The witch of the forest, p.22
The Witch of the Forest, page 22
“Prince Caelum has returned to the kingdom.”
The silence that follows is deafening.
All movement ceases. The shuffle of maps. The murmured spellwork. Even the children’s laughter fades as the words echo through the carved cavern like thunder trapped in stone.
Dozens of heads turn. A few people gasp outright. I watch their expressions shift—from disbelief to awe, to something that might be called hope... but hurts to witness.
Then, through the parting crowd, two figures approach.
The first is a woman. Older—mid to late fifties, maybe—but regal in the way gnarled roots are regal. Tall, broad-shouldered, her dark skin catches the golden glow of the cave like polished mahogany, and her black hair is a feral halo of curls streaked with grey. Her eyes—gods, her eyes—remind me of Thorne’s. Sharp. Watchful. Unforgiving. Only green instead of violet.
The other is... not human.
At first glance, he looks vaguely elven, but taller and built like stone brought to life. His skin has a faint shimmer, like mica flecks embedded beneath it, and his eyes are crystalline and gold, almost faceted. His ears are long, yes, but curled back like a ram’s horn at the top, and his voice—when he hums a note low in his throat—makes the rocks beneath my boots vibrate ever so slightly.
Elirien nods to them both. “Councilor Vasari. First Watcher Korrin.” They don’t look at her. They look at me. “This man,” she says clearly, “traveled to the city with the Prince. With Caelum. And...” She pauses, her voice softening as she glances at the woman—at Vasari. “With Calixta.”
Everything around us stills again.
Whispers break out like wind through dry grass.
“Calixta?”
“She’s alive?”
“She came back?”
“After all this time—”
“Where has she been?”
“Why now?”
Their voices overlap. Layered. Eager. Accusatory. Hopeful. Angry.
My shoulders tense.
I don’t say anything. I keep my arms at my sides, one hand over the satchel where Pestilence has tucked himself half-hidden. My lips press into a line, and I resist the urge to take a step back.
Because I feel it.
The pressure of them all looking at me.
Judging.
Wondering.
The older woman—Vasari—stares into me like she already knows the answers, or like she's dared herself not to cry.
But I say nothing.
Because whatever this is... it’s not my story to tell. Elirien lifts her voice again—this time quieter, but no less fierce. She turns toward Vasari and Korrin, her hood fallen back to reveal the full shine of her silver-blue hair in the underground lights.
“She’s in the dungeons,” she says. “The council took her the moment they saw her face. They say she killed the king, that she’s a traitor. But we all know that’s a lie. If we don’t get her out of there soon, they’ll bury the truth right alongside her—and the kingdom’s redemption dies with her.”
I blink.
“Wait—what?”
Elirien turns to me, but it’s Korrin who answers, his deep, stone-scraping voice drawing every pair of eyes in the room.
“She is the last living Shadow Nymph,” Korrin says, voice as steady as stone. “The last to hold both truth and blood in her hands.”
I blink at him. “Okay, that means nothing to me.”
Elirien turns to me, brushing her hair back over her shoulder. “The alliance between Eldryn and the Nymphs wasn’t ceremonial, Sol. It was sacred. It existed for a reason.”
“That... still means nothing to me,” I say again, slower.
“There’s a tome,” she continues. “An ancient one. Sealed by royal blood. Only a true heir can open it. But the only thing that can stop it—stop what’s inside it—is someone who can wield light.”
“I—okay, but what does that have to do with Thorne?”
“She is the light,” Elirien says. “The last of her kind. The only Shadow Nymph left who still carries the bond. And if she dies in that cell, then everything that book can unleash... it’s unstoppable.”
I stare at her. “I... feel like I just got smacked in the face with seventeen riddles at once.”
“She wasn’t just a palace guard,” Elirien says, like I’m slow. “She was the guard. The one who trained half the royal elite. The one who smuggled the princes out during the fall. The one who vanished with the truth before the council could silence her. And the only one who can stop what’s coming.”
