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

The fire had gone out, but the cliff still smoked.

Ash clung to Elara's boots. Not just the remnants of battle — memory. Each fleck, a reminder: she had faced down a witch feared across empires, stared into her own twisted reflection, and walked away stronger.

But the spindle was quiet now.

Dormant.

Morgwyn said it would be — until the next choice demanded it.

They made camp near the edge of a broken tidepool, where shattered statues of old gods jutted from the stone. One bore a thousand faces. Another, no face at all.

Morgwyn ran her fingers over the largest one — a goddess of ruin and rebirth, long forgotten.

"Elara," she said, voice low.

She turned.

"I want to bind an Ash Oath."

Elara blinked. "What is that?"

Morgwyn knelt and drew a symbol in the soot — a circle split by a spiral, framed by seven lines.

"It's an oath older than Vel Ashen. Rooted in the language of the Dreadwood. When two souls swear it, they're tethered. Not in body… but in consequence."

Elara's voice trembled. "So if one falls…"

"The other burns," Morgwyn finished.

Silence.

Then Elara stepped forward.

And knelt.

"I'm not afraid."

Morgwyn looked into her eyes.

And smiled — soft, fierce, like an ember refusing to go out.

"Then repeat after me."

Their voices echoed in the ruin.

"By flame and thread,

By ash and bone,

I bind myself to the path beside you."

"In fury, in silence,

In light and unmaking,

I choose not fate — but you."

"Let the forest know,

Let the gods hear,

This oath will not be broken…"

"Even when we are."

The wind howled.

The mark on Elara's palm blazed, and Morgwyn's rune — one hidden beneath her collarbone — lit in tandem.

Thread met thread.

And bound.

Fen grumbled nearby, digging in the ash.

"Romantics," he muttered. "The both of you."

"You're just jealous," Elara teased, rising.

Fen snorted. "I was once married to a thunderbeast the size of a barn. I know passion. I also know disaster."

Morgwyn raised a brow. "And how did that end?"

"I got eaten," Fen said proudly. "Came back two weeks later, much wiser."

The next day, the sky cleared.

Not just the weather — the pull. The ever-present pressure around Elara's soul had lightened. The mark still throbbed… but no longer in warning.

"It's waiting," she told Morgwyn. "But not forcing. Like it's testing me."

Morgwyn nodded. "That's how Ilsamar works. It doesn't push. It offers. And watches what you do next."

Elara took one long breath.

Then stood, facing the west.

"I want to go to the ruins of Vel Ashen."

Morgwyn froze.

"Elara…"

"You said it fell because of a broken oath. I need to know what that cost looked like."

Fen groaned. "You humans and your obsession with rubble and regret."

But Morgwyn met Elara's gaze — and understood.

"Then we go," she said.

The road to Vel Ashen was long dead.

What had once been paved with stones carved from lunar glass was now cracked and swallowed by roots. Whispers chased them through the trees — not voices, but echoes of what had once been lived.

By the second day, Elara was hearing names she didn't recognize.

"Avari… Kaelen… Thorne…"

The last one stuck.

"Wait," she asked. "Thorne?"

Morgwyn's jaw tightened.

"Yes."

"Elvastra?"

She nodded.

"You knew him?"

Morgwyn hesitated.

"…He was the first person I made an Ash Oath with."

The campfire that night burned low.

Elara sat across from Morgwyn, spindle in her lap, hands restless.

"Did he betray you?"

"No."

"Then…?"

"He died. Or was supposed to."

Elara stared into the flame.

"And now he's back."

"Yes. With your mark on his hands."

They were quiet for a long time.

Then Elara whispered, "Do you still love him?"

Morgwyn didn't look away.

"I did. Fiercely. Wildly. Enough to burn half the Dominion if it meant one more hour."

"And now?"

"I see you," Morgwyn said. "And I don't need the past to feel whole anymore."

Elara's cheeks flushed.

And her heart — finally — stopped running.

On the fifth day, they reached the edge of the forgotten city.

Vel Ashen.

It rose like bones torn from the earth — spires shattered, bridges crumbled, but magic still laced through every broken stone. Elara felt it the moment her boot crossed the threshold.

Something was watching.

But not hostile.

Haunted.

A thousand threads dangled in the wind, invisible but felt.

Like the city was trying to remember what it used to be.

Morgwyn walked beside her, slow, reverent.

"This was once the jewel of the old world. Now it's a graveyard."

Elara touched her spindle.

"No. It's a page. Waiting to be rewritten."

END OF CHAPTER 16