Page 105 of Gothikana

What the hell was going on?

Her eyes roamed around frantically, her chest heaving as she tried to make sense of everything.

‘Why make sense of anything?’ the voice she’d rarely heard before muttered insidiously.

‘I’m sorry it’s come to this, Cor.’ Jade’s voice came from the side.

Finding the strength somewhere deep inside her, Corvina turned her neck just enough to the side to be able to see her roommate, still in her fairy princess gown, smiling at her benevolently.

‘Who are you?’ Corvina could barely whisper, some kind of force keeping her paralyzed even as her consciousness worked.

Jade frowned. ‘You’re not supposed to be able to talk after this. Huh. The dose must’ve been lower than I thought.’

What dose? What had she done? Who the fuck was she? Where were they?

‘You remember that tree by the ruins?’ Jade sat down cross-legged on the floor by Corvina’s side, pushing her hair back with her fingers. ‘The tree with the eye?’

Corvina remembered the tree and its odd eye.

‘My grandmother carved the eye on the trunk to recognise it,’ Jade told her, smiling at her. ‘The tree was special. It only grew leaves once every few years, and she realised that if you powdered the leaves, it gave you power.’

What the hell was she talking about?

‘You could blow the powder in anyone’s face and control them,’ Jade told her, sifting through her hair. ‘She called it the Devil’s Breath. That’s what she used on their playthings.’

Realisation dawned upon her.

The Slayers.

This girl’s grandmother had been the so-called witch of the group of murderers.

‘Your grandmother was—’ Corvina swallowed to wet her throat.

‘A Slayer.’ Jade grinned proudly. ‘Yes, she was. She was the one who brought the fun to the group. They thought she was a witch who did dark magic with the powder. Back then, they didn’t know it was a drug. She never told anyone.’

Corvina felt some feeling return to her arms. ‘How?’

‘How do I know?’ Jade asked, her green eyes twinkling. ‘That’s because she never died. She escaped that night, the only one to escape, and she was pregnant. She raised my mother here, and then they moved to town where she met my father. My father didn’t want her, so that’s when grandma told her about the Devil’s Breath. That’s the night she conceived me.’

It was too much. The entire night up until that point was too much for her to wrap her head around.

Corvina felt sick not just with the night but with the story, thinking about a man in the same condition she was experiencing as a woman forced him. It was absolutely disgusting.

Jade went on, as though happy to finally get it off her chest. She’d always loved talking. ‘Sadly, my father never remembered, and Mother died a few years later. That’s when my grandma took me in. She raised me, taught me everything, told me all about what she and my grandfather used to do.’

More strength returned to Corvina, and she managed to turn slightly, staring up at the girl who had been her first friend in this new place, a girl she had trusted.

‘Oh, don’t look at me like that,’ Jade scoffed. ‘It was so well done. No one suspected the bubbly little girl who lost two people close to her. Such a tragedy.’ Her voice was mocking. ‘I was so convincing.’

‘Why?’

Jade leaned back on her hands and looked up at the stars, looking ethereal in the moonlight. ‘Why what?’

‘Why kill the real Jade Prescott?’ Corvina asked, thankfully her voice more stable.

She shrugged. ‘To come to Verenmore, silly. Stupid girl had come to town jabbering about getting admission. I gave her a lift up, got her whole life story, and took her to the old shack my grandma had in the woods. I wanted to see the place that belonged to my bloodline.’

Corvina’s heart stopped.

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