How To Burn A Witch |DISCONTINUED|

Chapter 7

A few days prior to their conversation with Nehir, Aether was walking through the corridors of the school with Edgar who had been asking them about their hobbies when they saw her.

Aether's head whirled around as they noticed a dark-skinned girl with golden-brown eyes, long raven hair and the scent of rosemary. The witch Nehir had described to them.

They froze and watched as she walked past Aether and Edgar, the former unable to do anything as the girl walked past them. Please, Alev, the witch she had been talking about can't be you, Aether begged internally. A saddened expression on their face.

Please don't let it be you. The two briefly made eye contact, Alev seemed shocked while Aether tried to conceal their horror. Neither of them said anything and hoped their eyes were deceiving them. When Aether blinked, Alev was gone.

A hand waved in front of Aether's face, startling them, "Hey, Empyrion to Aether," Edgar said, continuing to wave his hand in front of Aether's face, causing them to chuckle and grab his wrist to make him stop. "What were you staring at?" the boy looked in the direction Aether's gaze was previously glued on and tried to find something that would cause the individual to stare like that.

"Sorry, sorry, I wasn't listening." they apologized, "Could you repeat what you said one more time?" Edgar let out a small chuckle and plastered a kind smile onto his face, watching as Aether fiddled with a small piece of round glass that looked like a singular blue eye.

"Would. You. Like. To. Get. Coffee. Some. Time?" said Edgar, amusement dancing in his eyes. Aether blushed and nodded.

"Great!" Their answer seemed to have lifted Edgar's spirit which caused a small smile to form on Aether's lips, brightening their mood for the rest of the day after their encounter with a certain witch.

✵ ✵ ✵

Nehir sat in her dorm, cramming her head with her studies, periodically looking at the clock sitting on her wall. Can time pass by any slower? She would have to get ready to hunt with Dame Marion soon.

She jumped out of her seat and did a little dance, excited for the events that would happen in mere hours. Tonight was going to be the last night anyone would call her "Recrue Yeniçeri" tonight, she'd graduate and earn her tattoos. The week after, she'd receive her new name, the one she'd go by when hunting.

"I wonder what kind of name Headmistress Lucille will give me," she mumbled to herself, opening her copy of The Science Behind Witchcraft and reading the assigned bit.

Magic, or 'Nima' as elder witches call it, is a set of connections throughout the body that look almost identical to the human body's nervous system.

Though it is extremely complex to explain how the Nima System in one's body works, it is agreed by scholars worldwide that every individual has Nima.

The only difference between humans and Sentient Folk (that can use Nima or 'Magic') is their ability to manipulate it.

For humans, Nima is merely their life force, the very essence of their soul and they have so little of it that they cannot control it.

There have been some exceptions to this, of course, as witches have started to rise one by one after an unidentified woman supposedly sold her soul to the Kazmeralki in exchange for information on how to control Nima ( but that is mere speculation and religious banter and should thus not be taken seriously.)

Humans who can manipulate Nima by cheating the laws of nature are called 'Witches' and their practices, currently unexplainable by science, have been recognized as taboo and punishable by death in all but two nations: Amavros and Barika.