I hear it before I feel it—an awful, wet sound, like flesh being torn apart. My hands fly to my chest, expecting to find a gaping wound, but there is nothing. No blood. No torn muscle. Just—emptiness.
She has taken it.
Floating between her palms, pulsing with a weak, flickering light, is a small, formless sliver of blue. A piece of me. My heart.
Or whatever had once been my heart.
The witch’s fingers curl, and the light vanishes.
Gone.
The pain does not stop. It settles, deep and unyielding, inside my ribs, a cold void where warmth had once been. I gasp for breath, but air no longer satisfies my discomfort like it once had.
“You will live,” the witch says, watching me. “But your heart—” she gestures toward my hollowed chest—“will need to be kept far away to ensure the survival of the spell.”
The dream fades, but the ache in my chest does not. It is heightened by a haze that flows through my mind. I am suspended, and bound in my own head, every action punctuated by light measures of pain.
I feel my heartbeat in my stomach. My skull.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My… heart. It pumps.
Two witches wakeme in the late afternoon, bringing water and food. Their eyes linger on me as I sit up.
I have been placed in a dimly lit hut. A simple cot is beneath me, and a thatched roof with wooden crossbeams is above. The walls are rough, made from stone and clay, and a faint draft slips through the cracks.
Rosemary and basil.
My mind swirls with the dream.
The first one, a woman with milky eyes, stares at me. I cannot see the pupils within the orbs, but she tracks each of my movements with ease.
“Our leader, Maelira, has instructed us to care for you and answer your questions.” She says.
“Where is the woman I came with? The flame-haired one?” I demand, my voice raw.
“She is being prepared for the ritual,” the other, with bone-white skin replies.
I stand, fists clenched. “Have you done something to her?”
“You will not see her until the ritual is complete.”
“I’m not waiting,” I growl, stepping toward them. “I’m meant to protect her.”
“You have no claim until the ritual ends,” the first witch says, her gaze unwavering.
My fingers twitch at my sides. None of these answers are trulyanswers.
“What kind of ritual?”
The second witch speaks, cold. “She must be cleansed from the darkness.”
I step closer. “Will you tell me where the dragon we came here with has been placed?”
“She is in the field near the ritual grounds. We will take you to see the creature when we are told it is safe for you to leave.”
I inhale sharply, frustration flooding me. “And what is so dangerous that I cannot move freely through your village?”
