The Devil's Cursed Witch

As the knight left, the King of Valor remained silently seated on his chair behind his desk.

After some time, he opened one of the drawers on the desk and pulled out a long thin wooden box that was the size of a palm. He opened the box and pulled a small paper scroll out of it. One could see that the paper seemed to be quite old, its colour close to yellow and its borders a little worn out.

Gregor looked at the content of the scroll and it was a birth chart of a person. It had a big circle drawn in the middle with various lines drawn along it, dividing it into different sections. The astrological signs of the stars were drawn along various shapes and patterns.

At the top, there was a blank space where the name of the person whose birth chart it was should be placed, but it had no name written on it. Gregor caressed that blank space as his mind was filled with images and voices from that particular incident from the past.

“Your Highness Crown Prince Gregor, here is the birth chart of the future princess made according to the patterns of stars at the moment she is expected to be born.”

It was the voice of an old man, whose expression was grave, causing the then younger Gregor to fall into a similarly serious expression.

“What does it say?”

“Your Highness…forgive me but the birth chart of the princess is strange and gives an ominous feeling. Just as the High Priest said, the child is bound to bring disasters. Even the star patterns that indicate different phases of her life are strange and it is hard to guess anything other than she will be meeting misfortune. In my entire life, I had never seen such an inauspicious birth chart and patterns of stars.”

Gregor’s hands nearly tore the scroll apart, yet he had to keep his emotions at check.

“Do not tell my father, the King, about this.”

“B-But how can I?”

“Make up any random chart which does not show anything good or bad and show it to him. The kind of chart that belongs to the most ordinary citizen of the kingdom, one so mediocre no one would pay interest to it.”

“But…”

“I will take responsibility if something happens.”

Heavy silence engulfed the room before the old man relented.

“Yes, Your Highness,” the man said. “That place at the top, you should write the name of the princess…”

The sound of his hand wrinkling a part of the scroll pulled Gregor out of those memories.

“My child, even though I hid this chart and tried to protect you, I failed and you met with the worst fate.”

However, secrets were made to be found out with time.

Reclining further into the chair, one could see the exhaustion on the King’s face as he closed his eyes. His mind started to remind him of the incidents from two decades back.

It was the day of the annual ceremony for the Royal Family of Valor to worship the ancient gods. It was a special day not only for the royal family but for the entire kingdom who worshiped the gods for bountiful blessings, and it was more like a festival for them.

For Gregor, who was the crown prince at that time, he was even feeling more exceptionally blessed as his second wife, Lady Sephina, was heavy with a child back then, about to give birth anytime.

What made it an even more joyous occasion was the words of the oracle. That esteemed person had predicted that a female offspring will finally be born in the Valor Royal Family, whose direct descendants were dominantly male since the founding of the kingdom.

Everyone was excited to welcome the little princess, be it the royal family or the subjects of the King, and thus the pregnant Sephina was treated with more care and affection by the family.

By then, Gregor already had three children with his first wife, Crown Princess Shanel, and all of them were boys. Gregor’s two oldest sons were excited to welcome their little sister, while the youngest prince, Rhian, was hardly a year-old baby at that time.

On the day of worship, Gregor remembered his children following their father and mother to Sephina’s chamber in the morning as it happened that it was also her birthday that very day.

“Happy birthday, Sephina!” Shanel greeted Sephina who was sitting in bed while resting her upper body against the headboard.

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

“Father, will we really have a sister this time?” the eldest son asked with bright eyes.

“Hmm.”

“Whoa, I always wanted a sister,” the second son chimed in as he crawled into bed to sit beside the pregnant woman.

Both boys started to shower Sephina with questions.

“Second Mother, do you think she will like me when she grows up?”

“Second Mother, will you let me carry her like I do with Rhian?”

“Second Mother…”

“Second Mother…”

Shanel had to scold the boys to let them stop. “Children, I know you are excited, but ask one question at a time.”

“It’s fine, Your Highness,” Sephina laughed as she rubbed her belly. “I can see from how sweet our boys are that our little princess is going to be the most loved and spoiled princess ever.”

The boys grinned at each other to show their agreement, but they did calm down a bit after receiving the warning gaze of their birth mother. The eldest then asked, “But how many more days till we see our sister?”

“Soon,” Sephina answered with a warm smile.

The second son tilted his head. “What is the name of our sister?”

“We are yet to decide about that” Sephina responded.

“Since the Second Mother’s name is Sephina, then Sophie? Sophia? Sapphire?”

His brother refuted. “No, no, since she’ll be born after Rhian, then maybe something that starts with R—”

“Why his name? Should be similar to mine then, because I like our sister best!”

“What?! I like her best so her name should be—”

Both boys started to think out loud, throwing names at each other amidst their quarrel, causing Shanel to look at her husband.

“Gregor, shouldn’t you be the one to decide the name for our little princess?” She then turned towards Sephina. “What do you think?”

Sephina smiled, her green eyes twinkling at Gregor. “I am sure the princess will like it a lot if her father gives her  name.”

“If that is your wish,” Gregor replied, as the happiness of having a daughter reflected in his eyes, “but I have to think about the name first. The long-awaited princess of Valor. I cannot give her any random name; it should be something special and meaningful.”

“We still have a lot of time. You better come up with the prettiest name that will suit our princess,” Shanel commented.

“I will.”