Chapter Twenty-Two
Loyalty cannot be compelled
Obedience kneels where fear is held
The blade is colder than Seren expects. Cold and decisive. A single bead wells, rich, perfect, unmistakably hers… and drops.
It falls into The Widow’s Waters.
“Remember,” Lara murmurs, “The Dreaded will be your first priority or your last breath. You must answer the question, witch. What will you sacrifice to stand among us?”
Seren sucks in a sharp breath, ribs still screaming. But the words land in her mind softly. They don’t feel as much like a threat as they should. They feel like a game. No—a riddle.
Yes, a riddle she will solve.
The surface does not ripple.
It opens.
The pool deepens, darkening from black glass to something older, thicker—like ink poured into memory.
The air tightens. The Perils holds its breath.
Even the bones at the mouth fall silent.
Candles gutter as the waters begin to move.
A breeze picks up through the cave, and the witches surrounding her are unmoving as their hair whips wildly.
But Seren’s attention does not stay on The Dreaded as figures rise slowly from the waters, as if drawn upward by a tide that knows their names.
Familiar.
Close.
Seren’s heart stutters as faces break the black glass surface.
Teddy.
Elyssara.
Ronyn.
Revryn.
People she knows.
People she loves.
The shape of their shoulders. The cadence of their breath. The way Ronyn’s mouth tilts after he’s said something inappropriate. The way Elyssara’s eyes gleam with defiance. The way Teddy stares at her like she’s a gift. The way Revryn always stands half a step in front of her—protective.
Her friends.
Her family.
Alive. Whole. Here.
But their faces shift. Wide-eyed and violent. They do not look at Seren. They look through her to the witches beyond.
Their blades are drawn, mouths twisted in snarls so wicked Seren flinches.
The coven shifts behind her. She feels it without turning—the collective attention sharpening, waiting.
This is the moment.
The test is not subtle.
These are the bonds that made her.
These are the hands that pulled her upright when she wanted to fold.
These are the voices that spoke her name like it mattered.
And this is the coven that runs in her blood.
This is the culture that hums in her veins.
This is the family she belongs to.
Seren understands immediately what The Dreaded expects.
They want blood spilled in proof.
They want rupture.
They want severance dressed up as devotion.
They want obedience. Submission.
They want proof that she will cut herself down to fit inside them.
Her friends emerge from The Widow’s Waters drenched and violent, their eyes catching the light like moonlit steel.
This isn’t real.
This isn’t real.
She repeats it to herself on a loop—the words reverberating in her skull like she can force herself to believe it.
Ronyn is closest to her, his arm arcing over his shoulder to pull an arrow from his quiver.
“Ronyn, stop—”
She steps in front of him, desperate to reason with the illusion; this version of him she doesn’t recognize.
But her words are cut short when he swings the arrow in a wide arc toward her in a slash commanding her to stand down.
It slices through the leather of her upper arm, and black-red claret oozes through the slash.
Seren winces, an instinctive hiss slicing through her teeth.
Fuck.
Her eyes widen in recognition.
God metal arrows.
Panic seizes her, fear grips her lungs.
Holy fucking Stars—this is real.
Painfully, undeniably real.
The illusion bleeds the same as truth.
He snarls, a vicious growl ripping from his throat.
This is not him.
Not the real him.
Not her Ronyn.
Seren runs, knees almost buckling with exhaustion after her battle with the seas, but she forces power into her legs.
Forces herself to stay upright. Her muscles scream.
Her ribs throb, the pulse of her heartbeat hammering through her broken bones.
She throws herself between her friends and the witch coven, their hands poised to lash magic, the pulse of it singing at their fingertips.
And that’s when she knows—this is not a question from The Widow’s Waters.
It’s judgment.
But today, Seren will not be judged. Not for her obedience. Not for her submission. No—today is about something else entirely.
And the witches are about to learn.
“Teddy, lower your sword,” she demands, forcing her voice to steady, shoving down her pain.
But he crouches lower, like a coiled spring. A duskprowler ready to pounce.
Seren unsheathes the small blade at her thigh, holding it in front of her like it can stop rivers of blood that two factions are determined to spill.
“El, please. Not them,” Seren pleads, blade held in shaky hands, and something about the desperation in her voice—the way she bends, the way she yields without choosing, the way she begs—feels wrong.
Feels like skin she has shed.
