Velmara sat upon a throne of bleached and interlocked bones, its high back carved into the shape of writhing, silent screams. Her silver hair fell in thick, straight waves over her shoulders, so pale it seemed to hold its own light in the dim hall.
Age had carved elegant lines beside her eyes and mouth, but her face retained a stark, severe beauty—high cheekbones, a straight nose, and eyes the color of winter frost, sharp and unblinking.
In her hand, she held a single grape, its skin dark and taut. She brought it to her lips slowly, pressing it into her mouth without hurry.
She ate as though each movement were a ritual—deliberate, controlled, tasting not just the fruit but the silence around her.
Then, a messenger entered, head bowed so low his forehead nearly brushed the stone floor. He did not rise until he stood at the foot of her throne.
"Great Witch," he said, voice trembling only slightly. "A letter. From King Mortifer himself."
Velmara's lips curved, though her eyes remained cool.
I have been waiting for this.
She took the sealed parchment, her fingers long and pale against the dark wax stamped with Mortifer's sigil—a crowned serpent. With a slight wave of her other hand, she gave a silent signal.
Without a word, the messenger backed away, and the few attendants in the hall melted into the shadows. In moments, she was alone.
Only then did she break the seal.
The script was bold, sharp, and unmistakably his.
( To Velmara the last witch.
This letter serves not as a request, but as an acknowledgment of inevitability.
The balance between our realms has grown fragile. Old boundaries strain under new ambitions, and silence has proven more dangerous than open conflict. I have no interest in war born of pride, nor in peace built on weakness. What I offer instead is alignment—measured, deliberate, and mutually binding.
An alliance between us would ensure stability where chaos threatens to take root. Your borders remain untouched. Your authority remains uncontested. In return, you will recognize my claim, honor our shared interests, and refrain from interference in matters that fall under my dominion.
Understand this clearly: loyalty will be met with protection, prosperity, and power beyond your current reach. Betrayal, however, will be answered without hesitation or mercy.
Consider this letter carefully. I do not extend my hand twice.
When you are ready to stand on the correct side of what is coming, you will send your seal in reply.
I wish my son Magnus to marry your daughter Matrona. This is a wise plan for us, building the witches and dark creatures together.
Until then,
I am Mortifer.
King of the greatest Court
Bearer of the Black Oath. )
Her frost-colored eyes lingered on the final line. Bearer of the Black Oath.
A title of power. A warning. And to her—Velmara, the Last Witch—a quiet, deliberate insult.
She squeezed the parchment, the crisp paper protesting in her grip. Anger tightened in her chest, sharp and cold. She had expected an alliance, but not delivered with such arrogant disregard. Mortifer spoke as though granting a favor, not treating with an equal.
This had been her plan all along.
What he did not know—what almost no one alive knew—was that both of her daughters were dead.
Yes, the world remembered Aemilia's fall in the last war—a hero's death, sung in ballads and carved in stone.
But Matrona… Matrona's death was a secret Velmara had buried like a knife in the earth. Known only to her and the silent few who had helped dig the grave.
Tears welled in her eyes, sudden and hot. She tried to swallow them back, but one escaped, tracing a slow, silver path down her cheek.
The memory struck—not as a thought, but as a living scene that flooded her senses.
( "I am leaving, Mother."
A young woman stood in the doorway of the sunlit chamber Velmara once called home. Matrona's black hair was wild from the wind, her eyes red-rimmed and shaking. Sweat gleamed at her temples—the aftermath of their long, vicious argument.
Velmara, still young then, still radiant with unspent power, turned from the window. Her beauty was a weapon, and she wielded it coldly.
"Leave, then, you stupid child," she said, each word honed to cut. "Your sister is not even cold in her grave, and all you can think of is chasing some lovesick fantasy."
Matrona flinched as if struck. "I know you never loved me like Aemilia. I have tried—stars above, I have tried to be enough for you. And all I get is comparison." Her voice broke. "I didn't curse myself to be powerless. I don't know what I did to deserve your hatred. I didn't kill her—she died fighting those… those dark creatures!"
"You won't even stop me?" Matrona's hand trembled on the doorframe. "Do you not care about me at all?"
Velmara turned her back fully, staring out at the distant mountains. "Leave. Do not show your face here again, you ungrateful coward."
She heard the sob, the rush of Matrona's footsteps, the slam of the door.)
Velmara stood straight, her body trembling—not with weakness, but with the force of memory held back. She did not turn around. Did not call out. Did not stop her daughter from going.
( Years passed. Wars were fought.
And Velmara's wall fell.
After the Fall of the Great Wall, Velmara searched—through scrying pools silvered with moon-water, in the fever-dreams of captured spies, in the murmured confessions of refugees who crossed her borders. She was not looking for a daughter to hold. She was looking for the carrier of her bloodline, the last vessel of her magic.
She found Matrona in a burnt-out building, its beams charred black and sagging inward. The air still carried the stench of smoke and something sweeter, fouler: burnt flesh.
Her daughter's body lay curled near what had once been a hearth, throat slit ear to ear in a grim, grinning wound. Velmara hardly recognized her—skin roasted black and split like overcooked pork meat, hair ash and ruin.
The work of dark creatures—claw marks scored deep into the sooted floor around her.
Velmara sank to her knees on the cold, ash-dusted stone. Her elegant robes soaked through with damp and filth. She did not care. She gathered Matrona's stiff, brittle form into her arms and rocked, a low, guttural moan tearing from somewhere deeper than grief—a sound that had no place in the throat of a witch-queen. In that moment, she would have traded every spell, every throne, every cold century of her long life for the chance to have stopped her at that sunlit door. )
Another tear fell. Velmara caught it on her fingertip, watching it shimmer like a broken promise in the dim light of her bone-lined hall.
Then she drew a slow, unsteady breath, and straightened.
She wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand, leaving a faint damp trail on her skin.
Grief did not soften her. It hardened, like magma cooling into obsidian.
Sorrow did not weaken her resolve—it sharpened it into a blade.
Mortifer thought he was offering an alliance.
He thought he was bargaining with a witch who still had something left to lose.
He had just handed her the perfect weapon.
And she would use it to carve her revenge into the very heart of his court.
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To be continued...