Please Take the Drug’s Warning Label Seriously
That smile—
What does that mean?
Burn blinked, provoked by it. They only had met five times from his perspective, once to her, including today, but she could stir him this far.
Him!
Then, with just a flicker of her gaze, sharper than the edge of Burn's sword and more potent than any spell inscribed on those now-quivering scrolls, she shattered the magical chains.
With those eyes!
The scrolls, those paper tigers that had dared to confine her, crumbled into dust.
“Ahh, those were expensive…” Burn muttered, recalling how they were at least five circled spell scrolls. “But I’m not a stupid man who thinks that those spells could bind someone who can regress time.”
SLASH!
Unsheathe his spare sword, he did.
There was artistry in his method, a sort of precision as he went about the task of ensuring the woman before him would no longer be participating in any form of running—or, frankly, any activity that required limbs.
But also ensuring her not to lose too much blood.
“Apologies for the inconvenience,” he quipped, though his tone suggested he was anything but apologetic. “But to stop you from running, or killing yourself, this must be done.”
With her now rendered as mobile as a particularly decorative rock diamond, Burn proceeded to the pièce de résistance of his plan…
A truth serum.
“Bought this from an outsider merchant. Swore it was the finest in all the realms. Let’s hope it’s more effective than my décor spell scrolls, shall we?”
“AH! GKGH!”
They said, this serum was a concoction so potent it could make a mime spill his deepest secrets. Don’t know if that was just a merchant’s sweet talk, but might as well try.
He force-fed it to the woman.
“Down the hatch,” Burn threatened.
Glug!
Glug…glugh!
Kgh!
The man sighed as he grabbed the woman’s tongue with his fingers, preventing her from biting into it to kill herself with shock.
Warm.
Wet.
Soft.
Gorgeous.
“Now, let’s chat,” he continued, settling down before her, ready to unpack years of bottled-up issues.
“My fair lady, don’t be scared,” even though Burn didn’t see any fear reflecting in her azure eyes, he still worded it out. “I am mad, but I am not crazy. Yet.”
“Tell me, what did you do to me? What kind of spell is this?”
Burn calmly asked, seeing how the truth serum began to weave its invisible threads around her. He let go of her tongue and…
She chuckled.
“How many times have you returned?” she began, her words floating to Burn's ears, as if carried by the gentle breeze of dawn.
Burn’s eyes faltered.
What?
“Looking at your reaction, it must’ve been a lot,” she smiled so sweetly, Burn was unable to even tell if it was dream or reality.
This woman…
“You made this spell, yet you didn’t know—”
“Well, it wasn’t a perfect spell,” the woman sighed. “A time loop, paid with my very own soul. Each time I die before you… the loop resets, pulling you back to the start.”
“Before you can take everything away from me…” she whispered.
Everything spewed out of her mouth was devoid of any defiance, yet imbued with a strange tranquility. A resignation to her fate? Yes, and also yearning. And madness.
Her voice, though soft, carried the very essence of her being. It entwined itself with the spell. Sorrow. Pain. Hatred.
"You're wondering why I've trapped you in a time loop? Without an escape…?" she inquired gently. "My dear Villain, it’s a curse.”
“You are now Witchbound. With me."
GASP!
KGH!
AH!
The witch began to react to the truth serum weirdly.
HAHAHAHA!
Laughter erupted from her, hysteria and mania, blending into one.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH—HAHAHAHAhahahahaha…!" she cackled.
Burn… you did… read the drug’s warning label, right?
“I did. But I need her to speak, so I pour everything in.”
Fuck, man, you cruel! Isn’t she your favorite witch?!
“She is.”
The witch convulsed, screaming and rambling, her long nails tearing her own delicate, fair skin.
“Let’s… die!”
With only her voice, pronouncing the world's most horrid magic word, she cast a spell of the sort that really brings down the house—or, in this case, her head.
BLAAAAAAST!
Burn hadn’t even registered what happened when he saw her head emulating a gruesome firework. He didn’t know a head could explode like tha—
***
BLINK!
Chirp…! Chirp chirp…
Rustle…
KNOCK-KNOCK!
“Your Majesty, the preparation for the war is complete.”
As Galahad stepped into the room, he found Emperor Burn perched on the edge of his bed.
Blue balled.
It was indeed a splendid morning outside, but here, within these four magnificent walls, he realized.
The problem was himself.
