CHAPTER 11

Esther nearly smirked at the expression on the woman's face. She wished that she could caption that look on Alicia's face forever, then she would have and she would replay them in her brain every day. But alas, it was an impossible task.
"Are you sure about what you just said?" The coven leader asked her.
"Yes," Esther responded in a loud voice. She was a little proud of herself because of the discovery she had made. But when she heard Alicia scoff, she knew that the woman didn't believe her even before she heard the words.
"You expect me to believe that? From you who is nothing more than a stinky child that loves nothing more than looking for attention?" The coven leader said.
Esther was hurt by the words the leader had spoken to her. It might be true that she seeks attention some of the time, but she had never deliberately sought one. Most of those times, she was always on her own practicing her spells which of course would go wrong and the disaster she created would always attract people to her.
Knowing that there were no words that she would speak that the leader of the coven would believe, she summoned the last of the power that the fruit gave her and channeled them into her thoughts. She looked at the leader and tried to possess her mind and even though she met a wall in the woman's thought, Esther was able to crack through it and possess her mind.
Slap yourself. She commanded the woman who slapped herself. With happiness in her for getting a little revenge, she smiled and freed the leader from the spell. Alicia's eyes threw dagger at her when she realized that Esther had used mind control on her.
Esther knew the moment that the leader realized that Esther had been saying the truth about the thing that could accelerate power because the leader gasped loudly. When the leader blanked out in front of Esther, she knew that she was calling for an immediate coven meeting. The thought was confirmed when she heard the leader's voice in her head commanding every elder witch of the land to arrive in ten minutes.
Even though Esther was hated by the elders, she was still regarded as an elder of the witch coven since she was the only one left with the blood of the dark powers. Within ten minutes, every important elder that Esther knew of had already arrived at the room where she and the coven leader was.
"Esther, repeat what you said to me to the elders of the coven." The leader commanded them.
Esther sighed and narrated everything to the elders of the coven. When she was done, she saw the looks of unbelief reflecting from the elders.
"You expect us to believe her?" One of the elders said.
"Yes, leader. Do you expect us to believe a girl like her?" Another one chipped in.
"If it were any other person, I might have believed the story but you see this attention seeker, it is a no no from me." Another elder out in her ten cents.
"Calm down, everyone." The leader told them and used her hands as an indication to support her words. "Do you think that I would have asked you here if I hadn't verified the news?" She asked them all.
"How did you verify the news, leader?'' One of them asked.
Esther got interested in the question and listened attentively to see what way the leader would lie about it. She was so sure that the women would make up some stories about what she would say in response, so she was astonished when the leader spoke the truth.
"She was able to mind-control me." She told them.
Gasps flew every which way in the room and Esther could feel what felt like thousands of eyes stabbed into her and she nearly cowered.
"I'm that case, let's get to the tree as fast as we can and cast spells on it before the leader of the werewolves discovers it too." One of the elders said.
Everyone in the room agreed to the words she had spoken and they all moved out of the house after they asked Esther to lead the way.
Adam watched as the witches moved very fast in a direction. He had been going about his duty when he saw the elders of the witch coven hurrying in the room and he knew that something must be going on. It was just his luck that he had waited to hear their conversation and he had heard about the special trees that accelerated the power of anyone that fed on it. Knowing that the Night Bliss werewolf leader needed to know about it, he quickly went to the man.
When he got to the cottage, he saw the leader having his meal and he greeted the man. Unable to wait until he was done with the meal, Adam spilled everything he heard from the witches. The leader dropped the spoon filled with food that he had half way to his mouth on the plate back and looked at his most trusted man in the kingdom.
"Are you sure about what you just said?" Ian, the leader asked.
"Yes, leader," Adam answered.
"In that case, gather the men and let's go immediately. We must not give them any chance to cast the spell on such a rare type of tree." The leader said, already on his feet.
Adam gathered the men and together with their leader, they all moved out of the werewolves house. Adam followed through the path that he had seen the witches gone to and he began to trace their footsteps until they arrived at the place where the footprints disappeared. When Adam looked up however, he saw the witches gathered near a tree and he noticed that it was the khoyata tree that had grown from Alexander's blood.
