Oriel stood by the open door. “We leave at noon. Get the thief ready before then,” He turned around without further ado, and was engulfed by the night. Ecchi closed the door silently after he had left. “I think our dear Oriel does not care for me much,” she said with a wry smile, which evaporated off her face as fast as it had appeared.
She turned around with such grace that it seemed like she simply appeared in front of the thief.
“Now my dearest thief-“ she gently brushed her forefinger on his cheek and let it slide down all the way to his chest her dark feline eyes just inches from his face, “- what is your name?”
The thief swallowed, his eyes trailed the witch’s fingers.
Must stay focused, he tried to clear his head by shaking it without any success.
“They call me Prince of nights, the successor of the king of thieves,” he answered, trying to sound as omnipotent as possible, though his voice came out more shaky than powerful.
Ecchi whistled in false admiration, “ Oh, a prince!” she clapped her hands like an over enthusiastic little girl, “Why, I must show you something prince,”
She walked past the thief with swift but arousing steps. The aroma of her perfume floated around the thief when she passed him. He slowly looked over his shoulder. Ecchi was moving a heavy looking shelf off a red fur carpet without any visible struggling.
After being caught by the witch she hadn’t let him out of her sight for a second… before this moment that is. Multiple ideas were racing through the thief’s head, and he struggled to keep up with all of them.
I could run, said the voice in his head. The witch would vaporize me before I got out of the door, came the after thought. I could just cut her throat, said a third and much more silent voice. Could I really kill her? I am no murderer. He continued watching the witch, Besides she would probably blow my insides out before I could even get close to her neck. The small conversation inside his continued until Ecchi had moved the shelf off the fur carpet. The thief made a decision.
He turned his head towards the door and ran for it. Furiously he gripped the door handle, and opened the door, he ran into the fresh air, to freedom, when Ecchi’s melodic voice reached him: “Prince could you come and lend me a hand?”
The thief noticed how his legs would slow down like they would have been locked, cutting his feeble escape attempt short and he fell face first onto the paved road. He pushed himself up with a groan of frustration, and with slow but firm steps his legs walked back to Ecchi. He cursed his damn luck all the way.
He could feel the blood dripping from his nose, signals of pain were reaching his head, but then again that was the least of his troubles.
Ecchi kicked the fur carpet back and to revealed a trapdoor.
“Men are supposed to open doors for women, don’t you think?”
Prince grimaced but obliged. He pulled the trapdoor open; he was met by the stench of mold and ancient blood.
Ecchi smiled, “Oh what a gentleman,” she all but purred.
“My chivalry sometimes astounds me,” his voice was dry as a brick. Ecchi giggled, and descended down a staircase into the hidden cellar. Prince wiped the blood off his nose then continued to follow her. As he neared the end of the stairs the smell of death was beginning to become more and more overwhelming. Ecchi whispered a few short words; a pair of candles floated up in turquoise flames. The candles lit the cellar with a bluish light. It wasn’t a very large space for a cellar, maybe four meters wide and long. There was perfectly symmetric octahedron on the rough stone floor, identical to the one upstairs, but for two things: it was drawn with blood, and there was a body, long dead, in the middle of it. Prince could feel how the carrot stew that he had had for lunch started slowly to progress to his mouth. The octahedron was inside a five spiked star, the mark of darkness. The star had been drawn with chalk, providing further evidence to Ecchi's witchery. Ecchi walked over the markings to the other side of the room. The wall facing the thief had been taken over by a massive cupboard. Ecchi opened the cupboard.
“Do you have a weapon?” she asked the thief.
“A knife,” his voice trembled, he tried to take short breaths, trying not to smell the stench of blood.
Ecchi let out a dissatisfied sound. “You were trying to rob me without a proper weapon,” she said. She turned around carrying a fine silver short sword, which gleamed black in the turquoise light.
“The elves of night may not be able to craft iron, but there are few swords that can rival theirs,” She handed it to Prince. “Just don’t loose it.”
She walked to the body on the floor and pulled something in its chest, there was a crunching sound as she broke a rib. She took out a medallion. She laced it around Prince's neck.
“Why the jewelry?” The food a almost got to his mouth coloring his breath with disgusting smells.
“So that I can always know where you are.”
Prince turned around and vomited on the floor.
“Am I really that disgusting?”
