The Dark Witch Chronicles Book One: The Curse of The Cymmerien Dragon -
Chapter Twenty Five: Moments of Remorse
“Need any help?” a voice called and Amara turned her head in the direction softly so as not to hurt her head again. It stung as it is.
A man stood before her; someone that she failed to recognize. He had striking blue eyes and a handsome face. He stood tall and his face held a sort of calmness that Amara found to be safe. She cleared her throat to find her voice and began to stand up again when the man took a few steps towards her and gave her a hand to help her up. She flinched upon touching his hand, her mind going back to the tormenting touch of Leo and she took a hasty, stumbling step behind, only to fall back on the stone table. The man blinked once and gave her a warm smile, as a silent assurance that it was safe. He extended his arm again and this time she grabbed it to pull herself up to standing, still a bit weak.
“I’m Nicholas,” he said to her as she struggled to stand properly. It seemed as though years had passed that she had stood on her feet. Amara felt tired even after having been asleep for possibly a long time.
“I-” she started to ask him something when her mind was hit with the memory of Leo and what he had done to her.
She stumbled at her feet and then another vision flashed across her eyes, one that had her being rescued by someone. After that, she remembered nothing. How long it had been, what had happened to Leo, she knew not. Nicholas steadied an arm around her waist to keep her in place.
“Do you want to sit down?” He asked and Amara shook her head timidly, but sat down anyway because Nicholas pushed her onto the stone table again. Amara could not understand where she was.
“What has happened? Where am I?” she asked in a haze.
“Are you aware that you are a witch?” Nicholas questioned and Amara nodded her head in response.
He was now standing before her as she sat on the stone table with her hands clutching the edges.
“My uncle, Lord Lucifer, rescued you. He is a well-known and powerful sorcerer. We’re in the mountains of Carvelli. We’ll be going to Acanthus someday. That is where we reside,” he told her.
“I… what happened to him?” she asked, hoping he would understand that she was talking about Leo.
She did not wish to speak his name.
“The one that captured you?” He replied with his eyebrows raised. Amara nodded.
“He’s not any of our concern now, Amara. You’re safe with us. Nothing can harm you,” he said to her and she opened her mouth to ask him more about Leo when he shook his head and she understood that it was best that she not speak anything more about him.
“What am I supposed to do now?” She managed to ask.
“You will be trained in witchcraft. We will enhance all the skills that you were born with. Your mind will be more powerful than that of humans, much more powerful. You will be extremely strong than what you are now. You will learn to handle elements, battle witch-hunters and a lot of other powers that you wouldn’t have imagined as a mortal,” he answered, sitting beside her on the mossy grass atop the stone table.
“Am I capable of doing all of that?” she asked, unsure of herself.
“More than capable. You don’t know your strengths yet,” he told her with a reassuring smile.
“Will I ever know what happened to-”
Nicholas shook his head.
“No, Amara. That is past now. You won’t think about it anymore. You’re reborn as a witch. You’ve left the mortal world. No memory of that world should stay with you,” he said to her and she blinked, looking down.
There were so many questions that she wanted to ask but she knew that there would be no answer.
“Lord Lucifer will be here soon and your training will begin. You may get some sleep until tomorrow morning,” Nicholas said and stood up from beside her.
“I don’t want to sleep anymore,” she replied.
“Then you’re free to take a walk around, if you wish. It’s safe here and we won’t let any harm come to you,” he said and took a few steps back before disappearing.
Despite the surroundings that were dark and dead calm, Amara did not feel even a fraction of scare. She felt peaceful. This was a well-deserved peace after all the torture that she had gone through when in the dungeons with Leo. She shut her eyes for a long moment and let out a deep breath before standing up. With her legs now supporting her fragile frame, Amara began to take a few steps forward and towards the stream. She stood on the wet marsh, the coldness seeping in through her toes and slowly touching every part of her body. Placing her right arm on her left shoulder, she pulled off the torn gown that she was wearing, one that Leo had so mercilessly ripped off her body like a beast.
Amara pealed the clothes from her body in a hurry, not wanting to be in them anymore. If she were to leave everything behind, it had to begin with each and every speck of those memories. She then lifted a foot and immersed it into the cool water before her. She took slow steps inside, engulfing the waves into her skin as the water entered the very brink of her soul and she dipped her head inside, reaching the deeper parts. With her eyes closed, she washed off every touch, every feel of Leo’s skin on her body; her face, her hair, her limbs. He had only touched her body, not her soul. Her soul was pure, it was clean, serene.
