Chapter Forty
Beware the light that guides your way
Some suns would rather rule than stay
Elyssara paces at the mouth of The Perils, skeletons knocking against one another in the breeze like a reminder that death is inescapable.
She pulls the blanket tight around her shoulders, her bare feet scuffing against the jagged rock while she watches the violent, black seas thrash and lurch.
Is this what Seren has been facing each day?
Elyssara peers into the cavernous home of The Dreaded witch coven, but all that stares back at her from the dark are the neutral, unflinching eyes of witches who resent her presence.
She ignores them. Because these unwelcoming witches? They’re the least of her fucking problems.
Her body screams in pain after the escape from Azhareth Castle, but she doesn’t care. Barely even gives it a thought. Because it’s not her body she’s concerned about—she can heal it later. It’s her heart.
It aches. Physically aches with the distance between her and Kael. Her Starbound.
She’s tried to feel for him through the tether, but there’s nothing. Not even the walls he so carefully erects to keep her out. Not even the empty void of darkness she’s felt before. Just nothing.
No way of knowing he’s okay.
No way of knowing he’s alive.
Not silence.
Not distance.
Absence.
Like something has been severed.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She needs to get back to him.
But something else scratches at her mind, like an irritation she could easily ignore, but knows she shouldn’t. Something about that witch. Daphinia.
She seemed familiar. Not her voice or even her appearance. Just her.
The name swims in Elyssara’s mind like a ghost of memory, haunting her. But her thoughts are interrupted by a rip in the world.
Seren steps through, blood smeared across her face like a warrior returning from battle. Fierce, eyes narrowed, chest heaving like she’s been fighting.
Elyssara pushes through the skeletons.
“Seren! Are you okay?” Elyssara asks, panic thick in her tone.
But Seren ignores her. She spins around as the witches step through after her.
Lara.
Caev.
Daphinia.
Their faces, as always, are neutral. Unreadable. Infuriatingly fucking dull.
Seren’s voice comes out as a snarl. “I want my question answered,” she hisses.
Lara begins walking straight at Seren like she expects her to move out of the way. But Seren softens her knees, bracing herself like a trained fighter, and she does not budge.
Lara huffs a sigh of irritation, expression almost bored. “The Widow is yet to inform you if you’ve passed. You’ll get your question when you’ve been assessed for the Harrow The Widow gave you.”
“No,” Seren snarls. “Fuck The Widow. And fuck your rules, Lara.”
Lara still doesn’t react.
But Elyssara steps up behind Seren, light blazing through her veins in preparation for whatever this is.
“No,” Lara responds, and moves to step around Seren.
A golden thread shoots out from Seren’s palm, and weaves into a loop.
A noose.
A golden noose.
Just like the one she made for Rhyven.
Holy fucking Stars.
She’s really doing this.
Elyssara crouches low, ignoring the pain flaring in her side.
Light simmers in her palm.
Then…
The black ocean stills.
The bones stop swaying.
And a hush falls over The Perils.
Lara’s lips lift into a smirk. And gasps echo from inside the cavern.
A single thread of black liquid emerges from the mouth, threading through the air like liquid rope, and heading directly for Seren. But she does not seem afraid.
Seren’s curious eyes dart around, trying to make sense of whatever is going on.
Elyssara moves to obliterate it with her magic, hands drawing back, but Seren lifts a hand.
“Wait…” she breathes. “It’s The Widow’s Waters.”
The what?
The thin trail of black liquid weaves around Seren’s wrist, pulling it into the air. For a moment, Seren just stares, confused, but intrigued. Then the water spreads across her palm and bleeds into the skin like spilled ink.
It weaves a pattern, whirling around itself until the ink takes form, and leaves an imprint on her skin.
Not just any imprint—a black noose etches itself into her flesh. It settles there, like something ancient has just decided she belongs to it.
The liquid thread unfurls from her wrist, retracting back into the cave like it’s done its job. Complete. Finished.
Seren sucks in a sharp breath, staring at the new mark on her palm.
Her eyes shoot up to Lara’s, and the High Witch quirks a smile. She holds up her palm, revealing her own mark—a pile of bones. “Welcome to The Dreaded, Seren Calvatere.”
The words feel ancient, holy. Like a sacrament spoken only in the presence of greatness.
A smile breaks free on Seren’s face. Shock detonates in her expression.
“I fucking did it,” she exhales, the words falling from her like the living version of relief.
“I thought I failed the last Harrow,” Seren admits, and Elyssara doesn’t miss the way her hands tremble.
“The question was: do you have the guts to join The Dreaded,” Lara drawls, her amethyst eyes fixed on Seren.
And she doesn’t know why, but Elyssara feels something deeper there. Not just indifferent, neutral leadership. But perhaps tenderness. Care.
