Chapter 72: The Witch’s Truth

Chapter 72: The Witch’s Truth
The croft was half-swallowed by ivy and shadow, perched on the edge of the moor like it had grown from the land itself. The air was heavy with peat smoke and herbs, the path lined with bones strung on thin cords that whispered together when the wind shifted. Isla’s pulse thrummed with every step. It had been months since she last saw Elspeth—the night she’d nearly died from the poisoned arrow.

Vaelen walked a step ahead, his satchel of vials clinking softly. “She may not welcome us warmly,” he murmured, though his tone held no true warning. “But she will not turn us away.”

Elspeth appeared in the doorway before they could knock. Her eyes—sharp, gray, ancient—studied them both. “The Lady and her magician,” she said, voice low and smooth as worn stone. “You live. I wondered if the poison would finish its work.”

“It nearly did,” Isla answered, forcing a small smile. “You have my thanks for your part in the antidote.”
The witch inclined her head slightly. “Thanks are best left to gods, not women. But you’re welcome all the same.” She stepped aside. “Come in.”

Inside the croft, the air was thick with sage, thyme, and burning cedar. Rows of jars lined the walls—filled with roots, stones, bones, and pressed herbs suspended in oils. At the far end of the room hung a great tapestry of golden thread, threaded with symbols that shimmered when the light caught them.
Elspeth motioned toward a rough-hewn table. “Sit.”

Isla obeyed. She felt the witch’s eyes on her as she moved, measuring her, dissecting her. It wasn’t hostility—it was curiosity, sharp and clinical.

As Isla spoke with Vaelen, Elspeth’s mind worked in silence. The faint pulse of old magic hummed beneath the young woman’s skin, like embers refusing to die. And then—there, under the edge of Isla’s collar—a scar. Fine and dark, shaped like lightning, tracing the very place a bond mark should be.

Broken, Elspeth realized, her breath catching for only a heartbeat. The thread between them is gone.
She hid her shock, her face unreadable. The prophecies she had studied never spoke of a severed bond that left one alive. It should have killed her. The rules of magic were absolute… unless something greater had intervened.

Elspeth turned away to mask the flicker of unease. If she had missed this shift in fate, what else had escaped her sight?

To cover her distraction, she began sorting stones across the table, each one a different color and cut.
“What brings you here?” she asked at last, tone deceptively mild.

“We seek knowledge,” Vaelen said carefully.

“Do you?” Her gaze slid to Isla. “What kind?”

Isla met her eyes, the firelight catching the gold in her hair. “The kind that explains what should be impossible. Men swear they’ve seen me where I’ve never been. That I’ve done things I could not have done.”

A pause. The witch’s fingers stilled over the stones. “You speak of illusion.”

“I speak of truth twisted into lies,” Isla said quietly.

Elspeth studied her for a long moment, her mind weighing what she saw. There is power in her voice, she thought. Power, and pain. Finally, she began to speak—not as a woman teaching, but as one confessing the weight of old history.

“There was a boy once,” she said. “Brilliant, strange, born with more knowing than sense. His name was Ruadhán Dubh. He was a child of light, or so they said—until the world made him dark. People mocked him for his cleverness, used him for his gifts. When he finally turned, he turned against everyone.”

Her voice softened with reluctant respect. “He began with tricks. Small illusions to amuse himself. But cruelty festers when it’s fed. His mischief grew darker—he froze a pond beneath a girl’s feet, burned a farmer’s crop, blinded a friend with a potion. They called him cursed and drove him into the wilderness.”
Elspeth placed one black stone upon the tapestry. “If anyone could twist the eyes of the living to see what isn’t real, it would be him. They say he found the hidden places of the world—where spirits and shadows meet—and there he learned to bend truth itself.”

Vaelen shifted. “You think he still lives?”

Elspeth gave a small smile, brittle and knowing. “Some say he became the forest itself. Some say he waits, whispering through the roots. Shadows never die. They only change their shape.”

As she spoke, the tapestry trembled. The stones shifted on their own, forming a jagged spiral. Elspeth frowned, moving closer. Her hands hovered above the threads—and then her eyes clouded white.

Isla froze. “Elspeth?”

The witch’s voice changed—low, echoing. “Red… red everywhere. A sea of blood. Two of you—standing where one should be. One chanting to the stars, one watching. A bond severed, yet still bound. Which of you is real?”

Vaelen’s hand twitched toward her arm, but before he could touch her, Elspeth gasped and stumbled back. The light returned to her eyes. She blinked, shaken, sweat beading at her temple.

“What did you see?” Isla whispered.

Elspeth stared at her for a long moment, as though afraid to speak the truth aloud. Finally she murmured, “I saw fate falter. And I saw you, Lady Isla, standing where no mortal should stand—between what was and what will be.”

Silence followed, heavy as fog.

Isla bowed her head slightly. “Thank you for your time, Elspeth.”

The witch did not reply. Her eyes tracked Isla’s every movement as she turned to leave.

Outside, the air was colder than before. The forest wind hissed through the grass, and with it came a voice, disembodied and distant—

A sea of red. Two of you. Your days are numbered, for his wrath is in bloom.

Isla stiffened. Vaelen, walking beside her, heard nothing.

When she looked back, Elspeth stood in her window, her face pale and unreadable, her eyes still flickering faintly with that unnatural white.

A shiver ran through Isla. Maybe coming here hadn’t been the wisest idea. But it was too late to turn back now.