It was disorienting to wake up and feel the intensity of demonic magic emanating from all directions, I had awoken on high alert, pressing out with my own will against the perceived threat, heart pounding in my ears. Once my senses cleared and the memory of the night prior came flooding back, I relaxed, sending my will spiraling back into my core and leaving just enough to keep as an equalizer against the inherent demonic pressure in the realm. I looked over to Mistra, she was still calmly asleep next to me, it had been a very late night trying to sort out exactly what we could do as damage control. Much to my dismay, we had not been able to reach any solutions, it seemed that there was going to be a whole lot of hurry up and wait involved. The demons were not in a position to simply call up their army and take the fae head on and none of their alliances would be so quick to toss their assistance our way either, we needed time to strengthen and convince alliances as well as our own resources.

I crawled out of bed so as to not wake my consort. Her presence in the morning was comforting, but I felt like I needed time with my own thoughts, I needed time to process and begin to digest the horrific blow to my queendom. For the second time in my life my rights as a monarch had been taken from me, though I had to admit that this instance stung less. I found it easier to accept that I had been invaded and taken over, that didn’t invalidate my claim to the throne, these things happened to even the most powerful of monarchs. Though it was easier to swallow, that did not make it comfortable or acceptable and I could not yet quell the boiling anger in the pit of my stomach. I took my time pulling a comb through my hair and washing, deep in thought about everything that had transpired. By the time I was ready for my day, I felt a spark of my usual self, though it was understandably subdued.

“Up already?” Busby said gruffly, he was the only one sitting down to a meal as I entered. “It’s only been a few hours since we gave up and went to rest.”

I sat at the head of the table and rang the small bell next to the place setting, alerting a servant that a royal was desiring a meal. “Has it? I seem to have no sense of time in this realm and peeking out the window does no good.”

The demon realm’s night and day cycle were different from human’s, their sun rose and fell too quickly, and what I would typically call a day in my realm would easily be at least two here. Mistra had tried to explain how she kept track of the time difference and how to approximate how much time as I knew it had passed while in the realm, but it still didn’t make much sense to my innate sense of time progression. The issue never seemed important enough to devote any real time to understanding until now.

“Indeed. I understand your inability to sleep however, I can’t seem to find rest either.” He paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, eyes distant, then shook his head and took the bite.

“What is bothering you?”

“I should have sensed what the girl was capable of.” His eyes laid to rest on me, looking miserable. “I feel responsible for not doing what I was literally trained to do: seek and identify magical potential. I knew her magic was wild and unruly, but I couldn’t place exactly why, it was nothing I had ever seen before.”

“If you hadn’t seen it before, then how could you know?” I offered. Anyone else and I would have been less inclined to be gentle with about such breach, but out of everyone in my life far, I had certainly spent most of my formative years in his care. He wasn’t quite a parental figure, but something akin to a close family member. “You had said yourself that you needed her to be in the care of someone else because you were at a loss with how to proceed. That was done and it was no longer your responsibility to determine the path from there, you did your part, Feros did not.”

Busby growled at the name, but then sighed through his nose. “I never did trust him, there is something insidious about his power, it’s too well hidden from everyone else, there’s something about it that he doesn’t want anyone to know about. I don’t dislike him on a personal level though, as much as I want to be furious at him, there’s something about him that prevents me from flat out condemning him.” He raised an aged hand and scratched the top of his head, then laid the silver hairs back into place. “I think Evonia would have liked him, it’s probably part of it.”

“I could see that,” I said, “in some ways their humor is the same. Still no excuse for his lack of judgment.”

“Not at all.” Busby cast a small smile at the demon servant who appeared with a plate piled high with the exotic and often overly rich meats of the realm.

I ate in silence, doing my best to regally work my way through the greasy plate as I tried to further process everything that was happening. Busby finished his own meal while I contemplated, then sat back and made it clear that he was waiting for me to finish, but was not trying to rush me. I appreciated his desire to stick around, seeing him in a mirror image of the castle Yser brought a small bit of normalcy despite the wrongness of the magical atmosphere and the demonic idea of decoration.

