Chapter 2
Rumor Malefic
My witch ancestry simmered in my blood as I felt their collective impression as thick upon my consciousness as the soil that surrounded me. A resounding Malefic cry of horror, dismay, disappointment.
Well, even ancestors were wrong sometimes.
I’d done what was needed.
What’s needed isn’t always popular—especially with children. That’s what Prism was—a child. Behaving like a child, manipulated like a child. In the absence of our mothers, it was my job to keep her safe, to do the right thing for her, even at the cost of her affections.
My head throbbed as I sucked in a deep breath.
No desire to dig.
No compulsion to emerge from my grave.
This time I wanted to stay.
Perhaps that’s what the mystery curse wanted and I should finally give in and let it take me. Bury me alive in the wretched Blackthorne hallowed ground of betrayal.
I didn’t have it in me to sort through recent events.
My temples throbbed.
My sister hated me.
The spider clutched my forehead.
My coven lied to me.
My jaw ached.
The Blackthorne Boys betrayed me.
My fists clutched at my sides.
Hate… finally the emotion, the charge, the essence that I needed, greeted me through the storm of my thoughts. Like a lightning bolt, ire shot through my system, propelling me forward.
My hand shot up through the dirt.
Something wet and fuzzy slicked against my palm.
I recoiled for a moment before pulling myself up by my elbows. Three oinks and muffled grunts awaited me as a small herd of pigs licked at my legs and sniffed at my hair as I rolled over in fatigue from the dig.
A rotund, huffing beast nudged me with its nose.
Memories pressed into my mind. A lot had happened, and clearly I was disoriented—but this wasn’t where I’d been buried. I’d never dug myself out of this particular mud pit before.
My vision adjusted, taking in the dreary gray clouds as I lay immobile on my back. Another pig nibbled at my boot, and I shook him off, groaning as I sat up. No gravestones, no rolling hills of thorns, no looming castle.
Thunder grumbled overhead as a cold droplet of rain slid down my cheek.
Pulling myself up, I dodged snorting pigs and buzzing flies.
The stench burned my nostrils as I slopped through the muck and climbed the wooden fence.
Rain poured as I trudged past cows. They eyed me from beneath the trees as if they felt sorry for me.
Muddy.
Hair caked in dirt.
Bones weak.
Head pounding.
Smoke curls in the distance were my only indicator of civilization.
Willowspire. Or whatever was left of it.
As I sloshed through cold, wet earth, I realized I’d somehow been buried in the pigpen with the livestock outside of town.
Prism and I used to play in these fields.
My little sister would make flower crowns for all the goats while I sharpened sticks for my makeshift bows and arrows.
I wished I could go back to those days.
I don’t know how everything got so messed up.
Why Prism would… why she’d… I was just trying to keep her safe. I was the only person trying to keep her safe and she…
I couldn’t face it.
Not then.
Not with rocks in my shoes and manure stuck to my knees. I shuffled into Willowspire much like I used to—only coming from the fields instead of the castle hills.
As I entered the cold stone of my hometown, the wreckage greeted me like a wounded animal in a snare. The bakery in shambles, shop storefronts in rubble, the town square demolished to pebbles where a stone epicenter once stood. Even the trees were splintered and charred from monsters and magic.
Carnage at every turn.
Willowspire was all but ruined.
Townsfolk worked together in small groups, assessing their areas and digging through debris.
A woman covered her mouth when she saw me. “You—you dare show your face here, witch?”
“Me?” I asked, dumbfounded. “I fought to save Willowspire. This is just as much my home as it is yours.”
“My home is a pile of wood from the blaze your illegal magic started—from the monsters you brought, from the Blackthorne daimons you invited here!”
A small crowd gathered behind her, nodding their agreement, some crossing their arms, others looking at me with furrowed judgement.
The shock of her words settled in as I stood before them, feeling muddy, ugly, and naked before a town demolished. “I didn’t mean to,” I admitted, covering my arms as rain still softly fell.
The woman’s cheeks were red with cold anger. “Why is she still here? Why didn’t the fog take her and not the nice one?”
Pain shot through my chest at that. Not at the desire for me to be gone, trust me, I wanted to be very much gone, too. But at the confirmation that my sister really wasn’t here.
