Page 33 of The Unbound Witch
“Tell them the whole story,” Eden encouraged, reaching across the wagon to take his hand.
“Laramie Forestbrook.” He whispered her name like a conjuring. As if those words would bring the witch before us now. “She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Hair as red as the setting sun, eyes like golden honey.” He smiled, lost in his memory of the witch that had clearly held his heart. “She was wild and carefree and unlike anything I’d ever seen before. We were forbidden, of course. The witches of her coven had spent her life preaching about the devilish ways of the shifters and why she needed to stay away from us. But her spirit was rebellious, untamed.”
He sat forward, his elbows on his knees as he gripped Eden’s tiny hand within his own. All traces of teasing had long since left his face as he continued his tale, every bit the wolf I’d seen that night in the forest.
“We stayed closest to the Fire Coven, where we were usually safe. They were the only witches a shifter could truly trust not to turn their backs. We’d usually walk together, and she’d tell me crazy stories as if they were real, making them up as we wandered. Her voice was like a song and her mind, the harmony.” He paused, his smile fading, though he sat for several seconds, quietly.
“What happened?” I asked, unable to stop my own curiosity.
“We were walking back over the bridge to the Forest territory, which was where we usually said our goodbyes, when the color faded from her face, the beautiful smile she always wore vanishing. She jerked to a stop, frozen in place.” His voice broke. “Blood started pouring from her ears and down her nose, and I panicked. I stood in front of her screaming her name, but she didn’t hear me, didn’t respond. Just stood there. Even her tears were red as blood.”
“The Harrowing,” Raven and I whispered at the same time. I’d seen exactly that happen to her. Had felt my own heart break when I thought she’d die. But she’d lived, and I knew Atlas’ Laramie had not.
He cleared his throat, but the tension still showed in his voice as he continued. “I didn’t know anything about that. She didn’t tell me, and I didn’t know what to do. I lifted her from the ground and ran. I should have…” He shook his head, refusing to finish his sentence.
“You couldn’t have known, Atty. Couldn’t have changed it,” Torryn said.
“The witches of the Forest Coven attacked Atlas the moment he carried Laramie into the town square, screaming for help.” Bastian hunched forward, putting his hand on top of Eden’s. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, brother. I’m so sorry.”
“They forced me to watch her die,” he whispered. “Held me to the ground with magic, the gash from a spell gushing my own blood everywhere. I didn’t fight back. I let them destroy me, but they still made me watch. Made me believe that I was the reason she’d died. As if I’d somehow poisoned her. Her chest rose and fell, the blood pouring from her until the light left those beautiful, honeyed eyes and she was gone. No more stories, no more fire. She’d just… gone.”
“I’m sorry that happened,” I whispered, afraid to break the delicate silence nestled into the limited space between us.
“Thanks, Ghosty,” he replied, still haunted by the memory.
The trip remained silent after that. Even the captain fell to snoring as he leaned on Eden and her on him. It was hard not to feel like the villain in Atlas’ story, but then I supposed he was just like the other shifters and saw witches as the villains. Though I hated to admit it, they were probably right. The witches of the world believed the lies the coven leaders spun like it was golden truth sent from the goddess herself, and we—they—acted accordingly.
I glanced up to see the Dark King watching me, as if he knew the inner workings of my mind. He’d been the villain many, many times over. Also, based on the lies those witches had preached, it seemed. The shifters had their truth and the witches had theirs, and I was fairly certain the real truth lay somewhere in between.
One by one, the crew within the uncomfortable wagon fell asleep, lulled by the forward motion and rattle of the wooden wheels crunching the gravel below us. Bored, as I usually was at nighttime, I became invisible and swept out of the carriage, sitting next to the human driver. Holding the reins loose in his fingers, his own head bobbed back and forth a few times before the horses whinnied, jerking him awake.
Several minutes passed and again, he drifted off to sleep. I knew I shouldn’t. I’d been warned the humans were not used to seeing wraiths, but I couldn't help myself as I floated away from the bench, careful not to spook the horses. I drifted above his hind, facing backward so I could watch the driver’s face as he startled awake, reminding me of Scoop. His eyes doubled in size, body shooting upward as I vanished, confident he’d seen me for only a flash of a second. It was enough, though. The smile didn’t leave my face for several hours, and the human never fell asleep again.
14
KIRSI
The small town ahead, scattered along the seashore, was barely visible in the early morning, still at least an hour before the sun would rise. The closely placed buildings were the same as those we’d seen in the two other towns, hard to discern from one another and cast in heavy shadow. Occasional lanterns gave the place enough ambiance to feel unsettled as I remembered the hard eyes of the witch hunter. Surely, we were safer here. Though I knew we’d traveled back at least part of the way we’d come before.
Leaving the boring driver, whose hands still shook, I soared toward the town. Curiosity becoming a new part of who I was, I drifted between the strangely similar homes and down the brick laid streets. Rounding a corner, confident the little town would be just as boring as the rest, I nearly swept through the solid body of a guard standing watch. A round hat upon his head, a whistle tucked into his mouth hanging from a silver chain around his neck, he stared forward, unmoving as I circled him to see what or who he watched over.
Though they’d never seen me, my jaw dropped because I knew them. Even beyond the bruising on their faces, hunched over and locked in a pillory, their hands and heads unable to move, I was confident they were the same old people from before. Wasting no time, I flew back to the wagon, burst inside, and punched the captain right in the chest. It wouldn’t hurt him of course, but he felt me enough to jerk away.
“Payback, Captain,” I hissed before nudging the Dark King.
His eyes flew open, panic on his face as he oriented himself, reaching instantly for Raven. “What is it?”
“The old couple from that first town is locked in the middle of the square, guarded by a man with… well… a whistle. They’ve got bruises all over their faces, and their clothing is torn to shreds.”
“We cannot help them,” Bastian said. “We did what we could. But we need to get home. We have no idea the state of the castle, if the barrier of the Grimoires has held, if the coven leaders have taken over and declared war on the shifters. We cannot waste time here.”
“Can I talk to Grey? I feel like he would probably join me.”
Bastian narrowed his eyes, but Atlas laughed. “That joke never gets old. Remember that time—”
“Save it, Pup,” I interrupted. “No one in the town is awake. It’s a single man with a whistle. It would take minutes to save two innocent lives.”
“She’s right,” Raven agreed. “We cannot leave them to die.”