Mother Evangeline was the youngest head of Coven in centuries, and one with the most unusual powers. Each witch has her speciality, of course, but often the High Priestess of the coven specialised in the darkest of arts and hence gained their status.
Mother Evangeline knew her dark magic, but her specialities involved healing and natural materials. Her coven consisted of many young witches of different specialisations, but Evangeline was keen to push for their herbal and botanical knowledge as well as ritualistic approaches. In many ways, it was one of the least traditional covens around but it only made the judgment of other High Priestesses ever so challenging to bear.
With an increasing number of witch-hunts, Evangeline had long had to rely on other covens to survive. The world was in chaos and constant war between magical and non-magical creatures. She saw plenty of her 'sisters' burnt into dust to know that the only way for her coven to thrive was to ensure that they had support from other covens with other specialities, even if often she disagreed with their values and more extremist approaches.
It was a long few weeks where Evangeline's coven was out with another coven, to support them throughout a battle. Their job was to heal the harmed witches throughout the attack. It was devastating to witness so many deaths in the past few days. Their country was at war with enemies' soldiers bashing through towns. Not only were the witches hunted by the witch-hunters within their own country, but the enemies' soldiers were also equally fierce in their attacks on the covens.
Evangeline rode on her horse, feeling exhausted from what she witnessed, followed by her two dear sisters, as they were the last to return to the coven from the last battle.
They reached the edge of a forest which opened the view onto the large town, that was freshly burnt into ashes, with flames ravaging through the last of the houses, and the last of the screams and cheering of the soldiers echoing. Evangeline felt the pit in her stomach, smelling that vile stench of burnt human flesh that carried through the air. She stopped warily, wondering if she should step into the town and meddle in human affairs. Witches didn't like doing that. Humans hated them and were the first to kill them. Why would a witch risk her life for a human?
A ground shook beneath her. At first lightly, before a huge burst of air pushed her back as if something exploded. The buildings within the town collapsed completely, crushed into the ground. Everything in the way turned into dust, swept by Evangeline's horse's hooves. It was a force like nothing she ever saw before.
She climbed down, trying to work out the cause, the centre of that blast.
The dust settled, leaving nothing in its way. Nothing besides the scorched ground. All the burnt houses evaporated, along with the dead bodies inside.
Evangeline signalled her sisters to stay behind as she cautiously climbed up the hill to where the town was a few moments ago. How could the entire town vanish before her eyes just like that?
As she continued up the hill, she noticed the rings on the ground and burnt rings in the grass. It wasn't left from the burning of the buildings - the blast must've been the reason. Each ring was smaller and inside the other. Evangeline continued uphill to find the epicentre of this.
To her horror, as she climbed, the number of dead bodies were scattered across. She wasn't sure why they didn't turn into dust either. She gulped as she noticed their faces were melted completely, their skin hanging on literal threads, falling off their skulls. Their limbs were twisted and broken from the blast, pointing in the opposite directions to what was humanly possible. Few had their eyes untouched, frozen in terror, and others didn't, with their eyes popped out, bleeding with whatever blood was left in them out of their eye sockets. Their armour was melted into their skin, merged into it as if it was one. It was a sickening view, even for Evangeline who thought that she saw everything the battlefield had to offer.
She froze, noticing the very centre of the blast, the cause for it all, or so she suspected.
A teenage girl sat on the ground, holding onto the dead body of another teenage girl, sobbing and cradling the face of a corpse, grieving the loss. Evangeline slowed down as she tried to work out what could've happened. How did a child survive this?
Her heart broke at what she saw. It was a sight that she was too accustomed to. The dead girl had her clothes ripped and she had her body bruised, and the worst of all were streaks of blood down her legs. Evangeline closed her eyes as she took a deep breath in. Whoever that dead child was, she was raped and killed by the soldiers. And now, Thai other girl held her tightly and grieved her, quite likely after seeing the horrendous death of someone she loved right before her eyes.
Evangeline shifted her gaze to the sobbing girl. She shouldn't see her face, but she saw her thick black curly locks on her head. She saw her trembling hands, and… she noticed her clothes ripped similarly. Whether the soldiers succeeded in hurting her in that way too or not, she wasn't sure. But the harm was done. She experienced death and horror. And now she was sat surrounded by tenths of corpses.
There was no potion or spell for Evangeline to be able to heal her.
She cautiously walked up to her and placed her hand on the girl's back, feeling the sobs that shook her body.
The girl lifted her head, her glowing green eyes fixating on Evangeline. Evangeline moved away, almost falling over. Those eyes were not one of a human. Those eyes…
The girl stopped crying, looking at Evangeline fiercely.
At this moment, Evangeline realised that it was her that killed those soldiers, whether she knew it or not. The magic within her shone brightly. But she wasn't a witch, that's how much Evangeline knew for sure.