I quickly forgot about that phenomenon when I looked up and saw what could only be Katarina’s home. We were still in the forest, but it was different. Gnarled trees curled in unnatural ways. Leaves ranged from pitch black to deep purple to oil green and shifted color with the breeze. The foliage was overgrown, and leaves were just as likely to have teeth at their tips as they were to have thorns. Flowers bloomed crimson, and I swore they dripped actual blood from their silken petals.
At the center of it all was quite possibly the biggest living organism I had ever seen. It was a tree to rival all other trees, standing so high and wide that its shadow blocked out all light around it. Built into the center of that tree’s trunk was a witch’s cabin but dialed up to eleven. Everything about it screamed luxury and opulence, from the polished wood walls to the mass of gemstones encrusted in meticulously rendered murals across different parts of it. Even the roof tiles seemed to be made from precious metals with crystals embedded within them. It was easy to see where her sons had gotten their lavish taste, but the warlocks had all seemed to go for new age, whereas Katarina’s home spoke of old money. Ancient money. Money that was just as likely to be carved of bone as it was to be squeezed out of blood.
It made sense. She’d had centuries to accumulate wealth, and she used to be a lot less tame than she had been when she crashed my birthday party.
It was weird to think that her casually destroying half of Ven’s house with a flick of her hand was tame, but it absolutely was. While she hadn’t been a common fixture in stories growing up, I had heard she’d eradicated entire villages by turning their bodies inside out. She’d raised cathedrals high into the sky only to slam them back into the ground. Katarina had done things that made an impression. The woman who had arrived at Ven’s had seemed much more reasonable, which was why I trusted her to keep her promise after I was gone.
Hopefully, that trust wasn’t misplaced.
The sound of a door opening caught my attention, and I glanced at the entrance. Katarina stepped out. She wasn’t dressed in the black leathers akin to armor. She was wearing a beautiful, flowing, red dress, the kind that looked to have been handcrafted in another age. Given what I knew about her, it probably had been.
“You’re early.”
That really was the one way I could have surprised her. She’d expected me to either surrender myself or to fight, but arriving like I had a schedule probably wasn’t on her list of probabilities. Who, when only given a week left to live, would waste an entire day of it?
Me, apparently. But it was worth it to make sure Ven and everyone else I loved was safe.
“I didn’t want to be late.”
“Your punctuality is appreciated.” She tilted her head a bit, and those unnaturally bright eyes of her narrowed. “You didn’t want your lover to try to convince you not to come, did you?”
I didn’t know if women were naturally more perceptive, or if Katarina had done this to so many people that she knew from experience. Either way, I shrugged. She didn’t need to know everything about me. I was sacrificing my life to save people she was intent on harming. That would have to be enough.
“Come inside, dear. I’d rather not do this out on the lawn.”
“Or you could not do this at all.”
It was a long shot, but I had to try.
Katarina shot me a rueful smirk. “Come now. You’ve been so brave. Don’t ruin it by trying to weasel out at the end.”
“All the more reason for a little humor.”
“Fair enough. They say life is too short not to laugh. But for me, at least, so little brings me actual joy.”
What a statement. It almost made me feel bad for the witch, but it was hard to feel anything for her when she was about to kill me in a way more painful than I could ever imagine.
I walked up to the porch, and she stepped aside so I could enter. The room was about five times bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside. Real police box vibes. But instead of being full of all sorts of technology and bits and bobs, it was quite organic. Everything was made out of trees, stone, and crystal, with wide open spaces and multiple gaps in the architecture so one could see out into the massive tree. Ven would love this place. Well, she’d love it if the plants weren’t so carnivorous.
“Right this way,” she said as if she were a receptionist showing me around an office, gesturing toward an actual waterfall tumbling down from floors high above my head. As beautiful as it was, the huge space had to be lonely. Especially for one woman. But then I remembered she used to have seven sons who’d lived here with her.
We stepped onto a crystal dais in front of the waterfall. The cascade didn’t slam into the floor and make a mess though. No, even with magic, that sounded awfully messy. Instead, there was a sizeable pond surrounding it, the center turbulent but the edges calm enough for me to see fish and other aquatic creatures moving through it.
A flurry of movement caught my eye. Snapping my head in that direction, I saw a bear idly ambling in from anotherentrance. His eyes had that glassy look that spoke of an enthralled shifter, and his thick hide was covered in battle scars. I couldn’t imagine what would leave such deep and obvious marks on a shifter given our healing ability, but it reminded me that the woman beside me was not as affable as she seemed. Sure, she was polite, but much like her sons, she wasn’t above enslaving shifters.
Abruptly, railings shot up from the floor around the crystal dais, then it smoothly moved up like the magical equivalent of an elevator. Why was Katarina showing off for me? She could have killed me in her yard. There was no reason to take me on a grand tour.
“I loved my sons, you know,” she mused as we went ever higher. “I know they had their flaws, but when I think about them, I still see those chubby cheeks from when they barely came up to my hip. I remember the gaps in their teeth, I remember holding them when they had nightmares at night. I suppose they were also old, at least to your perspective, but they were my little babies.”
Perhaps she was just musing to me, but I couldn’t help but feel a wave of irritation course through my system. Was this woman really trying to play the pity card to me when she was about to execute me?
“They were also trying to kill you.”
“Not actively. It was a lofty goal of theirs, and one they would never have reached. While they would never admit it to themselves, they were all mama’s boys. My little angels.”
I scoffed openly at that. I couldn’t help it. But honestly, why even hide my derision? I was going to die anyway. What was she going to do, make it extra super painful? She’d already made it clear she was going to do that.
“I know it’s hard for you to understand because of what they did to your people. But all of it, and I mean all of it, will end now.The violence will stop. My bloodline is wiped out, and your pack will be scattered to the winds. I will spend the rest of my years alone, as I can’t go through all of that again, and even if your love finds another, there will always be an empty space for you. Everyone has earned their fate, and our fate is tragedy fueled by revenge and loss.”
