Bewitched

2 King Castor

The land of witches wasn’t very large compared to other lands and that was why the two groups, that normally hated each other’s bones, decided to form a single kingdom.

The light and the dark witches were as different as day and night.

The light witches were more peaceful and benevolent and they bowed to wisdom. Their power came from the moon God Lupos and from the power they had inside.

This was why they were ruled by a council of high witches, who were one of the oldest and most powerful. The council was chosen by the Moon priestesses and priests and the members could be easily replaced if needed.

The other part of the land, however, belonged to the dark witches. A long time ago they weren’t content with the power they had inside, so they started to worship Shebba, the goddess of darkness, asking her for more power.

That was what they believed in, power. They weren’t evil, they just usually believed that you needed to be strong in order to live and they were often right.

Because of their beliefs, not a lot of humans, shifters or elves lived in their territory. Not a lot of people wanted to mingle with them.

They were a real kingdom, ruled by a Royal family for a really long time. From the outside, the land of witches seemed like a single kingdom, but there were two sides tolerating each other for the common good.

Maybe it was because of their ancestors or because of the similarities in their powers, but they decided to join forces.

However, it was very rare that they befriended each other and it was never heard of a case of a couple where one was a dark witch and the other a light one.

They just kept their distance and didn’t get into each other’s business, but that had to be set aside if they wanted to run a kingdom.

The king of dark witches would have to meet with the witch council from time to time and at that time dark witches had a new King.

King Castor took power about a month ago when his father died, leaving him to rule at the age of eighteen. He was young, but they said his magic was strong and that he could match his precursors despite his young age.

He walked to the meeting room, scanning the room with his eyes. The whole council of witches was present and waiting for him to arrive.

“Welcome king Castor. We hope your journey was pleasant.” Said the head of the council, Niobe.

She was also new to this position. She was very young to even be in the council, being just twenty-four years old. She was named to be the head of the council thanks to her great psychic powers.

It ran in her family but when her father married a powerful witch from the northern part of the country, the combined power of her parents made her powers quite strong.

Castor smiled at her, fixing his violet eyes on the young woman in front of him. He didn’t expect to see someone so young leading the council.

He scanned her figure. She wore a simple green robe and her long blonde hair were running down her shoulders. She had big bright blue eyes and a nice smile, which was now forced, but it was clear she was very pretty.

“As pleasant as the Herbordient incantation can be miss…..” he trailed off.

“My name is Niobe, please have a seat.”

Castor sat down at one of the chairs and all five members of the council did the same.

“You used the Herbordient incantation? How many people did you need to manage that kind of spell?” asked an older member of the council.

“Fourteen, although we did use a little blood magic to give it a kick.” He said with a smirk and he looked back at Niobe, his violet eyes sparkling a little.

Niobe was nervous about this meeting, she would be dealing with the new King and was afraid he would be cruel and unreasonable, but he looked like a boy. Immature and hot-headed.

The Herbordient incantation was a complex spell that required a lot of power and it was worse with a bigger distance. He could have just travelled on the road, not get himself teleported.

The last time the light witches tried this spell on this kind of distance, they needed nineteen people to do it. But they wouldn’t use blood magic to help themselves and it also depended on how strong the people doing the spell were.

Niobe frowned, thinking about such a waste of energy and so did other members of the council. There were five of them, Niobe was the head of the council.

Then there were two other women. One was really old, nearing almost a hundred and ten and the other one was in her late fifties. She was very good with herbs and nature in general.

The other two members were men. The older one was almost seventy and the younger one was about thirty. He was here because he was great with fighting spells and other weapons.

Light witches didn’t use so many fighting spells but Pealor was a great warrior and even developed a few incantations so he was given a seat in the council.

“Why am I here?” Castor asked, wanting to get to the point of this meeting.

Niobe straightened in her seat, looking at the black-haired boy in front of her. His violet eyes held something captivating in them.

She narrowed her eyes and tried to use some of her power. She was great at reading people and she could see he was indeed powerful, but he looked different from the old king. He was still full of …hope? Hope for what?

“We wanted to make sure your side of the kingdom is stable after your father’s demise.” The old warlock said.

“There were some problems at first, some people seemed to prefer my aunt to take the throne, saying I was too young, but that’s all taken care of now.”

Castor said, leaning back in his seat casually.

“Is she still alive?” Pealor said, eyeing him suspiciously. He didn’t have any illusions about how things worked on the other side of the kingdom.

Castor threw him an offended look and folded his hands on the table. “She is, I honour my aunt. She is a powerful witch and I wouldn’t harm her unless necessary. It took us a while but we reached an agreement.”

Niobe started at him for a while, searching for a hint of a lie but he was sincere.

“I would like to apologize for Pealor. I’m sure he didn’t mean to offend you.” Niobe said.

“He didn’t, I know what people think about my family and they are often right,” Castor said and Niobe smiled at him. She couldn’t deny this man was a pleasant surprise to her.

“There are a few other things we wanted to discuss. I’m sure you know we’ve set a guard to our borders after your father’s passing. We would like for you to take an oath as a new ruler to not turn against out part of the land so we could leave the border. Our troops are needed elsewhere.” Niobe said, keeping an eye on him.

She was trying her best to get in his head. It was hard for her to do so, but it was possible. She was starting to feel drained because using magic was tiring for everyone, let alone powerful magic like hers.

She shook her head, giving up. Today was not her day.

“I’ll take the oath. Are you talking about the Great promise?”

“Yes, we are,” Pealor said.

“Well,..” Castor trailed off, a giant smirk on his face “I suppose there would be no harm in doing that. Even my father took the oath in his time.”

Niobe let out a breath of relief when the king agreed. They really needed to do this now because they had some problems with orcs on their borders and couldn’t send more soldiers because they kept guard at the border with dark witches.

“Thank you for that, king Castor.” She smiled gratefully.

“How long until the ritual is prepared?” he asked the council.

One of the other members, the older woman, replied this time.

“We can have the potion ready by tomorrow afternoon.”

Castor clapped his hands together, the smirk not leaving his lips.

“Great then, I’ll stay here until tomorrow and we’ll take care of this.” He stared at Niobe while he said it and her breath hitched in her throat.

What was with this boy? She felt this weird feeling in her gut, but couldn’t decide whether it felt good or bad.

She coughed a little, regaining her thoughts. “Wonderful, I think this might be all for now. Let me show you to your chambers.” She said and headed out of the door, the young king close behind her.