She felt the old memories leaving her physical being. Everything began to vanish out of her. Her eyes opened and she felt a sense of relief and peace as she absorbed her purified self. When she was sure about leaving the water, Amara turned around and walked out onto the wet grass, only to find a new set of fabrics set on the side atop the dry area. Amara held the long black gown in her hands, the colour was entirely different from what she usually wore. Her mother always asked her to wear those creamy white gowns that enhanced her features. She never wore black. Lifting the fabric in her hands, she slid it over her body.
It fit her properly, covering her arms in the long sleeves and cascaded down through her feet behind her in soft waves. Amara grazed her clean fingers through her wet hair and shook the tangles. She then left her tresses hanging down her back instead of braiding them as she always did. Her mother never liked her hair let down. Amara then pushed her feet into the boots that lay before her on the grass. She had never worn boots. Her mother always told her that they were for men. They hugged her legs up to her knees and she began to walk ahead with a sense of pride as she left every memory behind and started to walk around the valleys of the mountains of Carvelli.
The wind gushed around her, making the atmosphere colder and colder. But Amara did not feel the chilly sensation that she would have otherwise felt. Instead, it felt as though she was finally home. She was where she was supposed to be. A familiar sense of acceptance entered inside her, as though this new world was taking her in the way she was, as though it was going to make her strong to face every other battle, as though she was going to become new.
Amara then realized that this was where she truly belonged.
***
Iris stared at the rippling water in front of her. The chilly air made her embrace herself as she stood in the forest, watching the lake before her. The sunlight shone upon the water, the early morning hue surrounding her as the sun started to rise above the horizon. December had arrived and she had barely noticed it. The witch calendar certainly did not give exact dates and months of the normal human calendar. It worked according to the movements of the sun and the moon. It was quite medieval in Iris’s opinion. She wondered how the Conjurers judged their birthdays. Nicholas had once told her that Conjurers aged one year where humans aged a hundred. The Elixir of Immortality played a part in that. The human calendar was an entirely different story. However, it didn’t really matter to her. What mattered was that it had been about a month after Nicholas’s Death and nothing had changed.
Upon hearing of his nephew’s murder, Lord Lucifer had returned immediately. He had spent three nights locked inside his chamber, not meeting anyone and not speaking a single word. The castle was destroyed; mentally and emotionally. Iris could see the walls losing their colour, the air going slow and the trees in the forest muttering silent cries as if mourning for the Death of a very beloved companion. The one that was struck the most was Lord Lucifer and after him, Amara. The former had returned after Nicholas had been buried. He had then sat next to Nicholas’s grave and expressed his silent sorrow by hanging his head low.
Lord Lucifer blamed himself. It was on his orders that Nicholas had summoned the spirit of Lilith so that she – being the one whose blood rested in the locket – could help Amara and Azrael in suggesting ways of protection; but since the process had gone wrong, it had ended in his nephew’s Death. Lord Lucifer could not stop blaming himself. If not for him, Nicholas would have been alive, hale and hearty, making the castle lively again. He had lost his only family. Nicholas was gone, and it was as though he took away all the limited happiness and the joy that was around because of him. It was all gone.
For three nights, Lord Lucifer had not left his chamber. He spent hours in conjuring up blazing Fire to punish himself for killing his nephew, but to his utter sorrow, nothing worked. His body was immune to all kinds of flames due to the countless number of times that he had practiced shielding his being. That shield now had the power to work all by itself and Lord Lucifer had no control over it. Later when he thought that the castle needed to be protected and taken care of due to the fact that Lord Mikhail could strike any second, Lord Lucifer had left his chamber to resume his journey of including more Conjurers in his coven. He had decided that they had no time to waste and he could not afford to lose any more people after having lost Nicholas.
After instructing Amara about it, Lord Lucifer had left. Even a month later, Amara had kept herself aloof. Iris had recovered with help of Eridanus but Amara had failed to. Eridanus had proved to be a good friend to Iris even though he was still as annoying as he could be. But his will to try his best to make Iris laugh or even smile a little made her build a sort of friendship with him. Erasmus was always away. He had started to travel and complete the quests that Nicholas had taken in hand and left incomplete. Sienna spent her time playing the flute and trying to distract herself. But each time she looked around, she would spot a figure at a distance, as though watching her and then disappearing whenever she took a single step forward.
