Seren stares at the threads.
At the choice before her.
She always looked at her mother and father with confusion. Watched the bruises bloom on her mother’s cheeks, her father’s split knuckles, and wondered how in the fucking Stars she was born of this blood. Her brothers were no better, leaving her scarred and bruised every other day.Training, they had said.Preparation.
She had imagined, for as long as she could remember, that she was secretly a princess—stolen from her bed in the dark of night as an infant. And one day, she convinced herself, she would be rescued by a loving royal family, returned to the embrace of her mother who loved her very much.
But the years had gone on.
The beatings intensified.
And no one came.
The Flesh Circuit, for all its ugly cruelty, felt like freedom to Seren. Her father had been waiting for her to reach twelve summers so he could finally rid himself of her to the flesh trade. Finally, she would be worth something. Finally, she would matter.
Perhaps she would meet a kind gentleman who adored her? Perhaps her identity would be revealed to be that of the princess after all?
And here, she was given a chance to understand exactly who she was. Exactly what kind of blood hummed in her veins.
Seren shakes the memories from her eyes. Salty rivers stream down her cheeks, and she wipes them away with the back of her hand, not realizing the past had dug its claws into her once again.
Lara’s words echo in her skull.Does your past own you?
Seren’s eyes drift to the darker thread, mysterious, unwritten, unknown. So full of potential. Full of risk. Full of destruction.Of choice.
Elyssara’s cry through the amulet tumbles back through her mind.
I need you.
Life stared at her—a juxtaposition of opposing forces.
Answer the call of the future or answer the questions of the past?
Seren’s fingers squeeze around the hilt of her blade, and she raises it, eyes narrowing in determination.
“I am not owned by anyone,” she grits out between bared teeth.
Her eyes snap up, shifting to Lara. “I decided recently that I belong to myself.”
And she cuts the thread to the past, losing lineage, memory, and answers. She will never know. Some questions die unanswered.
Pain tears through her anyway—some wounds do not stop hurting simply because you choose to stop carrying them.
The thread drifts back to The Widow’s Waters, floating on the surface. It stays there for one heartbeat, two. And dissolves in the Waters like it never was.
The dark thread illuminates, burning bright, like fate igniting in real time.
“I deserve a future for myself,” she murmurs, more to herself than anyone else. The words feel selfish. She thinks that might be the point.
Lara’s mouth lifts into a wicked smile. She nods once, hands still clasped behind her back. “Good choice, little witch.”
Seren nods tightly in return, pretending pride and grief aren’t at war in her chest.
“I’ll be going then. Tomorrow?” she asks, already striding toward the mouth.
The coven relaxes at the conclusion of the Harrow, but Lara raises a hand in silence. They straighten, postures going rigid under her instruction.
“Not quite,” Lara croons, voice lilting after Seren.
