“So The Harrows will ask you to face it.”
The surface of The Widow’s Waters trembles.
Just once.
Then again.
The cave stills as if the stone itself is listening.
Lara folds her hands behind her back, her posture relaxed in a way that somehow makes her authority more absolute.
“When a witch reaches The Harrows,” she says, her voice carrying across the cavern, “we do not ask whether she is powerful.”
Her gaze drifts across the coven.
“Power is cheap. Even fools stumble into it. Just look at the realms.”
A few witches shift under the weight of her scrutiny.
“We ask whether she knows herself.”
The black waters ripple in agreement.
“The first Harrow tests loyalty,” Lara continues. “What your loyalty costs.”
Seren’s jaw tightens slightly.
“The second asks something more dangerous.”
Lara turns fully to her now.
“Does your past own you?”
Lara closes the gap between them, holding out a small blade, and waiting expectantly for Seren to offer her palm.
Seren lifts it, swallowing down hesitation she’s not allowed to feel.
“Bleed for The Widow,” Lara murmurs, low and terrifying, and reopens the healing wound in Seren’s palm.
Seren hisses, clenching her teeth, and she holds her clenched fist over the water.
The Widow’s Waters move in response. Not in waves.In threads.
Two pale strands begin to rise from the dark surface like silk pulled from a loom. They climb slowly, twisting through the air between Seren and the pool.
The first thread glows with a soft, golden warmth. As it rises, images flicker along its length like reflections caught in moving water. Like a moving timeline.
A woman’s golden hair.
Delicate yet calloused hands. Hands of a warrior.
Irises of honey-brown.
A face Seren does not know yet somehow recognizes in the marrow of her bones.
Her mother.The story of where she came from. The truth she has spent her life aching to know.
The second thread emerges beside it.
