The Dark Goddess

Chapter 19

“You were right, yunno, I really love this place” Ami said to Casey as she stared at the sunset on top of the grassy hill Casey took her to.

“Its my secret special place” Casey said to her, “I come here whenever I want to be alone with my feelings”

They were at the top of a gentle hill deep into the woods, the hill overlooked the whole of Haven on one side and on the other side was a river and a whole lay of that goes on and on.

“I’m not intruding am I?” Ami asked.

“Of course not, I brought you here didn’t I?” Casey answered then blushed a bit.

Ami had to look away because she as well blushed, “so how long have you had this place to yourself?” she asked.

Casey paused amidst placing plates and cutlery on the blanket they had on the ground and were seated on as well, the “apology” dinner had turned to a kind of picnic date.

“Well its been going on almost two years, I discovered it my second month here in Haven” she finally said and continued setting for their dinner.

Ami still hasn’t gotten used to the idea that this place was home to some people and there are those that had been there for years. It was Casey’s second year as well.

They stayed silent for a while and then started eating, Ami had a lot of questions about Haven yes but even more about Casey, but she didn’t want to be too forward.

“I like your hair, its really making a statement with those purple highlights” Casey said breaking the silence.

“oh this? I actually made it just before coming to Haven, the statement is a reminder to myself, that no matter what I have to stay free, strong and achieve my goals” Ami replied she had always wanted to get an haircut though but her parents had always told her not to - she kept that part to herself though.

“I would love to get an haircut one day, but that will be after I’m free and rid of this curse, because then it can be a statement to remain free as well” Casey said.

Ami saw that as an opportunity to start her enquiries “I saw you back in class with a spell form, thought you couldn’t cast spells, so how come” she asked.

Casey stared at the quickly descending sun before she answered “spell forms are different from normal spell casting because as their name suggest; you form a spell form sometimes be combining pieces of spells to create an ultimate one or by creating a whole form from scratch”

“Spell casting on the other hand means laying up already made spells to work for what you want it to, the hex prevents me from doing this, but by my third month here after nearly blowing my hands off my arms due to repeated effort to cast spells, I created my first spell form without any side effect from the hex”

“So while I can’t cast spells, I can create my own spells through spell forms, it is more intricate and much more difficult than spell casting or even the normal spell forms, but I threw myself into it totally see it as my only way out, I got really good at it too”

“I worked till I was classified to be of immeasurable powers as well just like every other person in our segment, turns out being able to create spell forms from scratch is something that shouldn’t even be possible in the first place, you saw how weak that defense shield spell form was against your storm monster, I had just cooked it up to be able to defend against storm effects” Casey explained.

Ami was satisfied by the explanation on the reason Casey was able to still use powers despite having such a condition, but she was now puzzled as to what the segment she was in the powers class really meant.

“So our class segment uhn? Immeasurable powers? What’s that about?” Ami asked.

“Well simply put, everyone in that segment in class are the most powerful when it comes to power quantity amongst first and second years” Casey answered

Ami couldn’t believe it but the more she thought about it, the more sense it made, they were so few in the class and had a teacher whose only ability is power suppression (so she thought).

And then there was the students, they were all giving off the immense powers aura, but wait even Zara? Now that was a surprise, but she and Zara were the only first years in that class segment, she really needed a heart to heart with Zara though which will be a bit difficult since Zara doesn’t speak and she can’t sign.

They ate in silence for a little while more, all the while though Ami was thinking of how beautiful Casey really was.

The almost totally faded sunlight caressed her features in such a gentle way and a light breeze touched her and her hair flowed in response, from Ami’s point of view Casey was a goddess.

“You follow the path of Isis don’t you?” Ami asked.

“Yeah, and Nut and don’t tell anyone but I kinda follow Set’s path too” Casey answered.

“I think its cool you can take up three paths, makes you all the more powerful, why not tell anyone though?” Ami asked.

“Well, I kinda have this public hatred for male gods since I don’t know which one hexed me, but then following Set’s path just came easy to me, I didn’t even have to really work or study it, so I didn’t seem to have a choice hence why I kept it from everyone else, they only know of Isis and Nut” Casey answered looking off into the night sky.