Exhaustion clung to him, heavy, making Galahad wonder, "What epic tale of woe could he be brooding over now?"
“Galahad, get me in contact with our assassin organization.”
“Y-Your Majesty? There’s someone you want to kill?!”
“Yes,” Burn thought about it already.
The woman’s identity… as he remembered what she said about the spell, “Each time I die before you… the loop resets, pulling you back to the start.”
“Before you can take everything away from me…”
She was someone who wanted something to change—before the war. Before “he can take everything away from her.”
A woman who was able to create a time spell, albeit not perfect. A woman who was able to hide herself from the public eye with her face not easily recognizable despite how strikingly beautiful she was.
Morgan of the Fairy. The Infinite Witch.
***
In the Kingdom of Edensor, known to the envious and the admirers alike as the Heaven's Sun, prosperity was basically a bragging right.
Blessed with bountiful seas and lands that practically begged to be farmed, Edensor thrived like a socialite in the spotlight.
At the helm were the kingdom's celebrity power couple. A king whose political acumen could outmaneuver chess grandmasters, and a queen whose intellect and courtly innovations were the stuff of legend.
Their reign truly made neighboring kingdoms feel inadequately managed.
The king, with his Midas touch in politics, navigated the treacherous waters of diplomacy like he was born in a diplomatic pouch rather than a royal crib. The queen, on the other hand, was the brains behind initiatives so forward-thinking, historians would later suspect she had a crystal ball.
Tragically, this golden era was bookmarked by an ellipsis. It was an abrupt pause rather than a graceful end.
The king, in a twist that not even he could have politically outmaneuvered, succumbed to an illness just outside the palace gates. So close to home yet as unreachable as a commoner's dream of the throne. He died so abruptly like a cliffhanger in a season finale, leaving subjects and narratives hanging.
The queen, upon hearing the news, was so engulfed in shock that her body betrayed her in the cruelest manner conceivable.
The miscarriages she suffered thereafter were like nature's insensitive way of adding insult to injury, leading to her demise through blood loss. A loss as metaphorical as it was literal.
Fate, having penned a tale of prosperity, decided to jump into tragedy, thinking perhaps the genre shift might add depth to Edensor's history.
Thankfully, they left behind a legacy. No, not in the form of scrolls or gold… but a five-year-old prince.
A boy now tasked with the crown, a symbol that suddenly seemed too heavy, the throne too large, and the royal shoes too vast to fill.
The kingdom, which had basked in the warmth of Heaven's Sun, now found itself under a gathering storm, its beacon lights extinguished too soon.
But then, a footstool emerged.
Climbing the throne, a task Herculean in its impossibility for our pint-sized crown prince, suddenly became achievable, all thanks to this lowly assistant. Imagine the scene of a child king, his royal bottom hoisted atop the throne by the medieval equivalent of a step ladder.
And this footstool had a name.
Morgan Le Fay, the Infinite Witch, known in some circles as the au pair of arcane arts, suddenly decided that playing guardian to a boy king was just the kind of side gig to break the monotony of immortality.
With her support, our little crown prince was now metaphorically lifted and also literally elevated to kingship at the tender age of seven.
Fast forward five years, and the plot thickens. Or rather, the plotter vanishes.
Morgan Le Fay was nowhere to be found.
No. Ever since the great invasion three years ago, where the crack appeared on the sky of Nethermere, she was gone.
And that boy king... was the random boy he killed. Yep. The one I talked about in the story's blurb too.
“I don’t care how, find her, and kill her,” Burn declared. His voice was cold as the glance he tossed to the guild leader kneeling before him. "You have three years. No, scratch that, make it before three years’ time."
The assassin guild leader, a person more accustomed to the shadows than the spotlight of royal attention, blinked slowly, absorbing the weight of this decree. Killing the immortal witch?
Apparently, their faceless sponsor had a beef with such a legendary figure!
"Your wish is as good as done," he replied. Confident was a word for it, but this bordered on audacity. Internally, though, a thought flickered. 'Easier said than done, Your Majesty.'
This was not just another contract. It was THAT Morgan Le Fay!
"Whatever you require. Resources, magic scrolls, or even the latest, most exorbitant technology the outsiders have, I'll ensure it's at your disposal. Kill her."
The guild leader's eyes glimmered with hope. Surely he'd die if he refuse, so, thankfully, this tyrant was considerate enough to make sure they succeed!
Of course, now he would succeed, right?
Burn narrowed his eyes. Very skeptical...
