The sword-bearers bowed to his will, then left while Ulrech made his way through.
Inquisitor Velten wasn’t finished with her. “Let me clear something up before we leave, witch,” he said lowly. “Every single person who walks the Vandalesian Peninsula is under my jurisdiction. The Church does not consider your kind exempt from the law, and neither do I. You would do well to remember that. My patience haslimits. Test me again, and you will know them crossed.”
Semras didn’t flinch under the threat. From this close, his eyes bared the truth to her.
His entire body was taut with stress. The inquisitor hid it well enough behind a wall of arrogance, but his nerves were just as raw as hers. Anyone in his vicinity could have fallen victim to his mercurial mood. She just happened to be the closest.
Resentment simmered in her heart. Nothing gave him the right to treat her this way. He could take out his rage on someone else; she wouldn’t entertain it any further. If it wasn’t for the witch sister that needed her help, she’d have left that bastard behind long ago.
Ulrech looked at the bones sourly. “This will delay us significantly, my lord. We may not reach the next inn in time for tonight.”
Inquisitor Velten threw him a weary stare. “It is a delay we must endure in the name of duty. Take command in my absence, Sir Ulrech. You have free rein over matters of travel and rest until I return.”
“As you wish, my lord.” He bowed, eyes sliding toward her. “And as she wishes.”
The corner of Semras’ lips twitched in a snarl, but she didn’t retort.
She had bones to bury.
Chapter 09
Semrasstrodebetweenthetrees, uncaring if Inquisitor Velten kept up with her pace or not.
A cold rage consumed her mind. She couldn’t focus on where to bury her coven sister, but she didn’t need to. The Vedwoods had been the elderwitch’s home; it would honour her wherever her remains would rest.
Wrapped in her dark woollen shawl, the bones softly rattled in her arms. She had refused to carry them in the inquisitor’s cloak, brushing off his offer with a vitriolic silence. Themas had suggested his instead, and Semras refused it as well.
She wouldn’t disrespect the dead by wrapping a victim of the Inquisition in its colours. Her shawl was the only suitable option. Like a cherished sister’s embrace after a long journey away, the soft black wool would keep the bones warm and loved in the craft of her kind.
Perhaps, somewhere within the Unseen Arras, what had been born from the witch’s death now smiled at her. Perhaps it would send her a sign.
The wind lifted dried leaves off the ground in a small twirl, directing her attention to the right. There, slightly ahead of her, lay a small glade under the warm rays of the sun.
Semras stopped walking; the woods had guided her to the right place. Before her, trees thinned around a ring of ancient, monolithic stones, each menhir as tall as two men and three times as large.
Long ago, a fey gate could be opened here. A place of dancing, trade, and wild magic—lost when the Inquisition drove most of the Fey folk far, far away, beyond the Unseen Arras and back into the Night whence they came.
Now the cromlech remained here, forgotten by all but those who could recall a world once full of eerie wonders. A world long since dead, its bones scattered around in the smooth curves of old stones, and in the dried stumps of once mighty trees, and in the ruins of ancient fey raths.
Killed by the likes of the man following her.
Paying Inquisitor Velten no mind, Semras looked around. A wide tree grew among the standing stones, and she knelt before it to rest her hand against its bark. It was old, far older than the bones themselves were.
A younger tree and a fresher body to lie to rest would have been better. A gravewitch should have conducted the rites while the Coven wailed, begging the soul to return its mortal coil to the Arras and honour the cycle of the Old Crone and the New Maiden.
But neither was here. It all felt so wrong. The witch purges were long past, but the wounds they had left behind still bled red.
Semras shivered. If the words of Inquisitor Velten could be trusted, a new one could start at any moment. She hadn’t forgotten about it; there had just been no opportunity, not a single moment left alone, to warn her Coven. Finding the boneswas a sobering reminder she had to prioritize sending that message.
It was a warning as well of what awaited her and her kin if the collaboration with the inquisitor went awry.
Semras glanced behind her. Velten stood a few steps away, sullenly staring back. Her mouth opened, but words refused to come out—unwilling to ask his permission to weave, yet still wanting it. The violent reaction of the Venator guards still lingered in her mind.
The inquisitor understood her silent question anyway. “There are only you and me here. Do what you must.”
She nodded.
After carefully laying her shawl between two surface roots, Semras stood and went to retrieve her bag from Velten. He had insisted on carrying it for her after she’d refused his cloak.
