The Cursed Gift | B1 [EDITING]

01 | Barbarians Know No Mercy

Fourteen years later, in a flash of red hair flying across the village, the community's emergency sirens began going off in all directions.

The sound alone began bursting any eardrum in miles.

Pieces of debris were flying all over the place, narrowly missing women and children. A mass panic had begun throughout the tribe as everyone rushed themselves to safety.

Screams of pain fluttered in the air like a broken record.

War was coming and fair few survived a hell like it.

"Bring me those bowls of water!" The brunette healer shouted in a rush of panic as she attempted to aid the fallen witches and all their injuries that came with them.

For one person the job was nearly impossible, but her usual helper was mysteriously missing today.

Smoke filled the air as the flames grew around the healer's tent. The fire narrowly missed the tent and the people inside of it, leaving scorch marks around it in a perfect miracle circle.

"Asha!"

A cloth dabbed in water, being put on top of a woman's forehead. She had a scratch going across it, blood pouring from the cuts. A nasty gash that looked unfamiliar and painful.

"Asha, your daughter is missing!"

The woman with fair skin looked over, panic swirling in her brown eyes as she stared at Hestia.

"Who saw her last?"

"I did," came the strong voice of the young Aryan.

Alisa had long ago dubbed him 'Ace' for his perfect archery skills.

They spent a lot of time together growing up, making them almost something akin to friends.

But even then, witches didn't have things like friends. It was family in way that only recognised their own species, but the men and women weren't held in the same regard either.

An unbalanced world they had found themselves content in.

Nobody was equal in this community, for the males were believed to be anointed by the gods themselves.

Asha huffed, rolling her eyes as she mixed the herbs a little too roughly in annoyance.

"You two," she murmured to herself.

She did quietly hope though that he would choose her Alisa as his Witch Bride one day if they were spending so much time together.

It would be an honour to her ancestors and the generation of healers.

The Aryan hardly ever chose a bride from the lower rank of witches. They preferred someone of higher class which assured a powerful witch bride to birth a truly remarkable heir.

Their traditions were simple but clear.

Emerson shook her head, putting herbs down in an empty bowl.

"They're always getting in trouble," she whispered, a smirk peeking through her lips.

Her dark-skin glowed with sweat as she broke the herbs into little pieces and then began mixing them together, slowly and calculatedly.

"Pipe down, young girl," Asha said disapprovingly as she looked back at Ace.

"Find her before we lose her," she instructed Ace with worry lacing her voice.

In a second, Asha had taken the bowl of herbs off Emerson and then promptly began to feed them to the woman lying on the buffalo skin.

After another moment, Asha began chanting quietly to herself.