The rest of the coven had learnt to adapt to the now dull environment, and had become a bit normal, yet a sense of loss lingered inside of them. No one had realized what Nicholas actually meant to all of them without being personally related to any. He had taken away something close to their hearts: happiness, which was in the castle because of him and no one seemed to notice it before. Azrael had made himself busy in spending all his time reading books in the library and mulling over ways to protect the prophecy. Amara was helping him do the same but most of her time was spent in her own chamber. Leandra helped Eridanus in bringing Iris back to normal and the two of them together kept her company nearly all the time. She was rarely left alone.
Whenever she was alone, Iris would try her best to talk to Amara. Even though she was always around, Iris missed her. It had been a long time that she had properly talked to Amara and that made her feel gloomier than having lost Nicholas. She did not want to lose Amara as well even though that would be in a different way. Once, after two weeks of Nicholas being gone, Iris had ventured around the castle aimlessly when Eridanus was in the mediation chamber and Lea was asleep. She had found herself on Amara’s doorstep. When she raised her hand to knock, she heard the faint sound of a cry.
To Iris’s utter shock, Amara was inside her chamber, crying. Nobody knew about it, because whenever Amara was locked inside her chamber, no one dared to approach her; that was apart from Iris. She had immediately wanted to go inside but Iris stopped herself and retraced her steps. In the one year that she had been there, she had seen Amara scream in agony and smile in content; but never had she witnessed her sobs. And it stabbed her in the heart, knowing that the Death of someone who wasn’t close to her, had made her break down so easily.
That moment on, Iris had understood that all the pain that Amara had pushed inside her in the hundred years had suddenly started to pour out uncontrollably after she had witnessed Nicholas’s Death. It did not matter that he wasn’t close to her. Just the fact that his Death made all her emotions rush out of her furiously was what worried Iris. Amara had started to lose control over herself. The control that she had mastered by a lot of hard work, she was starting to lose it. And Iris wasn’t the only one who felt that.
Amara was internally destroyed by Nicholas’s Death. For weeks she had been unable to control her tears that fell unconsciously down her eyes. Whenever she tried to help Azrael in thinking of ways to protect Lady Calypsa and the prophecy, she would end up breaking down and running back to her chamber. It was like a plague had struck her and was now refusing to go away. She felt every bit of pain that she had felt when she was in the dungeons getting tortured by Leo. She felt the loss of her soul, she felt the pain constrict her chest, she felt her head break into tiny pieces, she felt the agony that had struck her when her spiritual training had begun almost a century ago, and she felt all the feelings, all the emotions and all the pain that she had stored inside her for ages.
It all came back like rocks falling on top of her. And it hurt a lot. There was nothing that she thought would take the pain away. She was confused as to why she had become this vulnerable and weak upon Nicholas’s Death. She knew that she wasn’t as weak, yet it made her feel so small that she could not decipher it. Her powers that had started to weaken when she had returned from the trip to the Sea of Cypress had still not come back to her. She tried to meditate, but it did no good. She was always interrupted by the sudden pain that went through her each time she tried to distract herself.
She felt tired all the time. She felt exhausted and lost. Maybe it was because she felt inferior upon being unable to save a fellow apprentice from an evil spirit. What was the use of so many struggles to gain power? What was the result of the praises that they sung of her bravery and strength? Was it all a lie? Was it all worthless? The questions that ran through her mind refused to leave and she thought that maybe that was why she had lost the will to get up and fight again. On Lord Lucifer’s orders she had begun to manage the castle again, but Azrael helped her in the same and she barely had any work to do. He had taken everything in his hands.
He would make all Conjurers practice their powers and he would give them proper nourishment so they were strong and he would also spend time in thinking of the prophecy and the treasures. Amara, yet again felt worthless, for she was unable to do a single thing. Azrael offered to help her, but she declined every time. Known for being such a strong witch, her powers were so far gone that she had absolutely no recollection of what had happened to her. She began to hate herself and she began to loathe herself. A month had passed after Nicholas’s Death, and Amara was in her chamber, wiping the remnants of tears from her cheeks. Shutting her eyes in frustration, she stood up barged out of the chamber to go to the forest. She had had enough.
She could not handle the pain anymore. It felt as though she was back to the human that she had been when the Lord had rescued her, as though her training was starting yet again. As she proceeded to the forest, she spotted Iris standing there with her left side leaning onto the bark of a tree, the side of her head resting on the same. Amara took a few hasty steps ahead. How long had it been since she had spoken to Iris? After having made her gone through so much by letting her invade minds and find out things of her past, Amara felt as though she had been a horrible person by abandoning her. Why? How?
