The Devil's Cursed Witch

“I have no wish to snatch your remaining days with your mate so you better spend every precious second with her instead of fighting with me. You might regret wasting your time.”

Draven closed his eyes briefly as he let go of Morpheus.

“You took advantage of her,” he spoke in a low, dangerous tone.

“You know me better than that. At most, it was a lapse of judgment. Things happened that way as she was seeing a hallucination,” Morpheus said with a wry smile.

Morpheus was not an idiot, and though at that moment he thought it was a good dream, a dream was still a dream. He knew better than to live within the delusion brought about by Ember’s confession.

“That little female…She said something which was meant for you. I knew it was too good to be true to be directed to me,  but I was the lucky one to hear it. You missed your chance.”

Draven’s forehead creased. “What did she say?”

“Those words,you should hear directly from her instead of me. Won’t sound good if a male says it to you.”

Draven didn’t insist as he stepped away from the shapeshifter, using the back of his hand to wipe away the blood from his face. Only then did he allow his eyes to roam their surroundings, and with the foundation of the cliff mostly missing, more  broken rocks came tumbling from the collapsed part of the mountain, causing their visions to be covered by the clouds of dust.

Morpheus straightened himself as well, massaging his throat and stretching his wings as he stepped away from the falling rocks.

“I smell blood not your own on you. Who did you kill this time? Black magic practitioners?”

Draven didn’t reply to this, and Morpheus took his silence as an affirmation.

“If you are done venting, I will go–“

“As Yorian predicted, Myra is with Zaria Lynx.”

Morpheus froze with his wings half-outstretched at the news. After several seconds,  he got back to his senses and straightened himself.

“And? D-Did you find her?” he asked and hurried to approach Draven. “Where…How is she? Since she’s not with you—“

“I didn’t find your sister but I found this.”

Draven put forward his hand and several golden hair strands appeared on his palm. In the darkness of the night, those hair strands were like threads spun out of sunshine.

“These, I am sure, belong to Myra,” Morpheus said.

“Zaria knows someone is coming for her, and she’s always one step ahead. It’s like she feels the threat even before I can reach her. Regardless of her means of detection, I am positive she doesn’t stay at the same place longer than a day.”

“Then, what should we do? Since she knows we are already tracking her, then let us  gather our best scouts. I will also form a troop made of warriors experienced with fighting against black magic–“

“Don’t be in a hurry. If she senses an attack, she might prepare a trap to ensnare our warriors. Knowing her,  she would once again use Myra’s blood to create that formation, just like in the past. This time, we have no Evanthe nor any senior witches to help us remove the formation. We also cannot let Zaria use Myra’s blood to create any strong spell or it will be a threat to Myra’s life. These hair strands, the fact they are falling and they barely contain divinity means Myra’s condition has deteriorated to the point she might be dying.”

“Zaria is cunning, and since she knows we are looking for her, there is a chance she has schemed to use our emotions against us. If we approach without ample preparation, she can just kill Myra straightaway to hurt us more. This is the reason why I am scouting in person. If there is a chance for Myra to survive, why risk her death?  Do not be in haste. By now, she must have noticed a few of her warlocks are missing, but probably do not know I am the one personally tracking her.”

Morpheus helplessly ran his hands through his hair. “My sister needs her older brother but I can’t do anything to save her. I will just…”

“Don’t even think about being reckless. Do not do anything on your own if you want her back. Understood?”

Morpheus sighed and kicked a rock large enough to reach his knees and it shot into the sky, falling down somewhere like a destructive meteor. Regarding his sister, he could not do anything but listen to Draven.

Draven was about to leave but then said, “I am letting you go today only for the sake of Ember but do not think you can do anything more with my mate. As long as I am alive, she belongs to me and me alone.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on disturbing your last days with her,” Morpheus shot back as he watched Draven disappear.

Morpheus looked at the destroyed mountainside and forest and cursed.

“That Dragon always creates a mess but runs away when it’s time to clean up.” He then looked up at the night sky and turned towards the mountain next to the destroyed one.  “Well, it’s good he destroyed this mountain instead of that one. If our fight damaged my sister’s cave, I would have not let him off with a light internal injury.”

Morpheus then used his powers of the wind to send out a call towards the nearby forest spirits and fairies, and with their help, the damage caused by their fight started to be cleared out and settled.