I run a hand down my face. “I was not emotionally prepared for any of this today.”
A silence falls heavy between us.
Then Korrin nods once. “Wait until dusk,” he tells her. “Get her out. Whatever means you require. And bring whomever you need.”
I open my mouth.
But Elirien’s already turning toward me, a smile twitching on her lips.
“Except him,” she says, jerking a thumb toward me.
“What?” I blurt. “No, hang on—why?”
She shrugs. “Because every guard from here to the rivers knows your face now, and I like having a mission that doesn’t end in disaster. Also—pretty sure Thorne would skin me if I let her husband get caught.”
My brain jams like a rusty gear. “Whoa, okay—not her husband.”
Elirien arches an eyebrow. “Alright. But you’re sleeping together, right?”
The room goes quiet again. So quiet I could swear even Pestilence is judging me from inside the satchel. “Could you not shout about my love life in an underground rebel stronghold?”
Elirien grins—absolutely unbothered—and twirls on her heel like she just won a bet with herself. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
And then she skips off toward the shadowed halls, humming like this is the most fun she’s had all week.
I sigh, bury my face in my hands for a second, and mutter to no one in particular: “I hate this place.”
Touched by the Moon
Thorne
It feels like night.
I can’t see the sky, can’t smell the air, can’t know—but I feel it.
The way my chest aches like something’s missing. The pull beneath my skin. The cold that settles not just on the surface, but in the marrow of my bones. It’s the kind of cold that comes when the moon should be high. When the earth is supposed to hum quietly beneath you, and instead... nothing.
There’s nothing here.
Just stone and steel and the weight of silence pressing in from all sides. I curl tighter in the corner of my cell, head against my knees, eyes open but seeing nothing The manacles bite at my wrists, a dull reminder that I’ve been buried alive in a place that doesn’t breathe.
And gods, I need to breathe.
I belong to the wilds. To the roots and the wind and the moonlight. But this place—it cuts me off. Like I’m a tree stripped of its leaves, branches reaching toward a sky that won’t answer back.
I close my eyes and try to imagine it. The stars. The wind threading through tall grass. The moon hanging pale and whole.
But it hurts.
The disconnect. The severing. Like someone tore a thread in me I can’t stitch back together. I think of Sol.
Bright. Inconveniently optimistic. Sunshine made human. He doesn’t belong in shadows or dungeons, in the broken places I’ve been forced to crawl through. He shouldn’t have followed me here. Shouldn’t have looked at me like I’m something more than the ruin I’ve become.
And yet—he did.
And somehow, despite the ache, despite how much I’ve tried to keep everything soft locked away... he made something in me lighter.
He feels like the sun—but I don’t mind burning.
Then—
A sound.
Not footsteps. Not chains. Something else. A scraping. Dull, rhythmic... deliberate.
I lift my head slowly, listening. It’s coming from the far side of the dungeons—across the stone chamber, behind the thick bars and shadows. It’s faint, but growing. Chk. Chk. Chk. Like someone’s digging.
I rise unsteadily and step closer to the bars.
Across the way, in one of the outer cells, something shifts. Loose dirt falls in a shower. Stone clatters quietly. A sliver of silver light spills through the new gap, cutting the darkness like a blade.
Moonlight.
I don’t even see the person doing it. Just a shape. A quiet persistence.
They keep going.
Another stone is pulled away. Then another. The glow brightens. It stretches, glancing across the stone floor and coming closer, crawling toward my cell like a lifeline.
One more. A final push. And the beam reaches just past my bars.
I stare at it—soft and pale, trembling slightly with the motion of dust and night air. My fingers twitch.
And then—I reach. The manacles bite and halt me short. My fingers strain, trembling in the dark, but the cold iron keeps my wrist just shy of the light.
No.
Not after all this. Not when it’s right there. I grit my teeth, shift my hand—and with a sharp, wet pop, dislocate my thumb.