“Iris?” she called out upon reaching a few feet away from her.
Iris turned around. Amara observed how grown the sixteen-year-old looked. Maybe she was now seventeen; a year had passed and Amara had failed to notice. Wearing a red coloured long sleeved gown, Iris had no hint of childishness on her face anymore. She looked mature, brave and someone identical to what Amara had been when she had learnt witchcraft. Her blonde hair was longer now, reaching up to her waist in soft curls. Her eyes were paler than they had been before and her face was dull yet beautiful. Amara noticed how she resembled the old her. And suddenly all the memories of how she had been trained and how she turned into what she was came flooding back to her.
***
Training was difficult. Lord Lucifer wasn’t one to take no for an answer and Amara was the perfect student. She always seemed eager to work. Whether it was rigorous rounds of physical training or the time inducing meditations, she took it all willingly. Lord Lucifer was impressed, and he knew that she was strong enough to deal with all. It did not come as a surprise to him when she wholeheartedly accepted all the tasks that she was given. Nicholas, however, was a bit surprised. He had never seen a witch this eager to learn every difficult skill put forth. It was a challenge and Amara seemed to love those.
After everything that she had been through, her zeal to act upon all the tasks willingly was something he had never seen in a witch. However, he had not come across a witch who had been through something so tormenting. Amara was different, given the circumstances she had emerged from. She was determined to achieve something; something that would lead her to greater heights. She would never look back. Nicholas could see it in her eyes. Amara was going to be stronger than many, better than every other witch of their age, and she was going to surpass all expectations. She was exactly what Lord Lucifer needed.
It began with physical training. The night after she had let go of her past and decided to adapt this new life, Amara had surfaced stronger than ever. Lord Lucifer had made sure that she wasn’t weak before they began training, but he needed no confirmation. Amara had asked him to start right away. She did not believe in wasting time. Lord Lucifer wanted her to learn meditation skills before anything else but Amara was adamant. She wanted the physical training prior to others. She insisted that it would only make her concentrate on meditation better.
Lord Lucifer did not mind. He began with teaching her the art of fighting without weapons. He taught her to dodge her enemies, disappear into thin air, strike a blow out of nowhere and be merciless while killing. She was unsure of how she would be able to kill mercilessly. It reminded her of how she was shown no mercy.
“If they don’t value the virtue of mercy, you don’t either. Be ruthless, be vile, be inconsiderate when facing enemies. They are a threat to your existence, and nothing is more important than yours and your coven’s existence,” Lord Lucifer had told her.
It took time for her to get that fact into her mind entirely. At times it was hard. Sometimes she would have nightmares that reminded her of her past. She was scared of falling asleep. But sleep was necessary. It only gave her enough strength to wake up the next morning and fight braver. Lord Lucifer’s words would help her a lot. He pushed her to the point that she would be exhausted. Amara did not like being exhausted.
“Don’t let your memories be your weakness. Make them your strength; make them the force that motivates you. They’re your enemy, disable them, disarm them; kill them. But never be scared of them. For if you are ever scared of your enemies, you will fail,” he would say.
“But never underestimate your enemy. If you are strong, they are struggling to get stronger. Don’t let them achieve that,” he said to her one day when she had woken up at sunrise with a scream.
She had had a nightmare. Amara would spend nights crying at times when she remembered how Leo had tormented her. How he had killed her mother and father, how he had killed Arion. Oh how she missed her little brother. She missed the way he would create nuisance, the way he would spoil all her knitting work and the way mother scolded her, how she would get angry with him for being such a spoilt brat and how then she would end up kissing his cheeks. Her little brother was gone. Leo had ended her all in moments.
She never let her Lord find out that she would sometimes become weak and succumb to those memories, that she would let her guard down at times when she was unable to control it. Unknown to her, Lord Lucifer would watch her from a distance and a stab of guilt would run through him knowing that it had been his own son that had given his apprentice such pain. He could see that Amara would put up a mask the next morning when the training commenced.
Sometimes she wished she would never sleep and train all night as well. She did not care about getting rest. She wanted to get rid of those nightmares. But Lord Lucifer had taught her to be brave. He had taught her to face her fears.
