Chapter 3 Meera Newteye
Meera Newteye
Strix Keep
These walls whisper of murder.
As Meera ascended the murky stairs, cold spots crept over her. Not from wind—no breeze dared stir the interior of the keep—but from memory.
Death left its own kind of draft.
Even someone as inept as Meera could sense them. She didn’t mind; witches collected hauntings the way other immortals collected talismans and flesh trophies.
Cobwebs clung like lace to gargoyles, and bats squeaked in the high spires. A skeleton or two inhabited most closets; sometimes those bones caught a stray hit of magic and reanimated for a midnight waltz. All good fun.
But tonight the keep’s humor had curdled.
As she neared the high priestess’s tower, Meera wondered if her boss’s office still held warmth. Or had it grown chilly like the surface of a gravestone?
Each step echoed her dread. How many times had she climbed these stairs feeling safe, proud to serve under Lazara the Worthy? Now she climbed toward a stranger—maybe even a murderous one.
Accessions always meant blood. Every five hundred years, war rippled through the Skein like fever.
Her first Accession. She’d expected to be far away from the fray, buried in paperwork and potion budgets, not espionage and death.
Yet earlier today, Red Riders—the elite warrioress caste of witches—had stormed her cottage with accusations.
“Your new boss killed your old one,” they’d said. “And you’re going to help us prove it.”
How could Meera possibly help them? Her! Clumsy, almost powerless Meera Newteye. Absurd.
Now she was here, trembling outside a new high priestess’s door, timidly knocking.
“Come in,” a cool voice commanded.
Meera smoothed her blouse, tugged her skirt, and entered. Her flats squeaked like frightened mice across the stones.
She turned the corner of the foyer to face Lazara’s replacement, and a new chill hit her like a hexshot. Her heart sank. The room felt freshly fed. Someone must have died here since I entered last.
Behind Lazara’s desk sat Ditch, a halfling newcomer—part demon/part witch. Her emotionless eyes were light green, the color of sun-starved grass, and they followed Meera’s entry as if tracking prey.
“Sit,” Ditch commanded, and Meera all but collapsed into the seat across from Lazara’s desk. “You’re Molly, correct? Or some equally insipid name?”
Don’t sweat. Don’t bite your nails. “Uh, I’m Meera.” Meek Meera. Lily-livered Meera.
“Of course you are,” Ditch murmured, her voice the recipe for slow poison: one part boredom and two parts contempt.
Meera noticed the dark glint of sharpened claws as Ditch ran her fingers over the desk. The halfling’s horns shone black as obsidian against her sleek, blonde ponytail.
“What do you know of me?” Ditch asked.
Meera dug for courage. “Akelarre confirmed your arrival and appointment as high priestess. You’re to guide our coven through this Accession.
” Though Akelarre was the origin realm of the House of Witches, Gaia had been their second home until they’d been exiled millennia ago.
Now this coven in the Skein was the witches’ most promising new territory.
Ditch’s lips curled, not a smile, something sharper. “Correct.”
Meera’s gaze flicked over Lazara’s framed photos, half-burned candles, and the black cat glaring from the sill. If Lazara still lived, she wouldn’t have abandoned Nettle.
“How odd,” Meera said carefully, “that Lazara hasn’t come for her belongings. Has she sent word?”
“No.” The single syllable hit like a warding spell.
Meera’s mouth went dry. “I’ll, uh, compile a welcome binder for you with information about the Skein. It should come in handy.”
“Very well. What’s on my schedule, Molly?”
“Meera,” she corrected under her breath. “You’re giving an Accession awareness talk for some of the younger witches.”
Ditch rolled her eyes.
“And then the mystical armory tour.”
A touch more interest.
“And later, a meeting with the werewolf king, Thane the Hungry.”
Ditch’s brows arched. “A wolf? Why meet with those moonatics when we can war with them?”
Most witches felt this way. The Skein had only so much room for inhabitants who could theoretically live forever.
Tensions escalated each Accession, hurtling them toward another All-Battle.
“It’s been on the books for some time. Lazara had asked for a meeting, perhaps in a bid to broker an alliance.
