Morgana DeVille's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

Morning came gray and wet. Morgana sat by the ashes with the vial in her lap. Three drops of blood left. She held the glass up to the light and watched the crimson swirl. Every neighbor she had came from that vial. The serpent. The water spirit. The hut she slept in. Three drops would not build a town. Three drops might not last a week. She needed more blood, or she needed a way to make each drop go further. She could cut deeper and refill the vial from her own arm, but she had tried that once in a town two years back and slept for three days after. A witch bled dry could not protect anyone. She walked to the edge of the clearing where the reeds were thickest. She uncorked the vial and let one drop fall into her palm. Two left. She rubbed the blood between her fingers and spoke into the wet air. She did not ask for a servant. She asked for a messenger small enough to split the work of one drop into many. The reeds shivered. Something climbed out of them on wings the color of a lit coal. It was no bigger than her hand. A small succubus, black-furred, with a forked tail and eyes like hot glass. It landed on her wrist and licked the blood from her skin. Morgana felt the pull of her own magic settle into the creature and hold. The succubus grinned at her. It spoke in a voice like a struck bell. One drop, many errands. It would carry her lust magic in its own body and spend it in small pieces, wherever she sent it. She had traded one drop for a courier that could stretch the rest. She tested it before she let herself believe it. She sent the succubus to the serpent with a greeting, no blood spent, just the residue in the creature's mouth. The serpent lifted its head from the reeds and dipped it once, hearing her through the messenger. Morgana sat down hard in the mud. Two drops in the vial. A winged mouth to carry her voice. She was not saved. She was still one bad night from empty. But she had bought herself time she did not have yesterday, and time was what a town needed most. She corked the vial and put it inside her shirt against her skin. Then she called the settlers together to tell them the clearing had a new neighbor, and this one worked for her.