99. Lordess

[Ruin]

The bones of her hands contorted and twisted, reshaping beneath her skin. Her fingers elongated into sharp claws, more lethal than my dagger.

The air around her crackled with an aura that felt strangely familiar, like a forgotten dream. It felt as though I had known that energy for years. Still, I couldn’t recognize it, just like those vague emotions that took over me when I saw her for the first time.

A second she was right before my eyes and the next she was gone with a deafening growl. A hush fell over the crowd before it burst into bone-chilling screeches of men as if they were being torn apart alive.

I looked around as a sea of men and women ran upstairs in a catastrophic wave to escape the massacre.

I got mere glimpses of Belladonna. She was all over the hall. Incessant gunshots and zapping beams of lights were followed by panicked cries of spells.

People ducked and screamed out of fear as they hurled out of the hall, pushing each other like cramped cattle within electroc