195

195
The forest witch pov

The ghosts bring me the roots I asked for. Not because they understand the purpose, not because they have faith in the magic that simmers under my floor, but because something in them fears the weight of a debt unpaid, and in that fear, they hand me power without question.

That is the only true currency left in this forest - not loyalty, rebellion, or timeless kings. Only fear.

The trees are quieter now, not silent, they are never silent, but still enough to make the air taste older and even the most stubborn branch creak like a confession.

They’ve seen too much, felt too much, drunk too deep from what sleeps in the soil. And they know, perhaps better than I ever will, that something has changed.

The boy is gone and every whisper that finds its way to me, every creature that slinks close and refuses to cross the threshold, every curl of ash on the breeze tells me the same thing:
He took something with him when he left and it is not done unraveling.

Marrel comes at dusk. He doesn’t knock, doesn’t wait, doesn’t bother with the pretense of pleasantries.

The door groans, old wood protesting his entrance like the forest itself resents his return. He stands there, soaked with sweat and guilt and the kind of exhaustion that comes from trying to outpace fate.

“He’s gone, truly gone for good. I walked, I checked hiding places and still didn’t find him. I need you to do it, find out where he went. Find Arvin.” He demands, his voice soft and not broken but laced with determination I haven’t heard from him in far too long.

I glance at him, but I don’t stop my work. “He was never yours to lose, Marrel. He is no one’s but his own, it’s best you accept that sooner rather than later.” I mutter quietly.

His jaw tightens, eyes narrow like a blade being drawn. “You said you would keep him safe.”

There it is, the same old song, same conversation we already had but he needs to hear me repeat the words all over again, like always. “I said I would keep him alive. That is not the same thing, and you of all creatures should know the difference.”

He takes a step closer, his presence is fire on old parchment, dangerous and ill-advised. “He trusted you.” He snarls at me as if Marrel truly believes his anger could change anything now that it’s too late to be changed.

“He trusted a lot of people and look how far that has gotten him.” I answer flatly without glancing his way, mainly to show him how little his words move someone like me. I’ve seen too much, heard too many words and witnessed too many wars to be moved by another one now.

The silence between us drags out, thick with accusation. Then, abruptly, he lifts the wooden bowl from the altar, the one etched with veins of bone and ash, and hurls it against the far wall.

It shatters to tiny pieces against the wall and I don’t react to his anger, instead, I meet his gaze, steady as ever. “Throwing tantrums won’t change what he’s become.”

“What have you made him?” Marrel snarls, asking the same question I’ve answered a hundred times before and both of us know the answer will never change.

Instead of repeating myself like a broken record, I smile. “I made him nothing, I simply let him be seen.”

Marrel storms away, as he always does, and when the night finally comes, I return to the roots.

They have grown hungry, curious and awfully impatient. They wind around my wrists like vines around a corpse, aching for stories, for blood, for names, but I have none to give.

I hum instead, feeding them a string of syllables that once meant safety and now mean warning. I let them curl around a false name, one he used long before he belonged to anyone. I give them lies dressed as truth and truths that sound like riddles, it is all the same to them. The roots ask if the boy will return and I lie to them as easily as I lie to Marrel when I claim, “he never left us.”

By morning, long after I’m done feeling the roots, the scouts arrive. They come cloaked in rebellion colors, eyes sharp and hands twitching at their hilts. They bring no gifts, no offerings, just questions, as if this forest was built to bend to demand.

They ask where Arvin went while I pour them tea brewed from leaves that have never seen sunlight.
They ask again, voices turning sharper and impatient but I only tell them about the crows, the ones who gather only before blood spills.

They demand to know if I’m loyal to the rebellion and I laugh. I don’t laugh in their faces per se, but I still laugh at the demands and aggression they bring to my forest, loud enough to make the roots below the floorboard stir.

“You think this war is about your petty symbols and puppet Princes? You think your knives matter to what is waking beneath us?” I ask them, now finally looking in their direction.

They exchange nervous glances. One steps back and one steps forward while one forgets entirely how to breathe.

“You think you fight a king,” I whisper, leaning close enough that the steam from the tea curls like smoke between us, “but I know what sleeps under the crown.”

The scouts leave before nightfall, empty handed, their questions unanswered. One of them forgets their blade and I feed it to the ground.

When the moon sharpens, I open the basin, water is as thick as oil slithers across the stone. I don’t whisper spells or promises, offer no blood to the forest to feast upon, but it opens anyway.

It wants to show me something and so it does. Arvin is stumbling through fog, hands outstretched, whispering his own name like he’s forgotten what it means.

Lester is drenched in smoke and bone, clawing at tree trunks as if he can drag a ghost back to life by sheer rage alone.

The bastard Prince, firelit and feral, walking away from a rebellion that no longer needs him.

Theos, bent over ink-stained parchment, writing the kingdom into further delusion with each forged decree.

And then there’s me. It always ends with me - watching, listening and waiting in the shadows.

I feed the roots ash at dawn, they rise, reaching for something no longer present and they ask again for his name. I assure them that the boy is just a vessel, but they press deeper, they ask what he is carrying.

“The end,” I whisper into the nothingness around me and this time, they don’t ask again.

A raven lands on my shoulder before the sun can fully rise, its claws do not pierce my skin and its voice isn’t kind anymore. “He is close.”

I nod, letting the wind coil through the room, the basin dry and the roots sleep.

Let them all come - the rebellion, the Court, even the ones who swore they had nothing left to lose.
Let them drag their fears to my door and call it strategy, throw crowns and chains and reasons into the fire. I only need the boy, the one with no name, the one who already burned and soon will return to me.