By now, he had control. That was the important part. The hellhound didn't surge out of him anymore at random moments of grief or rage. He could call it up at will, let the heat rise, let the cracks bloom across his skin like molten fault lines, let the claws extend in partial transformation whenever he wanted.
And then he could shut it down again. For now, that was enough.
But his hellfire wasn't the problem.
Magic was surprisingly. The fire came instinctively. Magic did not. And for magic, he needed witches.
⸻
It took him nearly twenty years to find a coven of witches he could learn from.
Not because witches were rare no, far from it. It was but because they were careful.
That was another lie the stories liked to tell: that power announced itself, that mentors appeared conveniently at the exact moment a protagonist needed them. That knowledge wanted to be found.
No, no, no It really didn't.
Witch covens hid in plain sight funny enough. In customs, In villages where the same families had lived for generations and outsiders were noticed immediately. They didn't wear robes or chant in the open. They healed quietly and listened and whispered.
And Michael learned to follow the whispers of a healer whose herbs worked too well, of a storm that broke the moment a woman screamed at the sky in grief.
He learned to keep his mouth shut too. To walk like he belonged nowhere. To listen more than he spoke.
When he finally found them though it was deep in a mountain valley, tucked between sheer stone walls and a river that cut through the land like a scar, it was almost… disappointing.
'Is this it?' he thought.
Men and women sat around low fires, mending tools, grinding herbs, arguing softly. Children laughed as they chased each other between tents.
It was all normal, painfully normal.
From where he stood he used his enhanced hearing and heard the elders who were gathered a little apart.
"They ask too many questions," one snapped.
"Then we move again," another replied. "We always do."
Michael hadn't realized he'd stopped walking until a shadow fell across him.
"You walk like someone who isn't lost," a woman said. Her staff tapped the ground once. "But you are."
He raised his hands slowly in a surrendering manner to show he is harmless.
"I'm sorry for trespassing, I don't mean you any harm, I am here because I am looking for knowledge," he said. "And I don't intend to steal it."
That earned him a long, searching look.
Another elder who saw the two frowned and approached them. They had heard what he said.
"What kind of knowledge?" they asked.
Michael smiled faintly.
"The kind that keeps the world in balance."
Then the second elder tilted their head slightly.
"And are you willing," they asked, "to pay the price for power, boy?"
Michael didn't hesitate to answer.
"Yes."
He didn't say why. He didn't say how much.
"I'm willing to do anything," he added quietly.
That was what did it and they let him stay. Not really because they trusted him but because they could feel his magic and knew he is a witch.
⸻
Ten Years Later
Michael never told them what he was and he hid it so well they never once suspected it.
He learned whatever they taught him slowly and carefully without rush.
The first thing they taught him wasn't spells, It was intent.
"Magic isn't force," Maelis told him once, tapping his chest with two fingers. "It's direction and the flow of energy." They taught him to feel for his will, really feel it before ever letting it touch magic. To project intent outward, to ask nature instead of demand.
"You don't command nature, boy," Maelis snapped when he tried to push too hard. "No, no, no. You negotiate with it for the power you want. That's what you're doing."
Michael listened to the instructions and tried over and over again till he got it eventually.
He watched and learned the workings that would one day be called traditional Channeling, focusing objects and nature magic.
But what he wanted wasn't nature magic no it was expression, but beggars can't be choosers. Michael decided to settle for now, for the quiet, terrifying power of collective spells he can learn right now.
And if the witches Michael became familiar with one of their elders whose magic prowess is commendable and arguably the strongest in the coven. Looking at her one name kept surfacing in his mind for he suspected who she is or who she might be.
A Bennett witch.
Another ten years passed and went wrong even with the fact he wasn't aging and no one seemed to ask questions from him. That should have been his first warning.
⸻
The Spell, It was supposed to be a simple ritual spell. A reinforcement working an anchor spell meant to stabilize ley lines after an earthquake had shaken the valley.
Michael stood in the circle with three others, following instructions perfectly. He breathed and focused his intent outward to cast the spell.
And then something went terribly wrong
The center of the circle where the drawn diagram and the bowl containing the carcasses of four different animals laid suddenly lit up in flames. Heat surged up his spine, violent and sudden.
"Oh," he breathed. "Oh no." The spell had worked but it had reacted suddenly to his hellhound side.
Cracks of glowing orange-blue light split across his arms and chest as the magic collided with something else entirely.
The witches around him screamed.
Michael staggered back as claws tore free from his hands. His breath deepened immediately as his body changed slightly into the partial transformation exposing his eyes, fangs and claws.
He looked down at himself covered in flames.
"…oh fuck." He muttered in shock.
Silence fell like a dropped blade. Maelis stared at him, horror and awe twisting her features.
"You are not a witch," she whispered.
Michael exhaled slowly, forcing the heat back down, pressing the fire back into its cage.
"No," he said quietly as he shifted backwards but by it just in case he needed to bolt. "I really, really tried to be… but I'm more than a witch"
The flames finally receded completely.
The truth, however—
Did not.
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