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

It took three days to prepare.

Morgwyn packed without speaking. Fen sniffed every bag twice, muttering about salt and sand and old ghosts. Elara spent the nights tracing her new rune in the mirror, watching how the light bent around it.

The Shattered Coast wasn't on any map.

Not a real one.

But it lived in warnings — in torn-out pages, in sailor's curses, in the nightmares of witches who remembered too much.

"I haven't been back since the collapse," Morgwyn said quietly, as they stood at the edge of the glade. "There are things buried there that should never wake."

"And one of them might be inside me," Elara replied.

Morgwyn didn't deny it.

They traveled east through the Veilmarsh. The fog moved like breath. Will-o'-wisps watched them from between the trees.

On the second night, they made camp near a black spring that smelled like iron and violets.

Elara sat beside the fire with the grimoire open.

"Do you think Ilsamar chose me?" she asked.

"No," Morgwyn replied. "I think… you resonated with it. Like a tuning fork."

"So if I fall out of tune…"

"You break. Or worse."

Elara didn't sleep well that night.

By the fourth day, the trees thinned. The air turned sharp, almost metallic.

And then — cliffs.

As far as the eye could see.

Cracked white stone plunged into churning grey sea. Giant ribs of what looked like ancient leviathans jutted from the surf. Mist poured from crevices in the earth like breath from a slumbering beast.

And in the distance — rising from the fractured land — stood the Temple of the Third Thread.

It was built into the cliff face, half-swallowed by time. Its doors were cracked bone. Its spires bent. But its center… pulsed.

Elara felt the pull in her teeth.

Morgwyn went pale.

Fen whined.

"That's not a temple," the wolf muttered. "That's a mouth."

They entered at dusk.

The temple's main hall had no ceiling — only sky cracked by lightning. Symbols lined the walls in an ancient tongue. Some shimmered. Others bled shadow.

At the center was a dais.

And a mirror.

Just like in Elara's dream.

Except this one was broken.

A hundred shards floating midair, spinning slowly.

And beneath them, kneeling…

A woman.

White robes. Veins glowing with light. Her eyes were rolled back, mouth muttering nonstop.

"Is she alive?" Elara whispered.

Morgwyn approached. "She's scrying. Deep trance. But she's tethered."

"To what?"

"To you."

Elara stepped closer.

The woman's head snapped up. Her voice cracked into a whisper:

"Vessel."

"Flame-born. Thread-marked. Dream-made."

"You stand on the threshold of remembrance."

Elara crouched beside her. "Who are you?"

"I am Sister Vael," the woman rasped. "Once a priestess of the Third Thread. Now its echo."

"What do you see?"

Vael's eyes flickered gold. "I see threads burning. I see gods waking. I see the child of Wynn and the witch of Ash become one fire."

Elara's breath caught. "What happens if I follow the path?"

Vael gripped her arm, hard.

"You become the needle. The one that pierces fate."

Behind her, the shards began to hum.

And shift.

Each one reflected a different version of her — laughing, dying, becoming something monstrous, something divine, something terrifying and beautiful all at once.

"I can't do this," Elara whispered. "I'm just—"

Vael's grip tightened.

"You are not just anything. You are the choice that chose back."

Morgwyn pulled Elara away. "That's enough."

But before they could retreat, one of the mirror shards slammed into the floor.

It spun once—

And showed Cressid Emberwyne.

Smiling.

Standing in a ruined chamber, her eyes aglow.

"She's watching us," Elara breathed.

"She's been watching," Morgwyn growled.

And the mirror replied:

"She is not alone."

A second shard shimmered.

And showed a burning forest.

The Verdant Ring.

Elara's home.

Her mother.

Her sister.

Screaming.

She staggered back.

"No—no, that hasn't happened."

"It will," Vael rasped. "If the thread severs before it stitches."

"What thread?" Elara shouted. "I don't understand!"

Vael reached into her robes and pulled out a relic — a spindle made of bone and obsidian, wrapped in unlit thread.

"Take it."

Elara did.

The thread sparked at her touch.

"You are the Weaving Flame now," Vael whispered. "Your choices are no longer yours alone."

Then she collapsed.

Still breathing, but… spent.

A vessel, emptied.

They left the temple in silence.

The wind howled. The sea churned.

And in Elara's hands, the spindle hummed.

That night, Morgwyn didn't sleep.

She watched the stars from the cliff's edge.

When Elara joined her, she spoke without turning.

"I think you're meant to unmake something. Not just heal it."

Elara sat down. "What if I don't want to unmake anything?"

"Then that will be your defiance," Morgwyn said. "And perhaps your salvation."

Elara leaned her head on Morgwyn's shoulder.

And whispered, "Stay with me."

Morgwyn looked at her.

And finally, finally whispered back, "Always."

But far below, beneath the waves, in the drowned crypt of the god-that-waits…

Ilsamar stirred.

And for the first time in a thousand years, one eye opened.

END OF CHAPTER 13