Chapter 1 #2
A wave of power throws me back, heat licking at my skin as shards of obsidian rain down around me.
A soundless shockwave tears through the air, rippling outward with a force that makes the ground quake beneath my boots.
I stumble but stay, determined to hold this course and see this through, ignoring the magic that slams into me like a tidal wave and threatens to steal the air from my lungs.
I feel my magic fizzle as the flames die on my fingertips and the fire in the brazier extinguishes. The crimson from the runes carved in the sigil fades until there’s no light left, and the only red is from the burning embers surrounding the pure black stone.
I throw my head back, delighting in my victory as I listen to the sound of the world breaking around me.
This is chaos unleashed, it’s the carnage and madness we’ve craved.
Our magic is free and its wildness knows no limits.
I connect with the air and ground around me, breathing air as if it were the first breath I’ve ever taken, savoring its headiness.
I’m delving deeper into the earth beneath me, finding darkness I barely understand as my skin senses the cries of my sisters before they’ve even left their mouths.
And then their screams carry on the wind.
I stagger back, the thrill of power surging through me, but it’s followed by a rush of panic.
My coven, the witches I’ve freed and who will bear the brunt of what I’ve done, are suffering.
Their pain reverberates through me like an electric shock.
They didn’t ask for this and all of them are confused.
Most of them are angry. Most of them had grown accustomed to living under the heels of the warlocks and they didn’t want this kind of freedom.
These witches don’t understand, and now I understand that they never will.
But it’s too late now.
Fair is foul, and foul is fair. It’s all perspective, and I have changed this world for the better.
The night howls and the earth trembles beneath me, as if it’s pulling away from the destruction I’ve caused.
I force myself to center, to breathe, but the air is thick with the taste of magic and it isn’t the kind I’ve unleashed.
This is the kind that comes with restraint, the kind that holds witches in place, bound to the warlocks.
And their coven leaders.
They’re coming for me.
A pulse of raw magic shoots through the air and someone older, darker, and far more powerful than the High Mother or the enforcers is here. The wards are being triggered. The Senior Circle is awake and aware.
I don’t run. I won’t.
I stay rooted to the ground, letting my magic swirl around me like a protective shield, even as my breath catches in my throat. This was the plan—to tear down the wards, to break the system. But the cost is higher than I expected. The price is them.
And they’re coming.
Agonizingly slowly. Deliberately slowly, their footsteps heavy with power, and their eyes sharp and full of judgment.
I hear more screams coming from the coven house on the hill, brought to me in the breeze of change blowing through this world.
My sisters are panicking and rising, preparing for an onslaught that isn’t their doing.
They’re readying themselves for whatever comes next, and their magic surges around me, passing by me like specters spiriting through a graveyard.
The High Mother’s voice shouts over the chaos, her fury a crackling thread in the air. “Zara! What have you done?”
I glance up, meeting her gaze, but it’s not the High Mother I’m worried about now.
She’s just a puppet of the system, a woman who’s forgotten what it means to be free.
I’m watching the shadows, waiting for the flickers of movement that will be too fast to track—warlocks, senior enforcers, the actual leaders of the coven who can destroy me with a single word.
They’ll surround me, and their power will contain me. I can’t withstand them, not all of them. I might have stood a chance against one, but not if the entire circle comes for me. My end is inevitable and the only question is how long it’ll be before they finish me.
I’ve left them no choice but to retaliate, and now I must face this.
“All Hail the Queen of nothing,” I chant, waiting for my coven to appear.
The shadows swirling around me solidify as my sisters emerge from the ether.
The first to step into view is Aleris, her dark hair flowing behind her like a shadow of her fury.
She’s the one who taught me everything about control—her cold, calculating gaze, her ability to bend magic to her will.
I used to think she was wise, but now I see nothing but a traitor in her eyes.
“What have you done?” she demands, her voice tight with rage. “You’ve destroyed everything we’ve worked for, everything the coven has built. You’ve ruined us.”
I stand taller, my chin raised.
“I’ve freed us,” I snap, my voice ringing out with the strength of my defiance. “You lack the courage to see it.”
Her lips curl into a sneer. “Freed us? We were never meant to be free, Zara. We’re bound to each other, to the coven, to the magic that sustains us. This is the way it’s always been.”
I shake my head, feeling the magic crackling around me, demanding to be unleashed. “I’m not bound. Not anymore.”
The others gather behind her, the entire coven; their faces are masks of disappointment, anger, and betrayal.
They move in closer, circling me like wolves, their magic flaring, wrapping around me in suffocating coils.
They know what I’ve done. They know the cost of it.
But I can’t stop now and this cannot be undone.
The air thickens, the magic pressing down on me from all sides, and I feel the weight of their combined anger bearing down like a physical blow. Their eyes flare and their fingers flick, each of their breaths a hiss that spits their anger at me as I refuse to yield or show any remorse.
“Better a fleeting dream than a lifetime of chains,” I snarl at them.
The High Mother steps forward, her eyes darker than I ever seen them. “You’re a fool, Zara,” she hisses, her tone venomous. “You’ve tried to break order, but you’ve condemned us all instead.”