“I see, so why tell me, what if I start telling everyone, you aren’t worried about that?” Ami said with humor.

But Casey was serious as she answered with just three words “I trust you” she said and looked straight into Ami’s eyes.

They both held each others gaze for a moment and they could both feel flutters and sparks stirring up inside of them.

Before they knew it their hands were touching on the blanket and their faces inched closer and closer till their lips met and a soft kiss transpired.

Barely a couple of seconds in Casey broke the kiss and inched her face back a little with a look of surprise and terror at the same time.

“What, what is…” Ami started to ask but before she could finish her sentence Casey cut her off.

“Our hands are touching” Casey said with a trembling voice.

Ami glanced at where their hands touched and it took her a second to realize what was really terrifying Casey, her Curse.

Casey’s hands glowed as the cursed hieroglyphics burned outwards, Ami did the only thing that came to her mind, She activated her powers which answered her right away seeing as there was an overflowing well of emotions going through her at the moment.

The sudden gust of wind blew them apart as well as everything on the blanket.

Ami stumbled towards the slippery slope of the hill and rolled downwards a bit, the pain that caught up to her was enough to deactivate her powers.

Casey had quickly regained her composure and ran towards where Ami had slid off, she found Ami clutching her arms in pain still lying on the floor.

She rushed to her side and knelt beside her “Hey, hey, hey” she said trying to calm Ami.

“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, I can help, I can help okay?” Casey kept saying but Ami only nodded in response as the pain was too intense for her to talk.

Casey dried her tears and slowed her breathing so she could concentrate, then she placed her palms together with the fingers folded in except the index fingers which she used to speedily trace a couple of hieroglyphs in the air.

As the hieroglyphs started glowing midair, she opened her palms and placed them on the center of all the glowing hieroglyphs and from each palm an eccentric circle formed up linking the hieroglyphs together to create a spell form glowing a few inches away from each palm.

The spell form on her right hand glowed green and the one on her left glowed blue, in quick succession she traced the green over Ami’s mangled arm then traced the blue over it in the opposite direction.

She kept doing this till Ami calmed visibly as the pain subsided and her arm gradually started returning to its normal shape.

Ami went unconscious for a while and when she opened her eyes again it was in a cave of sorts, there was tree roots everywhere from the ceiling to the walls and the floor.

A couple of fireflies at the center of the cave gave off light and from that light she saw Casey seated beside her.

“Hey” she said weakly.

Casey moved swiftly to kneel beside her “I’m so sorry Ami, I have never for once made this mistake since I got to haven, I don’t know how I could’ve been so stupid as to get off my guard to let this happen” she said apologetically.

“If you continue, you’ll start to offend me Casey, its not your fault, it’s the fault of the crazy god that did this to you” Ami said regaining her energy faster and faster.

She sat up and saw her hand was back to normal but it had been bandaged from shoulder to wrist and then her fingers too had their own bandages on, she looked part mummy.

“Casey, please do not blame yourself for this, besides you saved me didn’t you, you restored the arm” Ami said.

“Well the first spell form I learnt to create was a reversal for the kind of damage my hands caused, and then I learnt to create healing and restoration spell forms, those are what I used on you, then I brought you here to the tree nymphs to help complete the healing process, they were a bit too happy to help” Casey said still looking sad.

“I see, it was wise not to take me to the infirmary, they’d be asking questions we wouldn’t want to give answers to, oh and I have this effect on nymphs where they want to please me, call it a goddess perks” Ami said with humor.

She couldn’t have Casey feeling bad for this, it might spoil what they just had going, whatever it was, it might be selfish thinking but she wanted that kiss with Casey again.

“The nymphs told me it was because you were a goddess that you could withstand my touch for the few seconds you did before it started working, and it was because you weren’t full fledged that it even worked on you, apparently the hex wouldn’t even work on full fledged gods” Casey said and started sobbing.

Ami felt for her, she had been hoping to use this very hex to destroy the god that placed it on her, now through this incident it was confirmed that it wouldn’t work on him.

Ami drew closer to Casey and hugged her, putting her head on her own chest where Casey sobbed even more.

“I can’t make such mistake again, ever, that was too scary” Casey said amidst her sobs.

‘There it goes’ Ami thought to herself sadly ‘there it all goes’.