The Witch's Heart and The Mortal's Light(GL)

Morning came clothed in mist.

Elara stood outside with the grimoire in her hands, its pages whispering when the sun touched them. Morgwyn watched her from the window — eyes unreadable, arms folded.

"You've read it ten times," Fen remarked from beneath the herb shelf. "You gonna use it or let it collect moss?"

"I'm waiting," Elara murmured. "For it to speak."

Fen huffed. "It's not a haunted diary."

"No," she said. "It's alive."

She turned a page. This one had no words — only a silver leaf pressed into vellum and a rune drawn in what looked like starlight ink. As her fingers brushed it, the leaf flared, and something shifted in the air around her.

Morgwyn opened the door fast. "What did you do?"

"I—I just touched it—"

"Not that page," Morgwyn snapped, grabbing her wrist. "That page is unfinished."

"I didn't cast anything—"

"But it cast you."

The air distorted.

A pulse of light surged from the grimoire and vanished just as quickly — like a ripple in a pond.

And suddenly—

There was a knock at the edge of the clearing.

Three sharp taps. Not at the door — at the boundary.

Morgwyn's eyes narrowed. "No one should know this place exists."

Elara clutched the grimoire.

Fen growled, deep and low. "Someone just walked through seven wards like they were grass."

Morgwyn stepped forward. "Stay behind me."

"No," Elara said, clutching the grimoire tighter. "If I did this, I'll face it."

A figure stepped out of the mist.

They wore no cloak, no armor — just a traveling robe of ash-grey linen, dusted with constellations stitched in thread.

Their face was partially hidden beneath a half-mask of carved crystal, like the edge of a broken star.

And they bowed.

"Elara Wynn. Morgwyn of Vel Ashen. I greet you in fate's name."

Morgwyn's dagger was already in her hand. "Name. Now."

"I am called Riven Starbloom," they said, voice melodic and strange. "I follow the Path of Mirrors. And I am not your enemy."

Elara tilted her head. "You were drawn here?"

Riven pointed to the grimoire.

"It sang."

They sat around the hearth, wary but listening.

Riven did not eat, but traced constellations on their teacup.

"The book you hold," they said to Elara, "is not Morgwyn's alone. It is part of a tether-seed — magic born to find its second voice. And you… are the second."

Morgwyn frowned. "You're a Mirror Mage."

"I am," Riven said. "The last of the Bloomed Reflection School. Before the Dominion burned it."

"You're not from this forest," Elara said slowly.

"No," Riven said, "but I was born under the same sky."

They leaned closer, eyes sharp.

"Elara Wynn, the stars have cracked around your threadline. You were not meant to live past the age of seven."

Elara froze.

"…What?"

"You were meant to die," Riven said gently. "Your sister's illness was supposed to take both of you. But something—someone—intervened."

Morgwyn stood. "Enough."

But Elara didn't look away.

"What changed?" she whispered.

Riven looked at her.

"You were marked — by a god who does not sleep. A being beneath the Shattered Coast. They rewrote your ending."

Outside, the wind howled.

Inside, Elara sat with her heart in her throat.

Morgwyn stood still, her eyes fixed on Riven. "Which god?"

Riven didn't answer directly.

They instead removed their mask.

And for a moment, their face shimmered — not with magic, but with possibility. Like they were made of choices rather than flesh.

"A god of undoing," they said. "A god that wants to become, not remain."

"And what does it want with Elara?"

"To remember itself," Riven said. "To be born again, in mortal flesh. And it chose her… because she is unfinished."

Silence stretched.

Elara's fingers curled around the grimoire. "If this god marked me—does that mean I'm possessed?"

"No," Riven said gently. "You are carrying. A tether. Not yet awakened. Not yet shaped."

"Then I'll shape it," Elara whispered. "I'll make it something good."

Riven smiled.

"I thought you might say that."

They placed a crystal mirror fragment in her hand — etched with a rune she couldn't read.

"This is a lens. If you dream with it beneath your pillow, you'll see the first moment the god touched you. And you'll know how to bind it — or unbind it."

They stood.

"I've stayed too long. The stars pull me west."

Morgwyn said nothing.

But as Riven reached the door, they turned.

"Elara."

"Yes?"

"You were not meant to find the witch."

"…I believe that."

"But she was meant to find you."

After Riven vanished, Morgwyn finally sat down.

Elara sat beside her, quietly. The fire popped.

"I'm not afraid," she said.

"You should be," Morgwyn replied.

"I was. But I think I understand now."

Morgwyn looked at her, expression unreadable.

"You were always running from the fire. But I think I was meant to walk into it."

That night, Elara placed the crystal shard beneath her pillow.

And the dream took her.

She saw—

Herself as a child, sick and coughing in her mother's arms.

A shadow watching from the window — too tall, too still.

The moment she almost died — and the thing that touched her chest with a burning hand and whispered, "Live. Remember. Return."

She woke with a gasp.

The mirror fragment was gone.

But the rune had burned itself into her palm.

And something whispered in her bones:

We are not yet gods… but we are learning.

END OF CHAPTER 11