Lightning flashed across the night sky, followed by the loud rumble of thunder as rain began to fall. It started slow, then quickly turned into a heavy downpour. In the forest of Grimvale, the wind made the tree leaves sway fiercely. At the far edge, where the witch’s house nestled deep within the woods, lights flickered in the small windows as rain beat earnestly against the roof and streamed down the windowsill.
Inside it, the dark witch known as Galyana was humming a sweet melody to herself as she admired her now beautiful face in the oval mirror on her vanity table, where various bottles of potions were laid out with four long candles on the candle holders illuminating her reflection in the mirror.
The young woman that looked back at her in the mirror had long, ebony smooth hair, with a small nose and unblemished skin and small, petal-like pink lips. She pinched her cheeks that were as soft as a baby’s butt with no pores, and she threw her head back and laughed, but the loud sound of thunder and the downpour outside drowned out the sinister sounds of her laughter.
The green-eyed girl who had brought her the infant in exchange for a charm to kill someone’s wife had given her a girl who would have grown to be a beautiful young lady, because after using her for her beauty potion, she had gotten the looks of the poor baby which she was supposed to have gotten after becoming a woman.
Galyana turned her head from side to side to admire herself in the mirror. She pulled a drawer on the vanity to retrieve a comb, but as she raised her eyes back to the reflection to begin to comb her silky smooth hair for the night, the comb dropped from her hand and she let out a small, startled cry.
"My Lord," she said with an uneasy smile as she caught sight of the man now leaning casually against the wall of her room through the reflection, a cigar burning between his lips and his arms crossed against his chest, his deep blue hair falling damply around his head as he stared at her with that expression of his that always made her slightly uneasy. Dead and utterly inhumane.
When did he come in?
"What brings you here today? It’s not the usual days you come for the potion," Galyana said as she stood up from the stool and turned to face the man, who happened to be one of her important customers and someone she must not offend in any way.
Lord Dagon, just like many vampires who sought her out to make magic potions for them, but what he made her do was different from what the others sought from her.
Dark witches were not forbidden in Nightbrook like they were in the human lands, which was why many witches chose to reside in the vampire lands, and as long as they did not cross their boundaries of going against the laws set for them, they would not be touched or burned like the humans do to them.
In fact, many vampires sought to buy blood from white witches, as their blood was said to be sweet—unlike the bitter taste of the dark, who were skilled in spells and often paid to harm others.
Galyana had been in this land for many years, and years ago she had met Prince Rohan, who had approached her.
He was so young then, with those dead, impassive eyes of his as he stepped into her den, looking around at everything on her shelves and tables in open facination.
She did not like it when people touched her things, and the boy had begun doing that the moment he entered.
Thinking that he was just any vampire despite not looking like one, Galyana had decided to punish him by turning him into a toad for touching and spilling her things while at the same time he ignored her questions of what brought him to her den.
"You insolent fool! That’s an important potion you spilled!" she had gritted, and then reached out for her charm powder to turn him into a toad for a few days to teach him a lesson.
She had blown the powder at his face, but the prince merely frowned, tilted his head to the side and squeezed twice.
Then he touched her powerful witch powder with his fingers and brought it to his nose to smell. He’d scrunched his nose and frowned.
"This smells rotten. What’s this?" he had asked her, and Galyana had stared at him in astonished disbelief, as that powder was so powerful it had never for once refused to work on anyone.
She’d punished many arrogant vampires with it who thought they could come and disturb her.
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