vampire king, the forest sorceress, who sees in the flame of fire all the secrets of death and life, but on that night she herself was a lifeless death. Her unseeing eyes looked at the flames, and it was reflected in them in a fierce green fire. Her hand clenched in a mute witching gesture, and slurred words escaped from her lifeless lips. The flame flared up with renewed vigor, and a gloomy man slowly emerged from the darkness of the distant caves. His footsteps echoed through the caves, over the stone floors, over the cold walls, over every stone, and over the entire huge cave where the girl was, in an eerie threatening sound. It was as if she did not hear the steps and did not know about the presence of a strange person, on whose cold and white face some kind of cruel and evil expression was frozen. He looked like a statue, with a white mask of anger instead of a face and fiery eyes full of inhuman cruelty. He himself looked like an eerie statue made of stone, insensitive, cold and evil, deprived of the last drop of the joy of life and living only by the evil of his stone heart. His pale lips twisted in a devilish grin whispered:
“Rise from death!”
His ominous voice echoed like a fatal and terrible echo through the witch’s darkness:
“Let the darkness leave you, you no longer belong to the kingdom of darkness, come here, resurrect your heart, your soul in this fire, let it reveal everything to you. Rise from death.”
She shuddered all over at the bewitching command of his words. Now she no longer seemed dead, a drop of life settled in a dying corpse, but she was given to her by the forces of darkness. Now the flames of fire had for a moment infused the spark of their life into her. The beauty’s weak lips parted as if preparing to utter the fateful words. Until now, lifeless, thin hands clenched into fists on a high stone by the fire, and silent eyes stared at the flame with a cold and incinerating gaze.
Together with her, the entire gloomy cave suddenly came to life. The light of the fire spread over the darkness and illuminated the bizarre stones of the walls, endowing everything around with a magical, ominous beauty, and the terrible figure of a girl in the middle of the cave by the fire shone with an otherworldly light.
Her light clothes fluttered in a fiery whirlwind, her hair in the darkness looked like tongues of flame, and her hands, white as snow, extended towards the fire in a silent, witchcraft gesture.
He slowly walked closer to the girl and stood right behind her. His lifeless gaze now shone with something malevolent.
“Show me everything, Madeleine,” he whispered to the beauty, “tell me what fate has in store for me.”
His words sounded like an incantation in the silence, and, obeying his command, she straightened up to her full height. A bright fire was reflected in her huge eyes, there was no real life in them. They sparkled with deathly emptiness, and she herself lived the magical life of the vampire. She was killed by a vampire, she lived and at the same time was dead, she was a living dead, a ghost of flesh, a ghost of a fire witch. At any moment she was once again serving the demon and the secrets of witchcraft.
She crossed her arms over her chest and quickly began to whisper indistinct words that echoed in a whirlwind of madness over the fire. Madness was reflected in her eyes, which at that moment became the eyes of a wild forest beast, a beast of fire. The depths of the flame and the depths of the blood of centuries parted before her gaze.
“From century to century,” she whispered, “you are the bloody legend of centuries, you are the king of devils, the lord of nightmares, the lord of eternity, you are the bloody curse of the earth, death from hell, but the power of blood is not eternal. Death will pay with death, love will kill you.
“Speak,” he whispered, and the uncontrollable fierce anger that sounded in his voice echoed in a threatening echo throughout the cave, “make the fire tell you all who she is, in whom the power of life is stronger than the blood of centuries.
“There has never been and never will be like her on earth,” Madeleine whispered as if in deep oblivion.
“She will combine beauty, daring and noble, and the heart of a hero. She will be half human, half dream. Even a magical dream is unable to reflect the purity of beauty that will be embodied in it. She is the one that is more beautiful than anyone in the world, she is eternal love herself, and her name will say everything for herself. Dreams and dreams will merge in it, and the only sincere love in this world of darkness.”
Words with sharp pain burst from her chest, as if someone else spoke for her, causing her unbearable pain, her body shook in silent sobs. The desire to know everything instilled even greater madness in his cruel heart.
– Who? he said. – Tell me who is she?”
“A dream,” the girl whispered, and the fire in her eyes flashed with renewed vigor, “the daughter of the most beautiful queen in the world, the beauty of her heart will become your death.”
She slowly, with difficulty, turned to face him. Her weak body was trembling violently, life was leaving the dying soul, but the power of the fire gave determination to her heart. She held out her hand to the man in black, and the fire illuminated the girl’s beautiful face. Slowly, drawing out the words, as if in some kind of dream, she. With difficulty moving her dead lips, she whispered barely audibly:
“Maerlin, beware of her,” these words, the last words of life before death came, echoed madly and menacingly through the caves.
Her prophecy confirmed what the bloody demon had known for centuries.
No matter what evil has settled in this sinful world, no matter what pain the darkness and hatred of misfortune may harbor, but, like eternal love, a true dream is immortal, and it is able to avenge itself with an even greater evil of its beauty. Having uttered the last words that took the last drop of life from the dying body, the beauty shuddered. The last cry of pain and inhuman fear froze on her lips, and her eyes stared into the void with their unseeing gaze. The imprint of death again lay on the beautiful face, the last spark of life extinguished, giving way to cold and terrible death.
The death of a young beauty could not strike pity in the demon’s cruel heart. He silently looked at her bloody corpse with his icy gaze, in which there was a glimpse of gloating.
“You are dead, fire witch,” he whispered with a cold grin, “but your flame in its last hour could not tell the truth. The joys of life will not destroy me. I am eternal with my bloody curse. As long as it lives, so do I. You are my death, but of the two of us, it is not I who will die, but you, Maerlin, the eternal dream.
He clenched his hand into a fist, and the witch’s body jerked in the last moment of life and froze, bleeding. At that very moment, at the other end of the cave, the blonde beauty cried out in horror, and the gaze of the black devil immediately turned to her. She was here again, against all odds, like an angel of light and revenge for her lost love. Her lush hair was disheveled, and an expression of horror and pain was frozen on her face and in her blue eyes in the light of the darkness. They stood opposite each other: an angel of light and an angel of darkness, black and light beauty, an idol of revenge and an idol of darkness, but something brought them closer together in the moment of witchcraft death.
“Why did you do this,” she whispered as if in disbelief. – Why did you kill her?
Her questioning gaze could not find an answer on the impassive face of the bloody demon.
“You killed my love,
