Chapter Text
Luz blinks awake the first rays of light greeting her as she pushes off the last remnants of sleep. She’d been in the boiling isles for around two months now, and had settled in a bit. The history of the isles was fascinating once one gets into it like something straight out of a fantasy book, chaos and dark magic and then Belos helped bring order and help those hurt by wild magic. She still didn’t fully trust Belos. Something in her just screamed that something was wrong about him, but those alarm bells went off around Hunter and he wasn’t so bad. Maybe a bit stiff and snappy for a nine year old but he was nice. Even though he refused to show her any magic.
Around a week into her stay she’d joined Hunter in his morning class, they had a single tutor for all of their subjects which seemed a bit odd to Luz but they were nice enough as long as she behaved. She’d learned quickly that the boiling isles had a very different form of discipline for messing up or being too noisy or moving around too much. Instead of having a clip be moved down colours, she had been hit on the back of her hands with a wood rod. She’d cried out the first few times but that earned another smack, she’d been told that the boiling isles were deadly and she’d be joining the best of the best on the isles, so failure was unacceptable.
She’d run out of the class the first time it had happened holding her stinging hand, Belos had found her and helped soothe her aching hand and explained to Luz that the teacher wasn’t being malicious it was a sign they cared as they were trying to help her.
Hunter was really the only other person she was able to talk to besides Belos, she couldn’t really talk to her teacher because of the class's zero noise rule and the guards all ignored her. He was annoyingly closed off, he answered all the questions she pelted him with but he refused to show her magic. It was driving her insane. She was in a magic world and she wasn’t allowed to even see magic, she knew she couldn’t do magic but Hunter could. He was being trained for combat magic and they read a lot of books on spell theory.
“Hunter, how do witches choose which spells they cast?” Luz asks piling another question onto Hunter she figured if she asked enough questions she could annoy him enough that he’d show her a spell to make her leave him alone.
He sighs looking up from one of the textbooks he’d been reading, the two shared a small corner of the castle being its sole residents, at the moment they were in the small communal room they shared for meals and free time. Luz was quite content playing with a few wood dolls she’d constructed but Hunter apparently never relaxed and was always studying. “The theory of how it works is fairly complex, basically when a witch casts a spell they are mixing different types of bile inside their bilesack in precise amounts to create the spell they want. Simple right?”
Nothing about that was simple; she knew about the bilesacks attached to witches’ hearts and how that’s what let them cast magic and why Luz can’t do magic but the idea that witches basically did complex math each time they cast a spell baffled her. “Well that’s how it works physically at least, the witch basically just thinks of a thing they want to do with magic and if they understand enough about what they are trying to do and be able to visualize it properly, each step is as important as the other.” He flips to a diagram of an abomination.
“Say a witch is trying to summon an abomination, they may be able to think of a massive abomination but “
“They need to understand how to make an abomination and understand how to make it move without magic first to be able to cast the spell.” Luz cuts him off excitedly.
“Exactly, though it’s more complicated with some types of magic than others, I don’t fully understand how bard or oracle magic works like this but plant magic is really easy. You need to be able to raise healthy plants and understand what makes them grow right to magically grow healthy plants.” Hunter has a grin on his face.
He looks happy, which Luz feels as good as any moment to try her luck. “Do you think you could show me? It doesn’t have to be complicated or anything, it could just be a light spell.”
His grin slips immediately, the joy on his face a moment before now replaced fully by a scowl. “No, and stop asking, I don’t live to obey all your childish whims.” He stands grabbing his book and storms out.
Luz was in shock he’d been so cheerful and she’d only asked him to show the simplest spell but something about that made him clam up. She just hoped she didn’t make him too mad at her; she didn’t think she could handle being alone in the castle again.
Hunter was being childish. He knew it and hated himself for it. He was training to join the emperor’s coven and here he was acting like a bratty little kid. He’d been ignoring Luz the past few days for the most part, she’d just been nice to him and he couldn’t deal with her knowing he was cursed and couldn’t even cast a single light spell. It wasn’t uncommon knowledge among the guards or his trainers that he couldn’t cast spells and he’d been called half a witch by his combat flight trainer for failing to smooth his fall, after they figured out he was a failure of a witch.
His swirling thoughts must be affecting his performance because as Freli had pointed out he just made a careless mistake with his staff, and had it been a real fight instead of sparing he’d be dead. Unlike the other instructors she never chewed him out, she seemed to have some strange belief that rewards and kindness were better teachers than punishment. It was a silly notion but a nice reprise from his other training sessions.
“Hunter your form is sloppy, any reason for this, I expect sloppy form from other trainers but not you.” Her voice is muffled behind the beak mask all coven members wear but Hunter is used to most voices coming from behind masks.
“Just feeling tired that’s all” the words ring hollow as he says them he’s a horrible liar.
“Are you really attempting to lie to a superior officer, Hunter? Now I know something is actually wrong.” She cocks her head to the side thinking “this is dumb, but it works.” She mutters under her breath Hunter’s ears barely picking it up. “Hunter as a Coven Captain I order you to inform me on the issue.”
