Chasing His Assassin

8. Hellfire

“I’m sorry! It won’t happen again.” Leah begged desperately as Caspian turned his back on her.

“Yes, I’ll make sure it doesn’t.” He answered coldly as he started to walk away.

“Wait I was at fault too, she shouldn’t have to be punished like this.” Noah spoke up, shocking Leah.

“Would you like to take her place then?” Caspian asked, briefly glancing over his shoulder to look at Noah. When the witch said nothing, he added, “I thought so. The only way she’ll be free of punishment is if someone else takes her place.”

Noah didn’t speak after that, only stood there with her fists balled up. Who would want to take her place in this situation? Her punishment for failing was twenty four hours in the furnace after all. Gerald shuffled after Caspian, trying to change his mind on the punishment but Caspian was unmoved. He left the room without uttering another word.

Leah sank into a seat at the large dining table feeling completely dejected. She dropped her face into the palm of her hands. After they returned from Freya’s home and reported to Caspian, he wasn’t the least bit pleased with the outcome.

At the time he’d been having a meal and had launched his plate in a fit of rage. Caspian admittedly didn’t have the finest personality but today he was much more agitated than she was used to seeing him.

The harsh punishment she’d been given was probably a result of that.

She could already feel the heat of the flames on her skin and she hadn’t even entered the furnace yet.

“I’m so sorry.” Noah said sorrowfully, slowly approaching Leah. “If I hadn’t messed up then you wouldn’t be getting this severely punished.”

Her sympathy wasn’t appreciated. Leah went from feeling bad about her forthcoming trip to the furnace to resenting Noah. They’d both screwed up earlier but only one person was getting punished. And just hours ago she’d had the nerve to call Leah Caspian’s favorite.

Leah fought the urge to yell at Noah to shut up.

“What I wouldn’t do to not be his ‘favorite’ right now.” Noah looked shocked, probably not realizing that Leah had overheard her conversation with Gerald before.

The old man returned just then, his face grim as he walked in Leah’s direction.

“I’m to escort you to the furnace.” Leah had no choice but to follow him because she dared not disobey Caspian.

Even while she despised him for putting her in this situation, a part of her reminded her that she was here because she failed to kill the mutts as she’d been ordered to. It was all her fault at the end. Caspian was only being fair dishing out an appropriate punishment.

She willed herself to stand but her body began to tremble as she did. The fear or rather dread was only now settling in now that she knew she had to go. She really didn’t want to go there. Gerald clearly noticed her reluctance because he gave her an empathetic look.

No one was better acquainted with the furnace than Leah was. It was a strange cave beneath the castle. The cave was inside the cliff their castle stood on. Leah referred to it as strange because there was no logic to explain the phenomenon behind it.

Within the cave was literal hellfire. With flames that burned as hot as a thousand degrees celsius. It became known as the furnace among the castle folk. How or why it existed was unknown to them. For years Caspian had used it to punish her whenever she made serious mistakes. For that reason Leah had developed an extreme case of Pyrophobia.

From experience, Leah knew the order in which her body parts melted from the heat. The eyes came first.

She would lose sight as she felt her own eyeballs melt in inside her skull. Her skin would follow soon afterwards. The whole process would go on long enough for her bones and internal organs to be exposed.

The thing about the furnace was that the flames would cease long enough for Leah’s body to heal somewhat before it started up again.

By the time she began to regain her sight, the flames would be back again, starting the brutal process all over again. Going back there scared the living daylights out of her.

Gerald said nothing to her, knowing there were no words he could possibly utter to make her feel better about what was about to happen. He was patient enough to wait as she tried to gain her bearings. He didn’t try to urge her to move faster.

Eventually Leah was able to follow the man out of the dining room and out of the castle. She was breathing manually as she walked. In, out. In out. She did this the entire time they walked and paid no attention to her surroundings. They reached the cave before she knew it and Leah froze at the entrance.

As if the gods were against her, they arrived during the cave’s resting period. Meaning that the temperature inside was low enough for Gerald to enter and shackle her down in the centre of the cave. It was low enough for someone to quickly go in and out but it was still terribly hot.