When they had arrived at the place the tree was, the coven leader had asked Esther to eat a piece of the fruit from the tree and show them the kind of power the fruit from someone's blood could produce. To clear their doubts, she plucked one of it and chewed it in their very presence. When the power had filled her up, she had made a mental command to the rock she had expanded to thrive its size before and the rock had returned to its original size.
When the leader saw that it had truly helped her grow, she had picked one of the fruits and chewed it. To show the other elders that it clearly helped, she had also performed a spell that had left everyone astonished. Impressed by their new find, one of the elders had suggested that they ask the tree first before they did any other thing and everyone had supported that suggestion.
The witches had sounded the tree and they had been about to start the spell casting when the leader of the Night Bliss and his subordinates had busted into the clearing where they were. To say the witches had been surprised about their new unexpected visitors would not be exaggerating the point. Before they could ask what the werewolves wanted, their leader had gotten closer and picked a fruit off the tree and had eaten it.
"It truly helps in accelerating power." He announced it to his people.
"Quick! Let's cast the spell!!" Alicia said in a terrified horror voice.
Before the witches could gather around the tree, the leader of the werewolves had shifted and he had bit into the flesh of one of the elders. The wolf threw the elder he held in his mouth away and she landed with a loud thud, breathless.
"Wait, we don't have to fight over it," Esther told the leader of the werewolves.
The only response she got from the man was a sneer. The leader of the witches drew Esther to the back of the other witches.
"Seal the tree, we'll fight them off." The leader instructed her.
"But how?" Esther asked but she didn't get any response from the leader as the other werewolves had already shifted and they were now advancing the witches.
Esther ran to the tree and searched through her energies to see if she could find the energy that can seal the tree but because multiple streams of powers were flowing through her, she couldn't tell which was which. The loud scream of one of the elders and the others shouting her name told Esther that another elder was dead at the hands of the werewolves.
She turned away from the tree and looked at the fight going on in front of her. She saw the leader fending off a wolf that was trying to get past her and attack Esther. She was surprised by the action since the older woman had done nothing but be wicked towards her ever since they met. When she saw another elder wounded and unable to move again, Esther commanded a shield to cover her and was surprised when the werewolf that had been trying to kill the elder couldn't seem to touch her again.
That settled, Esther turned back to the tree and began to think about a seal coming on the tree. She felt power thumping through her and she placed her hands on the tree, the power flowed from her to the tree and Esther could feel that she was doing something to the tree. What it was was what she didn't know but she knew that it was worth trying. She was cut short from the energy when a werewolf clawed her back from behind.
She removed her hands from the tree and turned around. Before she could fend off the next attack of the wolf, the leader of the witches was already beside her and tackling the wolf. Esther looked in horror as the wolf clawed Alicia also and the woman let out a low growl. The leader chanted a low spell and Esther watched in amazement as the wolf attacking them slumped down. Whether it was dead or whether it was asleep, Esther couldn't tell.
"Don't just stand there looking at the battle, seal that tree," Alicia told her before she disappeared into the heart of the war again.
Esther looked at the battle going on between the werewolves and the witches and she could tell that the witches were fighting an already lost battle. Judging by the number of wolves they were tackling, the witches do not stand a chance. Even though the witches were doing damage to the werewolves with their spells and magic, the werewolves were still more than they were in numbers, therefore, they had the upper hand. As if to prove her thoughts right, another elder of the witches got her stomach torn into two by the claw of her wolf opponent.
"Quick, Esther, seal the tree with your dark power now. If you can't seal it, destroy it." The leader of the witches commanded.
Esther held the tree and tried to seal it with the dark powers as the leader had instructions but she found out that she couldn't control her power to do that yet.
"I can't seal it!" She screamed back to the leader.
"Then, destroy it," Alicia commanded as she evaded the tree of another werewolf.
"But..." Esther started. Her thoughts were centered on how the tree that she had wanted to use as an upper hand would be destroyed and she would be back to zero ground.
"Now!" The leader yelled at her.
She was still hesitating when a werewolf began to approach her. With the last of the strength the fruit still provided her with, she channeled her energy to grow palm and held the tree with it. She watched in agony as the tree dried up instantly. When she felt a wolf bit into her arm, she yanked the wolf away from herself with her palms. The last thing she remembered before she fainted was the scream of pain from the werewolf she had held.