Far from the torches of the searchers, beyond the walls of stone and prayer, deep in the crumbled bones of the eastern hills, the witch lay sprawled upon the earth.
Her lair was nothing more than a hollow beneath twisted roots and weather-worn boulders, a place reeking of moss, burnt herbs, and ash. Blackened candles guttered in their own wax, their flames trembling as if afraid. The air itself was heavy, pressed down by the echoes of what had transpired in the forest.
And at the center of it, the witch writhed.
Her body, once supple and lithe with the glamour of youth, shriveled like rotting fruit. Skin sagged, gray and cracking, her lips split and bled with every gasp. Fingers that had once woven sigils deftly now clawed at the soil like talons of brittle bone.
Her breath rasped in her throat as if the air itself was being stolen from her lungs. Each cough spewed flecks of black ichor that steamed as it struck the floor.
She croaked, voice hoarse and raw, "No… no, this cannot be…"
The shadows in the chamber quivered, listening.
Her eyes, bloodshot and hollow, rolled upward as if following a thread that stretched to the clearing where Rogue knelt. She saw it still—the golden circle, its runes burning her mind, the child's eyes swallowing both heaven and abyss. The memory alone sent spasms wracking her failing body.
"His Light Origin…" she wheezed. "Too strong… far too strong. That child is not meant to shine so brightly…"
She convulsed, body arching, nails ripping furrows in the dirt. Every vein bulged black beneath her skin, carrying corruption that was not her own. Her curse had slipped its leash, recoiled, and lashed back into her veins.
"But why—" she gasped, each word dragging blood from her cracked lips—"why so much Dark Origin pulled into him? For a boy? Why—"
Her head slammed back against the earth. The glamour shattered completely, leaving her skin dry as parchment, her hair brittle and falling in clumps around her face. She looked like a corpse that had been baking in the sun for a week, yet her heart still hammered desperately inside her chest.
"Why am I… losing my life right now?"
Her breath was a rattle. Her vision swam. Around her, the trinkets of her craft clattered to the ground, jars bursting, powders spilling like colored sand across the stone. The circle she had drawn for her curse cracked, lines glowing faintly before sputtering out like dying embers.
With a trembling hand, she groped at her ragged cloak and pulled forth a bracelet.
It was crude, its beads carved from bone and stone, etched with runes that crawled like living worms. Dark stains ran along its cord, as if it had been soaked in old blood. Yet even as her hand shook, the moment it touched her skin the bracelet pulsed faintly.
Her lips split as she tried to speak. "You… you said… only ten bound souls… I gave you what you asked—"
The bracelet's runes flickered in answer, once, twice, as if mocking her.
Tears streamed down her hollow cheeks, blackened by veins. She forced the words out in a voice that sounded less like speech and more like a plea from a pit. "Aid me! Save me!"
The bracelet glowed with a sickly purple light, brighter and brighter, until the chamber itself shook. Her body arched as it answered her call, purple fire crawling up her arm, searing her flesh. For a heartbeat she thought salvation had come—her withering skin stretched taut again, her heartbeat steadied.
Then the bracelet cracked.
A hairline fracture split its surface, and with a faint sound like grinding teeth, the beads shattered. Dust poured through her fingers, glowing violet for the briefest moment before fading into nothingness.
Her scream was hoarse, broken. "No—no, not like this, not now—!"
She clutched the dust against her chest as if willing it to reform. The glow sputtered, then winked out.
Silence.
The witch lay gasping, body spent, her chest rising in shallow jerks. She could barely lift her head now. Her breath rasped like dry leaves, her skin clinging to bone. Her lips moved one last time.
"Save me…"
It was no longer a demand, nor a curse, but the feeble whisper of a child lost in the dark.
Her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed.
The candles around her guttered and died. The chamber was left in silence, the smell of burnt herbs and blood lingering. Outside, the wind stirred the dead grass of the hills, carrying her faint plea into the night.
Somewhere far away, perhaps, something heard.