Robarte saw Grace turn around and leave the street they were standing at to catch another path before she went off in her carriage. His eyes mellowed down once she left, his features turning softer again and he left the street himself. The people who knew him bowed when their eyes met and he returned it back like a gentleman. Walking towards the black market when something on the wall caught his attention. It was a paper of a woman drawn on it.
He stared at the picture which had a bounty of two hundred gold coins that now had been raised to four hundred gold coins.
A small smile crept up on the corner of his lips and he stepped into the black market to speak to the auctioneer so that he could buy the next slave for the coming week. The last slave had turned out to be too docile that had turned him off. She had taken up his beatings without a single cry from her mouth that had him bored right away. Where was the enjoyment when the slave wasn’t crying? He had gone so far to cut her hand open but the pleasure of seeing her cry had faded.
Walking through the throng of the crowd where the black market was a place that didn’t sleep ever, he wondered if he lost interest since his eyes had fallen on Penelope. Her green eyes were vibrant and her speech always clear as she held her ground. He couldn’t wait to turn her to his slave but before that, he had other matters and a helping hand that he needed right now.
With Grace who had decided not to help him, it didn’t matter to him because there were always other sources. As fun as it was with the vampiress, she was useless and of no actual help. His patience was running thin as a thread that would break at any point in time.
He bought some of the items from the black market before he left in his carriage. Instead of heading back home, Robarte traveled from one place to another. Passing through villages and towns under the dire conditions of the weather where it was raining continuously without a pause.
When he finally reached a village, the clouds were lightly drizzling from the sky and the ground was slippery and wet. Jumping out of his carriage, he saw how most of them had rushed back to their houses for shelter without wanting to get drenched and wet to avoid inviting any fever or disease.
Hearing something in the distance from where he was, he made his way to find two women fighting each other in the rain where no one could see. One was a witch hunter while the other was a black witch. They fought with their weapons clashing one after another, their hands moving quick enough to get each other for a kill.
When the witch hunter took hold of the gun pointing it against the black witch who had not changed her appearance throughout the fight, Robarte raised his hand to pull his own trigger from the gun he held that shot the woman who was holding the gun to drop dead on the ground.
The one who he had saved turned to look at him in the rain that had increased. Her hood had come off with her brown hair sticking on her face,
“Robarte,” whispered the woman as if not expecting to see him.
“How have you been doing, sister?” Robarte asked the woman with a gentle smile on his face.
The rain continued to pour down from the sky, dragging the loose silt that was on top of the ground while also bringing up the seedlings above the surface that were yet to grow to pull it out as the rain slid down.
The woman looked at her younger brother with her brown eyes, “Help me with the body,” she demanded. The man didn’t have to be told twice and he dragged the woman he had shot, pulling her by her leg towards the forest to be followed by his sister.
No trail was left behind in the village of the witch hunter who had been shot and some of them who saw it didn’t want to get involved. They behaved as if they had not seen a fight take place in the rain where the two people had appeared to be hazy in the rain. Keeping their business to themselves without poking in things that were unfair, they shut their windows and drew their curtains closed.
The body of the witch hunter was only dragged into the forest but it was never buried. It was done so that once the rain would stop people wouldn’t go to inform the magistrate which would buy the black witch some time. Already there were enough people who had been following her for the past few weeks, Laurae didn’t have the time for it.
Laurae took herself to lean her back against the tree so that she could get some air to breathe.
“You have turned out to be a popular person in the land of Bonelake,” Robarte commented watching his elder sister gasp for air.
All Laurae had to do was to look at the man who chuckled without saying a word, “Someone has my posters placed everywhere in the land and now I have witch hunters on my back.”
“That was going to happen. I told you helping the Artemis was not a good deal and we should have found another pair of siblings but it was your idea,” tutted Robarte at his sister, “I heard you lost the book which was given by Sabbi to you. What did you do with it?”
Laurae asked with a deep frown, “She knows?” the black witch hadn’t expected for the black witch mistress to know that the important book which was given to her had been misplaced.
“Sabbi knows everything. There are people who report to her and with what I heard from the councilwoman she has been keeping an eye on you for some time now through the help of the witch hunters,” he smiled.
She should have known, her jaw ticked as she thought about it.
There had been a number of witch hunters who were following her and it wasn’t just because of the poster of her face on the trees and the walls. It was because the black witch mistress was angry with her lack of care with the book, “I had the book with me. I have been looking for the white witch to read it.”
“Is that why there has been a trail of dead bodies near the churches?” he asked her, “You know leaving a trail like that, forget about Sabbi or the witch hunters, the council will be on to you very soon at this rate.”
Laurae appeared slightly irritated and vexed at the thought about it, “I had it in the room but when the next moment when I looked at it, it wasn’t there,” she had tried finding it but every search had turned to a waste of time.
It was as if the book had disappeared on its own.