Lowell—Thane’s right hand—arranged it.” Meera’s heart fluttered at his name.
Handsome, intelligent Lowell Nightclaw. With his mop of black hair and devilish green eyes.
He had the kind of rakish grin that promised laughter before bed play, and that really did it for Meera. She’d bet he called underwear “knickers” and that he took them down with his teeth. He’d make puns just before he used his wolf’s tongue for other treats.
Inner sigh. A secret crush that could never be more.
“Where is the meeting?” Ditch asked, cutting through Meera’s thoughts.
Not now, fool. Read the room. Survive. “Uh, Mount Nothrior. It’s neutral ground, warded against magic and weapons.” Also known as the Mount of No Swords. “Our powers won’t work there, and neither of the Lykae will be able to call upon his wolven inner beast.”
Ditch rose and crossed to the window, the movement serpentine. Her leather catsuit gleamed like black paint poured over her voluptuous body and had a slit for her tail. That length swayed lazily, thick as a broomstick and ending in a barbed triangle.
“How long were you Lazara’s assistant?”
“Eighty years or so.” Meera’s voice softened. “She was good to me.” Lazara had been a mentor who’d never pushed her beyond comfort. Was she really gone? Had Ditch truly murdered her?
“What experience do you have?”
“I was hired right after I completed my advanced degree. So I know the office.”
“Not war?” Ditch gazed out at the darkening sky over the Witchwood, home to all manner of beasts. Giant spiders, prides of black cats, and a multitude of bats all made their home amid the twisted tree trunks and thorns. Heavenly.
A spider, standing a story tall, plodded by the window then. The coven called him Webmaster because he inundated homes with sticky threads. While Ditch sighed as if charmed by the creature, Meera had a less rosy view of his visits. Such a nuisance of yardwork to wake up to.
“No, not war,” Meera said. “I mean, I’m not a Red Rider or anything.” She gave an awkward laugh that went unanswered. Yet her mother had been one of the fiercest Riders in history.
Meera had sometimes dreamed of their adventurous existence—sleeping under the stars, camaraderie, battle chants chorused around a fire.
But she was a confirmed homebody. Paperwork. Cottage maintenance. Predictability. Now she wanted nothing to do with Riders at all.
Unfortunately, they wanted everything to do with her. The memory of earlier arose unbidden, the way dread always did…
Rosewyn Banehand had paced Meera’s toadstool cottage as if measuring it for a coffin, her red cloak snapping with each sharp turn. The hearth fire had thrown light on Rose’s black braids and the purposeful flush across her petal-like cheeks.
“You’re going to help us nail this halfling witch,” Rose had said, not asking. Her voice had been calm, far more frightening than shouting.
Meera’s hands had trembled around her teacup. “A-and if I don’t?”
Rose had stopped pacing then. Slowly, she’d smiled—wide and delighted. “Then you’ll get nailed too.”
Not metaphorically. Riders didn’t bother with metaphor.
“You already have access,” Rose had gone on, circling closer. “You’ll see schedules. Correspondence. You’ll tell us what she plans, who she meets, and when she’s alone.”
“That’s subversion,” Meera had whispered. “A betrayal of the office.” Depending on the new witch’s powers, it might also be suicide.
Rose had leaned down, braids brushing Meera’s shoulder. “Don’t make this complicated. You’re not choosing between right and wrong. You’re choosing who kills you and when.”
Now Ditch turned back to face Meera, pale green eyes fixing on her like a pinned specimen. “You wouldn’t be a Rider, would you? They’re in peak condition.”
Meera’s shirt strained when she sat straighter. “Yes. They are.” But Meera ate when nervous. After Rose and the Riders had left, Meera had polished off a whole pie without tasting a bite.
How could she not? Rose intimidated her nearly as much as Ditch did. Though young, Rose carried herself with all the confidence of a long-lived immortal. She and this demon-witch were on a collision course, and Meera feared she would be trapped in the middle when the carnage hit.
One thought kept repeating: Will I survive either of these women?
Ditch asked her, “You’re in the enchantress caste?”
“That’s correct.” Witches were separated into five castes: warrior, seeress, conjurer, enchantress, and healer.
