The sight unnerved her.
It was too wrong.
Too still.
She looked away, swallowing against the tightness that coiled painfully in her chest.
She was a god.
And gods did not care for mortals.
Freya turned and walked away, ignoring the suffocating ache that pressed like a hand around her heart.
…
The Temple of Air was perhaps the most breathtaking of them all. A modest structure, it opened onto a small, sacred pool where valkyrians gathered to perform their ancient rites. Water cascaded in glittering streams from the heights of the temple, flowing across the stone floor before spilling into the pool’s mirrored surface. Thick vegetation, heavy with blooms, had grown wild around the temple, hiding it from all but those who knew where to find it. A secret wonder nestled within the embrace of nature.
Freya stood quietly to one side, her arms folded, her sharp blue eyes fixed on the Council as they gathered to receive the newest among them.
Across the glade, Wren approached the pool, clad in a simple white robe, her steps measured and sure.
‘We honour today our goddess. The goddess of justice,’ Alma proclaimed, stepping forward and raising a ceremonial blade high into the sunlight. ‘We honour her with a new daughter, a new sister, a new warrior.’
Freya fought the urge to roll her eyes.
She had met the goddess they invoked—Themis—and while she was hardly the worst of the divine pantheon, she wasundeniably tiresome, forever embroiled in endless, exhausting arguments about right and wrong.
‘Themis, accept our offering,’ Alma continued solemnly, drawing the blade across her own arm. Blood welled and fell in scarlet droplets into the waters below. She turned and nodded to Wren.
Freya’s gaze refused to stray from the girl, the ghost of Wren Wynter, as she let the robe fall from her shoulders and stepped gracefully down the three stone steps into the pool. Her naked body shimmered, etched with brilliant white runes that seemed to pulse with their own living light.
The moment Wren submerged herself beneath the water’s surface, the runes blazed, illuminating the temple and the sky above.
A bow, crafted with reverent care from the bones of a fallen valkyrian horse, had been placed in Alma’s hands, awaiting Wren’s re-emergence.
When she rose again from the depths, the glow of the runes had dimmed to a softer, steady gleam. Without hesitation, Wren bowed low and accepted the bow offered to her.
Other valkyrians moved forward, wordless and efficient, dressing her in the warrior’s armour, steel and leather shaped to her slight frame. She stood still as stone, her blue eyes distant, focused on nothing.
Once she was fully arrayed, Wren raised her arm.
Alma approached once more, slicing deep into the offered flesh with her blade.
Wren turned, letting her blood drip into the sacred pool, and in that moment, her eyes flared brilliant white as the valkyrians accepted her into their embrace.
‘Welcome home,’ Alma said, her voice ringing clear across the gathered valkyrians. ‘Ylva.’
The trouble with us witches is that we rely far too heavily on our magic. It is woven into everything we do. We build with it, we heal with it, we fight with it… Our lives are laced so deeply with magic that without it, we are nothing.
I fear the day it fails us. For if that day comes, we will be utterly doomed.
Tabitha Wysteria
Ash Acheron knew he was dreaming. And yet, for all his vast knowledge—ancient, inherited, and hard-won—even he could find no way to wake.
He was running.
Through the long, shadowed corridors of the drakonian castle, his footsteps echoing like thunder in the empty halls.
