“TheMarrow?” Seren echoes.
“The last thing inside a bone before it turns to dust.”
A pause.
“The witches who will still be standing when the world isn’t.”
Seren’s gaze shifts between them.
Not apprentices. Not guards. Not followers. The witches Lara trusts to stand closest to her. The ones who’ve earned the High Witch’s loyalty.
Somehow that feels more dangerous than an entire fucking army.
The first witch steps forward.
“Daphinia,” Lara announces as though the name alone carries weight. Not an introduction. An announcement.Or perhaps a warning.
Elyssara stills. Seren feels it more than sees it—the shift, subtle but immediate, like a thread pulled taut between them. Elyssara’s eyes lock onto the witch in assessment. Not awareness. But close enough to unsettle. Like recognizing a nightmare she has never lived.
Daphinia inclines her head, slow, measured, eyes inspecting Elyssara with too much care, but neither of them speak.
No time.
Daphinia.
Seren files it away.
Lara gestures to the second.
“And Caev.”
The witch does not move forward. Does not smile. She watches Elyssara—no, both of them—with a gaze that feels less like curiosity and more like calculation. Like she is measuringsomething invisible and finding it… lacking. Or perhaps merely sufficient.
Seren doesn’t linger on it. She can’t. So she nods, and turns her gaze back to Lara.
“Are you going to tell me the assignment?” she presses.
Lara’s attention returns to her fully now, all prior threads severed cleanly in favor of purpose.
Her voice lowers.
“Virellin.”
The words land like a warhammer. Seren’s stomach drops but she doesn’t let it show.
Elyssara’s eyes flare wide.
Virellin.
Home.
“Of course it is,” Seren mutters.
Lara continues as if she hadn’t spoken.
“We will be culling the men running an illegal trade circuit,” Lara states, tone unreadable and cool. “Three wagons of women being sold into the Flesh Circuit of Virellin. Spare the girls, cull the organizers, eliminate anything that gets in your way.”
Seren’s jaw tightens.
