Chapter Thirty-Three #2
A cruel, wicked smile twists Lara’s lips, softness vanishing before Seren’s eyes. “And when you see him again, I hear you make a lovely noose of golden threads.”
She huffs a small laugh under her breath, and spins on the heel of her boot. Her tattered skirts trail after her, and in a fraction of a heartbeat, Lara is the High Witch of The Dreaded once more.
The rare insight into Lara, her past, who she is, where she comes from, all gone in a single moment.
“The Harrows await, little witch,” Lara murmurs seductively over her shoulder.
And for the first time, Seren smiles at the thought.
The Dreaded move in a practiced rhythm as they fan out around The Widow’s Waters, candles guttering as they stir the air moving past.
The other witches do not engage with Seren. They don’t look at her. Not really. They are aware of her presence, but they don’t respond to her.
But Seren notices them. There’s something about the routine way they move that tells her an unnerving truth—they do this a lot.
Witches arrive and succumb to The Perils, or The Harrows, or The Widow’s Waters themselves.
The evidence is right in front of her—the Silent Choir. The warning to anyone who dares to enter.
But Seren is not afraid. No, for the first time in her sheltered, lonely existence, she feels ready.
A hush settles over the coven, and Lara strides through the cave’s opening like a general assessing soldiers for war.
Her violet eyes drag across her coven, analyzing, noticing. Each one of them adjusts their posture, their demeanor, something, under the scrutiny of her gaze. Unsettled by the weight of her very presence.
Good. It’s not just her.
“Every witch fears something,” Lara says quietly.
Her violet gaze settles on Seren.
“And you, little witch… you fear not belonging.”
The words land with the quiet certainty of a blade placed exactly where it was meant to fall.
Lara gestures toward The Widow’s Waters.
“So The Harrows will ask you to face it.”
The surface of The Widow’s Waters trembles.
Just once.
Then again.
The cave stills as if the stone itself is listening.
Lara folds her hands behind her back, her posture relaxed in a way that somehow makes her authority more absolute.
“When a witch reaches The Harrows,” she says, her voice carrying across the cavern, “we do not ask whether she is powerful.”
Her gaze drifts across the coven.
“Power is cheap. Even fools stumble into it. Just look at the realms.”
A few witches shift under the weight of her scrutiny.
“We ask whether she knows herself.”
The black waters ripple in agreement.
“The first Harrow tests loyalty,” Lara continues. “What your loyalty costs.”
Seren’s jaw tightens slightly.
“The second asks something more dangerous.”
Lara turns fully to her now.
“Does your past own you?”
Lara closes the gap between them, holding out a small blade, and waiting expectantly for Seren to offer her palm.
Seren lifts it, swallowing down hesitation she’s not allowed to feel.
“Bleed for The Widow,” Lara murmurs, low and terrifying, and reopens the healing wound in Seren’s palm.
Seren hisses, clenching her teeth, and she holds her clenched fist over the water.
The Widow’s Waters move in response. Not in waves. In threads.
Two pale strands begin to rise from the dark surface like silk pulled from a loom. They climb slowly, twisting through the air between Seren and the pool.
The first thread glows with a soft, golden warmth. As it rises, images flicker along its length like reflections caught in moving water. Like a moving timeline.
A woman’s golden hair.
Delicate yet calloused hands. Hands of a warrior.
Irises of honey-brown.
A face Seren does not know yet somehow recognizes in the marrow of her bones.
Her mother. The story of where she came from. The truth she has spent her life aching to know.
The second thread emerges beside it.
This one burns colder, brighter, woven with moonlight and darkness—but alive. When Seren looks into it, she does not see memories. She sees motion.
The witches of The Dreaded. The coven standing in the cave around her.
Fire and destruction and battle and… belonging.
Witches fighting together, back to back.
Facing armies she does not know. Watching cities crumble.
Feeling the eruption of power she doesn’t yet understand.
She looks deeper at the vision, and somehow, she feels safe, protected, kinship.
She sees Elyssara’s stubborn fire.
Ronyn’s crooked grin.
Revryn’s steady presence.
Teddy’s unflinching strength.
A future still unwritten.
Lara gestures toward the threads.
“Every witch arrives here carrying ghosts,” she says. “Questions. Wounds.”
Her voice does not soften.
“The Harrows do not answer them.”
The two strands rise higher, swaying gently above the Waters.
“They ask what you will do with them.”
Lara gestures to the small blade strapped to Seren’s thigh. Seren looks down, and the steel catches the candlelight as she moves her hips.
Seren unsheathes it, turning it over in her palm, until the hilt rests there. She looks at Lara in question.
And the High Witch says, “Cut one.”
No threat.
No challenge.
Just inevitability.
Callous, clear choice.
“Your lineage,” Lara says, nodding toward the golden thread. “The story of the woman who bore you. Of where you came from. Of who you are.”
Then she inclines her head toward the darker strand.
“Or the life waiting for you beyond this cave. Who you will become, who you will be.”
Her violet eyes hold Seren’s.
“Past,” she says.
A heartbeat passes.
“Or future.”
The cavern falls silent.
Even the sea beyond the mouth seems to pause in its endless rage.
And the threads wait.
Seren stares at the threads.
At the choice before her.
She always looked at her mother and father with confusion.
Watched the bruises bloom on her mother’s cheeks, her father’s split knuckles, and wondered how in the fucking Stars she was born of this blood.
Her brothers were no better, leaving her scarred and bruised every other day. Training, they had said. Preparation.
She had imagined, for as long as she could remember, that she was secretly a princess—stolen from her bed in the dark of night as an infant. And one day, she convinced herself, she would be rescued by a loving royal family, returned to the embrace of her mother who loved her very much.
But the years had gone on.
The beatings intensified.
And no one came.
The Flesh Circuit, for all its ugly cruelty, felt like freedom to Seren. Her father had been waiting for her to reach twelve summers so he could finally rid himself of her to the flesh trade. Finally, she would be worth something. Finally, she would matter.
Perhaps she would meet a kind gentleman who adored her? Perhaps her identity would be revealed to be that of the princess after all?
And here, she was given a chance to understand exactly who she was. Exactly what kind of blood hummed in her veins.