Chapter 90 QUEEN TO WITCH
Athalia picked it and read by firelight, her lips moving silently as she traced the words. Spells, diagrams, and warnings wound through the margins like thorns.
Near the center of the book, she found an inscription carved deeper than the rest, as if etched with intent rather than ink.
To break a curse, you must accept the curse.
Her fingers tightened.
Bear its mark. Fulfill its prophecy.
The next line was different — older. The script was jagged, as though written by a shaking hand.
Or bind it to another soul and walk free, knowing it will hunt you still.
Athalia’s breath quickened as she turned the page.
Symbols flared faintly, responding to her presence. Magic stirred around her, recognizing something familiar in her blood. She followed the instructions almost instinctively — arranging herbs, drawing a circle on the floor with ash and salt.
Her body trembled as she stepped inside it.
Then the spell surged.
Pain exploded through her, white-hot, stealing her breath. She screamed as something answered from deep within her — rearing like a living thing. The hut shook, its walls groaning. Light burst from her skin, flooding the room in blinding brilliance.
Then Athalia collapsed to her knees, gasping.
Slowly, she lifted her hands.
They were steady.
Her skin glowed faintly — smooth, unmarked. She staggered to the cracked mirror hanging on the wall and stared.
The woman looking back at her was radiant. Hair glossy. Eyes bright. Every line of exhaustion erased. For a heartbeat, she felt whole. Powerful. Alive in a way she had not been in years.
She laughed, breathless.
Then the glow flickered.
Her reflection wavered.
Lines crept back into her face — deeper this time. Her shoulders sagged. Her hair dulled, streaked suddenly with silver. Strength drained from her limbs, leaving behind a heavier weariness than before.
“No,” she whispered, reaching toward the mirror. “No…”
She stumbled back to the book, hands shaking as she scanned the page she had missed, the ink dark and unforgiving.
The curse may be lifted for thirty minutes.
Once awakened, it may be used only once each day.
Athalia sank to the floor, clutching the book to her chest. Her breath trembled, but her eyes burned with fierce resolve.
“Thirty minutes,” she whispered.
“That’s enough.”
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Athalia looked at herself and learned to walk differently with her transformation before she ever stepped onto the road.
The old woman she saw in the mirror after transformation carried herself like someone who had survived too much — shoulders slightly bent, gaze lowered, movements careful, as if the world might strike without warning. That woman could not enter a capital built on scrutiny and silk.
But she needed more, so Athalia practiced.
She stood barefoot on the packed earth outside the hut at dawn, spine straight, chin lifted just enough. She lengthened her stride, let her hips sway subtly, forced her hands to relax at her sides instead of curling inward.
She practiced smiling without revealing the weight behind it. Looking at men without flinching. At women without challenge. Becoming someone who had never lost anything.
A patient who had come for treatment watched from the doorway one morning, wrapped in a blanket, illness carving shadows beneath his eyes.
“You look like trouble,” he rasped.
She didn’t stop pacing. “Good.”
He coughed, a dry, scraping sound. “Trouble gets noticed.”
“I need to be noticed,” she said. “Just not for the right reasons.”
Inside the hut, bundles of dried herbs hung from the rafters. The air smelled of crushed leaves and smoke. On the table lay one of Oren’s books, now open more often than closed. Athalia had stopped pretending she only glanced at it.
Sometimes, in the quiet hours, she almost heard his voice.
You could still leave this alone. Live quietly. Somewhere no one knows your name.
Athalia adjusted the thin chain around her neck. A small stone rested against her collarbone, dull gray to any eye but hers. Power throbbed faintly inside it, answering her pulse.
“I already tried living quietly,” she murmured. “It didn’t work.”
The silence did not argue.
By the time she left, the forest was turning toward autumn. Leaves yellowed at the edges, and the air carried a sharper bite at night.
Athalia packed little: a change of clothes, dried food, the book wrapped carefully in cloth, and three small vials of shimmering liquid she had brewed under Oren’s guidance — and sometimes without it.
At the edge of the trees, she stopped and looked back at the hut.
“I know the price of doing nothing,” she muttered. “And I won’t pay it again.”
She turned and stepped onto the narrow path that would lead her back to the world that had buried her.
The journey took days. She avoided villages when she could, skirting fields and sleeping in abandoned barns or beneath trees. Each night, she traced the runes on her skin — faint, nearly invisible until she whispered the words that woke them.
On the fourth morning, she reached a rise in the road.
Beyond it, the kingdom spread wide and golden under the sun. Farmland quilted the landscape, dotted with windmills and grazing cattle. And at the center, rising proud and pale, stood the capital’s walls and towers.
Her breath caught.
For a moment, the years fell away. She saw herself riding through those gates in a carriage draped in white and gold, crowds cheering, petals raining from balconies. She remembered believing the noise meant love.
Athalia touched the stone at her throat.
The illusion slipped over her like cool water.
The ache in her joints eased. The silver in her hair darkened into rich brown. The hollows in her cheeks filled. When she blinked, her reflection in a puddle at her feet showed a young woman with luminous skin and bright, curious eyes.
She adjusted the hood of her cloak and walked on.
The road grew busier as she neared the city — merchants with wagons, farmers leading donkeys, travelers with dust on their hems and stories in their mouths. Athalia listened more than she spoke.
“…another consort sick last month…”
“…the king barely smiles these days…”
“…they say the palace is cursed…”
“…maybe Queen Athalia’s ghost is real…”
She kept her expression politely interested, offering small nods and brief smiles.
At the gates, guards checked carts and questioned strangers. When it was her turn, Athalia lowered her hood just enough.
“Name?” the guard asked.
“Lina,” she said smoothly.
“From?”
“South of the river bend. My aunt kept a dye shop here. I thought I might find work.”
The guard looked her over, his gaze lingering a fraction too long. “Got coin?”
“A little.”
He grunted and waved her through.
Athalia stepped past the gates without looking back.
And the kingdom didn't know what they were expecting, since their beloved queen was now a witch.
But was she a good witch?