Chapter 2 Amara Meets Cernon

• Five years later…
• “Mom, will you come to the coven to see me? It’s my spring break. I don’t get to see you much nowadays. You keep travelling with Dads, and if you’re not traveling, you are hanging out with Willow and Freida. you don’t even spend time with me anymore,” Amara protested over the phone.
• “Stop complaining, Amara. You will soon take over the coven. Consider that as your internship. Besides, your Mimis are there with you, didn’t you say they are cool?” Agatha coaxed her.
• Amara didn’t say anything back, but her heart was racing. After her sixteenth birthday, she spent all her free time in the coven, learning spells, creating potions, and helping maintain harmony in the forest. Now that she’s in her final year in college, she’s at a crossroads. She often questions her role in the family. Her brothers, Nas and Sean, took on pack management after their fathers stepped down, while her younger twin sisters enjoyed their lives as they awaited their coming of age.
• Meanwhile, she often asked herself if she wanted to take over the coven. Does she have a choice? Everybody said she was ready. But what if she wants to fulfil a career outside the pack or coven? She’s a skilled hacker and also excelled in business management, just like his father, Sebastian, after all. If she wanted to pursue a career in IT, could she turn down the position of a high priestess?
• As Agatha’s first daughter, she is destined to inherit the coven and reign as the High Priestess once her Mimi Glinda retires. Her twin sisters will also join her. Unlike her, Willow and Freida seemed thrilled by the idea.
• “Mom?”
• “Yes, Amara?”
• “Can I also travel after graduation? I mean. Uhm. I want to see the world. Explore. Enjoy. Meet new friends. You know,” she asked casually but also pleadingly.
• “Okay. Where do you plan to go?”
• “I don’t know yet. It’s just an idea for now. I haven’t really thought about it, just a possibility before I take on the job from Mimi.”
• “Okay.”
• They talked for a few more minutes before hanging up the phone.
• Amara sat in silence for an hour, sulking, until two gentle knocks sounded.
• “Come in, Mimi.”
• “Are you using your magic on me now, Amara?” Glinda blurted as her head peeked through a narrowly opened door.
• Amara chuckled. “No, Mimi. I felt your presence even before you knocked,” and Glinda hummed.
• “I need you to check something in the forest, Amara. I felt some strange activities in the middle of the forest near the hidden caves. Can you do it, or do you want me to go with you?”
• “I’m on it, Mimi. No big deal.” She grabbed a scarf from the dressing table and wrapped it around her neck, then paddled out of her room.
• An hour has passed, and Amara has reached the hidden caves. She thought of visiting Tilly first; it’s been a long time since she last heard the mermaid sing. Unfortunately, Tilly did not come out after she summoned her a few times, so Amara decided to go back to the hidden caves. She couldn’t see anything, but she could feel a powerful presence. Much stronger than hers, Mimi's, and her Mom’s combined.
• She waved her hand and chanted something to reveal the hidden entity. Nothing happened. So she waited for a few seconds more without moving an inch. She repeated the enchantment once again. Still, nothing happened.
• On her third attempt, an eerie male grunt sounded, but nothing came into sight.
• “Who’s there? Show yourself!” She waved her hand, and for a split second, an image of a tall creature with long facial hair, penetrating eyes, and a branched, bony structure attached to its head flashed before her eyes.
• Petrified, she fell two steps backward. The image she had just seen was not part of their protected population in the forest. It’s something new.
• “What are you?” She asked once again, trying to muster the courage. This is her first time encountering a stranger in the forest. On most days, the fairies and gnomes would introduce her to the newcomers, but today, as strange as it is, no one is there in the forest. Everything was dead silent. Not even a single chirp from crickets or birds can be heard.
• She waited for a few minutes but didn’t receive any response. Her heart started racing as she felt the sudden flare of the nerve in her stomach, and goosebumps started spreading on her arms, legs, and spine. Suddenly, she felt an invisible presence circling her. She stretched her arms, trying to grab whatever creature encroached on her personal space, but her hands met with a hollow space. It captured nothing but cold wind.
• Her confusion is slowly turning into rage. No one had disrespected her before. Knowing that she was the first daughter of her mother and the future high priestess of the coven, all kinds of night dwellers, underground and winged creatures, fear her wrath. No one dared cross her until now.
• “Show yourself!” She waved her hand as she lifted herself in the air and swirled. Her palm emits a blue light that would reveal any entity hiding behind a magic spell, but today, it showed nothing. And the unseen continuously circled her for a few seconds more after she set foot on the ground, occasionally breathing on the back of her neck.
• Once her patience ran out, she snapped her fingers, and she instantly disappeared from the forest.
• She reappeared inside her quarter in the coven, and the first thing she did was grab her tablet and open a Procreate app. She wanted to sketch the creature she had seen in a flash, while it was still fresh in her memory, and later show it to her Mimi.
• After hours of experimenting with colors and erasing them only to start from scratch again, she convinced herself that the final image she had drawn resembled the creature. She got to her feet, stretched her arms and legs, and ran towards Glinda’s room.
• She knocked nervously while her eyes were fixed on her tablet. When she lifted her gaze, she saw her grandmother standing in front of her with a narrowed, questioning gaze, as if she was silently asking her, “What’s wrong with you?”
• She lifted her tablet to show the image to the elderly woman before her, but Glinda’s gaze never left hers, trying to read her expression. “Mimi, do you know what this is?”
• “A tablet?” she raised her brows tauntingly.
• “Not the gadget, Mimi, the picture,” raising the electronic device to Glinda’s eye level.
• Only then did Glinda pay attention to the image. “Yes, what about it?” She paused for a while, pondering. “Wait, don’t tell me,” she gasped, then grabbed Amara’s arm, pulling her inside the room and kicking the door closed.
• By the time Amara finished recollecting what had happened in the forest earlier that day, Glinda was already pacing in the room, mumbling something only she could understand.
• “English please, Mimi. Who is this creature? I have never seen him before. How… Why did he conceal himself from me? Am I in trouble now?” She launched a series of questions, but they all fell on deaf ears.
• “I should have not asked you to go to the forest alone, Amara. Go to the River Bed Pack for now and come back after three months.”
• “No Mimi, I’m not leaving until you tell me who this is,” pointing to the drawing on her tablet.
• Although the witches are not at odds with the creature Amara faced in the forest, Glinda didn’t like the timing of their meeting. She was convinced that their encounter was premature. Glinda was, in fact, happy because the said entity could bring the entire supernatural realm prosperity, as he is the supreme protector of nature and wilderness. Still, he could hurt her granddaughter at the same time. She hid her worries well before opening her mouth.
• “He is the Horned God, Amara.”