Pain surges, hot and blinding. But I don’t stop. I slide my wrist through the loosened cuff, skin scraping raw, blood slick against metal—until finally, finally—
My arm slips between the cold steel, stretching into the moonlight. The moment it touches my skin, I nearly cry. The moonlight kisses my fingers.
And I feel it.
That soft, ancient hum. That wild, aching lullaby that lives in my bones.
Like the stars just whispered, You’re still here.
Warmth spreads beneath my flesh. Not heat, but relief. Like the breath I’ve been choking on finally loosens. Like the roots buried in me remember where they came from. I close my eyes and let the light soak into me.
It’s not enough to fix everything. But it’s something. A thread. A whisper. A promise that I’m not fully lost—not yet.
I press my palm flat to the stone, in the light, and whisper beneath my breath. So low I’m not even sure I say it aloud.
“Please. Moon, stars, anything out there still listening. I need your help. I have to protect him. I have to protect Sol.”
The light flickers—like it heard me.
And I stay there, fingers stretched into silver, waiting for a sign.
Waiting for the world to answer back.
And then—
It does.
A warm tingle runs up my arm where the moonlight touches me. It glides across my skin like silk, humming beneath the surface. I watch, barely breathing, as the raw scrapes from the manacle begin to fade. The skin knits together. My bruises ease. A pulse echoes deep in my bones—like the moon itself is mending me.
My thumb shifts back into place with a sharp snap, but the pain is already dulling, muted by something older, something wilder. The kind of healing that doesn’t ask permission. The kind that remembers me.
Then comes a sound—low at first. A soft rumble like something deep underground has just stirred. The stones in the far cell keep shifting. Earth crumbles. Dust curls in the stale air. And then the first vine slips through.
Thin and trembling like a newborn thing, it tastes the air, writhes forward, and touches the floor with certainty. Another follows. Then three. Then ten. Thick ropes of green muscle slither through the cracks and stretch toward the opposite bars—
—and then tear through them like they were paper. The scream of sheared iron rings out as vines rip through the cell across from mine, shredding through metal in whiplike lashes. Sparks fly. A thunderous groan as one of the bars wrenches free and clangs to the floor.
I stagger back as they slither across the corridor—toward me now.
My own bars rattle violently. Roots rise from between the stones of the floor, splitting cracks wider, pulling chunks loose. Moss spreads like fire across the walls, and thick ivy wraps around the steel. A sudden jerk—then the bars bow outward, like they’re kneeling.
Another shudder, and snap—
—the entire front of my cell gives way. I stumble forward, heart hammering, only to find the vines waiting. One coils gently around my waist. Another slips beneath my arm. The last wraps around my ankle—not tight, not binding, but steady. Supportive. Helping.
My final shackle resists, but the vines twist delicately around it. There’s a metallic creak, then a crack of pressure as it bursts open and drops from my wrist.
Shouts echo from above. “GET DOWN THERE!”
“She’s loose—stop her—!”
“LIGHT THE TORCHES—!”
But they’re too late.
The vines snap up like serpents, barricading the stairwell in a web of thick, thorn-lined stalks. The dungeon’s only door vanishes behind a wall of roots and petals, growing by the second. The guards’ yells fade beneath the rustling. Nature doesn’t roar—but it rises.
The vines shift again, lifting me. Carefully. Reverently. Like they remember me, too. I let them carry me toward the hole torn in the wall where once there had only been stone. Fresh air seeps in, wild and unfiltered. My toes graze grass—actual grass. The cool dew dampens my skin.
And then I step through.
Out into the night.
The moon glows whole above me.
And standing in the field, bathed in its silver light, is a woman I haven’t seen in ten years.
Elirien. She’s leaning on a warhammer, worn leather armor hugged to her hips, hood pushed back to reveal long streaks of silver-blue hair. She grins at me like no time has passed at all. “Well,” she says, voice dry and amused. “Took you long enough.”