“Fear is a door that shuts all your passages to victory. Be mindful of your enemies’ strength, but never be fearful of them. Dread makes you weak. You can never be weak,” he said to her once when she was unsuccessful at disappearing from her opponent’s sight.
Nicholas would act as an enemy most of the time. There were safe ways to fight that ensured no major harm occurred. Amara wasn’t trained enough to fight enemies firsthand. She still had a lot to learn. Lord Lucifer had to give Amara motivating words, he had to push her forward at times when she felt her strength drain and her mind giving way. She feared that she would not be able to fulfill her Lord’s expectations. He was kind yet stubborn, and a strong force that helped her survive and Amara felt indebted to him. She saw Azar in him sometimes. When he would effortlessly handle elements, when he would show her how easy it was to achieve elemental powers once trained. She felt closer to her father.
Lord Lucifer managed to fill the void in Amara’s life. But a nagging sensation of not knowing how Leo died, whether he really died or was still out there somewhere, torturing another innocent, never left Amara’s mind. She wanted so many times to ask Lucifer about it but she knew that topic was not to be discussed. She had to leave everything behind but how much ever hard she tried, Amara could not get those horrific nightmares out of her mind. She spent sleepless nights wandering around the valleys of the mountains that they would train in. They travelled at times, to far off places and rivers and seas. They would train her in different locations with the different weather conditions. Amara enjoyed the thrill of teleporting with her Lord. He had taught her a few beginning ways of teleportation.
It was quite interesting. At times she would feel like laughing, but nothing seemed to surface. She wanted to smile, she wanted to be happy but something always held her back. Whenever she thought about happy memories, she thought of Leo. He was the happy memory of her life since the time she was old enough to understand what happiness truly meant. Her memories involved Leo all the time. He was in her good ones, he was in her bad ones and he was the worst one. Hard as she tried to forget him, she could not. She failed every time.
And it had only been a year.
They were yet to go to Acanthus. Amara was told that Lord Lucifer had a coven there. There were many lands of Conjurers, but Acanthus was the one that held the most skilled and brilliant ones. Lord Lucifer would often go to visit for a few days and until then Nicholas would train her. Nicholas was a friendly sorcerer and Amara felt herself warming up towards him. But she could never pluck up the courage to get closer to any male henceforth. She was frightened of them. Her Lord had told her to lose fears. There was no place for fears within the world of witchcraft.
But this fear did not seem to leave her. She could get rid of every other frightening memory, but not one that involved her being close to a promising male. There was no part of her that needed that kind of a bond again. She would consider being friends, but even that much of closeness scared her.
Amara was only capable of being as close as she was to her Lord, because he reminded her of her father. She preferred staying away from the others. Being close to sorcerers was not her concern. Her concern was her existence as a witch. She wanted to become what her Lord expected her to. He wished for her to reach heights that no other witch ever had. He wished for the people to sing praises of her. He wished for her to be brilliant, fearless and gallant. He wished for her to be a warrior.
And Amara was going to be that. For her, Lord Lucifer’s wishes were her father’s wishes. They were a constant reminder of Azar. He was a constant reminder of her father. That was the only memory that she wanted to keep with her. All others were painful and brought her sorrow. But all others did not leave her either. They had a grip on her that she tried to loosen every time she was hit with them, but all was in vain.
She would still try, however hard it was, she had pledged to try her best.
~~~
“Elements are a witch’s greatest power,” Nicholas was saying to her. “They are what make our being. Earth is the base of all life inside of us. Fire is the unseen force that drives us forward. Air is what we survive on. Water is the force that helps create balance with the Fire, and Spirit is what you are. It is your identity. A witch that can handle all elements is a conqueror. There has never been a witch who has been able to tackle each and every element; nor has there been any sorcerer capable enough. The most we can handle is three. Managing at least two elements is the most important skill of a witch. Once you master the art, you are capable of anything and everything; good or bad. It is up to you to choose the right one.” It had been ten years after her physical training.
It had finally come to an end and she was given the Elixir of Immortality before her spiritual training as a witch began. She was given books to read while her physical training was going on. She had read so many things about witchcraft and witches in general, that Amara now had a proper idea of how this world worked. She was strong; stronger than she had ever been. Her physical training had morphed her into something entirely different from what she was, ten years ago in the mortal world.
