Chapter 172 CHAPTER 172
Morning light stretched gently across the witch village, pale and deceptive in its softness. But inside the largest house at the center of the clearing, the air felt charged and unsettled.
Seraphine climbed the stairs from the basement with controlled steps, her fingers trailing lightly along the stone wall. Her expression was composed, but beneath it her thoughts moved quickly. The confrontation below had not unfolded exactly as she had planned. Helena had broken, yes. That had been expected. But Jocelyn had not. Jocelyn had looked her in the eye and called her bluff, and that small disruption irritated her more than she would ever admit aloud.
Still, she was not defeated.
If they wanted proof, she would bring proof. Lisa was not unreachable. Lunaris did not guard its students with military precision. The princess had grown comfortable, too comfortable, often dismissing her bodyguards in the name of independence. Seraphine had spies who reported such details with useful regularity. If kidnapping Lisa became necessary, then so be it. It would require patience, timing, and calculation, but it was far from impossible.
She reached the top of the stairs and pushed the basement door open, stepping into the living room.
She stopped mid-stride.
Sarah stood near the center of the room, her hood pulled low over her head as though trying to shrink herself into the fabric. Her shoulders were trembling, though whether from cold or fear was unclear. Dust clung to her clothes, and her breathing came in uneven pulls, as if she had run far and fast.
Seraphine’s eyes hardened immediately.
“I told you not to come here,” she said, her voice flat and cutting. “Unless you had something important to tell me.”
Sarah lifted her head slowly, and even in the dim light her fear was visible.
“They found out,” she said.
Seraphine did not ask whether she had been followed. She did not ask whether she was injured. Concern was not her first instinct.
“Who?” she demanded sharply.
“Everyone,” Sarah replied, her voice strained. “The elders. The guards. Sebastian. They know I’m a witch. They know I drained them.”
For a brief moment, the silence between them felt heavy and unstable. Then Seraphine’s hand moved before thought caught up to it. She seized the iron candle holder from the table and hurled it across the room.
Sarah reacted instinctively. A pulse of magic flickered from her palm, and the object deflected in mid-air, crashing against the wall instead of striking her.
Seraphine’s gaze darkened further.
“So you can defend yourself from me,” she said coldly. “But you could not defend your mission?”
Before Sarah could respond, Seraphine snatched up a glass from the table and flung it directly at her face.
This time, Sarah did not raise her hand.
The glass struck her cheek and shattered. Shards sliced through skin, and a thin line of blood began to trail down her jaw. She did not flinch. She did not step back. She allowed it.
“It wasn’t like that,” Sarah said, her voice low but steady despite the sting. “I couldn’t control it. They had proof.”
“Proof?” Seraphine repeated sharply. “I told you never to reveal your magic.”
“I didn’t,” Sarah insisted. “It was an accident. Someone recorded me while I was draining one of the guards. They took it to the elders. Sebastian saw it.”
Seraphine began pacing slowly, her anger simmering just beneath the surface.
“You were careless,” she said.
“I wasn’t careless,” Sarah replied, though her certainty faltered slightly. “They came for me. I ran because they would not have arrested me. They would have killed me. They know I can wipe memory.”
Seraphine turned abruptly toward her.
“And what of the couple?” she asked. “Leonard and Mara.”
“I left them,” Sarah answered quietly, “They were no longer useful.”
“You left them - alive?” Seraphine repeated, incredulous.
“And the boy?” She pressed.
Sarah hesitated for the briefest second.
“Still in the dungeons.”
Seraphine’s expression grew colder.
“So he is as good as dead,” she said without hesitation.
Sarah’s hands tightened at her sides. “Maybe we can still use him - later.”
Seraphine stepped closer, her presence looming and oppressive.
“Later? Are you mad?” she asked, her voice dangerously calm. “Have you grown soft? Did you stay among those wolves long enough to begin thinking like them?”
Sarah did not answer. The blood from her cheek continued to slide downward, and she made no move to wipe it away.
“If the boy is no longer useful, then kill him,” Seraphine ordered. “That is the least you can do after ruining years of preparation.”
The words stung more than the glass had.
“I had an important mission for you,” Seraphine continued, her tone sharpening. “And now I must reconsider how to proceed without you. You have complicated everything.”
Sarah swallowed hard.
“You failed,” Seraphine concluded.
There was no anger left in her voice now. Only dismissal.
She turned away from her daughter without another glance, already calculating alternatives in her mind. The possibility of abducting Lisa herself felt more appealing by the second. Strategy moved her thoughts forward. Emotion did not.
Sarah stood motionless for several moments after her mother walked away. The sting in her cheek pulsed in time with her heartbeat. She pressed her sleeve lightly against the wound, though the pain hardly registered.
All her life had been discipline and expectation.
She could not remember a single moment of softness.
From childhood, Seraphine had corrected her posture, sharpened her incantations, strengthened her endurance. Sarah had learned control before she learned comfort. When she came of age, she had not been given freedom or choice; she had been placed strategically into Silverpine as a spy. The role had been presented not as an option, but as destiny.
She had accepted it because she did not know what else she could be.
Her mother had always spoken of love as something stolen. Wolves had destroyed it. Wolves had killed her father. Wolves had forced her hand.
But as Sarah walked toward the staircase that led down to the dungeon, those explanations felt thinner than they ever had before.
If love had been the reason for everything, why had she never felt any?
If her father had been cherished, why had that tenderness not extended to his daughter?
If vengeance was born from heartbreak, why had she only ever known training and correction?
She reached the top of the dungeon stairs and lowered herself slowly onto the stone step. The cool surface pressed against her skin, grounding her.
The boy was behind that door.
He had been leverage. Nothing more.
She had told herself that often enough to believe it.
Her mother had told her that weakness was dangerous. That attachment clouded judgment. That hesitation cost lives.
But now hesitation felt like something else.
Her hand rested on the iron handle of the dungeon door.
Was this mission truly hers?
Or had she simply been shaped to carry it?
The wound on her cheek throbbed gently, and she realized she could have stopped the glass. She had chosen not to. She did not know why.
Perhaps because part of her had wanted to feel something other than obedience.
She drew in a slow breath.
If she killed the boy, she would prove loyalty once more.
If she did not, she would prove something else.
The door creaked as she pushed it open.
And the darkness beyond waited.