(33) Business

Again, she opened the broken seal upon the envelope, and unfolded the thick piece of folded parchment, studying the writing. It took all her calm to resist crumpling the instructions, or to rip them into tiny pieces. Sliding her fingers up through her hair, a wisp of dark red trembled at her exhaled breath before she tucked it behind her ear. She let the letter float down to her desk, supporting herself against it as she leaned over, looking over her reagents.

"Well," she spoke beneath her breath to the air, "lets get started, shall we?"

Grasping the obsidian hilt of the dagger, she pushed in the large ruby eye embedded in the ornate leather, triggering the mechanism to release the trapped blood inside of the blade. It had drawn the right amount of blood from the targeted demon, like a syringe, and she smiled faintly at it's handiwork. The stream of thick blood dripped upon the fixed circlet of felsteel, painting the metal with a brilliant crimson.

Muttering in thought to herself, she twisted around to a top shelf of her cabinet, bringing out the ornate box, which contained a treasure trove of soul shards. Bits of essences lie within each glimmering prison, some stolen from the most vile, powerful, or ethereal creatures of the lands she has visited. She frowned, sighing in disappointment as she removed one of the shards from it's velvet setting. The box lid slammed down harshly as she turned back to the ring, the blood dripping over it.

Carefully, she set the glowing shard into the metal catch, made for it, just at the front of the ring. It glowed like an eye already, spying upon it's creator.

"Oh, don't you look at me like that. You should feel privileged. I've held you in that box all this time, and now you're going to be the focus of a pretty little ring," she murmured aloud, caressing the pink glass with a finger tip. "Make me proud…"

With that, she curled her hands over the ring, shoulders slackened as she brought the shadow magic to her will. It was heavy in the air of the shop, all around her, like a black, foreboding fog. Flexing her fingers downward, toward the ring, the shadow magic fell upon the trinket like a black flame, growing more corporeal as the soft, chanted words escaped from her lips, like a dark lullaby:


"Ithic kull narraxis xi astarr..
Ithic kull narraxis xi astarr..
Nith avit ver thine
Neherat"

The black flame snapped upward at the last word spoken, an echo of whispers having repeated her words, fading with the shadow. The soul shard gleamed, fused to the now black, delicate metal of the ring.
Annaliese stared at the cursed ring for a long moment, a malevolent piece kissed by the Dark.

"I hope you choke on it," she gritted between her teeth, whipping around to find a suitable box for the ring.