My knees nearly buckle.
“Elirien...”
She twirls the hammer once, setting it on her shoulder with ease. “Glad to see you’re not dead.” I exhale, shaking. Not yet. “Come on,” Elirien says, swinging the hammer across her back as she grabs my hand. “Let’s move before they catch up.”
I don’t need to be told twice. My legs remember how to run.
We take off into the night, boots slamming over wild grass and roots, ducking between ruined archways and abandoned buildings that nature has all but reclaimed. The wind stings my face and my pulse drums in time with our steps.
“I can’t believe it,” she calls over her shoulder as we leap over a collapsed fence, “You’re actually alive. Gods, Calixta, I thought they got you ten years ago.”
The name hits me in the chest like a rock. Calixta. I haven’t heard it spoken aloud by an old friend in... well a decade. And somehow, hearing her say it feels both like a wound... and a balm.
“I need to find someone,” I pant.
“You’re going to have to pause on that,” she says. “Because the second those bells ri—”
CLANG.
The sound cuts through the night like a blade.
Once. Twice. A third time, echoing over the stone buildings and across the valley.
“—And there it is,” Elirien mutters, quickening her pace. “The whole damn city’s gonna know you’re out.”
“I don’t care.” I dodge a corner behind her, barely missing a pile of barrels. “I have to find—”
I stop myself, stumbling mid-step.
What do I call him?
My neighbor? That sounds...ridiculous. My friend? Gods, are we just friends? There were kisses. Touches. Nights that still live behind my eyes like embers refusing to die out.
But the moment stretches too long.
Elirien’s already dragging me into an alley, one that looks like it’s caved in on itself—dead end. She reaches down and presses her hand to the ground. The stones ripple beneath her fingers like water.
“Come on,” she urges, flicking her gaze back toward the rooftops. “We don’t have time.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, taking a step back. “I can’t. I need to look for Sol.”
Her expression snaps into something sharp, almost maternal in its exasperation. “You are literally glowing with moon magic and about to be on every wanted poster in the city. You’ll get caught before you even make it out of this alley.”
“I have to try—”
“No, you don’t,” she says firmly. Then she lunges.
Her hand clamps around my arm, and before I can twist away, she yanks.
I stumble forward with a shout as the stones give way beneath my feet. The world tilts sideways and then disappears altogether.
WE FALL INTO THE DARK. We hit the ground hard—but not painfully. It’s soft beneath me. Springy. Alive.
Moss, thick and spongy, lines the stone floor like a forgotten bed, lit by the dim, hazy glow of bioluminescent mushrooms that bloom in wild, sprawling patches. They shimmer in purples and blues, casting eerie lights up the cavern walls. A root system coils above us like a tangled ceiling of veins.
Elirien groans beside me, brushing mushrooms off her shoulder with an exasperated puff of breath. “Could’ve landed on your back, you know. You’re built like a sword rack.”
But I’m already on my feet.
I spin toward the darkened arch we fell through, shoulders squared, fury simmering just beneath my skin. “Okay. How do I get back up?”
Elirien doesn’t move. “You don’t.”
My hands curl into fists. “That wasn’t a question.”
“Calixta—”
“Don’t call me that right now—my name is Thorne.”
She lifts her hands in mock surrender. “Fine. Thorne. Listen to me. You can’t go storming back in there.”
“I didn’t ask your opinion,” I snap, my voice shaking. “I need to find him. I have to.”
Elirien rises slowly, brushing her knees off. “I get it, okay? But we need to regroup—”
“No, you need to regroup,” I growl, taking a shaky breath that doesn’t fill my lungs. “He’s—he’s not like us. He’s not from here. He doesn’t know these people. He doesn’t know how to run. He's going to walk right into a guard with a blade and offer him a cake.”
She goes quiet. Watching me. Gauging me. Like I’m the one who’s cracked.
The silence presses in.
The cold of the cavern seeps through my skin.