“You had the guts to threaten the High Witch with your golden noose—it seems The Widow has accepted it as proof,” Lara says, a glint of approval in her eyes, the pile of bones inked into her palm still staring back at her.
Seren’s expression sparks at the realization—each witch is marked with their proof. With the method used to impress The Widow.
Caev unfurls her palm, revealing a blade.
Seren’s eyes snap to Daphinia, who glances at Elyssara. Barely noticeable, but real—enough for Elyssara to register the movement. She turns her hand over, fingers lifting one at a time.
A single drop of ink-black blood is imprinted on Daphinia’s palm.
Blood.
Blood.
The scratch in Elyssara’s mind claws its way back to her awareness.
Daphinia.
Blood.
She knows this woman.
Has seen her before.
Not in life.
In memory.
In the kind of vision that leaves splinters buried in the mind.
“I know you,” Elyssara murmurs, voice distant.
Memories flood her.
Carving their way forward into her awareness.
Starlit Grove.
The Obsidian Crown.
The visions.
“You…” she breathes.
“El?” Seren presses, desperately trying to understand.
“It’s you. The cloaked figure in the vision.”
Daphinia does not flinch. Only raises her chin, allowing the moonlight to glint off her pale skin, her raven-black hair.
“El, what are you saying?” Seren pushes again.
Lara does not move, does not panic. Only stands patiently while Elyssara’s reality folds in on itself.
“I am saying…” Elyssara pants, “that this is the woman who helped Thalmyr cast the spell that exiled the gods, and took the power of Nyrielle.”
The words hang in the air.
No one denies it.
No one explains.
“This is Daphinia. Ally of Thalmyr, slayer of the Goddess of Light and Wonder, and destroyer of my fucking kingdom,” Elyssara snarls, emotion catching in her throat.
The words from the vision swim in her mind. Do it, Daphinia. That’s what Thalmyr said before the gods were exiled from reality.
“No,” Seren breathes, unwilling to accept it as the truth.
“I saw it. He called for her. ‘Do it, Daphinia,’” Elyssara snaps. “It’s her.”
Daphinia does not move. Does not confirm nor deny.
“I saw it with my own eyes,” Elyssara snaps. “The blood on her palm proves it—it was blood magic.”
Seren looks to Lara, eyes pleading, like she’s desperate for her new coven to be absolved of this. But Lara eyes Elyssara, taking two easy strides and closing the gap between them.
“You are wrong, Lightborne,” she says, voice flat and final.
Then she spins on her heel and brushes beneath the hanging skeletons like the conversation is over.
Elyssara and Seren share a swift glance.
“We are not done, witch!” Elyssara hisses.
“Come,” Lara throws over her shoulder. “Memories and truth are never the same thing.”
Candlelight gutters in the small cave nestled deep inside the heart of The Perils. Five tankards sit in a circle before five stacks of layered furs. Elyssara sits, chest full of rage, heart full of sadness. She sucks back a long swig, and coughs.
“Fucking Stars. Is that brask?” she splutters.
“Yes. Brask from Cindralis,” Lara answers simply. “Many of our witches descend from their tribes, myself included. Though they call us something else there.”
Seren clears her throat. “Veilborn.”
Lara nods curtly.
“That’s what they called me in Cindralis. A keeper of the liminal. Protector of the ancient. A World Walker,” Seren murmurs wistfully, echoing the words Tvira said to her, as if remembering something from another lifetime.
Cindralis. It wasn’t long ago that Elyssara was sitting in a cave just like this with Nehvara in Cindralis. Hearing secrets long held, lost verses uncovered, choosing the Starbound tether.
And now? She seems to be on the verge of even more secrets this godsforsaken realm has buried.
“You’d do well to remember that you are able to do so much, little witch. The Dreaded will teach you endless uses for your skills—golden nooses are only your beginning,” Lara promises, the words sounding more like a dark promise than a commitment to growth.
She looks away from Seren, like her words are nothing more than idle conversation.
Daphinia sips at her brask, a scowl on her face that seems permanent, but otherwise unmoving. Caev does the same, beholden to Lara’s every instruction. The Marrow.
Lara’s eyes bore into her, one warrior sizing up another. Elyssara stares back, and then leans in, unafraid.
For a moment, the world stills.
Two predators acknowledging each other.
Two leaders refusing to back down.
Two women who have lost everything, refusing to lose again.
“Tell me what you know,” Elyssara demands, voice even but firm.
Lara leans back, the golden glow washing her midnight skin in hints of caramel. Her braided hair falling in knots and tangles, metal clasps spaced along the threads. She is beautiful. Alarmingly so. The kind of beauty that draws you in, only to slide a blade home as her smile distracts you.