Page 2 of The Witch’s Fate (The Lunaterra Chronicles #13)

The cottage is made up of only two separate rooms—the main room, and a small bathing room.

However, the main room is large enough to house a coven of several members, especially if a few of those members prefer to sleep under the stars or in hammocks or on mats on the floor.

What once was settles uneasily in my chest, and I close the door behind me.

After it was only me here, I turned the spare beds into other uses.

I could not stand to look at the emptiness, so now my bed is the only one in the cottage.

It’s tucked in the far corner, a beautiful quilt and plush pillows lay over it.

The makeshift bedroom is divided from the rest of the room by a low half-wall.

My kitchen is on the other end, separated by another half-wall, and between is the rest of my cozy space.

A blue velvet chair with embroidered florals on the back sits in the nook that consists of stacks and stacks of books.

Plants in glass vases of all colors and finely painted porcelain pots line every window sill.

From mint to dill and of course rosemary and lavender. The scents mix so heavenly.

It is quiet in my home. It is always quiet. So much as it can be.

Peace is why I live here—why I stay alone, in my solitary cottage, with no one else.

For a moment, a small moment, I envision bursting through the door to share the invitation with my coven.

They would have taken the fine envelope from my hands and passed it around, leaning their heads close together to look at the writing and to test the thickness of the paper.

I can hear the clucking of a sister’s tongue as if she were still here.

Their ghosts are merely memories, and I cannot bring them back.

But such invitations—such changes—never bring peace. If they did, I would not be here, well away from other people. In the last few years, I have missed many events and declined many opportunities to change my life once again. I cannot risk what happened happening again.

My heart races at the thought, though there’s nothing in the cottage itself to worry me.

If anyone remembers me—aside from Prince Adom, whose household has sent this invitation—they likely wonder why I have withdrawn from all others.

I’ve heard the whispers that my solitude has turned to a tale children use in an attempt to startle one another.

Some powerful witch alone in the woods…such a dreadful scary thing, I suppose, if told with a malicious tone.

Unless, of course, they all know what happened to my coven. In every land.

I do not withdraw to isolate myself. I withdraw to protect myself.

I am the only member of my coven remaining. I do not wish to become part of something else. It is too much agony to lose people like that, and I will be happy if it never happens again in my lifetime.

And so I have not gone to the Convergence Games, the contest held in the capital city—a battle to the death.

I have not gone to the United Nations meeting that takes place every three years.

I know of all these events. Even if I do not speak to anyone of them, the news comes in the letters people send to my letter box. There are mentions here and there of what is happening in the wider world. I read them with little interest and forget about them until the next one comes.

Whenever an invitation comes, I decline.

If there is an event I must attend, I go in secrecy, disguised to hide my identity.

This is the way of human witches. We do not trust other beings.

I will never trust other beings again. I cannot remember the last time I ventured away.

No, the contact I have is the one I’m most comfortable with: others needing my aid for magic.

The spell to cast for a loved one or a tincture for a sickness medicine fails to remedy.

That is where my comfort lies. Letters of pleas and wants from those I will never know apart from their script.

If I thought we could have peace, then I might have already tried to find a new community.

But I do not. The war brews on and I stay in my quiet place, helping where I can and living my life without causing harm and without being harmed.

With the memories racing in the back of my mind, I stare down at the invitation.

As it stands, I cannot take the risk. The invitation falls to the old wooden desk, my worktable that houses oils and crystals and salts that work in both spell jars and recipes, as I softly sigh.

I prepare the potato for dinner and spread out the other letters on a clean section of the worktable.

This is how I make a living—by casting spells for others.

They write their requests to me on parchment, and I send them back a spell or recipe for a tincture.

With the money they pay me, I buy rare goods and delectables to live my version of luxury.

It is a pleasure to coax spells from the earth and provide for others less fortunate.

It is a quiet life, but it is a life, and it is mine.

The invitation seems to stare at me from its place on the worktable, daring me to open it.

It does not matter what the letter inside says. I will not go. Even if it will be safe, which cannot be guaranteed, I do not know how I would bear being among all those people without my coven.

