Chapter 25
Semras retraced her steps as fast as she dared to.
The plan had failed. Time to fall back on the previous one. She’d castigate herself later for foolishly counting on an inquisitor again. For now, the west wing awaited.
Minutes later, Semras stood in front of its door. Carved out of dark walnut wood, it looked almost too … ordinary for what she hoped lay beyond: a sister witch—Nimue.
What else could the monster keep away from the world other than his mistress and his child?
He had lied about everything; Semras didn’t doubt he had also lied about his relationship with the seeress.
But whether the other witch supported him or was just another one of his victims remained to be seen.
Semras pushed the door open. Beyond, a short corridor of doors and thin leaded windows lay before her. Through the glass panes, the view of a back courtyard caught her attention.
Outside, the afternoon sun shone on the glistening waters of an artificial pond. A few willow trees grew around it, their slumping branches of yellow leaves grazing the pond to the rhythm of the wind, sending ripples coursing through its surface.
The world out there looked peaceful, but the hustle of the city replaced the songs of birds the witch was used to, and walls of stone cut off the horizon instead of the undergrowth of her beloved forests. Everything inside and outside was artificial. Even freedom.
Semras ripped herself from the view and fled through the first door of the corridor.
She walked into a small space far less opulent than the rest of the mansion, where natural wood and hand-woven tapestries dominated. Something in its plain plastered walls and low pine ceiling felt like a cozy, warm home. A true witch abode—albeit one with means far above her own.
Rows and rows of canvas hung everywhere. Potted plants stood next to easels, and long-dried colour palettes lay forgotten on a worktable. Pushed to the side haphazardly, the painting studio took only part of the living space; furniture better fit for a parlour stood on the other half.
Semras toured the room cautiously, keeping an eye on the back where a door connected this room to the next one.
Multiple paintings adorned the walls—scenes of fights and fire and shadows brought to vision in broad strokes like dreams made of paint. The style reminded her of the ripped-up portrait she had found in the monster’s study.
On the worktable lay papers splashed with even more colours. Upon further examination, Semras found other painted scenes there.
There must have been a little less than half a dozen drawings, all sketches thrown rapidly on scraps of canvas.
One showed the silhouette of a black-haired woman running into a forest. Another two featured two blondes, each with a different fate: one woman had her throat slit, while the other burned at a pyre.
The fourth paper made Semras shiver. On it, the silhouette of a brown-haired woman was curling up in a room far too similar to her own, her face emaciated. Self-starvation had taken her life, if the plates of food scattered around her were anything to go by.
With growing horror, Semras examined each drawing one after the other, then looked to the side, searching for more—and found them. Eyes roving over the paintings, she studied them all, her breath hitching each time she discovered a new one.
There were so many.
They all depicted women—witches, no doubt—fleeing, dead, or executed. An uncertain hand had written at the top corner their name and Coven. Next to them, she saw the monster’s handwriting display the same, repetitive message: ‘Not this one.’
It horrified her.
Her captor had said Nimue was a seeress—she had painted the fates awaiting whoever he could have brought back here instead of her.
A growing sense of trepidation and urgency took hold of her. Semras spilled the drawings everywhere, shuffling in search of the most important one: her own.
What was drawn on it? What was her fate? What did the monster intend for—?
“You won’t find it here,” said a voice with a thick Freran accent.
Semras jumped out of her skin. Behind her, a blond woman had appeared at the door connecting this room to the next one. She hadn’t even heard it open.
Draped in a yellow silk dress and cradling a newborn in her arms, Nimue leaned against the doorway.
Blonde, pale-skinned, with a delicate quality to her frame and soft, green moss eyes, she looked beautiful in a pleasant and ethereal way, like the warmth of the sun after a cold draft of wind.
The blood of the Fair Folk ran strong in her veins.
The child in her arms stirred and cooed, then started bawling. Dropping her head toward him, Nimue soothed her child with shushing noises. Her eyes lacked focus—white clouds covered them, partially blinding her.
Semras felt a wave of pity for her. The Arras must have looked diminished and darkened for the seeress.
