Chapter 29 #3
She shuddered. “It won’t be. Warwitch Leyevna would not let vengeful Elders ruin her life’s work. And she wouldn’t stand alone either. There are many of us who owe our lives to the peace she brokered back then.” In a softer voice, she added, “like me.”
“Likewise …” Estevan gave her a weak chuckle. “I was born during those long months of negotiations. Had war still been waged, I might not be standing in front of you.”
“To the world’s greatest loss, I am sure,” she quipped. A tentative smile drew across her lips. “Are we really bickering over a war neither you nor I were old enough to remember?”
“I am afraid it is in our nature.” Estevan caught a strand of her hair and tucked it back behind her ear. His fingers trailed down her neck. “Were you born during the purges too?”
“Half a year later. Near the end of the war, Father died so Mother could live. She didn’t even know she was pregnant when she lost him.
And she … she never got over it. They were Wyrdtwined to one another.
” Semras swallowed the familiar grief back.
“She died before I turned one-year-old. A broken heart, according to her gravewitch.”
Years later, despite never knowing them, the loss of her parents still carved a hole in her. Each time friends and mentors and acquaintances moved on with their own lives while she remained behind, it dug a little deeper.
Estevan leaned his forehead on hers, then softly caressed the back of her head, stroking her hair soothingly. It felt so intimate, to have him in such close quarters, standing as if they were alone next to waves and waves of passersby.
“I am sorry,” he murmured. “I wish this would never happen again. I wish that damn war had never robbed you of the life you should have had.”
He lifted his head and, for a mind-shattering moment, Semras thought she felt his lips graze her forehead in a fleeting kiss.
Then Estevan stepped back and offered his arm, inviting her to walk out of the dark alley.
“Well,” she said, linking their arms together, “if we fail, maybe Warwitch Leyevna and your father will manage together to stop your brother.”
The inquisitor observed her pensively. “You really admire her, don’t you?”
“Everyone does, even the Elders of Yore. She negotiated with the Inquisition to outlaw the persecution of witches, and that made all our lives so much easier. As long as we commit no crime, we don’t have to live in fear of the law anymore.”
“Just of the superstitions of old folks. Lucky you,” he teased.
She playfully slapped his shoulder.
“Who … who was your father, to have met your mother?” he asked, wading through the crowd on the street. “I always wondered how witches meet their mates.”
Semras hesitated. “I’ll tell only if you promise not to laugh.”
“I promise.”
“… A woodcutter. He was a woodcutter lumbering in the Balewoods east of the Anderas, and my mother, Sarana of Endor, was the woodwitch living within it.”
Estevan snickered, and her cheeks turned red.
“You promised!” she said, huffing. “You honorless man!”
“It is …” He chuckled, shoulders shaking rhythmically along. “This is quite—”
“Ridiculous, I am aware.”
He guffawed some more, and she hit him again on the shoulder. “Sorry, I am sorry! Stop hitting me.”
“Then stop laughing!”
Estevan tried to extinguish his laughter behind his hand. “Semras, daughter of the witch and the woodcutter. You are quite the fairy tale princess, aren’t you?” More chuckles fled from his lips.
“Let’s talk about you instead. Your father is a cardinal, a man of the cloth! And your mother—” She paused, blinking. “… Who’s your mother? Let’s see if you are any better than I.”
“That story is not as interesting as yours,” he replied, sobering up at once. “My father met her while at war. He thought he would die, had a single night of sin, and figured the Radiant Lord would forgive and forget. Seven years later, she dropped me at his house.”
Semras’ glee deflated. “Oh. I … I’m sorry.”
“It happened long ago,” he replied, looking away. “It is fine now.”
Another lie, she noticed, yet one she understood all too well. Her own mother hadn’t meant to abandon her, but the sting of her absence felt just as painful as if she had.
Semras hesitated a moment, then took his hand in hers and squeezed.
His head whipped back to her. Wide-eyed, Estevan gaped at her, then slowly, timidly, laced his fingers through hers.
Ears flushed, he leaned closer, keeping his stride in tempo with hers.
“It really is fine,” he muttered. “I spent many years resenting her for leaving me behind, but I do not anymore.”
“What changed?”
“Well … a boy needs to become a man one day, and that man understood she did what was best for her son. It was not right, but it was not wrong either—it was just … for the best.”
A dark thought passed through her mind. After being abandoned by his mother, the inquisitor now had to oppose his own brother. Estevan must have felt conflicted, but he had shown no sign of hesitancy past his initial disbelief. His duty, as he once called it, demanded cruel offerings from him.
