Chapter 61

**Merianna**

I took hold of Thyrion’s hand and moved to one of the dark back corners with him in tow. Watching from the sidelines seemed like the smartest course of action seeing how Thyrion still had an absolutely murderous look on his face whenever he looked at Orbus.

Thyrion pulled me close to his front and hugged me from behind as we both watched Noch pull his hand back and slap Orbus across the face.

Orbus jolted in the chair and whipped his head around, taking in the scenery of the room he was now in. Then he slowly turned his eyes squarely onto Noch who was standing in the light right in front of him.

“Good morning you royal piece of Troll shite.” Noch said cheerfully.

Orbus eyed the area around him and jiggled his arms and legs that were fastened in the restraints. “Where am I?” 

“Isn’t that always the first question to come out.” Noch sighed dramatically. “Let me answer that question with another one. “Do you know who I am?”

He seemed to think about it for a second, like he was trying to dredge up some memories. “Since that bastard Thyrion was with you and that bloody banshee too, I assume that you’re from The Order.”

Thyrion’s arms tightened around my waist and I rubbed them reflexively to calm him. We didn’t need him jumping ahead and ripping Orbus’ spine out before we’d gotten any information yet. No matter how rude he was being.

“You’re right, so that answer should tell you exactly where you are right now.”

Orbus glared up at Noch for all he was worth. “So who would that make you? One of The Order’s wannabe lackeys that does the dirty work?”

I couldn’t help the snort that suddenly shot through my system. Wow, how much did the Order’s reputation fall for it to reach this level of obscurity? How could Orbus not know that if anyone were to kidnap and torture people in The Order’s castle, it was usually the main people in charge because they couldn’t be bothered to trust anyone else with the dirty work? Not to mention that the Order never had a lackey system to begin with, it was run more like an academy and office where nearly everyone was always on equal footing.

Noch’s smile faltered as he looked at Orbus in bafflement. “Wait, how much have you ever heard about The Order?”

Orbus suddenly looked confused. “Not all that much…? Only that they got whipped out by the hunters ages ago.” he shrugged.

“What the hell has the magical community come to?!” Noch asked in frustration, throwing his hands up in the air.

“We *have* pretty much been off the grid since then though…” Jasnine sighed dramatically.

“How could we expect a 100 generations down the line to remember us if we don’t show ourselves?” Raska piped in helpfully.

“I wonder if it’s possible to instill generational trauma…?” Arasule mused seriously.

Glancing around the room I couldn’t believe that they were all more focused on the fact that they had been forgotten rather than the fact that we were supposed to be in the middle of an interrogation. Until I caught Fog’s expression. He was clearly not at all impressed by how they were all going on and looked like he would be more interested in going back to his room for a good nap rather than staying and listening to them go around in circles.

I quietly tugged on Fog’s robe, and he leaned closer on reflex. “Do Fae ever go scenile the older they get?”

Fog’s face cracked a smile. “Not that I know of but it looks like this lot has already reached that point.” Thyrion’s body shook behind me as I felt him hold back a chuckle.

“You could go if you want? I could fill you in on the details later?” I asked helpfully.

“It’s fine.” Fog said as he ruffled my hair. “It would be better to hear everything from the source anyhow.”

“We should probably get back on track then and speed this process up.” I unwrapped Thyrion’s arms from around me and gave him a kiss before sauntering over to Noch, who was now actually highly interested in what Nana Ara mentioned about generational trauma. Orbus’ gaze was swinging around all over the place, clearly trying to see the faces of the voices that had erupted from the darkness behind Noch.

I stepped into the light without Noch giving me a second glance, meaning he didn’t even know I was there. Circulating my magic around my leg felt good, but it felt even better when I lifted my leg and nailed Noch with a very solid and very powerful kick to the hip that sent him flying into the wall. Orbus blinked wildly at the swift and powerful blow, then visibly flinched and cringed at the sound of Noch hitting the solid stone wall with a pained ‘Argh’.

Coughing painfully he ran healing magic over himself, Noch stood up and yelled at me. “What the hell Demon Spawn?! Why’d you kick me half way to an early grave?!”

“Because you’ve clearly forgotten that we have a prisoner in front of us that we’re supposed to be interrogating, not playing 20 questions with. We can worry about opening The Order’s doors for fresh students after all this has been handled.” I deadpanned and threw a thumb over my shoulder to point at our baffled captive.

Noch heaved a sigh and dusted off his pants. “Fiiiine, let's get back to the main topic then.” He walked back over to me and then glared down at Orbus.

“As this is an interrogation, and not a discussion. I will now be asking the questions from here on out, and you will only provide answers. Nothing less.” He said coldly, completely switching back to how he was supposed to be behaving.

“Now, the first question would be why did you put a curse spell on our little firespitter here 2000 years ago?” Noch asked while patting the top of my head which resulted in me zapping his hand with my lightning.

Orbus looked between us uncertainly, like he wasn’t sure if he should answer that question. But Noch wasn’t going to let him have a choice.

“I bet this will make you pretty persuasive.” Noch said as he extended a finger to Orbus’ hand. I could feel Noch channeling healing magic, which confused me at first until Orbus suddenly yelped out in pain and I saw one of the muscles in his arm cramp up into a knotted ball. Now that was the kind of muscle spasm you’d want to avoid at all costs. It made sense to me now that because of Noch’s extensive experience with healing through magic, that he could and would use that exact same concept to deal just as much damage as he could heal wounds.

