Edith stared into the deeper shadows of the grotto, her heart slowly settling fromimmediate terrortomildly concerned curiosity.
“Moonchild witches,” she muttered.
Of course, that explained everything and absolutely nothing at the same time.
She huffed softly, her wings folding back in as she cautiously returned her feet to the water.
“Honestly,” she grumbled. “No respect for peaceful soaking environments.”
Despite the rude interruption, calm quickly returned along with the warmth and the sense of “everything’s going to be okay”. Edith exhaled slowly, her body relaxing once more.
She didn’t notice the shift in the air or in the waters of Merlin’s Gate. Not the way the light in the grotto, usually a soft blend of blues and greens, began to ripple. Then it began to change, to deepen, and somewhere beyond the cavern, past stone and water and layers of very old magic, Merlin’s Gate stirred. And with it, something shifted.
The colours in the grotto bled, subtle at first. Blues darkened. Greens twisted. Threads of purple slipped in. Then red. Slow and almost curious
The water lapped gently at Edith’s claws, the colours swirling around them, responding to her. Edith, entirely unaware, wiggled her toes slightly.
“Alright,” she murmured. “I take back everything bad I said about today. This is…”
More laughter echoed from deeper within the cavern, only louder this time and closer.
Closer… Edith’s head snapped up.
“Nope,” she said immediately. Relaxation time was officially over and her peace was gone… vamoosed.
When Witch-related explosions followed by laughter appeared, it was absolutely not her problem.
She pulled her feet from the water in one quick motion, shaking them off as she backed away from the edge.
“I’m going to go,” she announced to no one in particular. “And by ‘go’ I mean leave immediately and pretend none of this ever happened.”
Another distantbangechoed faintly, followed by more cackling.
“Yep. Excellent decision. Love that for me.”
Edith turned, padding quickly toward the exit, her tail flicking behind her. She didn’t look back. Didn’t see the way the water continued to ripple long after she left.
Didn’t see the colours deepen further, purples and reds threading through the glow like veins of something awakening. She didn’t feel the way the magic reached after her as she went. Reacting, answering something buried deep within her… something older than her fear. Dragon magic…
Edith slipped out of the grotto and into the open air, breathing in deeply as if to clear the lingering strangeness from her mind.
“Right,” she muttered, shaking herself slightly. “Avoid witches. Avoid explosions. Avoid bounty hunters. Simple.”
She nodded once, satisfied, but behind her, deep within the cavern, the magic pulsed. Once… twice. Then settled. For now.
And Edith, still blissfully unaware, walked away.
6
“Okay, in my defence,”Maeve started to say as she looked at the small mess they had created.
“You don’thavea defence.”
“I absolutely do.”
“You blew up a wall.”
“It was acontrolledexplosion.”