Prism really did walk straight into Asunder’s ethers… straight to her end.
I swallowed my raw emotions. “Let me help,” I said hoarsely. “I can help.”
The woman opened her mouth only to be silenced by a hand on her shoulder. Parting the crowd, Empath, my crone, stepped forward. The hazel gaze of my coven’s leader held the weight of an ancestral line of thousands of witches, each of them boring into me with a sense of condemnation.
I’d burnt it all to the ground to save my sister—only to lose her. I’d been willing to sacrifice Willowspire in the process, and it seemed I’d lost it, too. I’d set the Blackthorne Boys free, only to ultimately be betrayed and buried by them.
Everything I’d set out to do, I’d failed at.
I’d failed everyone… and Empath knew it.
During the battle, the crone had cast me out and accused me of bringing evil upon us.
Admitted to trying to rid our town of me.
How could she? After all the years I’d poured into our coven, our town, our home…
“Empath,” I said on a small, breathy plea that sounded smaller than I’d wanted it to. “I… I…”
“Go home, Rumor,” the crone answered in a firm yet tired way that sounded very much like my mother when Prism and I were squabbling after a long day. “Go to your cottage and wait for us to decide what to do with you.”
My argument died on my tongue as I met the collective gaze of the town. All sorrow, fury, and loss. All my fault… all this carnage to be left so alone.
I nodded and tried to ignore the feeling of their stares on my back as I walked away.
Unfortunately, home was no comfort. Our front window broken and the wall surrounding it in shards of wood. The wither must have torn it apart trying to get to Prism as I whisked us away.
The wither that my sister claimed to love.
The monster that I killed.
If this were anyone’s fault, it was that creature’s. Whatever those beings had done to her warped her mind so profoundly, not only did she think she had feelings for it, but she’d tried to harm me and herself once I freed her from its claws.
Yes, blaming the monster felt right… sort of. Why didn’t it feel wholly right?
My emotions were all jumbled, and sorrow clung to me like the dirt caked to my body.
My front door pushed open easily, and aside from the gash in the front wall, everything inside was intact.
Either from the cottage’s wards or because the withers retreated immediately.
I’d like to think the wards were strong enough to keep them out—but maybe they weren’t.
Maybe the cottage wasn’t warded at all. Maybe my moms had lied about it so my sister and I wouldn’t worry.
The feeling that nothing was true seeped into my skin as I filled a basin of lukewarm water and tore off my ragged dress.
The thought of everyone’s lies pressed upon my shoulders as I scrubbed my arms.
My crone lied.
My coven lied.
The Blackthorne Boys lied.
My sister lied.
The stupid grimoire lied.
Pink stained my skin as I scrubbed harder and harder, leaving the water basin brown with the muck of my bath. I fought with my hair, washing out straw and grass.
They’d buried me alive. Riot, Spade, and Twenty had played me for a fool. For a moment, I’d thought they’d been my friends… or worse… that perhaps I could see myself loving one of them. They’d used that against me, hadn’t they? Of course, they had.
I was a damn fool for trusting them, and it had cost me. “And I’m a fool for trusting a talking fucking book,” I swore over at the grimoire on the table. “Did you hear that? You promised to help me, but you wrecked my life.”
Stomping into my room, I pulled on a new dress and slumped into my bed, not bothering to make a fire, even though it was freezing. Snow would come soon; I could taste it in the bite in the air. Mother’s sing-song voice fluttered, unwelcome into my thoughts.
“The first snow of the year is the most magical. Save it in a jar and use it to aid your protection charms.”
Bullshit.
Anything Mother had ever taught us was bullshit. This stupid cottage, this backwards town, all the love and light, it was all fucking bullshit.
What was the point of any of it? What did it get me? Absolutely fucking nothing but pain and ruin. Now what? What was I going to do now while I sat on my ass and awaited the coven’s decision of my fate?
Well, no, that certainly wasn’t happening.
I wasn’t going to just do nothing and adhere to their judgement.
But I needed, at the very least, information from them—some sort of direction on where to go and what to do next.
Could Prism still be alive? Where would she be?
What happened once the fog took someone?
Questions with no immediate answers.
A body sore and rubbed raw.
A broken cottage letting in the chill of winter’s night.
A discarded witch sinking away.