The Devil's Cursed Witch

Ember’s body shivered as she had that thought. She first checked where she was standing and made sure there was no way she would fall down from the peak.

What if she misstepped and fell? What if she rolled down the mountain from the top?

Holding onto Morpheus, she checked all the visible sides of what seemed like a small rock island. In front of her was the clear blue sky and slightly lower were the thick puffy sea of clouds. Behind them, at a certain distance, was another huge stony peak similar to where they were stepping on. The other nearby peaks were shorter and were buried among the clouds and were barely visible to her. She then recalled that they landed on merely one of the peaks of the mountain range.

She could not dare walk to the edge of the peak and check how high they were from the ground as she was sure she would not be able to handle it.

“W-Why are we here?” she asked, still holding onto his muscular arm tightly.

All this while, Morpheus was calmly observing her reaction, letting her adjust to the situation. Each of her reactions was funny. At first, she was like a scared kitten, and then her face had a look of awe, before returning to a quivering mess, and now she had a stubborn look on her face as she questioned his intentions.

The way she was still clinging onto his arm despite that made it amusing to him, and he could not help but grin.

Instead of answering, he asked her a question, “Are you done looking around?”

“Hmm.” She nodded to his question.

“From here, you can see how beautiful this entire kingdom is in a single glance. I believe you will never get to see it anywhere,” he answered.

“Really?” she asked. “But we’re too high. I am too scared to even look down.”

“Don’t worry. You won’t fall down from the edge.” He signalled for her to look ahead. “And since I am with you, you should know I won’t let you be harmed. Don’t you trust me?”

She looked at him. “I trust you.”

“Then you can stop grabbing my arm like a squirrel,” he countered and she finally let go of it.

The trembling human didn’t even realize that in her nervousness, she was grabbing him to the point she almost scratched the skin on his arms with her nails. However, a human like her could not leave a mark on his skin so Morpheus could only look at his arm with another amused smile.

“Let’s walk to the edge?” he asked as he offered her his open hand.

Without thinking much, she held his hand and walked towards the edge of the cliff. However, her hand had gone cold at this point. “I don’t think…I mean, why are we going there?”

“Because you will like it,” he replied calmly.

“I don’t think I will like it,” she said with a look of reluctance.

“How can you say whether you like something or not when you haven’t tried it yet?”

That made sense to her. “But what if I fall?”

“You won’t,” he reassured her. “I’m with you.” He then walked ahead while holding her hand, leaving her no option but to be dragged along with him.

When they almost reached the edge, Ember hid behind his strong back, not willing to look at what was ahead. Morpheus didn’t say a word, but even before she could react, he turned to face her, held her with his arms around her waist and turned around so that both of them were facing the sea of clouds. She let out a high-pitched squeak as she held onto him tightly with her eyes squeezed close.

“Morph–“

“Open your eyes and look, Ember,” he instructed her with his mouth near her ear.

She shook her head and stubbornly continued to turn around and bury her face against his chest.

“I’m holding you in my arms. What is there to fear?” he chuckled. “Even if you fall down, I’m going down with you. Then all I need to do is to fly us back to the top.”

As she found a bit of courage from his encouragement, Ember gradually opened her eyes and turned her head to look towards the sea of clouds. Between them, she could see bits of what ought to be the ground below but with her weak human eyesight, she could not even make out anything else but the colour of the foliage.

“It is not scary, is it?” she heard Morpheus’ deep languid voice comment behind her as she felt his chin rest on top of her head.

She could not believe her eyes.

“It’s beautiful,” she could not help but say.

The vast blue sky and the sea of white clouds. The view ahead was absolutely mesmerising.

“Didn’t I tell you?” he asked as he adjusted her to stand more comfortably, still keeping his arms around her. “Even if you step forward, you won’t fall down. The peak of a mountain has a gentle slope, though it looks like a steep cliff because of the clouds. If you can see what’s below us, there are a number of rocks where you can even sit.”

Ember looked down, believing his words though she could not see anything but white. She looked over her shoulder to gaze back at him. “You won’t let me fall down, right?”

Her face was so close that Morpheus forgot to breathe for a while and only stared at her face. This human sure didn’t know since they left the palace how she was clinging onto him, a healthy male, unaware how much her actions could affect him.

“Morph?” she called out to him, bringing him out of his daze.

He cleared his throat and turned his face to look the other way. “Is that even a question? Of course, I won’t let you fall down. Unless you ask me.”