Chapter 8: Trap
Lordi Payne dropped to his knees in a heartbeat. Only then did Shaw Payne let out a shaky breath.
At that exact moment, a voice sliced through the cottage's stillness—icy as a winter gale, laced with a prickly edge of annoyance. "Speak. Payne Clan."
"Fairy Lith," Shaw Payne quickly replied, "we are aware of your highness seclusion and dare not to disturb you lightly. However, my nephew Lordi Payne has just returned from Mountain Grimvale, claiming to have discovered Woods Tinshee's whereabouts. Fearing to alert the traitor, he refrained from sending the clan's signal. We once thought FellowDao Wexford was in the manor..."
"Woods Tinshee?"
Before Shaw Payne fully spoke the name, and then the cottage door swung open eerie silently. A figure materialized in a flash, draped in a gauze gown that flowed like midnight ink. A veil on the conical hat shadowed her face, its edges droppin' to her chest, matching the dark color of her ebony dress and heels.Shaw Payne immediately lowered his gaze, his eyes fixed on the ground, not daring to show the slightest disrespect. Lordi Payne, reacting a beat slower, caught a fleeting glimpse of the lady. Her figure was graceful, her waist slender and delicate, yet her aura was sharp as a freshly forged blader adiating an overwhelming presence.
Fairy Lith flicked her hand, and the chime tinkled—soft at first, then sharp, like wind singing through a skull's hollows. Shaw Payne and Lordi Payne blinked, heads swimming for a split second. When the fog cleared, that creepy skull wind chime dangled at fairy's waist, swaying like it'd claimed a soul. Tilting the hat, voice sounds cool as frost. "Where's he at?"
Shaw Payne shot Lordi Payne a look. Lordi Payne steadied himself, fingers tightening around the bullet in his palm and spoke. "Fairy Lith, Woods Tinshee is dead."
"What?!" Shaw Payne yelped.
Fairy Lith, however, remained unfazed. "Where's the cultivation technique?"
"Outside the town," Lordi Payne replied. Her aura slammed into him—way beyond Kinson Wexford. When he met Kinson Wexford in the main hall, the man had seemed aloof but hadn't left a particularly strong impression.
Even through that veil, her stare was a bolt of lightning, locking onto him like a predator sizing up its next meal. One glance, and a chill raced down his spine, cold as death's own grip.Swallowing hard, Lordi Payne forced his nerves to steel and pressed on. "I stumbled on Woods Tinshee in a cave. He was already half-dead, bleeding out bad. A fierce fight, I finished him off. I did want to haul his relic back and report, but figured it'd lost on the way, so I stashed it outside the town."