APPLE WITCH (girlxgirlxgirl)

41. De-Crowning

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⚠️ gruesome death, gruesome murder, descriptive violence, narrated detailed slaughter, nauseatingly specific descriptions⚠️

Adar finds it quite odd when his heart feels as if it had turned to stone, like someone throwing water on running lava. But he brushes it off, thinking it was mere pain of the heart when he sees Saint being hit by his father, knowing that the only man he will ever love is going to die in a matter of minutes. It's like his heart that was previously warm and fluttery, is suddenly overtaken by the coldness of a stormy winter, dark and quiet. It feels heavier too, like a stone frozen inside the thick ice that covers the lakes in the cold months of the year.

But really it doesn't matter, not when he has to worry about Saint.

The emperor starts walking towards them and he tries to focus, he really does. His eyes follow the old vampire as he sends him the deadliest glare he can muster, along with the rest of his friends. But with every second that passes, his panic and anger spreads from his heart to the rest of his body. Adar continues to focus his anger on the emperor, he tries to listen to what he and Melora are talking about but somewhere along the line their voices become weird and hard to hear. It is as if he is suddenly covered by a pile of snow, muffled, finding it hard to breathe, cold all over. And once his breath turns cold and foggy, Adar realises that he no longer can just brush this off as nothing. His breathing is cold for real, this is actually happening, and whatever is going on it's making him zone out big time.

"Melora"

"Adar, whatever you are doing, stop it"

It is only then that he properly realises that Hilda and Melora can feel his odd energy too. Melora sounds angry, stressed, worried. She leans away from Adar in hopes of not being affected by his coldness, and Hilda quickly does the same. Adar tries to snap out of it but it's like his vision is focused inwards, the outside world being hard to reach. He can see his magic river, the one all witches have and try to awaken. It's frozen in ice, just like always. It has always been frozen in ice and he has never managed to figure out how to break it free. How to awaken his magic. But now there are cracks, everywhere in the ice there are cracks, huge ones, small ones, and Adar swears he can feel it shake and push and grind against each other. He doesn't know what is going on but he does know that his pure hatred for the emperor is causing it to break, and every time that he thinks about that old bastard the process quickens.

"I'll break you free if you kill him"

He surprises himself by those words, not having said them himself. It is as if his magic is controlling him, his voice sounding much deeper and unfamiliar to his own ears. The hatred has taken a new form, gained consciousness, and a will. It wants the emperor dead, and it knows that Melora is the only one who can kill him. Adar feels nervous, but his own emotions are pushed aside to make room for the magic. The cracks continue to form, some parts separating, showing the ice cold water underneath. He feels the coldness spread to his entire body, all the way to the tips of his fingers. But although it is cold, he doesn't feel chilly at all. In fact, he feels like a firework, bursting with power. It is unlike anything he has ever felt before.

"You can kill him, can't you? I know you can"

Because Melora and Hilda have been the only two seasonal witches with unlocked magic, they have never managed to see any kind of pattern in the seasonal witch powers. But Adar begins to see it now. It is as if his own magic is showing it to him. Hilda, the one who uses power from the inside. Melora, the one who uses power from the outside. Spring and autumn, opposites yet the same. One brings summer, one brings winter, both are transitory stages. Winter, summer, polar opposites and yet the same, both with seasons that have a purpose, to either protect or help growth. One with the power of cold from the inside, brought by autumn, and the other with heat from the outside, brought by spring. And as Adar begins to understand, as the powers finally become familiar and the ice within him breaks, the nervousness disappears in an instant.