"You want to know how it all began?"
I glance at the girl across the fire- barely sixteen, all elbows and questions, her eyes too bright for someone who's seen what we've seen.
She's wrapped in a threadbare cloak, ink smudged on her fingers, a charm of wovan berries tied around her wrist like it means something.
"Yes," she says, leaning forward. "You were the last, weren't you? The last true witch before the reckoning?"
I snort. "That's what they call me now. The Last Witch. Sounds grand doesn't it?"
She nods, breathless. "You faced the order. You cursed a king. You-
"I buried more freinds than I cursed," I say flatley. "And the order? They don't stay dead. They just change uniforms."
She falls quiet, but only for a moment.
"But still...I want to know. How it started. How you became-"
"What I am?" I finsh for her. "You think being a witch is about power. About spells and sigils and making the world kneel."
I lean back, letting the firelight cast long shadows across my face. My bones ache more than they used to. My voice rougher now, like bark.
"But it starts with fear," I say. "Always fear."
She doesn't flinch. Good. She might survive this.
"Fine," I sigh. "I'll tell you. But don't expect a happy tale.
They say I was born beneath a cursed moon, the kind that turns milk sour and drives wolves to madness. I wouldn't know. I don't remember the night I was born-only stories whispered in it's wake. But I remember the cold.
Not the cold of winter, but the kind that lives in silence. The kind that follows like a shadow. The kind that clung to me the night I was left on Agatha Blackthron's doorstep.
She found me just before dawn, wrapped in temple linens, a charm of bone and ash tucked beneath my blanket. No note. No name. Just a mark on my shoulder- a cresent moon cradling a serpant- and the faint scent of blood and smoke.
Agatha said the forest was restless that night. The crows wouldn't stop circling. The wind howled like it had teeth. She almost didn't open the door.
But she did.
She stared down at me for a long time, her face unreadable. Then she muttured something about fate being a nosy old hag and scooped me up like I was a bag of turnips.
"Well, you'll be trouble."
She brought me inside, fed me goat's milk and wrapped me in a blanket that smelled like nettles and old books. I didn't cry. I just stared up at her, wide-eyed and silent.
Agatha frowned. "You look like you already know too much."
She studied me a moment longer, the nodeed to herself.
"Circe," she said. "That'll do. You've got the eyes for it."
And just like that, I had a name.
Outside, the Witherwood fell silent. The knights never came. Or if they did, they only saw rot and ruin. Agatha's wards were older than their gods
I've asked her, over the years, why she took me in. She never gives the same answer twice.
"Pity," she once said. "Curoisity," another time. "Because the forest told me to," on a night when the wind was whispering in tongues.
But I think, deep down, she knew what I was. What I would become.
Across the fire, the girl leans forward.
"So you never knew your mother?"
I shake my head. "Only what the dreams show me. And dreams lie."
"Do you think she was a witch too?"
"She was...something," I reply. "Brave or desperate. Maybe both."
The girl hestitates. "And Agatha? Was she kind?"
I smile, slow and sharp.
"She was a witch."
The fire crackles between us.
"Now hush," I say. "The story's just begininning."