Chapter 13
Elowyn
Jade’s coven was not like ours. They didn’t live in a mansion together. They lived in a small village. Maybe my coven would’ve too if we had more of us. Jade had some sort of ward around the property, and as I stepped through it, I felt it hum against me.
I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to keep me out or not, but my magic was buzzing in my veins like nothing would stop me.
Jade’s home was extravagant. A three-story white house with charming wood details and flowers that made it look comforting.
My boots stepped onto the small stone walk way, and everything around me faded.
My heartbeat was the only thing I could hear. I was nervous. I had never actually come here to try and talk to Jade. The wooden steps groaned under me as I stepped up to the front door—knocking quickly before I lost my nerve. I heard someone coming, and my hands trembled.
The door swung open, and my father stood there. His eyes that matched mine looked at me like I was a stranger. He watched me like a stranger he didn't recognize.
“Father.” The word slipped out before I could stop it. I didn’t know why I’d expected anyone else.
His expression hardened immediately. “Don’t call me that.” His voice was sharp enough to cut. “I’m not your father.”
The words hit harder than I let him see. I swallowed the ache down like I always did, forcing my hands to stay at my sides. He glanced past me, scanning the road, like he expected an ambush. Like I was danger.
“Is Jade home?”
I kept my eyes down not wanting to see the clear hatred he had for me. He had once been the only one I knew for sure cared for me. Now my presence upset him. Another thing my mother took from me.
“Why?”
“I would like to talk—a friendly talk.”
I smelled her before I saw her. Jade had always smelled like flowers in bloom. Her heels clicked on the floor behind my father. When I looked up she was smiling brightly at me. Her light brown hair fell in long waves, her blue eyes shined like the summer sky. Her dress was white and expensive.
“Elowyn.” She greeted me kinder than my father did.
“I can make her leave if you’d like,” my father said, not bothering to hide it.
“Oh, nonsense. I knew she’d come some day. Let’s sit in the garden and chat.”
I nodded as she stepped past me and led me around the side of the house to a vast garden of herbs, vegetables, and flowers.
She ushered me to a seat at a wooden table before settling in across from me. I looked up at her, and she still had that friendly smile in place.
“So, Elowyn Ashgrave, what do I owe this visit to?”
I sucked in a shaky breath.
“I want to discuss the curse.”
She nodded. A servant approached the table, setting down some tea before scurrying away. Jade poured for both of us, her movements graceful, practiced. She took a long sip of hers before sighing.
“What about it?”
“Is there any way you would get rid of it?”
She grinned.
“Oh.” She stared at me. Her eyes falling over every inch of my face. “You look almost exactly like your mother, just with your father’s eyes.”
My body tensed at her tone. Her fake smile fell away as she watched me.
“Your father’s eyes were always my favorite thing about him, and I hoped our daughter would get them, but she didn’t.”
And I wished I could gouge mine out because I didn’t want to be reminded of a man who hated me every time I looked in the mirror.
“I don’t think it’s fair that I am being punished for the mistakes of my mother.”
She stared at me like she wasn’t sure if she should say something.
“Have you fallen in love yet?”
I glanced at her before sighing heavily.
“No.”
“Such a liar.” She grinned. “Your curse has already started. I felt the moment you fell in love with him.”
Tears stung the backs of my eyes as Abram’s face popped into my mind.
“Tell me, Elowyn, how does it feel to know that you fell in love with a man who has a mate that isn’t you? Like mother, like daughter.”
I glared at her. “That doesn’t make me like my mother.”
“How is it any different?” she asked with a curious look. “You married a man that has a mate.”
I didn’t bother asking how she knew any of this, because I knew she wouldn’t share it with me.
“Because I won’t stand in the way of his happiness.”
She chuckled.
“And what will you do when his mate comes forward? Will you leave the man you love?”
“I will leave because I love him.” The words I had held in for so long rippled around us, like my curse was listening and hearing what was happening.
The words clung in the air around us, and Jade smiled like she had waited for those words to fall from my mouth too.
“What if he is my mate?” I asked.
“Then your curse would’ve broken the moment you said those words to each other, the moment you decided to love each other. But it didn’t… Instead, it wrapped around you like a chain. Can you feel the heaviness?"
Her words crushed me, but I knew that I wasn’t his mate. There was no way that I was good enough to have someone like Abram. My magic surged forward with my pain and grief, but I shoved it down.
“Why do you do that?” she asked.
I didn’t know what she meant.
“Why do you hide your power? Your mother was powerful, Elowyn, one of the greatest witches I have ever met. But you? Gods above, your power is an extension of your every movement. You walked through the godsdamn ward I have around us, and even the gods can’t cross it.”
She cocked her head to the side, waiting for me to answer her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie. I know you have put binds on yourself so that your magic can’t be detected, but I feel it. You are powerful.”
I locked it away because I didn’t deserve it. I was only powerful because my mother mated with the man she knew would give her a powerful heir.
“Ah, because your mother.” She smiled. “You should use it. Don’t let your mother’s whorish ways go to waste.”
My jaw clenched, but I didn’t want to defend my mother. I wondered if Jade’s daughter had magic like I did too.
“Too bad you won’t ever produce an heir to pass along that magic to.” She smiled like the cunt she was. My stomach twisted at her words, a bitter pang of anger and helplessness curling through me.
“Is there a deal you would make to save my coven?” I asked, my voice barely steady, though my hands gripped the edge of the table.
“Like what?”
“If I leave, will you let them have children and thrive again?” My throat felt tight as I spoke, and I had to swallow hard to keep my voice from breaking.
Her brows knitted together, studying me with that calculating stare that always made me feel small.
“You’d do that for a coven that does not care for you?”
