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. We had spent 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 gather 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 kingdom. 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

  remarked 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 sighed. “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

  pressed.

  “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 about such breach, but out of

  everyone in my life thus 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, that’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.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “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 signify 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 her

  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 his acceptance.

  “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.