Feels like a past version of herself she no longer recognizes.
Feels like bidding for love she shouldn’t have to fight for.
“They hunted the Dravari dragons,” Elyssara growls, jaw set, eyes fixed on the witches.
Yes.
Lara’s voice drips sweetly from her lips. “Our actions are not the same as our allegiance, girl.”
What?
Seren’s mind reels, searching for meaning. Regardless, actions have consequences, and belonging is earned. But obedience is cheap. It costs nothing but dignity. Loyalty? That should always cost something—but never the self. And she will not trade her spine for belonging.
The question rings in Seren’s mind.
What will you sacrifice to stand among us?
She knows what Lara wants.
She knows what The Widow’s figures want.
They want her to choose.
But Seren is sick of choosing between scraps thrown to her by others.
She’s ready to ask questions of her own.
She pulls at the magic thrashing in the seas, the beam of the moon, the Stars themselves, and she commands it to her hands.
“Move, Seren,” Revryn growls as he takes a half-step forward, blade in one hand, hammer in the other.
But there is no fear in her eyes.
Magic stirs—not wild, not frantic—but precise. Like a blade sharpened instead of swung.
Thoughtful. The way it always does when she chooses instead of reacts.
“You’ll all stop,” she breathes, voice low, but unmistakable.
The witches bark humorless laughs—they don’t answer to her. But they will.
Winds whip through the cavern, her magic raging against the protection of the bone walls.
A wicked glint forms in Seren’s eyes—the kind born of devious, clever plans.
The waters surge as her friends step forward again, faces tightening, bodies coiling as if preparing to strike.
Seren lifts her hand. Not in warning. In command.
Gold-threaded bindings whip from her left palm, power drawn from the answer of The Widow’s Waters. The bindings form. Golden coils wrap ankles, wrists, waists, holding her friends gently but inexorably at the edge of the pool. Bound together, bound to the Waters.
They fight it. Of course they do.
Seren’s throat tightens as she watches them thrash against their bindings. But she’s not sorry.
Seren risks a glance at Lara, her mouth fighting a wicked smile, her amethyst eyes smug. The kind of expression that only comes from victory.
But Seren isn’t done. And Lara has not won.
The coven sneer, hands relaxing at their sides.
They think she’s chosen. They think obedience is so easily forced.
Seren raises her right hand, dragging more life force to her palm.
Her eyes transform into pools of obsidian—she can feel it. The way her witch blood courses through her veins like a summoning.
Her friends fight against the binding, the frustration dragging noises that are pure animal from their lips. So Seren pulls tighter, silencing them in a heartbeat.
And gods help her—she doesn’t hate it.
She snaps her eyes to the coven.
“You asked me a question,” she growls, her voice dragging across the room like a blade.
The coven stare back at her, all righteous venom and arrogance. Like they can squash her under their boot and force her to submit with one challenge from the Waters.
Seren bares her teeth, but she doesn’t wait for an answer.
“Ask it again,” she challenges, and her hand snaps out.
Bindings whip from her right hand, lassoing ankles, wrists, throats, and driving the coven toward the bone wall.
They thrash against it, desperate to pry their hands free.
So she tightens the bindings around their wrists, pinning them to the wall so their skin snags on the splintered bone.
Black-red blood runs in rivulets down their palms, gathering at their fingertips before dripping to the cavern floor.
“ASK IT AGAIN!” Seren demands, voice a hoarse scream.
Because this time, she will answer.
The cave fills with the sound of struggle—muffled groans echo off the walls like a chorus of pain. And Seren revels in it.
Her depthless eyes spin to Lara, fixing on her. She stalks toward her, slow as an approaching storm.
“Ask it again,” Seren whispers, but not softly. No, this is lethal. And it doesn’t need to be loud to be understood.
Lara is not afraid. She does not flinch, she does not move. Her posture remains relaxed—the posture of a person who has known violence and threat, and has made a home there.
A small, terrifying smile breaks free on Lara’s beautiful face. A beguiling, seductive thing. She closes the gap between them, and hooks her too-long nail under Seren’s chin. She tilts it up, exposing Seren’s throat. “What would you sacrifice to stand among us, little witch?”
Seren does not falter. She bares her teeth. “Nothing that costs me my loyalty.”
Lara grunts something indiscernible.
Seren keeps going. “You want my loyalty by asking me to betray the people who made me? Never.” Her breaths rush in—too fast, too shallow.
