Chapter 29
A day later, they reached the point of no return.
After trudging through a sea of white birch trees and dried red leaves for more than an hour, Semras and Estevan were now approaching the coven grounds. As planned, Themas had stayed behind, preparing camp while they ‘scouted’ the Vedwoods ahead.
It felt wrong, leading an inquisitor to her sisters—even if it was to prevent a war.
Visions of warwitches prowling the Coven’s sacred grounds, ready to unleash their violence at the first call of a battle horn, plagued her mind.
She couldn’t even decide if the fearsome witches would be there as a result of Callum’s purge plans …
or because she and Estevan had been caught trying to stop them.
But they had to try, at any cost. And right now, it meant bearing the guilt and shame weighing on her conscience.
“What is going on in that head of yours now?” Estevan asked.
Semras glanced at him. “I was thinking about how I’d never seen you wear all black before,” she lied.
Estevan stared down at Sin’Sagar’s ethnic garb, where delicate beads traced dark patterns across a long, black vest of cashmere. He had changed into it shortly after they had left Themas behind, teasing her about not taking a peek while he did so.
As if she hadn’t already, in that tent by the forest path. She knew what hid behind the tight, black-on-black fabric; Estevan held no more secrets from her.
Black hair slicked back with pomade and a bag slung over his shoulder, Estevan now looked the part of a visiting foreign diabalhist. Kohl highlighted his blue eyes and traced whorled sigils down his cheeks, and a perfume of myrrh had replaced his usual cologne.
The disguise was her idea, and while Semras thought it clever at first, she now cursed her decision to enhance his already striking blue eyes with kohl.
He looked even more dangerously, roguishly handsome than usual.
Damn the man and his natural good looks.
She should have disguised him as a stable boy instead.
A vision of him in a brown cap and white half-unbuttoned shirt, sleeves rolled back and frock coat held over his shoulder, spewed forth in her mind.
No, not better. A chimney sweeper, perhaps? No, she bet he’d still look good drowning in cinders, even if she would never tell him.
“Does it look good on me?”
Of course, he just had to ask anyway.
“You want my honest opinion?” At his nod, Semras rolled her eyes. “Watch your back once we are at the coven grounds. Summoners from the southeast are rare around here. Some witches might be tempted to add you to their collection.”
“… Their collection?” he asked, watching her with confusion.
“Of shrunken heads. You’d look quite fetching above a foyer.”
Estevan stopped walking, and Semras did as well before he could lose sight of her among the trees—not that she couldn’t find him if he did get lost. She was a woodwitch after all.
“You are messing with me. Shrunken heads?”
“They’re called tsantsa,” Semras replied, smiling innocently at him.
“It became all the rage after some visiting Kehuari clerics offered a couple of them to the Elders. They told us tsantsa can capture the souls of those we make them from … and I dare say the soul of a diabalhist would be quite the exotic familiar for a pactwitch.”
Estevan gawked at her, and the corners of her lips quivered.
A deep amusement tickled the back of her throat. Unable to hold it in for longer than a second, Semras erupted into laughter, bracing herself against a nearby tree to stay upright.
“Look at who is making jokes in a tense situation now,” he grumbled.
Her snickers lingered a moment longer before she chased them away at last. Wiping tears of mirth out of her eyes, she said, “Half-joking, there are tsantsa for sale at the coven grounds, and they do come from the Kehuari, but they’re made of southern monkeys, not humans.
Yore is not a Bleak Coven.” Semras resumed walking, trusting he’d follow her.
Dried leaves shuffling behind her proved her right.
“I wonder if I could find one with blue topaz gems for eyes.”
“Blue eyes. Now you are teasing me.”
“Alas,” she said, waving distractedly, “I don’t have enough money to afford it.”
“And that is the only thing stopping you?” Estevan sounded outraged. “The witch wants shrunken heads. Shrunken. Heads! Topaz are easy to acquire, at least.”
Semras giggled. “Forget about your white clothes and your fancy house, Inquisitor. You’re about to step into my world now.” She gestured ahead.
Before them, a double line of ancient rowan trees had grown into a twisting corridor.
Autumn had stripped them of the last of their leaves, and only bright red berries now hung in clusters at the tips of their branches.
