Chapter 22 Cedar
Cedar
The pulsing cube in the sack on my hip felt like a bomb. I could still feel the dark magic seeping out of it and brushing over my body.
As I walked, the eyes of the witches that had once accepted me felt like daggers.
While I didn’t know each and every one of them on a personal level, I felt as though there once was a camaraderie between witch covens. That was lost to me now.
Maybe it had been the atrocities my coven played a part in, maybe it was my status as a vampire princess’s pet. Or maybe they could feel the dark secret I carried with me.
To them, I was an intruder. An outsider.
My coven, for the most part, liked to stick to itself. We rarely took the chance to interact with others, probably because our leader didn’t want our crimes known to the public. I could see that now.
But this one… They knew me.
It was one of the few located in the heart of the city closest to the Castle family. They put up barriers around their territory that would repel anyone who would do them harm and all humans.
Except if they were wanted for something.
Levana had used their territory to lure Vesper to her. She and I had been the only two to deal with this coven and, to be honest, the only two on the coven grounds.
While I didn’t know their official coven name or the name of the attack dogs they kept, there were one too many Edelweiss scattered about. On street corners. Street signs. On top of the entrance to what looked like a normal office building.
I swallowed down all the nervousness as I looked up at it. It was taller than all the other buildings around it and its very tip seemed to brush the clouds in the sky, almost as if it were a finger gently running across them.
There was no guarantee they would let me in. There must have already been rumors about what happened between me and mine.
But what they don’t know is that my coven is helping the vampires.
Or at least it seemed like it, and I wouldn’t put it past them. Things were all starting to click into place, and as much as I didn’t want to be here, I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility to at least warn them about what was happening.
And try not to start a war while I’m at it.
Easier said than done.
Just go in. Drop it off. Make a quick exit.
It was about a half a day’s journey here and back, so at least if I was locked out, I could get back before dinner.
The bond was already aching and pulling me back to Aurelia and Vesper. I didn't want to leave them, not now.
We had agreed that I wouldn't point fingers at the council. I was just a messenger, nothing more, nothing less.
I just hope people still choose not to shoot the messenger.
Pushing myself to go, I was shocked when the doors all but fell away when I put my palm on one and pushed. I jerked forward, the sudden nothingness in front of me causing me to lose my balance.
My gasp caught in my throat when the scene changed in front of me, blown away by the sheer beauty of it.
Inside wasn’t your normal office building. It didn’t look like an office at all. I was transported directly into the forest with three towering waterfalls surrounding me. The sound of the water rang in my ears, and even the smell was clean and fresh.
Beyond them were tall mountains with bright flowers scattered throughout. A small breeze carried the scent of them and the water. It tickled the hair on my neck.
The floor below me changed from dirty concrete to flowing water. My heart jumped, afraid of falling in, but the cold splash of the water never came.
Is all this really possible?
“Cedar, my poor, sweet witch, you’ve been the talk of the town.”
I forced a smile on my face and looked up to see a woman right in front of me.
Long, white-silver hair, a heart-shaped face, pink painted lips, and a smile that looked like she truly pitied me.
Her light blue eyes told a more sinister story, though.
Her blue and white dress matched the surrounding water and flowed off her curvy body like the current below.
The power radiating from her was unmistakable. But it wasn’t harsh, like my coven head’s was. It was smooth, feeling just like the stream below us.
The gentleness scared me even more than the harshness of the magic back at my coven. Their cruelty was expected. However, her magic lulled me into a false sense of security, making me want to trust her without her doing anything to earn it.
“I would guess as much,” I said and bent my head to her. “Morgan, it’s nice to see you in person. I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure.”
Her smile widened.
“Still so smooth with your words. Was that how you got not one, but two bonded to you?”
Heat washed up my neck. Of course she knew. Morgan was the coven head and liked to remain elusive. While her location wasn’t a secret, not many were granted entrance into her place.
Myself included.
“I didn’t know the witches knew about that,” I muttered.
Her eyes twinkled. “We know about everything, my dear. Even that dangerous box you carry.”
Panic and fear flooded me.
“No. None of that. I won’t hurt you.”
But others may was what she left out.
“I suppose you know what it contains then.” I reached into my sack to pull out the magic artifact that held the body of the monster who hunted my people. It pulsed with that same dirty energy I felt in the throne room.
Only when she plucked it out of my hands did I realize how heavy it made me feel. How sickly. My stomach lurched, and I had to clamp my hand over my mouth at the suddenness of it.
Morgan looked at it with a sadness that I couldn’t bring myself to show, even though I felt it. It was a different kind of pain. One that sunk into your bones, scarring you so deeply that every time you saw another witch, you would be reminded of its existence.
“Disgusting creature,” she said, handing it off to the side where an assistant appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and took it from her before disappearing again.
“We will do the work of trying to figure out the witches he stole from. Thank you, Cedar. I am sure the families will be happy to get some closure.”
I bowed my head to her and took a step back, ready to make my swift exit, but she stopped me.
“Is there something you want to ask me?”
I froze, feeling like a mouse caught in a trap. The door was right behind me, but it felt like miles away.
The sound of the waterfall intensified.
My heart pounded in my chest.
“Are you a seer?” I breathed, feeling dizzy.
“I am many things,” she admitted with a chuckle, taking my hand gently as she guided me further into her realm. “A coven leader. A mother. A protector. Most importantly, though, I know you want to know something about that Castle leader. So ask, my sweet witch.”
I let her sit me down on a chair that looked transparent, the same current running under it, while she took another opposite me.