“My queen, may I have a moment?”

It was Feros in the doorway and it was immediately suspicious that he complied with any typical formalities. I glanced at him and let out a huff, pushing my plate away. I didn’t particularly want to see the fiend at the moment, but he knew that so if he was daring to catch my attention it meant he might have something important to tell me.

“Whatever you have to say, you can say it here,” I answered, crossing my utensils over the plate to signifiy I was finished. “I’m starting to think that any conversation we may have from here on out needs to have a third party present.”

Feros glanced over to Busby and gave him a big, toothy grin. “Busby? I think that’s a fine idea, I would like his input anyway. I have caught wind that he had been setting up a tutor to help guide you through elemental fire.”

“Indeed I have,” Busby replied, “Toria was preparing to make a trip here to meet with him soon.”

“In the interest of getting a jump start on that training, I am versed well enough in elemental fire to get started right now.”

“You seem to be having difficulties working with human students,” I said, “why should I trust you any further with them?”

The fiend let out a low chuckle and put his hands on his hips. “That is a fair shot at me, perhaps you shouldn’t, but you also know that I have a depth of knowledge that is invaluable right now. If you take a moment and consider what I know, you may find it important that I think I should jump start your elemental training right now.”

I raised an eyebrow and tilted my head to the side. “Are you withholding information again and hinting without telling?”

“Toria, I think in the time it would take me to sit down and explain to you exactly why it is vital we get your training up right now, we could already be making a lot of progress and getting you prepared sooner. Time is of the essence and at the end if it turns out knowing the information ahead of time is more important than the actual training I will walk myself to the gallows under my own free will.”

Looking to Busby, he had a small frown on his face, but shrugged.

“If it helps make up your mind, for your first bit of training I am planning on having you throw fireballs at me.”

That did sweeten the deal just enough to get me to rise from my chair and motion for Busby to follow. Down in the training room, Feros had already set up several torches that were burning intensely with a flame that seemed to be fire, but threw off no shadows and made no sound. I felt drawn to it, stepping close to the torch closest to the entrance to the room and reaching out to swirl my hand over the very tips of the flame. It did not singe me, but instead I felt a crackle of power and energy sweep through my hand, down my arm, and along my spine, raising all the hairs on my body. Given that it did not harm me and still called out for my touch, I plunged my hand into the center of the flame and felt euphoria wash over me, my eyes threatening to completely roll into the back of my head. The essence of the flame flowed into the very veins of my hand and began to pulsate through my arm and travel around my body with every pump of my heart. The process felt like it was adding something I had been meaning to have my entire life but had been missing, that it was filling a missing piece of my magical potential.

“That was quick,” Feros tittered with glee.

As the flame made a complete circuit through my blood, it began to expand from my veins, seeping into the very fibers that made up my body and reached deep into my core, searching for my well of power. My body felt electrified and I felt paralyzed with anticipation as the flame searched, swirling around and shifting until it hummed against my my magical core. The flame caressed along the surface of my magical potential, then plunged inside, forcing a deep sigh from my lips as a feeling of wholeness and unification spread through me. Then all at once the sensation of the roaming flame was gone and I was left feeling much as I had before, but with a sense that my powers were stronger than ever.

“I knew she would take to it-”

I turned and willed to the flame within me, beckoning it to my hand where it gladly manifested and rose in power, expanding to be a ball of silent flame bigger than my head. Without warning I flung the flame directly at Feros’ face, not holding back on my desire to have it hit it’s mark. Feros cut off his words as a sparkling, translucent barrier rose around him, blocking my attack and causing it to splash around his face and dissipate. Feeling a bit better after the first, I manifested more elemental fire, flinging them one after the other at Feros until his barrier was awash with flames. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to break through, the fiend was just too powerful in comparison, but it was incredibly cathartic. I continued until I felt the flame in my core waver and I stopped to rest, I didn’t want to use up the reserve in case it was a finite resource. I was pleased to see that when the flames had cleared, the fiend’s eyebrows were singed and the floor where the fire had rolled down to was blackened.

“I deserved that,” he admitted.