Her arms were stronger, legs were slender, eyes sharper and mind on high alert. She could run faster than a horse, dodge dangers within the blink of an eye, appear out of nowhere to strike her enemy, and she could kill effortlessly. She was yet to master the art of being merciless. But she was quite sure that she would be able to do it once her elemental powers were in practice and she had learned to control her mind. It was going to be difficult, of course, but along with her physical training, Lord Lucifer had begun to teach her the meditation skills simultaneously. It was helpful in concentration during combat.
She had learned archery, sword-fighting, poisoning, and killing with a single touch on a nerve. It wasn’t as difficult as she had imagined it would be. She had only read about it and heard about it from her Lord. But she was yet to do it in reality. Amara’s first kill was a vile witch-hunter who had come to attack Nicholas. Purposefully, the sorcerer had handed the responsibility of fighting the hunter to Amara. She had wasted no time in battling him and then ending his life by twisting his neck. The end result was a flawless kill. Lord Lucifer and Nicholas were impressed. No witch had been able to do that in the first attempt.
Amara was already on her way to greatness.
Now that she was learning the elemental powers and Lord Lucifer had gone to train another one of his apprentices, Amara was being trained by Nicholas. He had given the book of elements to Amara so she could read it a few months prior to the actual training. She had read on it extensively and could not wait to learn the art of handling elements.
“I will teach you to handle all the elements. In the end you have to choose two of them that you wish to master. They will depict who you are,” he said to her and Amara nodded. “What is the first element that you wish to tackle?”
“Air,” she responded. One would think that since she was so drawn to the element of Fire, she would want to learn to tackle it before the others, but Amara wanted to save Fire as the last. That was what she wanted to master the art of, but she knew that only if she were able to tackle other elements, would she be able to touch Fire. Because as mentioned in the Book of Elements, Fire was the trickiest one of all; and she loved that challenge.
Nicholas began telling her the oldest tricks in the book for handling Air and Amara learned it all quickly. Soon enough, she was able to handle Air and then proceeded to go towards Spirit. The element of Spirit was the most sensitive one and Amara found it difficult to deal with. But she tried her best and as Nicholas concluded that she was better at handling Spirit than she was at Air. It surprised her since she hoped that she would have been better at Air.
It was the same with Earth. Amara was as efficient in handling the Earth as she was in Air. Though Spirit continued to remain her forte. When the time came for Water, Amara’s strength seemed to be tenfold. Her concentration was the highest and her mind unmoving. She realized that she was much better at managing Water than she was at Spirit. Water held a higher rank than Spirit at this point.
The last one was Fire, as she had wanted it to be. The trickiest, the
hardest and the most notorious element of all; Amara loved the thrill of
dodging flames and conjuring them out of nowhere. Every time she produced Fire,
her mind went back to how Azar had shown her glorious visions of those flames.
There was a glint in her eyes when she played with Fire. Lord Lucifer trained
her in handling water and Fire, since those were not Nicholas’s strong suit. He
could only observe her in admiration as to how quickly she was learning.
No witch had been able to learn the art of tackling elements in two years. Amara was brilliant. When asked what elements she would like to excel in, to no one’s surprise, she chose Fire and Water.
Nicholas and Lord Lucifer knew how strong she was in handling those. It was time for them to return to Acanthus and introduce Amara as a new coven member.
The coven saw her strength when she battled ten witch-hunters at a time without any help. It was marvellous to watch Amara flawlessly kill them all. The entire coven became instant admirers of her skills. And nobody failed to notice the coldness that surrounded them whenever she was around. Her limited, almost non-existent interaction with the coven members was apparent to everyone around. They all understood soon enough that she was not one to mingle with the lot. She liked being unaided; she enjoyed isolation.
Not long after, the coven members began to distance themselves from her, realizing that nothing was going to change her behaviour towards them. But not a single witch and sorcerer failed to see the evident strength that had increased because of her. The coven was stronger and it was indomitable in her presence. Acanthus knew that.
***
“Amara?” Iris held her shoulder and Amara snapped back into reality, blinking a few times and running a hand through her tousled hair.
“I’m sorry,” muttered Amara, looking down and biting her lower lip.
“What?” Iris retorted with an evident frown.
“For the second time, I abandoned you when you needed me and I- I’m sorry, Iris. It was wrong of me. I’m a heartless person. You did such a big favour to me and I repaid you by leaving you in the middle of nowhere. I’m selfish. I’m sorry, Iris, I really am. I promise I won’t do that again. I found a friend in you for the first time in a hundred years and I. . .you don’t deserve this. You’re so young, so innocent and you were thrown into this dark world where you had no one and I left you. It’s as if I used you for my own good and then-”
“Amara!” Iris bellowed.
