His Divine Queen

Underground

Alaric didn’t know how long he had been with the Witches. It could have been days, months since he had last seen the outside world, yet it had all passed by so quickly. He found himself happy here, floating in a blissful limbo where his worries just didn’t exist anymore.

The Witch he had first met, Abi, had been tasked with helping him settle into life underground – the coven, as they called it - and she had taken to her job extremely seriously. He didn’t know if it was her character, or if she had just been instructed to remain at his side, but she had barely left him alone enough to sleep.

He didn’t mind, though, as he didn’t feel like being alone that often.

He had not seen the dux magorum since their first meeting, although the orange-haired Witch – Sofia – would stop by occasionally to talk to Abi. He would eavesdrop each time, yet they would speak in their own language, and he had not yet succeeded in picking up any of the words. He had grown bored of trying, and had instead turned to the various books that were sprawled on every available surface of Abi’s room. He hadn’t managed to get further than the first page in any of them, however, as they were all in the same, strange language that the Witches spoke.

U-sicilianu, Abi had called it. But that didn’t help him to understand it.

One thing that he did understand was the young Witch’s role in the coven. She seemed to act as their doctor, healing all sorts of ailments and wounds that walked into her room. Most of the Witches that came to visit would do a double take when they noticed him, proceeding to ignore him and leave the room as quickly as they could after their business was concluded.

He felt like an intruder, a thief that had forced his way into a place where he had no authority to be.  

So, he had taken to the shadows fixed in the corners, embracing the solitude until Abi was free to converse with him again. With this new-found anonymity, Alaric began to notice things that he wouldn’t have before. He noticed that in those rare moments she was free from her patients, she would come alive in her underground garden. The Witch was at home with herself, surrounded by her overflowing planting pots with their strange herbs and flowers.

She would take her time to tend to them all, cooing at them as if they were children, cutting off the occasional leaf to add to her odd-smelling mixtures. The shrubs would come alive in her presence, their leaves and petals growing as soon as she touched them with a restless finger. It was an incredible sight to witness. It also left him with an odd, inexplicable feeling in his chest.

He had asked, eventually, what her magic was. Her bizarre accent replied that she was a terraquae, controlling Earth matter itself, the fundamental atoms and its living beings. She’d said that she could influence the creatures that roamed the land, the birds that flew in the sky, and the flora that covered the deserted wasteland that their world had become.

He had asked her if all Witches were the same, but she had just giggled as if his question was amusing. 

“The sea belongs to the aquae,” she had responded, “the air belongs to the euruas. And fire, she can only be controlled by the ignis.”

He still didn’t really know what that meant, but he had simply shrugged it off – just another thing he didn’t understand. When he had asked if she could control him, she’d laughed and winked, walking away with a bounce in her step that he had never seen in her before.

It didn’t exactly fill him with much confidence, so he had told himself to keep an eye on her from then on.

They had settled into this small life quite well. It was comforting, safe, but there was still a small part of him that yearned for more. Some small tether that had seeped into his heart and was pulling desperately at him, making him crave to ascend to the surface, back to something that he knew he was missing. His Kingdom was out there, his wife was still out there, and he knew he had to somehow get back to them.

Even if it meant leaving the one person who had made him feel more welcomed than he had felt in months, and her infatuation of plants, behind.

- - -

Sofia had stopped by again, this time accompanied by the fierce Witch that he had seen at his first meeting with the dux magorum. He had been helping Abi to prepare some seeds for planting when they entered, a joyous call coming from the orange-haired Witch as she walked up to them.

Abi wiped her hands quickly on her trousers, turning around with her signature dazzling smile plastered to her face. Alaric looked away from her quickly, back to his soil-covered palms, as his heart thumped wildly in his chest. He could hear their conversation behind him, subdued voices as if they didn’t want him to hear. Not like it mattered much, considering he still didn’t understand a word of their language.

So why would they be hiding it from him? Why would their conversation matter to him? Unless it was something related to his Kingdom, his people, Arabella…

He turned around, face rising to look at the trio as they stood in a circle around one of the planters. Alaric cleared his throat. “Is there any news of my Kingdom?”

