Vespera's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Vespera crouched over the burned circle of her old coven and counted the dead by their stitches. Every witch she had loved wore her red thread once. Now the thread lay in ash. The knights had done this. She meant to raise a new home here, in this forest, where no one she loved could be burned again. But a home needed hands, and she had none left. A scream tore through the trees. Vespera lifted her head. Her orange eyes narrowed. She unfolded her torn wings and moved between the pines. A young woman ran toward her, bleeding from one arm. Three men chased her with knives. Bandits. Vespera flicked her wrist. A thimble-sized spider dropped from her sleeve and spun a glowing red web across the path. The first bandit hit it and froze, wrapped tight. The second she caught by the throat with a single thread. The third dropped his knife and ran. The young woman stopped. She did not thank Vespera. She grinned, wild and hungry, and spat on the trapped bandit. Feathers tangled her black hair. Dark tattoos crawled up her neck. "You're her," the girl said. "The stitch witch. They said you were dead." "Not yet," Vespera said. "What's your name?" "Morrigan." She yanked a tooth from the bandit's mouth and strung it on a cord at her chest. "These dogs killed my kin. I want to kill theirs." Vespera studied her. The girl had rage and no fear. She had lost people too. Vespera reached out and touched the wound on Morrigan's arm. Red thread wove the skin shut. "Then you're mine," Vespera said. "The first of a new Web." Morrigan knelt without being told. They dragged the living bandit to the stone circle. Blackened stones stood around a low altar. A bone needle and silver spool waited at its heart. Vespera pressed the bandit's bound hands to the altar. The red thread on his wrists tightened. "This forest is dead soil," Vespera told Morrigan. "We feed it. It feeds us." She drew the needle across her own palm and let the blood fall on the stone. Morrigan copied her, eager. The thread on the stones flared bright. The ground drank the blood. Black needles sprouted from the nearest pines. The air went cold and still. The bandit thrashed. "You want names," he choked. "I got names. Let me talk. It was—it was Crow—" The thread snapped tight and cut the word off. Vespera crouched to his level. "Crow?" He swallowed. "The one who paid us. To ambush the road. To burn out anything left in these woods." His thread loosened. He had not lied. So the knights had a name behind them. Someone still hunting this forest, still finishing what the fire began. Vespera stood. The ritual had woken the soil. It had also given her a target. "Bring him to the pit," she told Morrigan. "He talks before he dies."