“I didn’t.” Orbus gasped and Noch took his finger away, making the spasm relax immediately.

That answer threw us all for a little bit of a loop however. We all just assumed that he was one of those lucky Warlocks that reincarnated like Witches tend to do. It was pretty rare but not uncommon, and it would have made sense since back then was when the Dark Warlocks had it out for us big time since we eradicated their cave that Dermon had weasled himself into.

Noch glared down at Orbus. “If you didn’t set the spell on her, then that means someone else must have and then given you the key to its control. Am I right?”

Orbus was all too happy to nod his answer quickly.

“Now the next question then would be, who gave you the key to the spell?”

Hesitation flashed over Orbus’ face as he seemed to catch himself. It made sense that Orbus would have been sworn to secrecy over something like this.

“You would have to know the individual since it wouldn’t have been all too long after it’s casting that you would have been entrusted with it. Thyrion has been in the palm of your hand for at least the last 1000 years since that was when he found out about all this himself. Which would raise another suspicion about you, a Warlock, reincarnating for the past 1000 years. Someone must have noticed that you’re one of the lucky ones that can keep coming back.” Noch mused, watching Orbus’ reactions with each word he spoke.

He was trying to hide his growing discomfort, but you could see that Noch’s words were starting to trigger a nervous sweat.

“Was said individual a fellow Warlock?” Noch asked, cocking his head to the side. But when Orbus clenched his jaw and looked pretty reluctant to answer, Noch smiled darkly and extended his finger to Orbus’ knee next.

The tight sitting jeans that Orbus was wearing didn’t hide much. The moment Noch’s finger made contact with his knee, Orbus doubled over in pain and groaned miserably as the muscle in his thigh looked like it was being pulled tight enough to tear itself away from the bone. Orbus was breaking out in a sweat and twitching with uncontrollable shivers at the pain.

Finally he couldn’t take it anymore and shook his head. “No! He wasn’t!”

Noch took his finger away and Orbus groaned in relief, heaving in lungfuls of air at the reprieve.

“Now see? That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Noch’s smile was deceptively sweet, just as Orbus’ answering glare back was sour.

All of us knew that one thing most people hated more than dying, was pain. Especially if that pain was something that was caused by your own body being unable to control itself. Cramps, nerves, searing jabbing pains, headaches that make you see double and so on. 

If someone who was always relatively healthy suddenly got hit by something like that out of nowhere, it could drive anyone mad. And if the cause of that pain was something that was also able to take it away just as easily, then you’d most definitely be more inclined to give up whatever it was you needed to give up rather than having to relive that pain again.

“So, let’s try this again. If said individual wasn’t a fellow Warlock, then was it a Witch?” Noch asked while tapping his finger on his hip.

Orbus looked wearily at the infuriating finger and gave a sigh. “I’m not sure. I didn’t know him but his offer was too tempting.”

“Oh? What was this offer?” Noch asked curiously.

“The man walked up to me out of nowhere one day and told me that he knew of a way for me to get the items I needed in order to summon my Deity.” Orbus huffed while closing his eyes.

Noch looked sideways at me with a raised eyebrow, and I knew he had the same thought as I did right then. If only the idiot knew that the Deity he was supposedly looking for was pretty much right in front of his face this whole time. I tiled my head in silent question for him to just make sure we were right in thinking that he was indeed looking for Denaue.

“And what is the name of the Deity you so desperately wish to summon?” Noch asked.

Orbus sighed. “Our sacred Lady that taught the first Warlocks their craft, Denaue.” The way he said Denaue so reverently made both a shiver of disgust and a blast of rage run through my body. How dare he, one of the descendants of the ones I taught and trusted, who had betrayed me so horribly in the past, speak my name like that?

Strong, reassuring arms suddenly hugged me from behind again and slowly shuffled me away from the light that was illuminating the space around the chair. It seemed that Noch sent a silent message to Thyrion to get me before I exploded. Good thing he did, because it snapped me right back out of those deep dark thoughts.

I took a deep calming breath and gripped Thyrion’s arms with my hands, holding him tightly to me. He was every bit my external voice of reasoning as I was his.

“Same old same old then. All you Dark Warlocks are so dead set on putting a shattered vase back together.” Noch clicked his tongue and pulled his smoking pipe out from thin air.

Orbus shot his angry glare back at Noch again. “Do not refer to her like that! She-”

Noch cut him off. “Was pretty much destroyed by your kind after she taught your ancestors what they so desperately wanted.” He said as he lit the pipe with his fingertip.

Orbus’ mouth snapped shut. He glared at Noch with clenched teeth because he knew that Noch wasn’t wrong. Orbus clearly knew that it was the Dark Warlocks that had gone astray and essentially killed off their own Deity and in doing so, set themselves apart from the Light Warlocks.

“Only the ancient texts that we possess share that information. How did you know?” Orbus spat.

Noch took a deep pull of his pipe and heaved a happy puff. “Well, not many can boast about this but, I am one of the very few witches on this planet that can confidently say that I was there when it happened.”

Orbus’ eyes shot open so wide that they nearly popped out of their sockets. “N-no.”

Noch smiled evilly. “Oh yes sunshine. There’s very little you can try to hide from me. So, sing birdy, sing…”