My eyes stare through the smoke.
Fritzi comes back into focus, her palm to my heart, her gaze clear. But she doesn’t blink. The fire beside us burns, but the flames do not flicker. The people beyond us dance and sing and drink—all unmoving, impossibly still.
A maiden dressed in white moves behind Fritzi.
“Holda,” I say.
“I speak directly to my champion,” the goddess answers, touching Fritzi’s frozen shoulder. “But right now, as she marks you as hers, I will speak to you as well.”
She had spoken to me once before, to give me a trial. My jaw tightens. I’m tired of trials.
But I will face them all for Fritzi.
Holda smiles, as if she can guess my thoughts. “Typically, a warrior of the Well guides the mark they get. Their magic fuels the design, powers the sigil.”
I bow my head, aware of my deficiency.
“What do you want, warrior?” Holda asks. She raises an eyebrow, her gaze weighing my worth. “Do you want the strength of ten men? A bear tattoo, one that will grant you the power to fight?”
I shake my head, teeth grinding. I know the legends of men who went berserk. Their strength came at too great a cost. Not even a witch mark would make me want to accept that mantle.
“Cunning, perhaps? A snake then. Coils of scales woven together like elaborate plans, careful precision.”
Such a power would have helped me before, when I worked with Hilde to come up with the strategy to let the prisoners in Trier escape. But I have no need for subterfuge and heists now. I will never again wear the cloak of a hexenjäger, not even as a disguise.
“Life. Vitality. The ability to take hits and not fall.” Holda speaks softly, but her voice rises when she sees that she finally has my attention, tempting me with a mark that I want. “With a circle, you would have the ability to be within a hair’s breadth of dying and yet—” She pauses, tilting her chin up, relishing the anticipation. “And yet you would not die. Your body would heal. You would be nearly impossible to defeat.”
I bite my lip, considering. Holda flicks her hand toward the fire, and the flames leap to attention, twining around each other in a woven circle, unbroken. One branch of the flames reaches out to me; the other flickers to Fritzi. The fire doesn’t burn, but the implication is clear.
My vitality would come at Fritzi’s expense.
How can I ask for my life to be protected when such a protection would come at the expense of magic drawn from Fritzi’s reserves?
I shake my head. “I don’t want her to protect me,” I say to the goddess. “I want to be the one to protect her.”
The flames shift back to their normal shape, but they remain utterly still. Holda’s gaze softens as she watches me.
“I chose my warrior well,” she whispers.
The flames roar to life, and every sensation bursts at once—the bitter smell of smoke, the jarring shouts of laughter, the heat from the fire, the taste of Fritzi’s kiss on my lips. My vision goes white, and I stagger back, unable to stop myself from doing so.
Where Fritzi’s palm had been is now a black tattoo.
“The Tree,” Cornelia whispers, her eyes going wide.
I glance down at my chest. The shape is circular, the top a crown of delicate leaves at the ends of twisting branches, the bottom roots that pool out to form the complete circle. The trunk is made of twisting lines—three dark strokes that weave together to form one tree trunk—but there’s symmetry to the chaos, a sense of connection. The palm-sized tattoo is just a little to the left of the center of my chest, right over my heart.
“I—I didn’t think of anything,” Fritzi says, fear taking hold. “I didn’t do that, I didn’t have the intention like you talked about—”
“I did.” My voice is calm and sure, and it pulls both women’s attention to me. “I saw Holda,” I say. “She helped me choose the tattoo.”
“You chose the tree?” Cornelia asks.
I give her a noncommittal shrug. I wanted to protect Fritzi. It took the form of the tree. I suppose that’s the same thing, but I don’t want to explain, not to Cornelia, not before I can talk with Fritzi. From theway Cornelia speaks, I can tell that the tree is a powerful symbol, and it must be linked to the mysterious Origin Tree, the one I have yet to even see.
Fritzi’s fingers are featherlight as she brushes against the marked skin. I shudder at her touch, but not in pain. I’ve seen tattoos outside the coven before, and I know they’re made with needles and ink and come at the cost of days of pain. This one doesn’t hurt. It feels a part of me, as if I’d been born with the design.
“The Tree is the deepest part of our legends,” Fritzi whispers. Every witch child knows of its importance, and I feel a little inadequate that I don’t.