A witch without sight was a sad thing to behold. Weaving required both eyes and fingers, and losing any—or worse, both—had driven many witches to a tragic end. Semras knew how much she mourned her own hands, even in their temporary binds.
Horror gripped her heart at a sudden thought: had the monster blinded Nimue to keep her at his side?
All seeresses were cursed to face the loss of their sight one day, but Nimue was far too young to have reached the end of her Path already …
unless she had been forced to overuse her powers, and then …
She shuddered at the most likely possibility. “Forgive me for the intrusion, sister,” she said softly. “My name is Sem—”
“Semras of the Yore Coven, formerly of Adastra. I know,” Nimue replied curtly. She lifted her head, then stood there completely still, eyes darkened as she peered into the Unseen Arras and its immediate future.
Dismayed, Semras sloped her shoulders down.
She wasn’t a threat. Not to Nimue, and certainly not to the innocent child wrapped in muslin in her arms. What lies had the monster told about her to the other witch?
A light shake of the head brought the seeress back to the present. “Welcome,” she said, voice guarded. “I am Nimue of No Coven. It’s good to meet another one of the Fair Folk after so long. I haven’t called another witch ‘sister’ for a long, long while. You, we shall yet see.”
Semras hadn’t expected to be welcomed as a true coven sister by a witch she’d never met before, but this veiled contempt still destabilized her.
“I … understand.” Semras approached cautiously, searching for something to say. Her eyes fell on the newborn. “Congratulations on the birth of your baby. He looks very …”
Fine black hair dusted the little head peeking from the blankets—black hair like his.
“… young,” she finished, then added, scrambling for a compliment, “and—and adorable.”
Dropping her attention to her baby, Nimue smiled tenderly.
“Thank you. It hasn’t been easy taking care of a two-month-old boy alone, but maids come by to help every day.
His father does too, when he can. It’s not as often as either of us wishes for, though.
” The mother lifted her chin and straightened her back.
“You might imagine just how busy he’s being kept. By you, mostly.”
“I’d rather he wasn’t,” Semras replied, swallowing back her bitterness. “He … he looks like his father. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone who he is. I’d never put the bloodline of witches in danger.”
Nimue let out a small, curt laugh. “He sure doesn’t look like he has much of my blood. It’s better this way.” Her smile faded slowly. “I hope he’ll inherit nothing from me.”
Semras’ heart constricted for her. Seeing the future counted among the rarest and most dangerous gifts of their fey ancestry.
Seeresses perceived much further than the few seconds of past and future that other witches could see while peering into the Unseen Arras—and they all paid a terrible price for it.
Making sense of the chaotic, overlapping threads of potential timelines strained their eyesight.
Each time a seeress looked at the past and future, total blindness crept closer.
Only everlasting darkness awaited Nimue at the end of her Path.
“It’s very improbable that your baby will be able to perceive the Unseen Arras,” Semras said. “I have never heard of male children—”
“You haven’t, but I have,” Nimue snapped. “Improbable doesn’t mean impossible. If he becomes a seer, I … I do not know what I’d do.”
“Are you …” Semras shuffled on her feet.
She dared not ask directly if the monster held her prisoner too, fearing the answer she’d get—or the one she wouldn’t.
“Did you consider raising him on a coven’s grounds?
Out here in the city, you are so far from all of us.
If harm were to befall you or your baby … ”
The seeress frowned. “I’ll never go back to a coven. I’ve rejected their ways and left that life behind me long ago. And I have no wish to subject my little Jaqhen to it either.”
“You can’t possibly mean to remain here forever? In this—this pit of tar they call a city? This place is a cage!”
Semras’ heart wept for Nimue. The monster had twisted her into rejecting her own kin.
“You can’t understand,” Nimue replied, sneering.
“You don’t know what it’s like to be born a seeress.
To live with pitying stares constantly reminding you that one day you’ll go blind.
I do! So I left. Trust me, living in the gutters of Castereina was still better than staying with my Coven.
When Inquisitor Velten found me and offered me to be one of his people, I accepted, knowing what he’d ask me to do in return.
I served him well, and now I am retired in comfort, with my little one to care for and the love and devotion of a man I never thought I’d deserve. And all that with no damn pity.”