Book 3: Chapter 70: The Serpent of Calamity
Carina was unaware of how long she had been falling. Her body felt like a weightless leaf yanked along by an invisible force that continued to pull her down. The panicked butterflies in her stomach collided frantically against the pounding in her chest as she waited for a sudden impact—that never came.
The nothingness surrounding the ice witch filled her with a strange sense of déjà vu and dread. She could feel her eyes blinking, but there was nothing to see. Soon enough, Carina began to wonder if she was falling or merely floating. She couldn’t even feel her limbs or body, which had become as fluid and intangible as the dark, expansive void around her.
‘Am I dead? If I don’t have a body, doesn’t that make me a spirit?’
The strange irony of such a fate tickled against her throat, and the laugh that followed startled the Duchess. The muffled sound faded so abruptly, as if swallowed up by the void that Carina wondered if she had only imagined laughing.
‘What is this place? And where is the serpent that dragged me down here?’
As if summoned by her thought, a sliver of light appeared, coiling through the nothingness above her. Carina tensed as the giant demonic white serpent slithered overhead, its vibrantly white body illuminating a rippling surface between them like a river.
‘How is it moving like that? And where is it going?’
The colorless serpent paused and turned its head. Frightening, soulless black eyes stared back at the ice witch as a scarlet serpent’s tongue flicked impatiently in her direction.