I write out two spells in response to the letters I received, then check them over.

A love spell, my most popular request, and a protection spell, which is the strongest spell I can cast. I will take them to the letter box tomorrow with the others I worked on this morning, each folded in my signature pattern so that the recipients will recognize it.

A wax seal and a hint of honey in the paper adds a special touch.

They like it when I do this. More than one person has told me so, and that brings me a bit of satisfaction as well.

Happiness can be found in such small things, I have learned. And I am grateful for every small bit of it.

When the sun has finally set, I throw open the windows of the cottage, breathe in the fragrant night air, and search the dark sky for the moon.

Stars twinkle overhead. The trees in the distance sway in the gentle night wind. This is the most beautiful night I have seen in months. The warmth in the meadow has finally reached the point where it does not fade away overnight. I can smell new flowers and the earth around me awakening.

I try to tell myself that spring is still my favorite time of year, as it used to be in what feels like a different lifetime.

That I can still feel the possibility in the warm breeze and hope, that’s what spring brings most of— hope.

But most nights, I do not feel such things.

I feel my life stretching out before me, so quiet and so long.

I hope to live a long time. I hope to carry the memory of my coven with me for as long as I can.

But the thought of all those years can be so lonely when the thing I see most—and seek most—is the many faces of the moon.

I am a moon witch, after all. I follow the moon that does not wish to chase. The largest moon. There are thirteen moons and two suns in our sky. The moons chase the mother sun and daughter sun in the sky, trying to get the daughter sun to win her favor.

My dedication to Dytnus, the eleventh moon and the witch’s moon, is the source of my power.

With the moon shining down tonight in a sliver of a crescent, I light several candles around the cottage, black wax and white, and at last pick up the invitation from my worktable.

I held it before, but the fine parchment is still a surprise the second time.

The elegant envelope opens to reveal a letter written on the same fine parchment.

I was right. It is an invitation. The wedding of Prince Adom and Princess Charlotte will be held in two months’ time. That is quite close, as far as these things go. Eight weeks. It will be here in the blink of an eye.

I read the words over twice more, a painful longing in my heart. It is a great honor to receive any letters from Prince Adom and his royal household. It is an even greater honor to be invited to his wedding to Princess Charlotte.

But I will not attend as I’ve already decided.

Swallowing thickly, I choose not to acknowledge the longing that looms in my chest. I will send my regrets along with my other letters.

I will not watch the prince and princess look deeply into each other’s eyes and promise a lifetime of love and honor.

Yet I cannot bring myself to put down the invitation and take up my pen to write my answer.

I read it over again as if there will be something new this time, then put it back in the envelope. I take it back out again, thinking I might need it to write my reply.

I wish one of my sisters was here to talk to me. I wish they were not to be silent forever in an afterlife I cannot reach. I do not know why it is nearly as painful to think of this cottage rotting into the ground and the meadow going silent, too, all of us forgotten.

Should I attend the wedding?

No. That is a fool’s errand. It is not only dangerous, it will not bring me joy. Only pain lies beyond the veil of protection here.

I’m still holding the letter, reading it over in the light of the moon and my candles, when a long howl rings out from the woods.

The hairs on the back of my neck creep up.

I take one step back from the window, then two, holding my breath.

With a wave of my hand, all the shutters slam closed, and their bolts fall into place.

The door shuts and locks. All of my candles go out aside from a single flame.

I take two determined steps to the fire and kneel down before it.

Then I stare into the flames, concentrating. Gathering my power. Feeling the constant flow of the moon through the skies and of her light down to the land.

“Let them see me not,” I say, then blow the fire out.

Love Spell

For the good of all and to the harm of none…

Dry one eggshell, and write the name of your intended on the shell in oil as it dries.

Next, crumble dried rose leaves in salt in a mortar and pestle, then add the eggshell once dried.

Grind together with the intention in your incantation: You love me in the light and in the dark.

You love me for who I am not who you think I am.

Love so pure and protected, love divine and never broken.

Once the salt is pink in color you have ground it sufficiently. Sprinkle your salt on a morsel intended for your lover to eat. Any amount shall suffice. So mote it be.