The Burning Witch 3: A Humorous Romantic Fantasy

CHAPTER 51 A CURSED CAUSE

The infamous drunken noblewoman who waited on the queen …

As it turned out, she had red hair, though a more subtle tint than Katarina’s, but no one had ever seen it before as she’d always kept it hidden, and for good reason.

With her face turned upward and her hair unbound, there was a certain familial resemblance to Katarina, which was a peculiar turn of events given that the first witch could’ve looked any variety of person …

However, there wasn’t much time to ponder this, as Katarina proceeded to shout, “WHY DO I KEEP GETTING STABBED?! HONEST TO GODS, THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS!”

The devil and first witch each looked at her with small grimaces.

“Our parents do like to work in threes …” Aradia explained apologetically. “I tried to make it less painful—but if I’d aimed any lower, you would’ve kicked it away.”

“YOU STILL WERE TRYING TO STAB ME!”

Aradia sighed as though explaining herself would be too tiresome. So instead, in a series of three movements, she shed her black dress that acted as a sheath and revealed black trousers, tunic, and corset while wielding her dagger.

“Why aren’t you doing anything to stop her?” Eric ground out while eyeing the devil.

“Give me a break, Your Highness, I haven’t seen my dear sister in ages,” Sam drawled while continuing to stare at his sister with a predatory smile.

“Yes, not since you told me I hadn’t suffered enough here on earth because I refused to renounce all humankind. Complex creations have complex problems. You always were too lazy and thought too highly of yourself to see that!” Aradia accused, though she lowered the dagger fractionally.

The devil rolled his eyes. “Complexity excuses all the disgusting things humans do?”

“You know, as the person who helped plan the murder attempt on the queen,” Kat panted in the devil’s direction, “and you, who stabbed me,” she continued toward the first witch while glaring. “Neither of you is really coming from the moral high ground,” she finished.

Behind her, Kat could feel Eric’s tension ease as his wife proceeded to behave exactly like her usual self, save for the gasping breaths and pale complexion.

“Why aren’t you doing anything?” Rebecca Devark startled everyone then as she stared at the otherworldly siblings with an arched brow.

While she may have seemed terribly calm, she hadn’t so much as twitched since all the violence commenced, the stiffness in her countenance betraying her own fright.

“Oh, so you all waiting for a grand fight?” Aradia asked with a derisive chuckle.

“Well … Yeah!” Kat blurted indignantly. “Or did you attack me for the fun of it?”

Aradia glanced at her brother, who rolled his eyes, shaking his head as though the two had shared a brief, wordless conversation …

“Lady Katarina, my brother is unable to use his abilities against me, so there isn’t much he can do as he knows I now have both your and his former ally’s magic. Right now, he’s making chitchat while waiting for me to make the first move so he can decide what to do,” Aradia explained while sidling a little bit closer to the devil.

“Why won’t his abilities affect you?” Alina questioned while leaning toward her husband.

“When he sealed away my magic, particularly strong emotions were sealed away as well. Love. Fear. A few others …”

“How does he expect you to learn how depraved humans are if you cannot empathize with them?” Eric interjected flatly while staring at the devil’s back and silently wondering just how intelligent the children of the Gods truly were.

“I didn’t know that sealing away her magic would have that particular cost. It may have also been caused by her subsequent curse.” The devil shrugged, nonplussed, without turning around.

While the two siblings were managing to sound casual, there was still tension in the air that only seemed to increase with every passing moment.

“If you both want to go home, why don’t you just unlock her abilities? Why are you dragging the rest of the world into your petty feud?” Eric wondered, his voice icy as he watched the siblings size each other up.

“Petty feud is an insulting description given how I was abandoned, injured, and made powerless. A state the women here should know that left me open to all manner of horrendous acts,” Aradia retorted stonily. “And I’d like to try to set this world back to rights after he has scarred it so horribly. Though even that will of course come at a cost.”

“It doesn’t give you the right to kill thousands of people,” Kat argued angrily.

“Do you know how many people he has killed? Do you know how he has manipulated and twisted the humans over centuries?! The Troivackian king here will even admit that sadly, sometimes there are sacrifices to be made for the long-term greater good,” the first witch defended, her tone steady as she recognized the growing hostility in the room. “Sam doesn’t want to return to the Forest of the Afterlife because then he would have to face our parents. But enough of this stalling. Are you going to help me or the devil?”

“You see … I would’ve absolutely jumped on that wagon and even been happy to help brainstorm a means of opening the portal without the death of thousands had you not kidnapped Likon and just stabbed me!” Kat lurched as she shouted and winced in pain as a result.

Aradia sighed. “Well, luckily for me, I suppose, I’m more interested in hearing what His Majesty has to say. The devil, the one responsible for trying to kill the queen countless times, is here. He is defenseless, and we can send him far from this world.” Despite the first witch addressing Brendan, she never moved her sights from her brother, who took a long sidestep away from her.

“You would be open to finding an alternative solution to slaughtering my people?” Brendan asked slowly, but his voice was still an impressive rumble.

Aradia gave a partial shrug. “It can be discussed. Though I doubt you can. Your coven will not offer help no matter what you say. They have been wronged for too long. I’ll need more lives in exchange.”

“You don’t need all the blood of the witches, only some?” the king continued while watching the siblings.

“She will have to kill people no matter what if she has to keep the portal open for a long period of time. It’s more a matter of killing a handful of witches or thousands of humans, unless she means to bring over more beasts to gain more power here in Troivack, in which case she would need both,” the devil clarified when his sister didn’t respond immediately. “Also, don’t forget she is the one who manufactured Witch’s Brew and distributed it with the intent of killing people to start bringing the ancient beasts here in the first place. She hasn’t explained at all what ‘putting the world to rights’ means either.”

