Wisteria Von Vexx's Arc

Chapter 1 of 13

Wisteria waited until Alastair left the tower before she opened the ancient text again. The blood magic called to her with a promise she couldn't ignore — power that would make her position beside him permanent, unbreakable, hers by right instead of circumstance. She set the ring on the stone table and began the incantation. The words felt right this time, her voice steady as blood pooled in the air around the delicate band. But the moment she reached for the binding, her mind splintered. She wanted it too much. The magic sensed her desperation and turned on her like a living thing. The ring cracked with a sound like breaking bone. The stone split down the middle, hanging loose in its socket, and a searing pain ripped through her hand. When the light faded, the fracture line glowed faintly in the dim tower room. She tried to slip the ring off, but it wouldn't move. The metal had fused to her finger, a permanent mark of her failure. Alastair would see it the moment he returned. She stumbled to the window and saw the oak in the courtyard below. Its trunk was blackened, the upper half snapped clean off. The exposed wood still glowed orange like dying embers. The explosion had done that. Her explosion. The same force that had shattered the ring and branded her hand had torn through the tower walls and ignited the oldest tree in Nightshade Grove. Smoke curled into the night sky where servants were already gathering with buckets. She pressed her damaged hand against the cold stone and knew there was no hiding what she'd done. The chalice lay on its side near the table, its red crystal bowl cracked in a spider web pattern. Dead vines had blackened around the base, thorns curled inward like burned fingers. She had used her own blood to fill it, following the ritual exactly as the texts described. But exactness meant nothing when her intent was fractured from the start. She picked up the ruined vessel and felt its weight settle in her palm like an accusation. When Alastair returned, he would ask what happened. And she would have to tell him the truth she'd been avoiding — that the magic he'd trusted her with had broken against her own hunger, and the mark it left behind was one she'd carry forever.