Chapter 1
Chapter
One
ESMERAY
Eyes watched me from the edge of the woods.
I had never managed to see them, but their weight caressed my skin like a physical touch as I tended to my garden.
I’d always felt as if somebody observed me from the shadows of the trees, lingering just out of sight.
After five years living on the edge of the woods, the sensation was familiar, almost comfortable.
But today, the sensation grew particularly intense, raising hairs on my arms and sending a shiver down my spine. It wasn’t altogether unpleasant.
My fingers plunged into the dirt, the warm metallic smell of churned earth filling my nose as I made a hole for the rhubarb cutting lying beside me. My fingernails would be crusted with mud, but I didn’t care.
Especially not today.
The full moon would light the sky tonight, and as always, a wild power thrummed in my veins.
All the witches in the village would celebrate the harvest moon tonight with a festival, but something about the power it brought made my magic itch.
As if I should tear off my clothes and run wild through the night.
When I was small, my mother told me I had been touched by the moon—that Lunara’s blessing was the reason my hair glistened white, despite my dark complexion. On days like today, I thought she might be right.
Perhaps that is why I felt like the woods watched me.
Dangers lurked in the shadows of the woods.
The villagers never dared set foot in the depths of the forest, and only the bravest witches among them ventured into the outskirts to collect mushrooms and herbs for incantations.
Parents warned children away, telling tales of trees that would swallow them until their screams were muffled by bark and branches.
But the forest had always drawn me in, and the full moon made the call nearly irrresistible. That was why I imagined it watched me—taunted me. It knew I yearned to run wild amongst the beasts of the wood, but I had always shoved that urge away.
I looked up from where I packed earth around the rhubarb stem and a gold flicker caught my eye. I squinted at the tree line, convinced it had been lamp-like eyes shining in the shadows before they blinked away. Now only the dappled green of waving branches greeted my gaze.
I shook my head, trying to clear my vision.
While I had always imagined somebody watching, I had never caught sight of any movement besides the swishing of branches and the fluttering of birds’ wings.
But today, the forest seemed particularly alive.
As if its wildness spilled past the borders of the trees, trying to draw me in. The eyes were just another sign.
“Esmeray!”
I jumped at the sound of my sister calling my name, having been so preoccupied staring at the woods that I hadn’t heard the bang of the door as she came out of the house.
“Come inside. If you don’t start getting ready soon, you’ll have to spend the festival covered in dirt.”
I stood and dusted my hands on my apron, although a whisper beneath my skin told me that it wouldn’t be so bad to be crusted with earth. Still, I turned with a smile.
Izara stood in the doorway, her dark hair wreathing her head in a wild halo and her black eyes shining with excitement. This would be her first harvest moon festival since getting her witch marks—her first opportunity to take part in the true magic of the night.
She had gone through the rite that marked her passage into adulthood just two moons ago. The new markings across her chest—unique for every witch—indicated she was now a master of her power. A fully-fledged witch, and a talented one at that.
She beckoned me inside excitedly, leading me to her room.
“Let’s get you cleaned up and try on our dresses.” She practically skipped down the hall. I followed after her only slightly more sedately.
Where my magic was the moon, hers was the sun, full of a warmth that you couldn’t help but be drawn to. As we rounded the corner to her bedroom, splashes of colorful cloth strewn across the quilt on her bed greeted us: green for me and red for her.
“Come on… come on!” She flapped her hands at me, eager for me to take off my smudged brown skirt and shooing me towards a wash basin in the corner.
I did as she asked, scrubbing my hands and relieving myself of the rough spun garment. As I did, she stepped up behind me and pulled a leaf from my braids with a smile.
“Someday, you are going to start growing roots and branches yourself,” she teased.
In the time it had taken me to wash, she had already changed into her deep burgundy dress, designed especially for her.
The neckline was high but wide, showing off the slope of her shoulder and collarbone.
I looked at her wistfully in the mirror, wondering when she had become a woman.
Her witch mark, resting in the hollow of her throat, pulsed with the guiding light of the Goddess Solara, who would protect her for the rest of her days. But I had been the one to protect her up until now.
I blinked quickly at the thought, and at the sense of untethered melancholy that overcame me whenever I remembered that my sister didn’t truly need me anymore. Not in the way she once had.
Now, she grabbed my attention by shaking my own dress at me, the emerald green fabric rippling and pooling on the floor, as I was taller than her and my dress far longer. I sighed as she helped me step into it and lace up the back, bouncing on her toes in excitement.
“I thought tonight we would do something extra special, since it’s my first festival with my witch marks,” she said, barely containing her excitement.
She gestured to her dressing table, and my heart leaped into my throat as I saw what lay there: our mother’s jewelry.
Beads meant to decorate braids and a comb adorned with shimmering antlers, wrought from gold.
The antlers had always been my favorite, and I would run my fingers over them in adoration whenever my mother brought them out.
She had promised me that one day I would wear them, and the thought had always brought a smile to my face.
Even when I had struggled to feed my sister and me, knowing such pieces would fetch us enough coins to feed us for a year, I could never part with them—could barely consider selling them without bile rising in my throat.
So I had made do selling potions and poultices that other witches would not make, as they could not gather the mushrooms and herbs needed without braving the outskirts of the woods.
The jewelry had been our mother’s most prized possession, given to her by our father during a time when witches were revered in the kingdom instead of pushed to towns on the outskirts of society where we could practice our magic without fear.
Carefully, I walked over to the dressing table and picked up the golden antlers, their shape and size making them akin to a crown.
I turned towards Izara with the comb. As much as I longed to put them atop my own braids, perhaps she should wear them, as this was her special night.
The gold would look striking nestled in her wild cloud of curls.
She shook her head.
“You should wear it,” she murmured, laying her hands over mine. “They were always meant to be yours. You deserve it.”
The lump in my throat grew thicker and I tried to swallow it down, to no avail. Still, I didn’t protest as Izara took the antlers from me and slid the comb into the tight weave of my braids. As she did, I got the strange sense of eyes on me again, and I shivered.
The full moon was rising.