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Chapter 16

It was a blue moon. Sephtis suddenly didn't feel well. He coughed. He felt as if he was being cut by multiple blades at once, though there was none in the room. He quickly stood up from his sitting position and ran to a corner of the cave he was staying in. He leaned against the cold stone wall and willed the strange pain he felt to go away. He coughed twice more, and his head started to spin. Am I sick? Dying? How did this happen?

But Sephtis was fine. The coughing stopped and the strange feeling went away. It's over?

Suddenly, it appeared again, briefly, but this time it was a sharp, burning pain that shot through him. He felt as if he was being stabbed by a thousand daggers. He coughed once more, but this time a strange, sandy, black liquid fell off of Sephtis, first covering him, then falling off. This process repeated multiple times, every time he coughed, and each time sending a wave of sharp pain through Sephtis. He dropped to his hands and knees. Am I dying?

Suddenly, it stopped. A wide black puddle, covered with what appeared to be mist, lay in the ground in front of Sephtis. Sephtis felt different. As if something was missing. He tried to stand, but only succeeded in rising a few inches, as he collapsed on the ground once more. He glared at the puddle. He was thirsty, but somehow he knew he couldn't drink the liquid in front of him.

As Sephtis watched, the strange, mysterious pool of water began to rise. It looked as if it was made of smoke, and yet it was in the form of something. Or rather, someone.

Sephtis watched in horror as the figure continued to grow and grow until it towered above him. Then the image sharpened.

It was definitely a person. A woman, it seemed. Thin, straight, long black hair went down to the ground. A thin, beak-like nose and thin lips formed under wide, dark eyebrows and eyes that looked like dark voids in the black smoke. She was beautiful, yet she wasn't.

Again, Sephtis attempted to rise, but the gravity in the room shifted, pushing him down once more. Sephtis was briefly distracted from his pain by his confusion. How is that possible? Only my powers can do that. It's not possible. Unless...

The dark eyes switched to Sephtis. A grim smile crept across her face, and long, razor sharp teeth could be seen, with two abnormally long canines protruding out of her mouth. Fangs.

"Ah, Sephtis." The figure's voice was eerie and sinister. The S's were all elongated, as if a snake had said it. Just the voice was enough to send shivers down Sephtis's spine. He could make his own voice plenty scary, but it couldn't compare to the figure's natural voice. He was quite sure he knew who the figure was. But he didn't want to believe it.

"How are you, my dear?" the woman asked, but it didn't sound like a question. More of a threat. She knelt down and put her hand on his shoulder. Her hand was colder than ice. Her eyes looked into Sephtis' and he could sense the frozen, merciless heart that lay inside.

Sephtis was too afraid to answer. For he knew who it was. It was Vespara.

A frown crossed across Vespara's face, and her smile faded. Her tone lost any sense of friendliness that it had held before. She grabbed Sephtis' hair and yanked him upwards. Sephtis cried out, feeling as if his hair was getting yanked out of his head.

"Answer me when I talk to you, you insolent child!" Vespara roared, her voice echoing around the small cave, which only served in making her voice more menacing. "Why have you not been able to kill them yet!?"

"I'm trying-"

"No, I don't think you are! You're too afraid of those weak humans! I didn't pick you just so you could hide in a cave and defy me!"

"I'll do better-"

"I hope you do. Because if you are so weak as to defy me and fail to kill those weaklings, then I'll leave you to your primitive human senses to survive in this merciless world."

Sephtis' eyes widened with fear. His powers were what he lived for. He couldn't imagine life without being able to make others see what wasn't real, and to control gravity and cause havoc. He relied on it to be strong.

"But what if I don't want-"

"If you don't want to kill them, or if you get any ideas about joining them, then I'll destroy you then and there, before you can walk three paces."

Sephtis sensed that there was something new added to the plan. He sensed that they weren't just going to take over the world. There was something else, something Vespara wasn't telling him. But he didn't have the strength to stand up to her. And he couldn't live without his powers. "Okay. I'll kill the Elementals. I promise."

"Good."

Sephtis gave a sigh of relief. But it was a moment too soon.

"But remember, Sephtis," came Vespara's sinister voice once more.

Sephtis' face fell.

"If you don't kill them before the next blue moon, I'll leave you then. I'll leave you wherever you were when the moon rose over the horizon. And I'll choose somebody else. Somebody who isn't weak and pathetic and insolent like you."

Sephtis was frozen with fear. He could hardly feel the pain in his head, where Vespara was holding him by his hair, because of the feeling of sheer terror that engulfed him.

"You're lucky I didn't leave you tonight. This blue moon was too short for me to speak with you and leave."

Sephtis shuddered.

"Now goodbye, Sephtis. Until the next... blue moon." As Vespara dissipated and funnelled back into Sephtis, her cackling echoed around the cave, ringing in Sephtis' ears.

Sephtis could feel his power returning. It felt good to have it back. But now, for the first time in his life, he was afraid. He was afraid of Vespara. And he was afraid of himself.

Sephtis set out, quickly gathering his cronies from across Zenaria. He put a black cloth over his nose and mouth to cover the fangs that were beginning to grow there. He had no wish to be viewed as a monster by the outside world. Yes, he enjoyed tormenting them. But he wasn't sure if he could handle two hundred angry people, villagers with shovels or not, coming at him thinking that he was a creature they needed to destroy. So he thought that it would be better if he didn't have huge fangs that automatically identified him as some sort of evil spirit.

Little by little, day by day, Sephtis became more like Vespara, in every quality. In both the way he looked and his personality. He hadn't had much empathy as a person, but what little was left was slowly fading away into the background as Vespara's hatred took its place in his heart.

"My lord!" Felton came into the room. Sephtis made all his cronies call him "my lord" as a honorific title.

"What is it?" Sephtis asked in annoyance. He was sitting in a wide chair, his long legs swung over the arm. He had been thinking about what the best strategy to defeat the Elementals might be.

"We've found the Elementals!" Felton exclaimed excitedly.

Sephtis sat up suddenly. He did so with such enthusiasm that the chair tipped over onto the floor.

Sephtis hurriedly picked himself up off the floor, not bothering to put the chair upright again. He ran for the door and grabbed a black cloak off a pole that was inserted into the ground.

He swung the cloak around his shoulders and pulled the hood up over his head.

"Where are they?"

"In a large open space in the Cascade mountains, sire."

"All right then. Lead the way."

As Sephtis rode behind Felton on his jet-black Zarity, a creature with four legs that galloped as fast as the wind, he slid his long dagger out of its scabbard. He admired it. It had a crimson hilt and a silver pommel. The blade itself was razor-sharp and gleamed as the light of the sun reflected off of it. It was silver with little engravings, carved in another language, written upon it.

I quite fancy the idea of 'Two birds with one stone'. Or rather, 'Two people with one dagger'. A mischievous smile spread across Sephtis' face. Andrea is the last one of that batch. The other Elementals I can get rid of with my sword. But for Andrea, I'd rather use the dagger.

"What are you so happy about, my lord?" Felton asked, curious as always.

"Keep your nose in your own business and your mouth shut!" Sephtis snapped. "Or suffer the consequences," he hissed.

Felton hurriedly stopped speaking. So intense. Sheesh. He was wise enough not to voice the thought. But Felton could sense a change in Sephtis. The way that Sephtis spoke was different from before, and so was the way that he walked. Before, Sephtis would occasionally engage in chitchat. He was scarier this way, and more untrustworthy. Felton was starting to wonder if it was safe to continue working for Sephtis. Thoughts of Sephtis being a demon had already entered and exited his mind several times. But only now he was starting to believe it. 

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