The Devil's Cursed Witch

The stars on the night skies of Agartha were akin to sprinkled diamond dust, a lovely sight to behold, but with the curtains drawn shut inside a certain bedchamber, its owner was drowned in darkness, unaware of the beauty outside, silently wrapped in her mate's embrace.

Ember lay in bed, unable to sleep even with Draven lying down next to her. She relished in him caressing her head. 

"Ember?"

"Hmm?"

"I requested Helia to restart your magic lessons, and she will come tomorrow."

"Hmm."

"I want you to keep yourself distracted instead of being depressed like this."

"Hmm."

His fingers slowly combed through her long hair.

"I know you are sad and so am I," he said, "But there is no longer a reason for us to remain this way. We have hope that he will return to us. I believe in his tenacity. He will come back, and when he does, he will make fun of you for being a crybaby."

This caused Ember to let out a small laugh. Morpheus was indeed like that.

Draven continued, his voice soft, "How about you improve yourself before he wakes up and show him how well you can control your powers? Shock him speechless. I'm sure he'll be happy"

"Do you think that's possible?"

"Hmm. Isn't he your friend? Friends want the best for their friends."

She nodded. "I will start my lessons."

Draven lowered his head to peck on her forehead, as if praising her silently for being a good girl. "You should sleep. Your lessons start early."

Ember buried her face in his chest and obediently closed her eyes. 

—-

By the time Fire Fae Helia arrived at the palace, Ember was waiting for her in the rear garden, in their usual place for training. 

"Good morning, Miss Ember—oh, it should be Lady Ember now."

Though surprised, Ember greeted her back, only to hear the red-haired fairy ask with a smile, "How have you been?"

"I am fine, Lady Helia."

The woman offered her a gentle smile and said, "Starting today, we will resume our lessons again but not here."

"Not here?"

"I thought of taking you to a new place for your lessons. I believe you will like it."

Ember hesitated. "I need to ask Draven."

"His Majesty has already permitted it."

Just as Helia said those words, Erlos promptly arrived at the practice grounds. "Lady Ember, I will be accompanying you."

Once more, Ember was surprised by the change in the way she was addressed, but did not question it. As Draven had permitted her to leave the palace grounds, she had no reason to refuse. 

After changing into a more comfortable attire, Ember bid her servants goodbye. Helia, Ember and Erlos traveled to the nearest mountain from the palace, a place specially arranged for her magic lessons. After riding on horseback for half an hour, they reached the small mountain covered in dense greenery. As soon as they reached the bottom of the mountain, they had to climb down from their mounts and travel on foot.

"My Lady, good to see you can ride a horse better now," Erlos ca to which Ember offered him a thankful nod. 

Several minutes later, they arrived at a circular clearing in the middle of the mountain forest. The size of the glade was twice as large as the practice grounds  in the palace. 

"His Majesty has arranged this place. He believed that Lady Ember would feel more relaxed to use your power without worrying about the damage," Erlos explained. There was even a small cottage-like log cabin arranged on one side for the glade. Ember could not help but feel touched by Draven's thoughtfulness.

Erlos skipped towards the bench outside the log cabin, while Helia led her student in the middle of the clearing. 

"Lady Ember, what difficulty we had with your energy core before, we don't have it anymore. Your energy core is free from its seal. Manifesting fire is no longer an issue. What we need to do now is to teach you how to harness your power. Our main goal for today's lesson is to polish your control."

Ember focused on Helia's instructions. 

"The lesson about control will be divided into size, shape, quantity and quality of your flames, before we will talk about the more complicated concept of motion. For now, we will focus on size. I want you to create a normal fireball, then I want you to compress it to a fourth of its size."

After practicing for more than an hour, Ember's initial fireball the size of a plate had reduced to half its size. Another hour later, she successfully created a fireball that met Helia's expectations, before moving on to the opposite, creating a fireball as large as she could. This proved to be a disaster, as the size of Ember's largest fireball was enough to burn the entire glade. 

Helia hurriedly had her stop feeding energy into the ball, and moved on to the topic of creating fine threads using flames. 

Like this, Ember's lessons continued for the next few days. She did everything quietly, as per her teachers instructions. She learned fast and didn't fail to meet Helia's goals for her. 

"Lady Ember, you have massively improved your control in just a few days of lessons. I am sure in a week, you will have perfected basic control over your flames," the fairy said but instead seeing her rejoice, the human merely gave her an unenthusiastic nod.

"Anything the matter, my lady?"

Ember looked at her hesitantly, only to hear Helia urge, "I am your teacher. If it is a problem you think I can help you with, please share your concerns with me."

"Lady Helia, whenever I use my power, I feel strange…I do not know how to explain it well, but it's like something is missing. Like, like a part of me is incomplete. I know I am following your lessons well, but I feel like I am missing something. Can you check if there is anything wrong with me?"

Helia held Ember's hand. 

"I apologize, Lady Ember. I should have notified you of this earlier. Indeed, there is still some issue with your energy core. One's energy core is related to their soul. That is why there is a dissonant feeling when you use your power. That is because of that incomplete part of your core." 

"MIssing? How come the part of my core is missing?"

"Lady Ember, I am afraid I cannot answer you. Your core has been this way before you came to Agartha. The people who can answer your question are probably those who placed a seal on your energy core."

Ember realized Helia's words made sense. 

The fairy continued, "After you became His Majesty's mate, the mate bond somewhat helped you stabilize your core, although it can help only to a certain extent and not enough to completely solve the problem. But you do not have to worry about it, we will find a solution to that."

Ember could not nod. Only she knew how hurt she felt with that feeling of emptiness in her soul but she had to endure it. She could only wonder how and when she will get that missing part back. Who had stollen it? Who was keeping it with them while leaving her here all hurting.

Somewhere a part inside her was feeling angry. She felt the same anger brewing inside her whenever she was angry and ended up creating chaos. Her angry self was screaming out. 

'Whoever had stollen it, they will face my wrath.'

Hellia and Erlos noticed the air around her changed. 

"Lady Ember, are you alright?" Hellia called. 

It snapped Ember back to her senses and she looked at Hellia, "I am alright."

"Lady Ember, let's go back," Erlos immediately came to her. 

Ember nodded and they got on the horses. Erlos offered an assuring look to Lady Hellia, as if saying he would take care of Ember.

Hellia trusted Erlos and his abilities and nodded in agreement. 

When all this was happening, they were not aware a pairs of sneaky eyes were observing all of this. They had all of their attention on Ember since past few days since she started coming to this mountain for her lessons. 

They signalled each other something and moved from there along the dense woods, following the tracks of the way Ember and Erlos had left.