The Faerie Witch

Chapter 10: My World

BELLA

Last night I slept much more peacefully than I had in the past few weeks. It felt good to not have to lie to the Cullens anymore. But they were all still curious to learn more, naturally. I decided that Ben would meet Charlie in the evening and we'll stay at his place tonight. For now, it was storytime.

The Cullens were all seated in the living room. Jasper and Alice were on the couch, Alice on Jasper's lap. Emmett and Rosalie were sitting on the floor with Emmett's arms around Rosalie. Carlisle, Esme and Ben just pulled up chairs from the kitchen and I settled myself on Edward's lap on the loveseat. When everyone was ready, I began.

"So around 1850 years ago, Renee was born in the heart of our kingdom, Ithaca. She loved to travel and met Charlie on one such excursion to faraway lands in our kingdom. They just clicked together from the moment they laid eyes on each other. Their parents hardly approved of the match but they fought till the end and finally got married. After their divorce, Charlie came to Forks. Having the wizard genes he still is immortal like us. Every few years or so, we would send someone here to wipe off all memories of Charlie people ever had so that he could stay in Forks and not have to move. All my life I've lived in my world apart from the occasional visits to the mortal world to meet Charlie. And yes, before you ask, witches don't live as vampires do in this world. There is a whole entire universe where we can only go through a special portal. I'll take you all there soon. Anyways, when I was about 300 years old, Renee met Phil and they got married. Phil came from a powerful magical family and was a good soldier and thus was the Chief Commander. Later though Ben came along. It was one of my happiest memories when I saw him for the first time. He can be very annoying at times but we grew very close over time. 

There are other kingdoms apart from ours and we have had conflicts with them from time to time. Most of those resulted in war and bloodshed but we've always emerged victorious. I've myself fought in 2 of the most savage wars in our history. Ben fought in the latter of the 2. He was too young to fight in the first war. I remember the number of people we lost, the number of families which would never be the same again but we survived. Both wars were fought for the same reasons. The others Kings and Queens were power-hungry. And also because they did not like our beliefs about other species. They've always thought highly of themselves thinking no other species is more powerful than them. They were arrogant. During the first war, they tricked us into believing they wanted to reunite our two kingdoms and wanted to re-establish the relationship our kingdoms had eons ago. We agreed naturally and had their diplomats visit Ithaca. But they turned out to be spies giving away information about our armies to their kingdom, Vacamia. We captured them as soon as we found out. This angered the king of Vacamia and he waged war on us.

The second time however Asgard and Vacamia joined hands and attacked us much less inconspicuously than before. They intentionally lead our spies on false trails and information. How they found out about our spies, we don't know but with the false information that there was no threat, we had become a little complacent. They attacked us at night when we were least prepared. We had the worst casualties at the beginning of the war when we were unprepared. But after that, we soon turned the tables on them and emerged victorious. Word spread around fast. We singlehandedly had defeated the 2 most powerful magical kingdoms after ours. This was enough warning to others who might have been planning to wage war against us.

We have not had any other major wars after that in our world. But this wasn't the case for others worlds. People started fearing us, fearing our power and many sought to be allied with us. One of them was the faeries. Even though their lands are completely separate from our world, they had heard of our conquests. Most of them were ones who had no care for human lives. They treated them as vermin and pests. Human slaves in wealthy Fae households was custom back then. But there were some kingdoms, different from others. People who cared about human lives. One such kingdom was Prythian. Wars were fought in their world too and eventually, they won. They created The Wall. The magic used was very advanced. The mortals lived to the south of the wall and the Fae lived towards the north. Mortal lives were still miserable in the south but there wasn't much the Fae could do since according to the treaty they were forbidden to cross into the mortal lands. Centuries passed, and with them passed the second-hand stories of the war in the mortal world. The mortals began to fear the Fae. No one would even dare step near the wall apart from a few who thought of the Fae as Gods. In the faerie lands, however, losing human slaves, people put down the lesser faeries and they were regarded as lower than the High Fae. It is similar to the caste system here in this mortal world.

Hybern, a neighbouring kingdom, went through huge losses in the war. Their means of livelihood which included mortal slave trading was stopped now. As one would assume, Hybern perished. But the king was adamant. He knew someday he would get his slaves back after destroying Prythian. The lowly life people lived in those centuries of wait stirred in them the inspiration to fight against Prythian. Finally, the time came for Hybern to attack. He sent one of his most trusted soldiers, Amarantha into Prythian pretending to want to have diplomatic discussions with the High Lords. Prythian is divided into seven courts and each court is ruled upon by their High Lord, who is High Fae. Amarantha destroyed all the courts, seized control of the High Lords and all hope was lost. Only one way to break the curse but it was unsuccessful. A mortal who killed a Fae was to fall in love with the high lord of the spring court and declare her love for him. But she was scared. The deadline came closer but even though she fell in love, she wasn't ready to say it yet. The faeries were prohibited to tell her what to do by magic. In the end, Feyre, the mortal died saving Prythian and killing Amarantha. The High Lords knew they couldn't let her die and made her.

Turns out she was not meant to be with Tamlin, High Lord of the Spring Court. The High Lord of the Night Court, Rhysand was her mate. After lots of misunderstandings, Tamlin betrayed Feyre and Rhys rescued her. By now Hybern had made its move. The war happened, the one in which they needed our help. Their armies were very small, seeing as how Amarantha killed so many soldiers during her time there. We won the war but were unable to save the wall from falling. At the end of this war, I was dying. The High Lords saved me. We've been allies since then.

We returned to our world. We have met them on occasion. A few decades after the war, I wanted to enjoy a normal life, at least for a little while so I came here. The rest is history.", I grinned as I said the last line. The Cullens were literally gawking at me and Ben, too shocked to even try to hide their gaping.

Ben and I did not say anything for a while, letting it all sink in. A while later, I felt Edward's hands tighten around me and I leaned back a little. This must be hard on him too, he could never stand the idea of me in danger. I moved my hands through his hair to calm him down.

Finally, Jasper spoke, "Wow Bella! That was just...wow." I had never seen Jasper quite so speechless before. Even Emmett couldn't think of anything to say. I explained a few more details about the story which weren't necessary but I thought would fascinate them.

However, I conveniently forgot to mention the mating process, which was really similar for witches and wizards as it was for the Fae...for now. I would tell Edward later when we were alone. The truth was that the mating bond had snapped into place the day Edward finally told me that he was a vampire. I had suspicions before but I had never met golden-eyed vampires before so I wasn't sure if they were vampires or not. But back to the mating bond, I have occasionally felt his emotions through the bond. I was careful to keep my shields up more meticulously since then. He could only know about the mating bond after he knew my secret. I would tell him tonight, I decided...

(End of chapter 10)