Chapter Twenty #2
This is not a place built to impress. It is a place built to enclose.
Seren drags her gaze back to the bone-lined entrance behind her, now half-hidden in shadow. From this side, the skeletons look different. Less like warnings. More like guardians.
She swallows.
Whatever The Harrows are, they are not meant to break her here. They are meant to test her. To strip her. To show her what remains when fear, strength, pride, and desperation have all been burned away. To ask her, plainly, whether that is enough.
The candles flicker.
The other witches stretch around the room—evenly spaced and orderly. Like they’ve done this before.
Seren stops. Simply pauses in a space between the candles and the perimeter of witches.
She wants to wrap her arms around herself—a nervous habit. But she refuses, forcing herself to tilt her chin up, to pull her shoulders back, no matter how her ribs scream at her.
Lara’s amethyst eyes drag across the cavern, landing on the witches, one by one. But never Seren.
She stalks around the circle. And she looks every bit the High Witch of The Dreaded.
“Magic is plentiful across the realms,” her voice casts through the room like the truth—unequivocal. “Competence is not.”
Murmurs of agreement drift through the space.
“The Harrows are not tests. They are not even trials. They are questions.” Lara’s voice pitches low, eerie.
Seren’s breath catches in her throat. Questions. What kind, she wasn’t sure.
The echo of Lara’s boot steps reverberate off the cavern walls—as if Seren needs multiple reminders of where she is.
“Every witch who walks in here thinks her blood is enough,” she croons, then her gaze snaps to Seren. “Every set of bones hanging at the mouth of The Perils proves otherwise.”
Fuck.
Seren swallows thickly, bile rising in her throat.
“The Harrows ask you to face what you most fear.” A beat. “And every witch fears something.”
Seren looses a shaky, fragmented breath.
No one moves. No one speaks.
Except Lara.
The only sound is the thud of her footfalls as she makes her way around the circle. Seren turns slowly behind her, pain shooting through her knees, agony gripping her ribs. But she doesn’t let it show.
Lara approaches, eyes like lunafleurs fixed on Seren’s face, taking her in. Analyzing.
Lara lifts her hand to Seren’s cheek, and Seren fights the urge to flinch. Instead, she does not look away as Lara traces a sharp, pointed nail along the edge of her jaw, stopping at the soft spot under her chin.
“Survive The Harrows, and you’re one of us, witchling,” she breathes, almost seductively.
But Seren is not fooled by pretty words. She knows a threat when she hears one.
“Fail, and your bones will sing the melody of winds through the Silent Choir at the mouth.”
Panic flares in Seren’s chest, but she begs it to recede. Forces it back behind the bars of her resolve.
Not now.
Lara drags her nail over Seren’s chin, pressing hard enough against her skin that Seren resists the urge to wince.
Lara’s nail traces the outline of Seren’s bottom lip, flicking her nail with a sharp swipe until red-black blood seeps from the fresh cut.
It runs down Seren’s chin in a single stream, the scent of iron filling the air.
But still, Seren does not falter. She fixes her honey-brown eyes on the amethyst crystals of Lara’s.
Not a challenge. An invitation.
Lara grips her chin, forceful now.
“Your blood means nothing to me, witch. I’ll have your loyalty or your bones—you choose,” Lara threatens, voice a low, lethal promise.
But Seren won’t suffer another day of being submissive to the rule of others.
“What’s my first question?” she grits out.
Lara huffs a humorless laugh. “Walk into The Harrows with arrogance, child, and you won’t walk out at all.”
Seren sets her jaw. “It is not arrogance you see in my eyes. It’s readiness.”
Lara doesn’t speak for a heartbeat. Two.
She slowly lifts her nail from Seren’s lip, and another bead of ichor falls down her chin.
Seren runs the tip of her tongue along the cut, the metallic tang blooming in her mouth.
“Words mean nothing if they are not confirmed with action, witch,” Lara tests, spinning on her heel and stalking around the circle of her witches again.
She waves her hand over the body of water. “These are The Widow’s Waters. Made of the tears of the first witch.”
Lara does not look at Seren, her boot steps projecting through the cavern in a steady rhythm.
“Tears she cried after the death of her lover.”
The space grows heavy with silence. And Seren knows it is her who is expected to fill it.
So she asks what everyone wants her to ask. “How did her lover die?”
Lara rounds the final bend of the body of water, arcing wide to approach Seren from behind. Seren’s breath becomes an audible whisper. Her body tingles with Lara’s approaching presence, every hair standing on end.
Lara’s steps approach.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
A war drum.
And Seren understands instantly why they are The Dreaded.
Lara’s beautiful mouth presses into Seren’s ear, a dark, seductive thing.
“The Widow slit his throat.”
Seren’s skin breaks out in gooseflesh as if begging her to run. Run. Run.
She swallows down her fear, but her heart gives her away—it thunders through her chest.
“Do you want to know why, little witch?” Lara taunts.
But Seren has come too far to back down now. Too far to let an old story be her undoing.
“Yes,” she says, with more confidence than she feels.
“Because witches are loyal to no one but witchkind, and it is our duty to prove it—The Widow knew it, and she proved it.” Lara’s words crawl through Seren’s veins and bleed into her bones. “So must you.”
Seren understands now: love is not forbidden here. But it is never allowed to come first.
Fuck.
“Loved ones are weaknesses. Nothing more than a weak point to exploit. To leverage. To cull. And The Dreaded do not allow such vulnerabilities.”
Seren exhales a shaky breath.
“Are you ready for the first question of The Harrows, witch?” Lara croons, and the words sound mocking.
But Seren is tired of giving. So fucking tired of handing herself over to whoever demands it. So she’ll take something.
Witches are loyal to witchkind, and that includes herself, right?
So she straightens, pulls her shoulders back despite her ribs screaming in protest. Despite the witch at her back.
“On one condition,” Seren announces, casting her voice into the cavern.
Lara scoffs and the cavern rumbles with soft laugher. Lara pulls herself away from Seren’s ear, stepping around her with predatory grace.
“Well, go on, witch. Make your demands,” Lara allows, waving a mocking hand.
Seren draws in a long breath, steeling her nerve. “A question for a question.”
The Perils go silent. Even the candles stop guttering. As if they, too, hold their breath.
Lara clasps her hands behind her back, her face an unreadable glare.
“You answer the first question from The Harrows, witch, and I’ll answer one of yours,” Lara agrees. She pauses for a heartbeat—not in uncertainty, but as a tactic. “Not because I owe it to you, and not because you’re entitled to it. Consider it a reward for your audacity.”
Seren searches the High Witch’s words, looking for a loophole or a lie. But she can’t find one, not in the heartbeat that’s passed. So Seren offers a tight nod, not wanting to do anything to make Lara change her mind.
“Then I’m ready for my question,” Seren confirms, preparing herself.
A wicked smile crooks Lara’s lips. “We’ll see,” she mocks, as she approaches The Widow’s Waters. Her arms throw wide. “The Harrows ask you, Seren Calvatere… what would you sacrifice to stand among us?”
Seren blinks, waiting for the gut-punch that is surely coming.
“A drop of your blood in The Widow’s Waters,” Lara commands. “And The Widow will commence your question—and you, Seren, will answer.”
Seren’s hands turn clammy, a cold sweat breaking out on her neck.
What will she be asked to sacrifice?
But before her mind can conjure a plan, her body is moving. Her hand stretches out toward Lara. Her eyes lock on the High Witch, unafraid and unyielding.
“Make me bleed.”
And Lara’s eyes glow with something akin to approval as she slashes a fresh wound into Seren’s palm.