There were already magic reinforced chains inside the cave that he would use to shackle her in place. It was the same kind of chains used to shackle mindless wolves during the full moon so they were very solid. Because if there were no binds holding her down, she would obviously escape the cave at the earliest opportunity.

They entered the cave and Gerald reluctantly began to shackle her hands and legs. By the time he was done, she was standing on her feet with her hands above her head.

“I’m sorry Leah.” The old man said before he walked away. He was obviously in a rush because he didn’t know when the cave would start up again. By the time he left Leah was already covered in sweat. The sweat made the cuffs holding her hands up all the more uncomfortable.

Leah took a look around the cave for a bit before she lost her sight. The cave was but a cave, nothing special or stimulating about it except the streaks of lava in the rocks. Just rock for floors, ceilings and walls.

About a half an hour later, the flames ascended with much cruelty. Leah cried out in agony. A loud hiss sound first reached her ears as the fire first met her sweat before the pain began to register. Her muscles had already begin to shrink and tense up and her eyes were the same as useless right now.

***

Twenty four whole hours in the furnace. Noah felt like s**t. Of course she wouldn’t want to take Leah’s place. Who would want to be in literal hellfire for an entire day. Leah’s body would basically be cremated over and over again.

Noah who wasn’t much of a combatant didn’t have nearly the amount of pain tolerance Leah had. Twenty four hours in that kind of hell would screw her up both physically and mentally.

She realized then that she wasn’t even sure Leah was mentally sound. Noah never paid attention to it before now but the things Leah had gone through were enough to drive a person insane. The girl’s green eyes were always dull but Noah assumed she just had naturally lazy eyes. Could there actually be more to it.

Leah rarely left the castle, that alone wasn’t good for her mental health. One couldn’t kill the amount of people Leah had killed without it affecting them at some point.

And this wasn’t her first trip to the furnace. Tolerant or not, Noah couldn’t imagine anyone getting used to having their skin charred.

Did Caspian actually care for the girl or not? All this time Noah had felt he favored her over everyone else but could it actually be that he hated Leah?

Noah couldn’t take her place but she wanted to make it up to Leah because she’d partly been responsible for angering Caspian and it made no sense that she was coming out unpunished. What did Leah like?

They lived together for years but knew little to nothing about each other.

Henceforth, Noah would try to get to know her well. For now maybe a trip to the human realm would be okay. Noah was sure the girl would appreciate being away from the castle once she was released. As they had failed to get more information on Freya, it was safe to assume that they would have no missions to go on for the meantime.

A girls trip out. Alcohol, music and maybe hot guys if they were lucky.

Noah had to admit that this was pitiful. Leah would probably not want to go anywhere with her and Noah wouldn’t be able to blame her. Still she sat in her bedroom planning the trip out for the small probability that Leah would say yes.

A day passed and Noah asked to follow Gerald when he was going to release Noah. The man turned her down at first but later changed his mind. He held a blanket in his hand when they went down to the cave. Noah wondered what it was for until she laid eyes on Leah. Or rather the figure that was supposed to be her.

Upon reaching the cave they’d had to wait outside for about half an hour for the flames to calm down. When they entered the cave, Noah gazed about as it was her first time inside.

The temperature inside was high and the rocks looked like they had lava flowing through their cracks. Because of that, the room was very dimly illuminated coupled with the light that came in from the entrance.

Noah’s eyes finally landed on Leah and her stomach turned. She got a good look at her before Gerald quickly unfastened her cuffs and wrapped her up in the blanket he’d been holding. The man was very used to this from how effectively he wrapped her body up. How effectively he’d wrapped her skeleton up.

Leah made small weak sounds, alerting them that she was still somewhat conscious. Noah hadn’t been able to tell because at the moment she was staring into the girl’s eye sockets. Leah was no more than a skeleton with some bits of flesh on her. Her hair had completely burned off, adding to the skeleton look.

One look at Leah and Noah realized that she’d greatly underestimated the severity of punishment Caspian had given her.

No one could experience something like this and come out of it completely sane. Their little girls trip would have to go on hold because Leah was probably going to spend the next couple of days healing.

Even after she healed, Noah knew she wouldn’t be able to forget what she looked like at that point. This image of Leah would forever haunt her.