I sank into it with ease. My muscles relaxed, and for the first time in months, I felt like I could drift off into a deep sleep.
Not one plagued with nightmares.
“We haven’t seen any markings on him, but he is getting stronger.”
Her smile never changed, like she knew exactly what I was going to ask. Because she did. I had seen that look on the seer in my coven many times over.
“Then it isn’t witch lives he is taking,” she said. “And I think you know that.”
I gritted my teeth. Do I, though? I wasn’t so sure I knew much of anything anymore.
“I don’t know much about these rituals.”
“Don’t you?” she asked, leaning forward. Her eyes dug into me. “In your memories, isn’t there something you witnessed that might provide you with some answers?”
My parents’ murder flashed before my eyes. I clenched my fists against the rage building up in me. I was so comfortable in the chair, mind unperturbed by anything else, that the memories seemed clear. More painful than before.
“That was different. My coven—”
“Ex-coven,” she corrected. I didn’t know why that sent a pang through my chest.
“He didn’t have markings either,” I said quickly.
Morgan just stared at me. Long enough for me to realize what I had said.
I cursed and looked down at the ground. A stray fish caught my eye. Unease traveled through me. Vesper and Aurelia tried to fight it through the bond, but it was too much without their presence.
“I don’t want to go back,” I whispered, hating how weak I sounded.
I was weak. I couldn’t save Vesper by myself. Couldn’t save Aurelia. I was a burden to them both, and now I was sitting with a coven leader talking about things I really shouldn’t.
“But someone is waiting for you. He went through a great deal to save all three of you. Don’t you think you should return the favor?”
I looked up at her to protest, but my eyes caught sight of something that had been banned for at least a decade. A single orb, bright red fire raging inside it.
My mind flashed to the dream the seer sent me.
The coven will burn.
Was that a message for me? A warning? And was Morgan giving me the keys to something unthinkable?
“If you want to enact your revenge, it’s possible. But I ask that you save him.” She gave me a long look, then whispered in the most broken voice. “Please.”
Only then did I see the resemblance between her and the boy in my dreams. It wasn’t the color of their hair or their eyes, but their features. The way they looked on with a soft, knowing gaze.
“His mother?”
She shook her head.
“His aunt. I watched my sister die to save him from that monster you once called coven leader. Our entire family was born with the power to see the future and has been hunted since. I am asking you to save him for her. Bring him back to me.”
My mind stalled. Had the seers been leading me to this moment in an attempt to get one of their own free?
Now I’m starting to know how Vesper felt when she realized her entire life had been controlled by people behind the scenes.
“If I do this, will you join us?”
She stayed silent for a long moment.
“You know the answer to that.”
I did. The witches never got involved in things that didn’t concern them.
“Does he know how to stop it?” I asked. “The coven leader?”
She pushed the orb closer to me.
“I guess you’ll have to find out for yourself, won’t you?”
Did I want revenge so bad that I was willing to do this? I had been so busy with Aurelia and Vesper that I hadn’t had time to realize what my parents’ murder meant to me.
The rage was simmering below my skin, just waiting for a chance to burst out. If I could see it, I was sure it would have a similar hue to the orb in front of me.
“This is some sort of trick.” I was trying to convince myself. A last desperate chance to talk myself out of it.
But I was being pulled in by the desire to burn it all down. To make them pay for hurting my parents. For hurting me. The people I love. He bled us dry until there was nothing left as he starved the people in the coven, hoarding power and using us as his watchdogs to keep the peace.
Even against our own people.
He didn’t care about us. If anyone went against him, he would see that they were taken down, in or outside the coven. It was one of the reasons why I couldn’t show my face around here often.
I was among the ones sent out to kill others. Just like Vesper, murder and darkness were attached to my entire being, no matter how much I tried to deny it.
Levana wasn’t known as a witch killer. She could move with freedom. Come into this coven and befriend them.
I wasn’t afforded the same liberties.
It was my last dirty secret. My lovers didn’t know. It was the one thing I kept hidden away in the recesses of my mind, trying to help me forget.
They deserved to pay. And the coven leader in front of me seemed to read my thoughts with ease.
“A helping hand is all,” she said with a smile.
“You’re asking me to kill more of us than I already have. Doesn’t it make you feel sick?”
I was trying to get a rise out of her, but she didn’t fall for it.
“What makes me sick is all the beatings they put you through as a kid. The scars still pumping full of his magic, and I know they bother you, even now that you’ve escaped his clutches.
That at night sometimes you sneak away when the others aren’t paying attention and try to scrub your body clean of them. ”
I sat straight. My ears started ringing. “Stop.”
Vesper and Aurelia didn’t know about what I did in the shower when I was alone, and I was too ashamed to say it out loud.
“It makes me sick that they forced you out in the cold. That they put you through rigorous training when you were just a young girl. And my poor nephew, all alone. In chains. Never seeing the sunlight. I see the real monsters, Cedar. I’ve seen what they’ve done to you and what they will do. You would be doing us all a favor.”
My eyes dropped back to the orb.
“Is this a prophecy?”
My hand was already reaching out, my fingers brushing over it.
Energy surged through me.
“I would call it a nudge.”
I pulled back, my stomach twisting, and stood, looking down at her.
“I will get the information my own way. If I have a chance, I will save him. But that is not my focus right now.”
Her smile never wavered.
“Go on now, sweet witch. Your lovers are getting impatient.”
I bowed my head and turned to leave, but she gave me one last parting gift, her voice trailing after me.
“If you change your mind, the orb will be at your fingertips.”
I left the fake office building with a shiver running down my spine.
Maybe it’s time I leave the witches for good.