She takes another swig of Rubi’s flask, her movements clipped.
“Apparently survival means nothing the first time,” she adds flatly.
But Rubi sucks in a quiet gasp.
“You actually found the witches,” she murmurs in awe. She reaches for the flask at that, drawing a long pull and shaking her head in disbelief.
Seren’s demeanor changes instantly. “I did,” she admits.
“Lara… the High Witch of The Dreaded,” she sneers bitterly, but her voice holds a certain type of gravitas too.
Lara.
She found her.
Holy fucking Stars.
He wants to ask her about it, to hear about what she was like, but Teddy homes into the places he can add value instead.
“This ocean. Tell me about it,” he says, cutting through her acidity with his usual pragmatism.
Her brows draw in. Not angry, this time. No, this time she’ssad.
She looses an exhale, eyes dragging to Teddy’s, round and reaching and desperate. Like she’s decided to ask for help. Or guidance. Or maybe both.
But Teddy knows what it’s like—to ask for help when you’ve spent a lifetime devoted to others. He knows what it’s like to feel selfish for the simplest of things.
“The Gateway opens in The Perils, atop jagged, broken rocks,” she begins, bitterness gone and replaced with quiet resolve. “I need to get to the cave mouth, where The Dreaded are a couple hundred yards away. But the seas, the storms… they’reaware. They don’t want me to cross. So I crawled. Then I dragged myself,” she says, raising her shredded palms to the lantern’s light.
Rubi hisses between her teeth at the sight. “I’ll tend to those,” she says, already gathering supplies.
“I thought if I proved I wanted it badly enough,” she says, voice low, “they’d let me stay. But… it just meant… nothing.”
Pain grips Teddy’s chest. Not his own pain.Seren’s. The kind he wished he could take from her.
“I need to do it again. And I have this suspicion that I’ll be doing it… a lot. I have toearnLara’s trust by proving my loyalty. I can’t see her letting me stay any time soon,” Seren explains.
Teddy nods, a low hum of acknowledgement rumbles from his throat. But he doesn’t speak. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because a plan is forming in his mind.
“IfI cross again, I have to pass some tests…The Harrows,” she adds.
The Harrows.
Lara.
The Dreaded.
“So this is who the old bat thought could save the realms?” Teddy clarifies, narrowing his eyes.
If you can get to Lara, the war is won.
That’s what Mavyrn said.
“Lara of The Evening Star. High Witch of The Dreaded. Keeper of The Harrows,” Seren announces with a performative—and perhaps a little sarcastic—flourish.
Teddy nods, taking it all in.
He sees it then—not just what she’s endured, but what she’s becoming. And the answer settles in him.