Most had one or two powers, a rare few even up to the three.
For millennia, the Wiccae had awaited a witch prophesied to possess all five, called, originally enough, the Awaited One.
“You’re likely in the warrior caste?” Meera ventured.
Ditch’s brows arched, her tail going rigid as if tensing for a strike. “You don’t think I could be a healer?”
Healers were the gentlest caste—selfless witches who worked to support the rest of the coven. Meera hesitated. “No. I…don’t.” At Ditch’s narrowed eyes, Meera scrambled, words tripping: “I mean, maybe? Yes! You could be. You just don’t…strike me as selfless? I don’t know?”
“And you assume I’m only of one caste. Interesting.” Sparing Meera, Ditch said, “Tell me about this werewolf king. What do you know of Thane the Hungry?”
Everything. No one in the ’Wood knew more about him. “Um, I did my thesis on Thane MacGray. In the years since, I met him a few times when he convened with Lazara, and I’ve kept up on the subject.”
“Give me an overview.”
“He’s roughly fifteen hundred years old, a hands-off ruler who leaves kingdom details to his seneschals.
But he’s a fearless tactician. His byname, the Hungry, came about because he’s never satisfied on a battlefield, just hungers to fight and fight.
And because rumor says he descends from the wolf who devoured Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.
Hecate rest their souls.” Meera lowered her gaze briefly, as was polite.
Ditch’s tail flicked. “Colorful. What does he look like?”
“Attractive. Probably too much so.” Objectively, he was even handsomer than Lowell, but Thane’s weariness and permanent scowl were a turn off. “Hungry” was exactly how she’d describe him—a ravenous, unsatisfied male. The kind whose smile never reached his forever searching eyes.
“No mate?”
“None,” Meera said. “Only conquests.”
“Sexual predilections?”
Where was Ditch going with this? “He beds only the most beautiful nymphs and Lykae females in his kingdom. Usually several a night. Word has reached us that Thane’s been drinking more of late as well.”
Ditch sat behind the desk in a chair that should never have been hers and changed the subject: “I wanted a Red Rider as my aid.”
Meera wilted. “Oh. Well, I’d never make the cut.” As she had told them repeatedly when they’d been spell-bent on recruiting her to spy.
“What’s your power, Molly?”
Meera! “It’s of little use and no matter.” Not to mention it was rude to ask. Did Meera want to know Ditch’s abilities? Absolutely. No one knew. But Meera would wait for a power declaration.
Ditch stared at her with raised brows.
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
Raised brows and a flick of a demonic tail.
If Ditch had slayed Lazara, a warrior witch of no mean power, she could murder Meera without blinking those pale eyes. “I can make people angry.” At Ditch’s spark of interest, she quickly added, “It’s very inconsistent. I can’t control it at all.”
“When has it arisen, Meera?”
Now you remember my name? “Whenever I am angry. Which means I just get myself into huge, unproductive rows. The madder I get, the madder another gets, and we just feed into this awful cycle.” Singlehood forever! Good thing few witches cohabited with others.
“You think this is a curse?” Dramatically biting her knuckle, Ditch cried, “Because fighting is wrong.” Her drama evaporated. “Are you a placater? A yes woman? Do you always say yes when you want to say no?”
Meera’s lips thinned because only one answer fit. She miserably answered, “Yes.”
“Imagine using your gift on the battlefield,” Ditch said. “If you developed your ability, you could madden opponents and make them attack—themselves.”
What if I madden the wrong ones? Meera swallowed thickly at a memory, and the demon-witch noted the motion of her throat. Meera longed for Lazara’s no-pressure, you’ll come into your powers when you’re ready approach.
Ditch continued, “I look at you, and all I see is potential wasted in this job. I’m inclined to fire you, starting fresh.”
Let her! Meera didn’t want to work for this lethal female and get embroiled in some Rider plot. “If that’s your wish, I understand—”
“But I’m equally inclined to use you for my own ends.” Ditch rapped her black claws together and said, “There. I’ve decided that you won’t escape my clutches so easily. I have another plan for your destiny.” Her grin was pure devil. “How wicked can we make you, witch?”