Hunter knew she wasn’t going to take any lie he gave her and she had ordered him to tell her, Hunter struggled to stop himself from responding to orders, probably related to his curse he had no idea. He sighs “You know the human girl they found Luz, well she’s been nice to me but she’s been pestering me about showing her magic at least once a week since she got here. And I snapped at her and now I feel bad because I repaid her kindness with poison.”
“Well if it’s affecting you to the point of messing with your training then I’d advise you to just apologize to her and make it up to her.”
“But I can’t give her what she wants, I can’t do magic, you know I’m half a witch.”
“Then give her something else, she’s young, a gift would probably make her feel better.” She walks over to a duffle bag off to the side of the courtyard they’d been training in. She rummages around for a bit before pulling out two bottles containing clear liquid and a pouch. She holds out the pouch to Hunter. As his fingers close around it he feels the clink of snails inside it.
“Snails? What am I supposed to do with them? I don't think she cares about snails very much.”
“You are going to buy her a gift that should be….”
“I can’t buy her something, I can't leave the castle, uncle told me not to, he said it’s not safe.” Hunter's ears burned with shame for having interrupted her but he couldn’t just leave the castle; there were wild witches who’d love to finish the job they started or there could be so many other problems.
“It will be fine, think of it as a training exercise. If you need to go undercover for a mission as the golden guard it’ll be good practice.” She hands the two vials to him “ besides it’s pointless to train you when your mind is too distracted to actually retain any information.”
His excursion to the Bonesborrow market had been eventful to say the least. He’d expected Freli to accompany him to the town but nope it had been a solo mission, she’d given him two vials of an invisibility potion, shown him a route to sneak out with using them and then back in. It took him a few hours to get to Bonesborrow. He’d found a strange stall selling human goods with a curious owner but he didn’t really have time to waste so he made up a half baked lie about buying a gift for a sibling, and bought a stuffed snake, it seemed to be a human realm one owing to its lack of a head on both ends but it was a strange shade of purple. Getting back into the castle hadn’t been an issue; he tried to return the rest of the snails to Freli but she made him keep them if he needed to smooth things over again. He might not be able to do magic but he was fully capable of fixing the issue Luz had with him he hoped.
Luz was reading a history textbook in her room, when there was a knock on the door. Her curiosity immediately perks up, it was too late for a scout to be coming by to bring her to a lesson or for dinner as she’d already eaten. Tentatively Luz opens the door, and spots Hunter standing sheepishly in the hall, a satchel slung over his shoulder. “Can I come in? We need to talk.” Taking the formal tone he uses sometimes.
She hesitates for a moment before letting him in. “I’m sorry for pushing you so much the other day, please don’t hate me.” Luz blurts out, she knew she shouldn’t have pushed Hunter so far the other day but it sucked being in a magic land and not getting to see magic.
“It’s fine, I shouldn’t have snapped at you, you were just being curious, you are a child so it’s only natural for you to be curious.” He fishes around in the satchel and pulls out a stuffed SNAKE! Her thoughts are a whirlwind now it looks similar to one she’d had back home. It was purple not green but still.
She snatches it from his hand, “Apology accepted,” giggling a bit having a piece of home with her, this pulls a short chuckle out of Hunter.
“I’m glad you like it. I’m sorry I can’t show you any magic, so hopefully something from your home makes you feel better.”
“It does, thanks a lot. If it’s not too much, what do you mean you can’t show me?” She rests the waters she knows it’s risky but hopefully he’s in a sharing mood her curiosity is killing her.
A conflicted look shoots across his face as if he’s having some internal battle. He sighs “You’d likely hear it eventually from one of the tutors…” he takes a deep breath “I’m cursed, I can’t do any magic on my own, not even a light spell like you asked.”
Oh he’s cursed she honestly didn’t know enough about curses to comment much on it as a topic, but her mind jumps to a bright side. “You are like me then right? We both can’t do magic but we can watch each other’s backs.”
He looks conflicted at this a bit happy but also dour at the same time, after a bit of awkwardly standing around he quickly says “Sure I’ll have your back.” before slipping back out of her room. It was nice to have someone she could trust even if they barely spoke to each other it made everything feel less lonely. She sets the stuffed snake on the bed smiling at it feeling a sense of calm wash over her as she lies down the short conversation taking the last bit of energy she had left after classes.
A few more weeks pass.
It was happening again, Caleb was caring about witches again. He knew it was a risk assigning witches to teach his brother but he’d instructed them all to be strict on the kids and to not talk to them outside of classes. It seemed like one of the tutors couldn’t keep such a simple rule though, over the last few weeks Freli had assigned herself to guard duty on the children, and he’d even spotted her playing one of the isles sinful card games with them.
He could not let this continue, he wouldn’t lose his brother to witches again he’d dispose of Freli and make sure Caleb didn’t get close to another person besides him or Luz. He hadn’t perfected his brother’s vessel for nothing, it was time for it to live up to its namesake.