Moss covered most of the trunks, but Semras could still discern the sigils lying underneath the green patches.
“We’ve arrived,” she announced.
Estevan stared ahead with dubious eyes. “I see … trees.”
“Take my hand.”
He took it without hesitation, but resisted when she tried to lead him forward. “Wait. Before we go, let me …” Estevan’s voice trailed off, but she knew what he wanted already.
The night before, while they rested at an inn on their way here, he had insisted on examining her hands again.
He spent minutes helping her work on their flexibility, diligently massaging more ointment onto her skin to ease the pain.
His ears and neck had remained flushed for the entire time their bare hands touched.
Her hands hadn’t changed much between then and now—they were still pale and covered in rashes, but some of the redder areas had begun to recede.
The inquisitor still took a full minute to examine them again, then helped her put on the gloves again. A breath shuddered out of him.
“I’ll try to find a fleshwitch while we’re on the Coven grounds,” Semras said, smile thin. “I know of one in Yore. Let’s hope she’ll be here today.”
In truth, she’d prefer the help of any other fleshwitch.
Madra was a skilled healer, but from the young girl infatuated with the world of the Deprived Semras had known in their youth, she had grown into an increasingly haughty witch.
Semras wasn’t sure she could endure another hour of criticism of the Covens’ decline in front of the modern world—not after experiencing firsthand how right Madra was.
Taking Estevan’s hand in hers again, Semras led him through the woven trees, slowing their steps to the rhythm of an ancient chant.
She sang, and her haunting melody called out to the primeval beings guarding the path to Yore from beyond the Unseen Arras.
The witch had never seen them—mustn’t ever see them—but trusted they’d grant her passage as they always did.
Through their eternal slumber, they heeded her call, and the trees bent and twisted around Semras and Estevan. From the soil, thousands of autumn leaves flew upward to shroud them in a carousel of reds and yellows. The light of the sun melted into gloom. The sound of birds faded away.
When her song ended, the corridor had closed behind them, and the coven grounds sprawled before their eyes.
They had crossed the fey gate to Weirlaind, to the space between time and threads. Above their heads, the darkness of the eternal Night sprawled into a lightless sky. Within, the Peering Void lay in wait.
“Welcome to Yore,” Semras said, smiling proudly.
Under the outreaching canopy of the Mother-Tree, Yore bustled with activity.
The ancient tree stood at its centre, spreading its thousands of braided branches and roots around the coven grounds, ensconcing it in its protective arms. Sap still bled out of the numerous runes carved into the primordial tree’s bark.
Even from a distance, star-like glimmers shone within the seeping black liquid—each of them the soul of a witch kept safely out of reach of the Night far above.
All around the Mother-Tree, stalls and buildings sprouted from roots and bark along narrow alleys.
Women of all ages walked on the winding stone paths, while a few small children wobbled next to some of them.
Amidst the human crowd, the familiars of pactwitches trailed behind their masters—most of them cats, goats, and ravens, and all of them behaving with a striking, anthropomorphic obedience.
The smell of aromatic herbs wafted down from open fires scattered across Yore.
From their high places atop poles, the flames illuminated the coven grounds, casting away the encroaching shadows of Weirlaind.
A gentle conversational rumble rose up and down and mixed pleasantly with the echoes of faraway, rhythmic music.
Semras smiled. It felt good to be back home.
When she turned to see the inquisitor’s reaction, she found him gaping, eyes sweeping left and right to take it all in. “This … this is …”
“Beautiful, isn’t it? Much better than Castereina, I daresay.”
He let out a small laugh. “And I daresay I now understand how Yore survived the last witch purges. It is … well hidden.”
Semras scowled at him. “Do not say those words here. Not in this place of beauty. Yore only survived by learning from the sacrifice of those who didn’t.
What you see here is unique among the Covens, but only because the others couldn’t afford to deal with the Fey or …
well, didn’t deal with them safely enough.
” Looking around to orient herself, she added, “Come, the herbalists sell their stocks down these two rows of alleys.”
They walked through the crowd cautiously.
Estevan’s icy blue eyes turned the heads of many witches, but he never noticed it in his increasing wonder of Yore.
Trying to keep his attention on a curiosity shop or an odd familiar, he stumbled multiple times, and she ended up linking their arms together to let him gape at will.