Morella Fenwick's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

Morella Fenwick stood at the edge of the black water, where her bloodline's throne lay drowned. She wanted it back. The throne belonged to the swamp witches who ruled Oozecreek long before the water swallowed their hall. Morella believed her kind belonged in that darkness. But she did not know where, under all that black, the throne waited. Swamp witches could not breathe the water. Diving blind would kill her before she found a single stone. She knelt and pressed her palm to the surface. Moss covered her arm, pale skin showing through. Her purple eyes searched the murk. Nothing answered. The water held no map, no glow, no path. "You've been staring at that puddle an hour." Selina dropped from a low branch, tail flicking. The werecat landed light on her boots. She teased Morella the way an older sister might, always pushing. "Stare harder and maybe the throne floats up to say hello." "I can't find it," Morella said. "The hall sank. I don't know the spot. And I can't swim down to look. I'd drown first." Selina crouched beside her. Her grin faded. "Then don't look with your eyes." She tapped the moss on Morella's wrist. "You grow out of this swamp, witch. Let the swamp show you." Heavy steps crushed the reeds behind them. Konstantin came out of the trees, huge, scarred, golden eyes narrow. The werewolf distrusted witches and said so often. But he carried something cradled against his chest, and he set it down at Morella's knees like it mattered. It was a root. It glowed. Pale petals opened along twisting black wood, and veins of light pulsed inside it. The air near it felt old. "Found it tangled in the deep mud," Konstantin said. He would not meet her eyes. "It leaned toward the water. Kept leaning, no matter how I turned it. Thought you should see. Not because I care." Selina smirked. Morella ignored her. She lifted the glowing root. It was warm, alive, and it pulled in her hands. The petals turned, all of them, toward one dark patch of the creek. "Life magic," Morella whispered. "Deep water shaped it. It knows the old power." She set the root on the water. It floated, spun once, then drifted. The petals stayed fixed on that same spot. Beneath the surface there, a faint green light answered—the first light the black water had ever shown her. Morella's heart struck hard. "That's it. That's where the hall sank." The root dipped and sank, trailing light down into the dark. Morella watched it fall toward her throne. She knew the place now. But knowing was not reaching. She still could not breathe that water, and the glow lay far below. Konstantin stared at the spot, jaw tight. "You can't go down there." "I have to find a way," Morella said. "Now I know where."