I won’t fit through the portal as small as it is, but sending the florals was more difficult than I anticipated. Something feels off and a nervousness I don’t appreciate comes over me.
Taking a few steps back from the portal I rest one of my feet on the low rise surrounding the small valley. The field around me is even brighter now. The sunrise is making the colors vivid, and I feel that pang again. That longing to spend more time roaming these fields without the weight of the florals on my back. To seek out something no one else has ever found so that I can see it with my own eyes. The witch. Even my wolf stirs at the thought.
On my next breath, the scent returns. As if I’ve summoned it with thoughts of her. It’s faint, like it is coming from far off or does not want to be found, and yet it is so distinct from the grasses and flowers and trees that I cannot help but notice it. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. Even in this moment I know that. I take another deep breath in spite of myself, holding it in and closing my eyes, trying to know more about it, but it is only a scent on the wind. It fades in a matter of moments, or I become used to it. My wolf whines.
Everything in my body tells me to seek out more of that scent.
My knuckles turn white as I clench my fists at my sides, warring with myself. There is no reason other than my own desire to seek out the witch. Something tells me it would not be difficult to find the source. I’m strong enough and fast enough to do it. After so many days picking my way through the forests and fields, I crave a run and a hunt. I need to feel my heart pumping from a real challenge.
But there will be no such thing to find. I already know that.
What this scent promises—a match—is not something I will ever have. The scent does not belong to a wolf, and even if it did, I will never be mated to one. And yet these feelings stir, unwelcome but so dominant.
I move toward the portal without realizing that the pang in my chest has become something more than curiosity. It is disappointment. The mission has gone well. I’ve done what I came here to do. And though I may never see this land again, it will make no difference to the rest of my life. I’m as cursed as I was before I came, and as cursed as I will remain after I leave.
This is not the time to let a wild urge overwhelm me.
I take one last look at the land that spreads out around me, remembering my duty and the only purpose I have to live.
Maybe, in another life, I would have broken free of my responsibilities and gone in search of the witch. Maybe I would have found her. Maybe we would have spoken, and she—who chooses to live alone amid all this beauty—would have understood what I have never been able to explain to other soldiers or wolf shifters.
I wish all of that, and the land, a silent farewell. It has been generous to me these past days, and I won’t forget it.
Then I close my eyes, shutting all of it out, and prepare myself for my departure. Only to find that the portal refuses to open.
Chapter Three
Idalis
As goosebumps spread down my arms, I remind myself, the howl of a wolf is nothing to be distressed about. I live alone, and that means the woodland animals have nothing to be distressed about, either. The deer are free to roam. The wolves are free to howl. It is an unsettling sound so close to the cottage, but only because it had come as a surprise. There is something different, something that causes the feelings of earlier to come back stronger.
My sleep should not be so restless. My heart should not be as wayward as it is.
I am as safe as a person can be in my cottage. I have cast protective spells many times over. The walls and doors are sturdy, and the shutters are strong enough to survive even the heaviest of storms. Magic roams in every corner of my home. I am so divinely protected, I know this, and yet…
Yet I wake several times in the night and lie there, listening for the sound of someone approaching. As if I know that is what is coming although it has never happened in the years I’ve been here.
As the hours drift away, there is no sound of steps that come. No one approaches. No one comes close to Athica, let alone my cottage. They did not come close when my coven was alive, either, out of respect or superstition or both.
I almost wish they were not superstitious. I almost wish they were not afraid.
But perhaps what they believe about me keeps me safe.
I fall into a night terror of what happened before so fast and hard that I did not know it until it was too late. After that, I lie awake, staring into the dark and trying to convince my heart to settle down.
I drift off into an uneasy sleep that does not last. Even my trick of closing my eyes and pretending to be asleep does nothing. I resent it when the world starts to wake up around me, with the first bird calls of the morning echoing across from the forest.
“Fine,” I grumble finally. Even with my eyes closed, I can tell the sky is lightening through the slim gaps in the curtains. That is the danger of knowing my home so well, I suppose. I’m so attuned to every change that I cannot ignore the stirring of the morning. Whether I’m ready or not, it is coming, and it is only making me feel worse to lie in bed and try to force sleep that will not come.
So I push off the covers and stretch, long and luxurious, then step out of the bed as if I planned to be up this early and I’m not annoyed about the poor sleep I barely got.
There is no rush—I’m not going anywhere—so I stir up the fire and brew a pot of tea. I throw open the curtains and watch what I can see of the sunrise, gradually soaking the fields in rich greens dotted with pinks and purples and yellows. Beautiful colors. They have brought me so much joy in the past. I try to take that same joy in them now, but I do not feel much of it. My mind wanders back to the invitation and disappointing the prince.
I had thought the tea would bring me calm, but it doesn’t. I tap my foot on the floor and breathe deeply and stretch—all things that would usually relieve this restless feeling.
No matter how many times I attempt to ground myself, sipping my tea and looking pointedly at the beauty outside my window, the feelings do not disappear.
Whose spirit is this? I do not like to think of such things as hauntings. The spirits may come and go as they please. It might even be comforting if some of my sisters returned in a spirit form to visit me.
