them, with a chunk missing here and there.

There were traces of fire scorch marks, water and even deep gashes and scratches all around on the floors and walls.

In a deserted place such as this, there were even huge roots and creepers that seemed to have burrowed out from underneath as they stretched all the way towards the pedestal. These huge roots that had crept up from the ground seemed to have been caught on or touched by the fire as they slowly seemed to let out smoke as they laid on the ground right now.

But what really stunned her were the corpses all around her in front spread out in the hall. She roughly estimated that there were more than thirty bodies on the ground.

As she approached closer, she saw and smelled the dead bodies around her. Even someone as mentally strong as her couldn't help herself from feeling nauseated as a cold shiver run down her spine.

The dead bodies seemed to slowly decay as a faint and almost unnoticeable red-mist floated in the air.

A few of the dead bodies were cut neatly into two or even were even headless as though they were cut viciously by a sharp blade, while some had their chests hollowed out. Some of the others seemed to have a stunned expression on their face as though they couldn't believe what they'd seen or how they'd died.

A tall figure dressed in royal black stood on the pedestal with his back towards her with his arms raised in front of him.

A dreadful stench of death was beginning to spread all around them, which the dark-skinned woman noticed, while the man in black stood there perfectly fine as though he weren't bothered at all.

As she hurried towards him, she could then clearly noticed Aiden holding two people choking by his hand in the air.

On his left hand, he held a wheatish skinned young man wearing a grey tunic that was torn open, exposing his chest, while on his right, he held a young woman who wore lengthy green robes as they were by their neck as the two choked and struggled in vain desperately.

The young man's left hand and the fist were covered in sharp thorns like an iron knuckle and gauntlet. These thorns were as long as pine needles as he tried to attack Aiden and get free. His right arm was cut off as blood poured non-stop from the wound towards the ground.

But because of the red mist around Aiden, no matter how much the wheatish young man tried, he just couldn't find the strength to fight back.

On Aiden's right, the young woman had her black nails five inches long and sharp as blades. She, too, kept lashing out unsuccessfully along with the wheatish man at Aiden, but her situation was far worse than him. Blood was dripping out of her eyes, ears and mouth as she struggled to stay awake.

But no matter how much they tried to get free or struggled, it seemed useless in front of the blood-red eyes staring into their faces with a cold look.

'Witches and Warlocks!! How could they be here! And how could so many of the dark witches be here!?" Brianna questioned out loud at Aiden's figure in front of her and couldn't help but be startled within.

Brianna's eyes turned cold in fury as she took a closer look at them while still maintaining her distance from Aiden as she prepared herself for a fight in case they got loose.

Bree couldn't think back on when just a few hours earlier when they'd reached the base, the young lord had commanded her to go deal with the soldier ranked guards and free any women and children if present. He said he would deal with the one's inside and distract them until she showed up and then vanished.

Initially, her plan was to stick together so that they could take out as many stragglers as they could and rescue some of the imprisoned captives before they could make a strategic retreat. But it seems it was all for nought as she now viewed the corpses on the floor and the two struggling bodies in Aiden's clutches. She didn't feel any sympathy towards these two figures. The atrocities they'd committed demanded nothing but death.

"How could there be so many dark witches here!?" she exclaimed in shock.

She'd initially estimated that there would be at least around thirty to forty stragglers here at the base. And if they were unlucky, perhaps there would be a dark witch or two. Estimating the young lord's powers, he should hold them off until she came for backup.

As she looked around, she guessed there were at least more than ten witches and warlocks together in here, along with the usual bandits.

'He dealt with more than ten of them all alone? Just how strong is he?' Brianna couldn't stop herself from thinking as she felt a chill run down her spine as she looked at the handsome figure in front of her.

Sure the stragglers couldn't use magic. And it was easy to deal with them since they were no different from bandits. But to deal with ten of witches and warlocks who were just like her at the same time...Brianna turned around and looked at the corpses around her. It turned out she'd underestimated how powerful he was.

"You're late. She's clearly a dark witch while this thorny one doesn't seem to be one of them.", muttered Aiden lazily as he held his two captives.

His eyes were staring at a mark on the wheatish man's chest as he seemed to be deeply in thought.

'Just kill them already. Stop toying with them like a cat playing with its food.", thought Brianna to herself. 'The faster these scum die, the better!'

She didn't feel any sympathy towards the man whom Aiden pronounced wasn't a dark witch. Anyone who'd worked with them was on her hate list. 'Kill them all, good riddance, she'd say. As she stood on the side, it looked to her like the young lord sure was taking his time on going about killing the two.

But then Brianna caught Aiden's eyes on something particular as he gazed from one person to another in front of him, and it was then that she followed his glance and noticed something common among the two in Aiden's clutches.

Both of them had some sort of tattoo etched on their skin. The young man had the mark on his right chest while the woman had it on the side of her neck.

It was a mark of three crescent moons intersecting each other.

"What is that?!" asked Brianna curiously as she leaned forwards.

"I don't know", muttered Aiden thoughtfully as his blood-red eyes turned chillingly cold as he stared at the mark.

"And somehow...I do not like the fact that I don't know about it yet!"