Iris held Amara by the shoulders to steady her. Amara was unable to stop her tears. She fell to the floor and Iris immediately pulled her into a hug. She isn’t selfish, Iris thought to herself. She’s broken and that detached her from everything else. It was terrifying, to say the least, and Iris understood that as she had her arms wrapped around Amara’s shoulders with one of her hands resting on her head trying to calm her down. Iris did not understand how she was managing to control her tears at such a point. Maybe she had become emotionless herself, and maybe the tables had turned. Maybe Amara was now at the breaking point that Iris had been when she had arrived.
The vulnerability that Iris had had a year ago was now transferred to Amara. Iris stroked her head softly while she cried. Amara rested her head on Iris’s shoulder and let the tears fall profusely, not trying to control them anymore. In a way, she was sure that she was going to feel better after talking to Iris. There was an invisible connection that the two of them shared and no matter how far apart they would be; the connection would never leave them, for it was of the mind. Iris had seen what Amara had been through and she had felt her pain through invading Amara’s mind, which made her closer to Amara than anyone had ever been. She felt every emotion that Amara felt and understood everything without Amara uttering a single word. And that was what made their connection strong and unbreakable.
Amara pulled away from Iris while wiping her tears. Iris rubbed Amara’s arm in a soothing manner and told herself that her only purpose in life was to bring any sort of happy emotion inside of Amara that would carry her out of the darkness that she had fallen into. Iris took it upon her that she would do anything to get Amara back to normal, and a better normal at that. She smiled at Amara as she let out a deep breath.
“You’re not selfish. But I will make sure I enter your mind and manipulate it next time you stop talking to me,” said Iris with a smile.
Amara stared at her with a confused frown. Did she say manipulate?
As though reading her mind, Iris said,“Eridanus taught me the art of manipulation while you were away. I’m on the beginners’ stage but I can deal with it.”
“You can manipulate minds and I don’t know about it?” Amara replied, half-shocked, half-impressed, her eyebrows raised, and saddened about the fact that she was unaware of the same.
Iris just shrugged.
“Wait. Who is Eridanus?” Amara suddenly asked.
Iris looked at her for a long moment before letting out an amused laugh. Amara had been so tangled up in her own world that she was unaware of the new addition to the coven and the army.
“He joined the army about a month ago. His powers are mostly similar to mine with some extra ones. He can read minds, manipulate them and he also has the power of premonition. He did have a feeling that something bad was going to happen, hours before Nicholas’s Death but before he could get the whole plot, Nicholas was already gone,” she said, looking down as she said the last words about Nicholas.
“Oh. I haven’t really met him,” Amara replied, frowning to herself.
She did not know how she had missed that. Something told her she had seen him or talked to him, but then her mind was so boggled the last month that she remembered only faded parts of it.
“I think I should go to the meditation chamber. My powers seem to have died,” saying, Amara stood up and dusted the back of her grey gown.
Iris followed suit.
“Wait. I have a question,” Iris said when Amara was about to leave.
A moment later, Amara smiled, nodding once in Iris’s direction to which she frowned.
“Why are you smiling?” She asked.
“You haven’t asked me questions in a while, which you usually do whenever I’m around,” Amara replied and Iris rolled her eyes, smiling back.
“Never-mind, I wanted to ask you why there is an eagle hovering about your window every day and why it always sits next to Nicholas’s grave before flying to your chamber,” said Iris.
For a month, she had seen the same eagle fluttering about Nicholas’ grave, also shedding a tear or two at times before it flew towards Amara’s chamber and hovered around the window as though it wanted to get noticed. She had wanted to ask Erasmus about it but he was travelling. Other than him, nobody knew why the eagle behaved so.
“Pelagi,” muttered Amara, distractedly.
She shut her eyes for a moment. Nicholas’s pet eagle, his messenger had lost his master and she was one of the few people that knew how close the two were. She felt terrible for not having paid attention to the sound of knocking on her window-glass every day. Pelagi was obviously devastated. How could she have forgotten about that? Who else was it supposed to deliver messages to if not Amara after its master had gone?
“Pelagi?” Iris repeated, snapping Amara out of her thoughts.
“Nicholas’s pet eagle; Iris, do me a favour, find him. He must be somewhere in the forest or around the castle. I need to go and meditate. I really do. Just find him and try to get him to me somehow. It’s important,” she told Iris before rushing back into the castle and barging into the meditation chamber.
