Cut the threads
of his
life.
Beyond these dark thoughts lay the Bleak Path. With her supply of air rapidly dwindling, Semras couldn’t see it.
She just did as it asked.
The witch plunged her senses into the Unseen Arras. Within, her perception slowed down, the threads of the world revealed themselves to her, and she became helplessly stuck in its slow currents. With growing horror, she watched the man drop the hand over her throat and reach for the rope.
Its end was tied in a noose.
Her gaze waded through the Arras with desperation, seeking within the warp shape of her assailant the threads that kept the man alive. She found them twirling around the middle of his chest—threads of red pumping with the flow of his lifeforce.
Semras reached out. Slowly, too slowly, too entrenched in a past that hadn’t yet caught up to the present of reality, she moved. Her fingers grazed the threads, and—
A horrible wheeze ripped her sight away from the Unseen Arras. It took a while for the witch’s sluggish mind to realize it came from her throat.
Around her neck, the noose tightened.
Her assailant gazed at her coldly, eyes blank and devoid of any empathy, as if he was executing a mundane task. There was something vaguely familiar about his face, but Semras couldn’t dredge any memory out of her foggy mind.
He was pulling, pulling, pulling, and her lungs burned. Semras gasped for breath. Stars began dancing in her vision.
Air, she needed air! She scratched helplessly at the skin of her neck, begging to be released from the tightening rope. Her crushed throat gurgled with agony. Her vision faded as her body grew limper and limper. Tears ran down her cheeks.
Death’s lights danced before her—the star-like souls of her past kin shone through the all-devouring Night. With each painful beat of her heart, they crept closer. The Old Crone stood in the space between, arms wide open to welcome her home.
The man smiled and spoke words Semras could no longer hear. In desperation, she sought her beloved Arras once more. Somewhere in the Unseen World, in the spaces between time, perhaps someone would hear her. A foolish hope; so far from the Coven as she was, no witch would be listening.
But she had to try.
Would the inn mourn her like the woods had for her Elder?
Her consciousness barely held on by frayed threads, and the agony in her lungs made it near impossible to concentrate. Still, she had to try. She had to.
The Arras flickered in and out, just out of reach. Filaments danced at the edge of her vision. She couldn’t see them. Was she there? Or was it some hallucination to accompany her to her death? It did not matter.
Semras screamed into the Arras. Her silent cry echoed all around her, disturbing the threads holding together the weaves of the room, the inn, the village.
No one answered.
Out of air, out of hope, Semras started fading away. It had been in vain. She would die here, so far from her beloved forest and Coven.
Another name to add to the Inquisition’s list of victims.
Thedoorflewopenin a startling bang.
Hands grabbed her, taking her away while others cut the rope off her limp body. Shouts rang out. A man cried out somewhere in the background.
And a voice spoke—a rumble of rage so low Semras felt shudders run down her spine. That voice was angry, so deeply angry; a primal fear seized her mind at the sound of it.
She was lying on the bed again, but with no memory of how or when it happened. Sleep begged her to surrender, beckoned her so sweetly to oblivion. She ignored its call, fearing she wouldn’t wake again if she followed it now.
A warm hand on her cheek slowly coaxed her back to reality, guiding her jaw upward to keep her airway clear.
“Este … van?” Semras whispered in a raspy, dazed voice. She blinked the last tears away, eager to see the inquisitor for once. Her whole body shook with violent shivers. She felt cold, so very cold.
