Wisteria Von Vexx's Arc

Chapter 4 of 13

The ring stayed quiet for the rest of the evening, no longer burning or cracking further. Wisteria should have felt relief. Instead, she woke the next morning with a hollow sensation in her chest that had nothing to do with the ritual. She searched her bedroom for the letter she'd written to Alastair three weeks ago, before the explosion, before the ring fused to her hand. It had been her private confession, words she'd crafted in perfect calligraphy to tell him what his trust meant to her. She'd hidden it in her desk, waiting for the right moment to give it to him. But when she found the parchment, half the words had faded to nothing. The elegant script was still there, but entire sentences had vanished, leaving only fragments that made no sense. She traced the missing lines with her finger, trying to remember what she'd written, but the memories wouldn't come. The magic had taken them when the ring stopped tearing itself apart. She had traded control for trust, and the price was this—whole pieces of herself she could no longer recall. She sat at her desk and tried to rewrite what was lost, but her hand wouldn't move. The words were gone, and no amount of wanting them back would change it. She folded the ruined letter and placed it in the drawer. Tomorrow she would tell Alastair what the magic had claimed, because hiding loss was still hiding. But tonight, she let herself grieve what she couldn't name. She left the castle and walked to the far edge of the courtyard, where a pond sat ringed by thorny briars. She'd never noticed it before, though it must have always been there. White flowers floated motionless on the black water, and the surface was so still it looked like glass. She knelt at the edge and stared at her reflection. The ring on her hand was dim now, the cracks sealed but visible. The magic had quieted because she'd given it what it wanted—pieces of her certainty, her carefully guarded feelings, the proof that she had ever felt them at all. She reached toward the water but stopped before touching it. The pond wasn't offering anything back. It was just showing her what stillness looked like when you stopped fighting. She stood and turned back toward the castle. The ritual would move forward now, but she was not the same person who had started it. She had let go of control, and the magic had taken more than she'd planned to give. That was the bargain, and she had made it with her eyes open.