Chapter 48
He thought Faye was worried about losing him or about him turning his attention to another witch.
It seemed like an overreaction, but wasn’t it kind of cute? Amused, Alnazir smiled with his eyes and opened the door again.
“You have to stay right next to me. You promised, okay?”
Fay emphasized it once more, then climbed onto her broom first. She gestured for him to get on behind her. When Alnazir climbed on and wrapped an arm around her waist, the broom lifted into the air.
A short while later, Fay brought the broom down in a forest thick with trees.
Alnazir tilted his head in confusion. He had imagined witches swarming everywhere once they reached the castle.
“I don’t see a single witch.”
“This is just a forest. Before we go to the castle, I was asked to cut some firewood.”
Fay searched for a suitable tree, tapping trunks here and there with her staff to check them. This one would do. As she placed her staff against the base of the tree and prepared to chant, a question suddenly occurred to her.
“By the way, how did you know there were so many witches?”
“How are you planning to cut down a tree with a stick?”
Alnazir asked instead, apparently missing her question and wondering whether she needed a blade.
Fay grinned and told him to watch closely, confidence clear in her expression. It bothered her slightly that he hadn’t answered, but thinking about it, it wasn’t all that strange. He’d probably inferred it from the books and newspapers piled up at home.
She raised her staff high, then pressed its tip against the trunk and began chanting. After repeating the spell a few times, cracks spread from the point of contact with a sharp crack.
The tree split cleanly and fell backward with a heavy thud.
Alnazir’s eyes widened in surprise.
Fay puffed out her chest a little. She felt oddly proud, pleased to show him she wasn’t as helpless a witch as he might have thought.
“I am a witch, after all. With magic like this—”
Something suddenly dropped onto her head with a soft thump.
A broken branch? As she lifted her hand to brush it off, her fingers touched something slick—and she froze.
Clinging to her hair was a snake, common in these woods. For a split second, she wanted to believe it was Alnazir playing a prank with one of his tentacles.
But it wasn’t. It was far thinner than a tentacle—and cold. His tentacles, if anything, were uncomfortably warm.
“A–Alnazir…!”
Her voice was small but desperately urgent. Her face went pale, and tears spilled freely.
Just moments ago she’d been smiling proudly, now she looked on the verge of sobbing. Alnazir stared at her, unable to understand what was wrong.
“P–please, get this—get it off, get it off me… please!”
She stammered badly, barely able to speak. This, what was this? As he followed her gaze, something slid down from her hair, and only then did he understand.
“You want me to remove a snake?”
“Q–quick, p-please, hurry!”
Tears fell one after another like rain.
“This is your weakness? A snake like this?”
The woman who had confidently boasted, was now crying over a single snake struck him as oddly absurd.
The more he learned about her, the more amusing she became. With a short laugh, Alnazir grabbed the snake and flung it far away.
Fay’s legs gave out, and she collapsed to the ground. Even after it was gone, her heart still pounded wildly. She clutched her chest, breathing hard.
“Are you all right?”
For a moment, he worried her heart might stop again. At his question, she shook her head.
“I was bitten once when I was younger. It was really bad. Ever since then, whenever I see a snake, my body just freezes.”
She let out a shaky sigh, muttering how terrifying it was, then reached out her hand.
“My legs feel weak. Can you hold my hand?”
A mere human ordering a ruler around, how audacious. The situation was growing more ridiculous by the minute. Alnazir found himself chuckling again.
And yet, contrary to his thoughts, his hand was already moving to indulge her.
Even after standing up, Fay struggled to calm down. She glanced around nervously and clung to Alnazir’s hand with both of hers, as if preparing for another emergency.
It was strange. Being held so tightly by such weak hands still made him feel as though he’d been ‘caught’. Normally, nothing a human did would even register to his body, yet this continued to surprise him.
And then a thought surfaced.
“You held my c**k like this every time I pushed it in.”
“What are you suddenly saying?!”
Fay gasped, her mouth falling open in shock.
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