“But I won’t let them hurt my blood, either.
I’ll cast my friends to the Waters. I’ll cast this coven to the seas.
But I will not be disloyal to prove my submission to a coven who has offered me nothing. ”
She knows it’s bold. Knows it’s a risk to talk with such recklessness to the High Witch. But she refuses to belong if it means leaving herself behind.
Lara doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, but her eyes train on Seren in assessment.
Seren fights the urge to swallow the thick lump in her throat. But she steadies her breath, holds her hands steady despite the tremor that begins in her fingers.
Do not show signs of weakness.
But Lara breaks the silence. “You played by the rules.”
Not a question. An observation.
Her voice is smooth, transfixing. “Bent them to your will.”
Another analysis.
The strained, rasping groans of the coven rent the air, but Lara ignores it. Or perhaps she doesn’t even hear it. Regardless, she certainly doesn’t care.
“I leveraged the holes in the rules to serve my own will, yes,” Seren agrees, a confidence sliding into her tone.
“I proved my loyalty. But not to you. Not to the coven. To the ones who have already earned my loyalty. And if that disqualifies me, then I was never meant to belong here. That’s what you want, isn’t it?
For me to show my loyalty?” Her words come out a challenge, but her voice falters under the strain of holding the bindings.
Seren’s voice drops into something born of the wild. “Well, here it is. My loyalty.”
Lara takes another half-step forward, eyes never leaving Seren, head titling in curious calculation.
“What you showed, little witch, is your cunning. The Widow approves. She devours the weak in her Waters and returns them to us to hang at the mouth like splintered teeth,” she says, her tone merciless.
Seren can’t help it, she swallows the lump in her throat. A single thread of fear braiding itself around her spine.
“Return the figures to her Waters. Release the coven. The Widow accepts your answer,” Lara announces, waving a dismissive hand in an almost bored gesture.
Seren releases the bindings. The figures crash into the Waters like a rolling wave, and the coven crumple to the cave’s floor, all sprawling limbs and pained groans.
“Which answer did The Widow accept exactly?” Seren questions, her bravado faltering for a heartbeat.
“That you possess the cunning of The Dreaded and you’ll sacrifice nothing worth keeping,” Lara says, her voice lowering like a storm gathering.
Surprise flares in Seren’s chest, Lara’s words seeming oddly fair. And strangely, Seren feels understood.
A foreign flicker sparks in her chest. Not belonging, exactly… but maybe acceptance.
Lara notices, her mouth twitching in amusement, and then she answers the question so plainly written on Seren’s face. “I do not argue with The Widow, and I do not deny the facts of what I see. But Seren?”
Despite herself, warmth floods her, and Seren internally admonishes herself for feeling… whatever this is.
“Yes?” Seren murmurs.
“Do not mistake my acknowledgement for acceptance,” Lara says like a verdict.
Warmth evaporates, turning to ice in her veins.
But Lara doesn’t dwell. She steps over Seren’s pain like it doesn’t exist. “Ask your question, little witch.”
Seren draws on the resolve hidden beneath the rejection. “Where do your allegiances lie?” The question seems personal.
But Seren came for more than one reason. More than her own desire to belong. More than acceptance. Seren also came for her friends—the ones she’s loyal to above all else.
Because Seren knows things about the witches.
She knows they worked for Thalmyr’s family—the Lurians.
She knows they bound the dragons in mortal skin.
And if she knows who they’re loyal to now, she’s going to exploit it to twist them to her will.
She needs the witches to release the dragons so Elyssara can reclaim her throne.
But Lara scoffs. “My allegiances lie with coin and coven, little witch. I don’t care for the wars of man. I go where I can line my pockets. Power, little witch, is a currency. I prefer to hold it.”
Seren stills.
Her gut sours.
All this talk of loyalty and they’re loyal to nothing but their own gain?
Seren exhales tightly. Her tone sharpens. “I see. So—”
But Lara holds up a hand, cutting her off. “You’ve asked your question. Leave. This is not your home.”
Seren chokes on a scoff. “And face the seas again?” she snaps.
But Lara has already spun on her heel, descending deeper into the cave system, and leaving her coven to their injuries.
“Lara?” Seren calls desperately, but the only answer is the echo of her own voice.
She has passed the first Harrow.
But she has not been welcomed.