The three Witches stopped their conversation, their faces simultaneously turning to face him as if his interruption had surprised them. He stepped forward, deliberately not looking at Abi as he zeroed in on the caramel-skinned Witch whose name he still did not know. It seemed that she had the most influence out of the trio.

“I assume that’s what you’re talking about,” he continued. “Considering you’re too scared to talk about it in our shared language. Why else would you care if I overheard? Unless you're just worried that I'll do something to get myself out of here and back to them, something that could harm the coven...”

The Witch took the bait. She pounced at him, shouting, “How dare you!” An intense glare drilled into him, one that would have sent him six feet under, if looks had the capability to kill. Her hands lifted, pushing away from her body, and Alaric felt an invisible force shove into his chest. It took all his power to remain standing as he stumbled backwards into the planter behind him.

“Rosina!” Abi shouted, jumping in front of her friend before she could do more harm.

Rosina, a euruas, Alaric assumed, stopped. She looked down at the palm flattened to her chest, glaring its owner in the face for a tense moment before she let out a defeated sigh.

“Stop it,” Abi scolded, a sternness that Alaric had never heard from her before making an appearance. “He deserves to know.”

“Know what?” He asked frustratedly, “I’m tired of being kept in the dark here! What don’t I know? And why won’t you help us? You obviously know how to kill these things, so why not help us defeat them?”

“Because, meus rex,” Rosina jeered, “our kinds never tend to work together well, even when we were on good terms.”

“What do you mean?” Alaric probed, not missing the slip of language. He assumed it was some sort of insult.

“Rosina,” a mutter came from Sofia, her strange lilac eyes flashing a warning to the riled Witch. “Maybe we should let Imelda take it from here.”

“Fine,” Rosina said eventually, “I’ll have to ask her.” She paused, her near-black eyes scanning Alaric from head to toe in barely-concealed disgust, “Abi, stay here with our puer regem.”

Alaric watched as she left abruptly, the shorter Sofia following after her. His mind reeled at their unexpected conversation, but he was also glad that he was going to get some answers.

Now, it was just Abi and him, standing together in the company of her blossoming plants. There was silence for a moment, a semi-awkward one that Alaric found himself uncomfortable in, but soon it was broken by Abi’s throat clearing.

He turned to face her, green eyes taking in her flushed cheeks, her plump lips, her bright hazel eyes. Eyes that reminded him of Arabella.

“I’m sorry that she attacked you,” she said softly with her strange accent.

Alaric let a smile lift his cheeks, “it’s okay.” He replied, “I’m used to it.”

She moved to walk past him, dropping her head so that some of her brown hair covered her face. A curious feeling settled in his stomach as she went past him, and he suddenly had an urge to brush the stray strands behind her ear.

His heart sped up, so hard that it was like he could hear the pulsing in his ears. He don’t know what happened next, but his hand was suddenly clasped around her arm, and she had stopped at his side. Her face was lifted, looking pure and innocent as his eyes focused into her lower lip that was caught between her teeth.

The air was heavy around him, settling around the pair and trapping them in their own little world. He was stuck in the moment, just like his eyes were stuck on her reddened lips that seemed to taunt him and beckon him closer. Just a little closer, just to see what they would feel like against his own.

His thumb lifted, almost not of his own accord, and rubbed against it, pulling the abused skin out from between the abusing teeth. He felt and heard the rushed sigh of air escape her mouth, its warmth enveloping his thumb as she leaned in closer to him.

“So soft,” he muttered. It was like he was in a trance, one that he didn’t want to break free from. He could feel himself gravitating towards her.

He didn’t know how long they stayed that way: her hazel eyes wide as they stared into his, but it didn’t seem long enough before the two Witches were back. And then he finally let his eyes move from her tantalising hazels to their judging ones.

“She’s ready to see you,” Sofia broke the silence, offering him a quick smile that he was grateful for. He looked to Abi, who smiled at him as if that moment between them had never happened. And then he nodded, turning to the Air Witch that had remained standing in the doorway.

“Let’s go,” he said.