Chapter Sixteen

                                    

                                          
Freida Slater sat calmly in her home, staring through the stained, warped window of her conservatory. The wolves surrounding her home weren't as well hidden as they thought, and the two rogues walking down her driveway weren't subtle about their entrance either. 
                          
Their heavy foot falls crunched the gravel beneath their feet, her bees loudly buzzing to alert her of the newcomers. The wind was still, her wind chimes by her door silent as someone knocked. 
                          
"Come in," Freida sang, swaying slightly in her wooden chair. Her fingers drummed the arm rests, staring intently at the ten pale bands which once held her mother's rings. 
                          
The tang of wolf wafted to her nose as the rogues entered her home. Her plants stilled, shrinking as they wondered through her corridors until they found the conservatory. Freida stared out the window, her murky mirror, and watched them still. 
                          
"You are Freida." The gruff, low voice of the male said, the female casting an eye around the room - warily counting the dozens of potted plants with long stalks and a lone, thick leaf like nature was growing its own battleaxe. 
                          
"You are Yuric, leader of the leaderless." Freida hummed, fixing her green eyes on the rogues. "You are Lucia Winters, a former teacher at my daughter's school." 
                          
Lucia scowled. "That's right." Every part of her body wanted to leave the witch's den, there were too many smells and she didn't like the gleam in Freida's eyes. "We seek your advice." 
                          
Freida raised a brow. "I'm sure when you remove your clothes you'd be able to work it out from there-" 
                          
"Not with that." Yuric spat, Lucia awkwardly shuffling her feet. "We seek a way to bring down the Supernova." 
                          
Frieda's gleam disappeared. The musk of nature sharpened around them. "You seek to break the unbreakable, to tame the wild and obtain the unobtainable." The wolves flinched when her nails scraped against the wood, the odd splinter snapping across the room. "You seek the impossible."
                          
"She's only a girl," Lucia argued as Yuric's jaw clenched tightly. His heavy jacket shifted over his shoulders and it fixated Freida's gaze. "There must be a way to power her down at least." 
                          
"Or reverse her damage." Freida spoke the words on their minds, staring at Yuric's left shoulder hidden under his jacket. "Or the damage of another?" 
                          
Yuric shoved his jacket aside to reveal his slung arm, now half the size of his right. Atrophy had started to eat away at his muscle and the scar in his shoulder was twisted like the ugliest vine. "The witch who travels with the Supernova, Jacinta, did this to my arm." Frieda didn't miss the waver in his voice at her daughter's name, the tightness of his throat and the venom on his tongue. "Can it be undone?"
                          
"No." Frieda smiled, the gleam returning. "Only she can undo her own gift. She is the Witch Who Can Heal." 
                          
Yuric's fists clenched and he shrugged off Lucia's comforting hand on his good shoulder. He was weak; how was he meant to fight the little river when he was half the man he used to be only weeks ago? 
                          
Yuric's cold glare normally chilled those who stared too long at his scarred, maimed body and emotionless eyes, but Freida, the psychic supernova of two reigns past, kept smiling. He bristled seeing her crooked teeth and mocking grin.
                          
"If we cannot catch her," Yuric spat through clenched teeth. "We can lure her then kill her." 
                          
"We know she on Mount Tyrill." Lucia added, scowling when the witch turned her head to stare out the murky window again. "Our scouts found her blood at the base of the mountain, along with Yuric's claw - we were tracking it. We had our suspicions before but now we know for sure she's in the village."