“Why do you think that?” I snapped, my chest heaving. Heat and frustration coursed through me.
She chuckled, the sound sharp, almost cruel, as she took another slow sip of her tea. Her eyes pinned me to my seat, unwavering, as she traced the rim of the cup with a finger like she was savoring the power she held over me.
“Some of your witches already approached me to make this deal, and I told them to fuck off.”
Betrayal slammed into me, cold and hard. My coven had gone behind my back, trying to bargain for themselves without me. My heart twisted, a sting of hurt that I could hardly swallow. But a part of me understood—they were desperate, and I had always been the outsider.
“Well, if I wanted to make this deal, would you consider it?” I asked, my voice quieter now, but edged with steel.
“Your crowning is soon?” she asked, leaning slightly forward, her smile taunting and knowing.
I nodded, my hands clenching under the table.
“Let’s talk after the crowning. I would be willing to make a deal with you.” Her words hung in the air, heavy with possibility and danger.
I looked at her home, wondering how my life would’ve turned out if my mother hadn't been such a bitch. Tears stung my eyes as I felt my father’s presence knowing that he hated me. My mother truly had taken everything from me.
“Your father is very happy.”
She wasn’t saying it to be mean, but the words still stung.
“I know. That is why I leave him alone.”
I had stopped trying to keep the bond we had when I was little because my father had stopped loving me the day my mother died.
Part of me wondered if my mother’s magic was why he loved me at all in the first place.
Because I was part of her, and he was forced to feel love for that.
Gods, my life was pathetic. I didn’t have one person who loved me, or ever had.
“I think maybe if you didn’t look so much like your mother, he might have been able to have a relationship with you.”
“No, he wouldn’t have.” I looked at her. “If he loved me, he would’ve understood that I was a child that had no part in any of this. Just like you should’ve realized that too.”
She sighed heavily.
“I was angry when I made that curse on your bloodline. And I know that it shouldn’t have happened, but I can’t stop it. Especially since it has started.”
“Maybe I should curse your daughter.” I looked at her, letting my power pulse around us.
Her face fell, because if I wanted to, I could. I knew my power was stronger than hers, and no ward or spell of hers would keep me from enacting my revenge if I wanted to.
Yes, let's do that. Nyxthra pleaded.
I stood up.
“Don’t worry, Jade. I wouldn’t do that, because I understand that your daughter is innocent in this.”
Her jaw clenched. This woman and my mother had fucked up my life before I was old enough to truly understand what was even happening. My chest ached as my power seeped from me.
“I will see you after the crowning to discuss a deal about my coven.”
I turned around and headed out of the yard.
But I stopped immediately when I saw my father playing with his daughter.
She was probably the same age now as I was when my mother died and my father had left me.
She looked like me in some ways. The girl stopped and smiled at me.
My father glanced at me like I would harm him or her if he looked away.
“Hi,” she called out to me.
I looked at my father and felt my magic bucking, straining, desperate to break free. I turned away before it could betray me.
I ignored his voice. I ignored her. I walked away from the ruins of a family I’d never truly had—a father already dead to me, a mother who never had time for me, and an aching emptiness that would never be filled because my curse was already taking root.
Tears blurred my vision as my fingers closed around the amulet at my throat, willing myself away, far from here, far from them.
The world ripped sideways, and I collapsed to my knees in the deep heart of the woods.
I screamed until my throat was raw. The sound split the air, rattling through the trees.
Roots tore free from the earth. Birds burst from their nests in a panicked frenzy.
The sky blackened with clouds so heavy they seemed to sag against the earth.
And then I felt it—her. The thing I had locked away. The hunger I had denied for too long. It pushed through my magic, a dark tide coiling around me like a living serpent. My eyes fluttered shut as euphoria poured through me, intoxicating and sweet.
When I opened them, she was there. A shadow given shape. Tall. Elegant. Wrong. Her edges bled into the air, and her eyes, if they could be called that, burned like dying embers. But a sense of belonging filled me as I stared at her. The magical tether between us was stronger than it had ever been.
My lips curved into a smile I hadn’t worn in years.
“Nyxthra.”
The wraith purred, the sound threading through the air like silk dragged over steel. She moved closer, tilting her head as though memorizing my face all over again.
Finally, she seemed to whisper without words. You have come to the truth, you need me.
I still remember when my mother told me not to be afraid of the shadow lady, as I used to call her.
She told me that this wraith was mine. She was bound to me, to my duty, to my every need.
But I was scared of her. Nyxthra and I were bonded, yet I shoved her away.
Not only in fear of my own power but also because I could feel the darkness that pulsed from her, which meant it lived inside of me too.
The earth trembled beneath me, as if she had been listening this whole time, waiting for the first crack in my resolve.
Nyxthra seeped into the world like smoke through the seams of reality, black mist curling low to the ground, slithering between the roots and curling around my arms, savoring my skin like a long-awaited homecoming.
The forest fell silent. No wind. No breath.
Just the pulse of my own heart pounding in my ears.
You called to me because you are losing control, she whispered in my mind.
“No.” I tried to lie.
Lying to me is lying to yourself. Her voice pierced into my mind. You called to me because you do not want to feel like this anymore.
“Yes.” My voice cracked. “I am tired of not being happy.”
You are angry.
“Yes.”
Her power hummed around us.
Then let’s make them pay.
She drifted closer, her edges wavering like she was barely tethered to this plane. One clawed hand traced the air just above my cheek. I felt the bond we shared and felt the hum of power between us, but I also felt the bitterness and hatred for everything too.
I had kept her away not just out of fear for what she might do, but fear for what she revealed about me, how much of this darkness lived inside me, waiting to consume everything. One word hummed between us.
Revenge.