Aradia waived off the observation casually. “There is a lot to fix since the devil is the one responsible for centuries of wars, coups, and … the creation of mages.”

“What?!”

“You son of a bitch!”

Mr. Kraft and Katarina burst out in fury at the same time, the redhead obviously being the one to have sworn.

Then she remembered Kezia and looked past the devil. “No offense, Kezia, but you are the exception, not the rule, generally.”

Kezia didn’t bother responding to Kat as she stared at the devil in alarm. Seeing this, Sam smiled coyly at her.

“It was fun to irk my sister’s descendants.”

“Eric, please kill him for me?” Kat murmured to her husband.

“Actually, about that,” Eric spoke up again while speaking to the devil’s back. “Don’t you have any descendants?”

The devil couldn’t resist looking over his shoulder at the prince, his eyes glittering in delight, but he didn’t offer a response …

Nothing more could be said anyway, as the first witch flicked her dagger, and a stream of water wrapped itself around the devil, binding his arms.

In an instant, the room was plunged into darkness and menacing shadows that made everyone shrink back or fall to their knees in all-consuming terror.

Kat’s magic flickered to life against her will, weakening her even more …

No one had the presence of mind to reason out what was happening, but they could hear the devil’s voice in the abyss of tangible fear surrounding them. “I’ll force the burning witch to use the rest of her powers and kill her, Aradia. She’ll curse this land. That’s what you want to avoid, isn’t it? You’re trying to take over this world for yourself in some skewed sense of justice … ? Well, good luck with whatever curse she produces.”

A sudden movement and a sting along Sam’s throat had his head snapping around to stare up at none other than Alina. The Troivackian queen was holding a small crossbow in her hands that must have been hidden by her throne …

“Don’t kill him! If you do, we’ll lose him again, and I won’t know where he will be reborn,” the first witch boomed.

Alina still aimed at the devil with watering eyes and trembling hands, even though her weapon needed to be reloaded. It had been an impressive shot given everything going on … The devil smirked at her, then directed more potent power toward the queen, reducing Alina to a weeping mess as Eric clutched Kat, muttering nonsensically as though in a partial soldier’s spell. Mage Sebastian, Mr. Kraft, and Faucher were all doubled over. Ladies Kezia, Sarah, and Rebecca huddled together …

The first witch stared at her brother’s triumphant face as he turned back to her.

“You are trying to cast me out so that you can rule peacefully in this world again without me, but if the burning witch dies, Daxaria and Troivack will be thrown into chaos, and you know it.”

In the past, Aradia would cry, seethe, shout … She had come close to getting her way many times before, but usually Sam just had to dangle a few meaningful deaths in front of her to make her back off …

However, the fact that she had already killed people with her manufactured drug and was also prepared to slaughter thousands in a war to be rid of him, should have reminded the devil that she was not going to utilize her old approaches.

Aradia laughed.

While the throne room was permeated with her brother’s frightening abilities, she sounded giddy as she tugged him closer by using her rope of water.

“I guess it’s a good thing I have a backup plan. Sorry, Lady Sarah.” She looked over her shoulder at her former fellow handmaiden. “Our recent friendship really was lovely, and I meant what I said to you.” Aradia managed a hint of an apology in her gaze during the mysterious message before she returned her brilliant smile to her brother. With her free hand, she reached inside her pants pocket and procured a peculiar brass item that emitted a ticking noise that only the devil could hear in its proximity. It had a faint white glow emitting from its round seams that reminded him of mage crystals … and he could even feel the same sort of power starting to fill the throne room …

The first witch clicked a knob on the top and then …

Something strange happened.

Aradia and the devil disappeared in an instant.

The shadows vanished just as suddenly as they had appeared.

Sniffles and shaking breaths filled the gloriously restored peace.

Despite the throne room being cold, its absence of evil made it feel like it was bathed in the warmest light the Goddess herself could create.

“W-Where’d … they go?” Brendan demanded raspily, his hand bracing against the marbled floor in front of his throne.

It took everyone else far longer to collect themselves, but finally Mr. Kraft responded.

“There is no trace of them or any magic. We could …” He paused to swallow. “We could ask the guards outside if anyone left … but I see nothing. It’s as if they disappeared.”

Brendan let out a shuddering breath as a bead of cold sweat rolled down his spine.

“Alina, are you alright?” he asked, completely forgoing proper formality in light of the living nightmare they all had just suffered.

Brendan had closed his eyes and was taking calming breaths after asking the question, but when he didn’t hear his wife’s response, his eyes flew open. Looking to his left, he could see Alina curled on her side, trembling.

“Alina?” Brendan dove for her, carefully turning her over to see her face white as snow and scrunched in pain. His gaze dropped to her hands that were grasping her middle.

“Gods—PHYSICIAN!” Brendan roared loud enough that it felt as though the windows rattled.

“What’s wrong?!” Eric called from his place at the bottom of the steps where Kat was working on standing with his help.

The king didn’t respond as he held Alina closer. Ladies Kezia, Sarah, and Rebecca moved to the bottom of the stairs to the thrones and froze, unsure of whether to move closer or not.

“Alina, love … What is …” Brendan was whispering hurriedly, hoping he could get a response out of her, but she only gasped as though physically unable to respond while hunching even farther over her middle …

Lady Rebecca turned and flew out of the room, shouting again for a physician as everyone else waited with growing dread over what they suspected may be happening to the beloved queen.