"So... Emira is Ember’s daughter?" Teacher Shim asked slowly.
Evan Aldren nodded at that. "Yes. I don’t know for sure. I did not get a chance to confirm. But that is what she told me. And His Majesty confirmed it just now that she is my daughter. Which means she is a dark witch. Tell me, Teacher Shim, what were you thinking letting such a person follow them here? And she has also been living here for the last two months! So close to the Princes at that.
Teacher Shim sighed. "No. She doesn’t look or smell like a dark witch. So how could I have known? I did think she looked a lot like Ember, but I didn’t believe it was possible. After all, I saw Ember only once, and even then she had almost lost her mind after losing two children. And on top of that, everyone heard that you had lost your third child and mate as well. Didn’t you bury the child with the other two? Then how could I have imagined that Emira was your daughter?"
Evan shuddered. His fingers curled into fists. "I don’t know what Ember did to fool me. The child that I buried was also mine. So, how did this child, Emira come into being? Even I don’t know."
Teacher Shim looked at him carefully, waiting for him to continue. Evan’s jaw tightened as he stared at the floor.
"She lied to me. She had promised to never use dark magic on me. But it seems she did. That could be the only reason... I saw what she wanted me to see. I believed her because I trusted her at that moment. I buried the body with my own hands, even hers. I thought everything was over."
He shook his head slowly, as if trying to clear the memory. "But now... now I see she must have tricked me. I should have known something was wrong. Ember’s dark witch blood would have not let her keep the promise. It was foolish of me to believe her. She faked her own death and then gave birth to another daughter while fooling me. She hid the truth. She hid the child. She hid Emira."
Evan’s eyes darkened. " All because she wanted to protect a dark witch! My bloodline was meant to destroy them, not produce them. I think Ember must have found out that I would never let a witch live. It is why she must have faked everything...
He let out a slow breath, his voice low. "I spent years thinking I had lost my fated mate to a good cause. But the real failure was not seeing through Ember’s lie."
"That is why I came here," Evan continued. "His Majesty Prince Lance is being influenced by dark magic. A dark witch born from Ember’s blood. You know the prophecy, Teacher Shim. A woman destined to be the Dark master’s bride is now standing next to the one who have vowed to annihiliate the Dark master. This cannot be good news."
Teacher Shim nodded slowly. "It seems there are many things we still don’t know."
Evan’s grip tightened on the back of the chair beside him. "I don’t care what I don’t know. I only care about stopping her. That is what my family has done for generations. That is what I was born to do."
Teacher Shim sighed again, but this time there was a deeper weight in his breath. "Even if she is Ember’s daughter, she is still a person who has lived her own life. Also, she is a part of you. I know she also has Omega traits. You cannot decide everything only by half of her blood."
Evan’s eyes flickered. "Blood decides everything where dark witches are concerned. And I am not willing to take a risk. Also, Emira has already challenged me that she will help the Dark Master return. Also, she does use dark magic. The invite for the marriage I received? It carried traces of Ember’s black magic . It is what brought me out of the forest in the first place!"
Teacher Shim stiffened at that," Is that what she said? Did you tell Lance that?"
Evan Aldren shook his head," I never got a chance. He is so deep under her control that he refused to listen. Even warned me that I should not harbour any ill thoughts. If I didn’t know that Councilman Vye’s daughter was their fated mate, I would have even worried that she was their mate."
That casual sentence had Teacher Shim stiffen. He remembered Zen’s behaviour when they’d first found that woman. He’d actually almsot punished the entire pack on her behalf. And then, later, he’d even pushed this woman from the Moonville Pack onto him, knowing full well that he did not like women. All because he had pushed the girl away.
As Teacher Shim thought back to everything that had happened after Emira came here, he could not ignore the changes he had seen with his own eyes. First Zen had been over protective. Then, after Kael had been the one to have softened. He’d even almost killed Lyra when they had come to know that she had been the one to let the rogue into the pack.
That had been witnessed by the entire pack. The changes in that man and his protectiveness of Emira. And now, from what Evan Aldren said, Lance was just as protective of her. Combining all this with Aldren’s words...
Teacher Shim felt a cold weight settle in his chest.
He suddenly stood up, his chair scraping loudly.
"I need to make a divination," he said, his voice firm. "Come with me."
"What do you mean you need to make a divination? At this time, shouldn’t we be planning and thinking of a way to get rid of Emira from their side? What is the need for divination?"
Teacher Shim walked into his study, waited for Evan Aldren to enter and then closed the door, before locking it in place.
"I need to make a divination to make sure that Emira is not their fated mate."