Had their situation been reversed, she wasn’t sure if she could have shown half the grit he had.
Estevan let go of her hand. “We should proceed with the investigation. Any more delay, and Maldoza will become suspicious of our ‘scouting.’”
Semras paled as Blyana’s warning came surging back to the forefront of her mind. “It’s … it’s worse than that … The Elders know I was the one who sent the Coven a message. If they learn I’m here, they’ll want answers, and they won’t take kindly to my bringing you here.”
The inquisitor cursed quietly. “Then we best hurry before they hear of your return.”
“Yes, let’s.” Studying the rows of shops they arrived at, Semras noted each stall selling botanical ingredients.
“If someone bought prickly comfrey recently, they’d have looked for it here.
We’re searching for dried herbs, not flowers.
Comfrey is past its blooming season, and the prickly variety isn’t a popular ingredient, so I doubt many keep it in stock right now. ”
“Good. If someone bought any then, it will probably be our medicine maker. If you find out from where, ask the seller to write the specific amount and who bought it. This, along with the remedy’s original recipe, should be enough to establish reasonable doubt.
And if it is not the medicine maker who bought comfrey, then we may have found who worked with Cael to mess with the remedy.
” The inquisitor’s gaze jumped from stall to stall, mentally cataloguing the ones worth checking.
“Take the left. I will search on the right. We meet back at the giant tree in the middle of the coven grounds once done.”
“You want to split up?” Semras asked, alarmed. “Estevan, it’s too—”
“We have little choice; we need to leave as soon as possible. You cannot be found here,” he said. “And neither can I.”
Semras sighed. “Fine … but if I’m caught, you must leave Yore at once. Find Blyana and ask her to lead you out.”
The inquisitor kept studying the right lane of the alley. “If you are caught, where will they take you?”
“Estevan …”
“Where?”
Semras sighed. “The Mother-Tree, in the middle of the coven grounds. That’s where the Elders are. But you must stay outside of it; this place is forbidden to outsiders. And stay discreet while looking for the comfrey. Do not take the risk of running into a warwitch.”
He hummed, then started walking away.
Semras grabbed his sleeve before he could get out of her reach. “Estevan. Promise me you’ll leave if I’m caught.”
Glancing back, he gently took her hand off his clothes, then kept it in his. His thumb traced mindless patterns on her skin. “If you are in danger …”
“Promise me,” she repeated.
Estevan studied her, opened his mouth, and then closed it. At last, he said, “Do you want me to lie to you?”
Her breath hitched. “I …”
Eyes never breaking away from hers, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed the top of it. His lips lingered one moment too long on her skin. Then, he let her go, his hand squeezing hers one last time. “Then do not get caught.”
With these last words, he disappeared amidst the flowing crowd.
None of the stalls on the left had sold prickly comfrey, but it wasn’t a complete waste of her time. Semras took the opportunity to purchase a new tin of activated charcoal, replacing the one she had emptied days earlier in the glade.
Once done, she sat on a stone bench and waited for Estevan, wandering her gaze around.
Braided into an arch, two bent trees nearby marked the entrance to the Mother-Tree’s great hall—a vast chamber carved within the primordial trunk where the Elders conducted the Coven’s most sacred rites.
Witches were entering that place, murmuring to one another, and Semras watched on passively, mind distracted.
A minute passed while a growing crowd gathered within.
Tapping her foot on the ground with impatience, she focused back on searching for Estevan amidst the coming flood of people.
Her last-minute purchase had made her a little late, and she had expected him to be already waiting for her when she arrived.
His absence made her nervous, but he’d join her soon enough—he couldn’t have been caught.
She’d seen no warwitches prowling the darkness around the coven grounds, so he had to be safe and just … just late.
Something tickled her cheek. Semras distractedly waved it off.
It came back, and she batted it away again.
On the third time, her brain suddenly became aware of the moth. It fluttered across her skin, repeatedly trying to land on her. A lurching anxiety twisted her heart when she recognized its black wings.
It was Blyana’s.
Semras let it land on her cheek. Woven into its wings, her friend’s voice unravelled into her ears as soon as it did. The message contained only three words: ‘Friend. Danger. Mother-Tree.’
Fear—cold, sweaty, the kind that rattled bones and seeped into the bloodstream until each finger grew numb and stiff—seized her.
She stood, eyes snapping to the Mother-Tree’s entrance just as a horn blew out. Long and piercing, the chilling sound only lasted for seconds—it felt like a lifetime to her.
Warwitches had caught an intruder. They were calling the Coven to witness their judgment.
Semras rushed inside.