Pelagi had something important to say; Amara was sure of that. But without meditating and getting her powers back in working condition, she would not be able to understand what it was that he wanted to reveal.
After Amara had vanished, Iris shrugged and began walking around to find the eagle called Pelagi that was apparently Nicholas’s pet. Thinking that since Amara had been so panicked about it, there might have been something important, Iris lifted her head to look about and find the magnificent eagle that had not failed to go unnoticed by her, every time it appeared. There was a discrete charm to him that was attractive. He more or less resembled Nicholas in a way: charming and majestic.
As Iris sauntered to find the eagle, Eridanus appeared out of nowhere and stood beside her while giving her a smile. She raised an eyebrow. Even though he was helping her learn the art of manipulation and being friendly, he was still a bit annoying. Besides, he would not stop telling her that she was beautiful and possessed a remarkable physique, which made her want to slam his head on a wall at times; although contradictory to her annoyance, she enjoyed the same and didn’t complain most of the time. It helped in distracting her from Nicholas.
“Were you looking for me?” he asked her, smirking as she strode ahead, ignoring him and continuing to look for the eagle. At his words, she stopped and looked at him.
“If you are a flying eagle, then yes I was particularly looking for you,” she replied, rolling her eyes in the end.
“I would gladly become an eagle for you,” he said, winking.
Very annoying. She stopped herself from hitting him across the face and did not let her attention waver from the task that she was doing.
“Can you stop being a waste of time for once and help me look for a beautiful eagle?” She told him before he could utter another line.
“I will ignore the objectionable comment for now and ask you why you’re looking for an eagle.” He slapped a hand on his chest mockingly and gave her a disheartened look.
“I’ll tell you when we find him. For now, make yourself useful,” she said to him before moving ahead and Eridanus chuckled to himself, following her behind.
ӿӿӿ
Azrael was rushing around looking for Amara and asking everyone whether they had seen her. He had checked her chamber, the two towers, the library, the potions chamber, the kitchen, and everywhere else apart from the meditation chamber. He was about to go in the direction of the same when he bumped into Leandra who was carrying a pile of books back to the library. She fell to the floor and as did all her books. Azrael looked at the numerous books of potions and spells and who knows what, which were scattered around him. Lea looked up at him lividly.
“Are you going to help me?” she asked him when he stood there still, while she picked up all the books again.
“Sorry. I was in a hurry. Have you seen Amara?” he said, bending down and grabbing the books off the floor.
“I saw her run into the meditation chamber,” she replied as he helped her carry all the books to the library hastily.
He was about to trip and fall due to walking too fast when Lea grabbed his arm and steadied him.
“Why are you in such a hurry? Is everything okay?” She asked him, placing the books on a table as they reached the library.
“I just need to find Amara. I’ll talk to you later,” he replied before storming out of the library and to the meditation chamber.
Lea stared after him in confusion before she shifted back to doing her work. She had a lot of research to do about unusual potions. There were books to read and she had taken up on herself to get knowledge about all the most unusual things in witchcraft. So ignoring her strange brother, Lea got herself busy.
Azrael now rushed to the meditation chamber and looked in all the doors to find Amara seated inside the last one with her eyes tightly shut. Surrounding her was an aura of positive energy that could be felt by Azrael as soon as he opened the door. His interruption had no effect on her though; she continued her meditation. Not willing to disturb her, Azrael decided to leave the chamber when he thought of the important thing that he had to talk to her about. It could not wait. Her meditation had to be interrupted no matter how deep her mind was into it.
Hesitantly, the sorcerer took a step ahead and tapped on Amara’s shoulder. She did not react. Impatient, he called out her name along with tapping on her shoulder again. She gave no desired response. Amara was engrossed. Frustrated, he shut his eyes before gathering all his strength to shake her shoulder, and yelled out, “Amara!”
Her eyes shot open. Azrael was thankful that there was no one else meditating around or he would have had to face the wrath of disturbed witches. Amara was already staring at him viciously.
“What the devil do you want, sorcerer?” she said to him, venom dripping out of her tone.
Azrael cleared his throat, ignoring the fact that she was obviously angry, and concentrated on the important message that he had to give to her. He paused for the fraction of a second.
“The eagle. Nicholas’s eagle. He gave me a message,” he finally revealed and in an instant, Amara realized that it was something extremely grave. Colour drained out of her face as she stood up and the both of them left the meditation chamber.
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