Chapter 32 #2
Semras cupped his face. Standing on her toes, she brushed her lips over his tentatively as she slid her hands down to his chest.
Velten’s body responded like a spark to a flame. His hands flew to clutch her back, then dragged her into his embrace. Pressed together, their bodies felt right, as if they each were the broken parts of a single entity.
Broken by who they were, by who they couldn’t help being.
His knuckles caressed her jaw, while his other hand trailed up and down her back. Their lips still teased each other, hovering yet not touching. Estevan crossed the line first; he trailed his mouth over her skin, then left a fleeting kiss against her jaw.
Her breath hitched at his delirious touch.
Then he gave her another on the cheek and on the chin, and then Semras whined. Her body shivered. Her heart beat too fast; her skin burned too hot. She couldn’t do this anymore.
She wasn’t sure if she meant the poison or the teasing—or if the distinction even mattered anymore.
Chasing all her thoughts and doubts away, Semras grabbed the back of Estevan’s head and captured his lips with hers. He would deny her no more.
Yielding to her, he parted his mouth, and she deepened their kiss, drawing from him a sinful groan.
Beneath her tongue, the seed of wolfsbane felt as sharp as a blade against her throat.
Later, she thought, later. One more kiss, she took, and one more.
His hand trailed down from her hair to her chest, and Semras pressed herself against his touch.
A dam of restraint broke. His or hers—it didn’t make a difference.
Estevan ground his hips against hers, pinning her to a tree behind her.
His hands greedily caressed the curve of her waist, then fumbled with the laces of her dress, tugging and pulling at them with urgency.
Her own leisurely explored his shoulders.
Greedy for more, she slid her hands down his chest and ripped his shirt out of his belt to slip them beneath it, seeking the planes of muscles she had seen so long ago now in that small tent by the road.
Nothing had changed since then.
Everything had changed since then.
Semras rested her hand over his heart, the one he promised she could rip out.
And then, she did. Into wounds wolves had once clawed into him, she cruelly dug her fingers and reopened them.
Blood seeped out to taint his shirt in dark dots of red.
Estevan groaned in pain, and her tongue pushed the Crone-cursed, tiny seed inside his mouth just in time before he jerked away from her.
The inquisitor’s wide, shocked gaze fell on the reddening edge of his wound. By all appearances, he hadn’t noticed the seed that fell down his throat.
Satisfied, Semras licked the blood off her gloved fingers. “How does it feel to have your heart ripped out when you least expect it?”
“If I ever had a heart …” he said, pressing against the bleeding on his chest, “I would have told you.”
Her breath shuddered out of her, draining away what remained of her naive dreams of love and devotion. Silently, the witch walked backward into the night, gaze boring into her Wyrdtwined until she blended into the darkness whence she came.
Limbs of lead returned Semras to Pagan. She climbed on its back, then waited for the inquisitor to resume his travel. All she needed now was for him to guide her to her coven sister.
He did not move. Among the trees, Estevan stayed rooted in place, eyes fixed on where she had disappeared minutes before.
A lifetime passed before his voice rose through the night. “Farewell, Semras of Yore, wild and free daughter of the Night.”
Dried leaves crinkled beneath Estevan’s footsteps. He mounted his horse, glanced back one last time, and then rode away.
Wind rustled the branches of old trees. It passed by her, through her, and left her chilled to the core.
Semras wiped away her tears. It was time.
Time to make Inquisitor Velten rue the day he pissed off a witch of Yore.
Semras trailed the inquisitor through a Vedwoods basked in moonlight. Far above her head, the wind danced through the forest canopy. Hidden among the stretching shadows of tree trunks, crickets filled the air with their loud chirping. An owl hooted somewhere, then dove to catch unsuspecting prey.
The witch paid no mind to the beauty of the night; her eyes were strained on the faltering rider ahead of her.
For the past half-hour, Velten had shown increasing signs of poisoning. When he started clutching at his chest, she took a deep breath and forced her jaw to unclench. It wouldn’t be long now, but she still had to wait. She needed to know where he was going before she could give him the antidote.
After a few more minutes of riding, the woods opened into a clearing, and the inquisitor halted his horse at its edge.
A huge, ancient oak stood in the middle of the glade. Steps carved into the sides of its trunk led to a cabin sitting higher on the branches—the witch’s house, without a doubt.
Inquisitor Velten dismounted, wavered, and then fell to the ground.
Semras tapped Pagan’s neck impatiently. The stallion let her down, and she rushed to Velten’s side.
She found him braced against a tree trunk with his chest heaving.
Wordlessly, she uncorked her waterskin and tipped it into his mouth.
He drank deeply, eyes blurred and unfocused.
Some of the blackened water fell down his chin.
Semras checked his vital signs. The inquisitor looked pale and queasy; his hand was clutched over his heart, but he still breathed with ease.
Good—she had given him the antidote in time. She should be happy. Everything went exactly as planned. And yet …
Her face set into a grim, morose expression. “The charcoal will absorb part of the poison, but it will take some time before your body burns it all out.”
Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Estevan leaned against the tree. “… Poison? Y-You poisoned me?”
“With wolfsbane. You left me no choice, Inquisitor. I warned you I would stop you.”
“Wolfs … bane?” He tried to focus his eyes on her—and failed. “You poisoned … me with …”
His mouth had numbed under the effect of the seed, Semras noted.
She smiled, and it felt like a sneer. “What was it you told me once? ‘Had you trusted me less …’?” Jaw set, she threw her empty waterskin aside.
“You don’t owe me anything anymore, Inquisitor Velten.
You manipulated me, and now so did I. What a pair of Wyrdtwined we make.
” The witch chuckled in a shrill, hollow breath.
The sound painted horror on his face. Had her heart not been so scarred by now—by him—it would have made her aghast too.
Semras walked away toward the witch’s hut. “You’ll be fine,” she said without looking back. “Take some rest here, then return to your world and find a healer. Farewell, Estevan Velten. May we never meet again.” Mouth set in a harsh line, Semras left him behind.
She had done what she had to, and now her coven sister awaited.
The oak tree stairs sprawled up at her feet, and Semras began climbing. When she reached the top, she threw a final glance at Estevan.
To her surprise, the inquisitor had stumbled back onto his feet. She clicked her tongue in annoyance. Why was the stubborn man still trying to carry on? He’d only weaken himself. He needed rest and water, and—
Why did she care?
Shaking her head, she knocked on the door and waited. No answer came, and she called out. “Is anyone inside?”
Only silence replied to her.
Semras waited as long as she dared before resolving to enter. The hinges creaked as she pushed the door open. Her breath stilled in her lungs.
Only a madman or a desperate fool would walk uninvited into a witch’s lair. Semras painfully knew which one she was.
Entering cautiously, she found beyond the doorway a dark living room carved straight out of the tree trunk. The dying flames of a fireplace projected their glow onto a few comfortable-looking chairs set around a small crooked table nearby. On the side, stairs led to an upper area.
No one stood there.
Semras threw a glance toward one of the wooden walls. An impressive collection of pinned butterflies and bleached skulls adorned it.
“Is anyone here?” she called again. “I apologize for the intrusion, but I’m afraid time is of the essence, and—”
A wave of pure darkness descended from the stairs.
It engulfed her, and Semras gasped as her vision went blind.
With her night sight, she should have been able to perceive something, and yet she couldn’t.
All the wefts of light within the Unseen Arras had been ripped out at once.
That took immense willpower and skill. And intention.
The owner of the house knew Semras had intruded. Her voice, a deep matronly tone enriched by a thick Slavkan accent, echoed all around Semras. “Are you a madman?” Footsteps click-clacked down the wooden stairs in an exacting rhythm. “Or a desperate fool?”
“I’ve been both in the past week alone, Matriarch Weaver. I am Woodwitch Semras of Yore, the wild daughter of Sarana of Endor, and I come—”
The darkness lifted at once.
A woman of sixty summers stood right before her.
The witch of the oak tree was tall and bony in the way of an old mighty tree.
A black lacquered branch held a large bun of silvered brown hair behind her head.
From it, one long strand fell to her waist, where a bronze belt cinched her frock—a deep maroon gown lined with bronze threads.
The matriarch cut an intimidating figure, and she clearly knew it.
Her lips curled into a sly smile. Dotted scars around them denoted a former warwitch, but the empty, healed stitch holes told Semras of a Path renounced long ago. They were now nearly imperceptible among her skin’s many freckles and whorled tattoos.
“Ah … a fellow witch. And one whose name I have heard of before. Semras, welcome.” The matriarch’s voice turned silky, like warm wine. “I know of you. You joined Yore four seasons ago, didn’t you? I was told that you possess a rare talent for brewing. It pleases me immensely as a fellow herbalist.”
Robbed of her voice, Semras stared wordlessly at the matriarch. She too had heard of the older witch’s name before—in her own voice mere hours ago.
“I am Warwitch Leyevna of Yore, daughter of Bohdana of Heiss,” the older witch continued. “A pleasure to stand beneath the sky with you, girl.”
A living, breathing legend stood before Semras, but the petrifying awe of fame wasn’t what kept her rooted in place and turned her tongue into lead. It was something much, much worse.
“You mentioned a message of great urgency?” Leyevna asked, tactfully ignoring her shock. “Speak, I am listening.”
But Semras couldn’t. The intense glare of the matriarch kept her prisoner, as surely as if she were one of the pinned butterflies adorning the walls. She might yet join them soon.
For the gaze of Leyevna was one she knew all too well by now. The same gaze had haunted her for days; the same stare had burned her every time she found herself in its focus.
The same icy blue eyes of Inquisitor Estevan Velten.
The front door behind her slammed open. Heart beating jarringly, Semras forced herself to turn.
Breath labouring, Estevan hunched against the doorway. He glared at her, but when he spoke, it wasn’t her he addressed.
“… Mother.”