Page 90 of Season Warriors & Wolves

Snowlin

Macaria stared at me over her teacup, all of the Red Coven witches did while we sat in their dining room, eating almond biscuits and making no chat whatsoever.

Except Mal. He’d flirted with half of the women; the other half had already given into his charm without him even batting an eyelid at them.

Visha sat quietly beside me, her tea growing cold in her lap while she stared at the empty velvet emerald armchair that stood at the centre of the sitting formation. Considering that none, including Macaria, had not sat there, I imagined it belonged to her mother.

“Did Penelope not wish to come with you?” Macaria asked, clearing her throat.

“I do not bring children along with me in these types of ventures.”

“For tea?”

“For murder.”

The violet witch choked on a sip and coughed her lungs out for a moment. “M-murder?”

“I believe Visha has told you that Melanthe intends to take over Red Coven.”

Macaria nodded. “She did, and we have made sure this will remain an impossible task for her. Grand Maiden or not, our coven has never fallen.”

“Yet.” I lowered my cup. “I have a simple solution for a problem that is possibly costing you time, energy, supplies and patience.”

She raked her eyes over my attire and all of my weapons. “You can’t just find and accuse every Crafter of being her accomplice.”

“Not every Crafter, and might I remind you that there is a debt remaining uncollected from your people. Consider this making you aware that my debts are always collected.” I stood to study the portraits on her walls and said, “I need to trace a Crafter.”

“Which?”

“Salma.” I looked around the room for the heart that picked a beat quicker than the rest and unsheathed a dagger. The scent of magic around their hiding place had not been Melanthe’s, so my next best guess was her second in command. “I’m hoping that at least one of you must be blood related to her. It’s only a drop that I want.”

“The one in the corner,” Visha said quietly, sipping her tea.

With the help of the blood trace, Visha had portalled us not far from where Melanthe’s coven was hidden in the undead forest, concealed under its barren crown and heavy scent of rotting.

Mal let out a low whistle, surveying the dead grounds. “I promised a few ladies I’d bring back souvenirs, sis-in-law. Where on the crescent heaven have you brought us?”

I shot a look over my shoulder at Visha. “Verdict?”

“Kill them all,” she said plainly, stepping back and raising her glowing hands towards the veil over the coven.

“You’ll get your souvenirs,” I said to Mal, pulling my gloves on and unsheathing my daggers, skipping along to a tune Lysander had once taught me, said to have been sung once upon a time during the death of a Crafter. I had much respect for their traditions, you see.

“No limbs. And for gods’ sake, no eyeballs or tongues,” Mal said. “Nothing soft.”

Not bothering with knocking, I pushed the handle, finding it open just as I had predicted. There was a herd of sounds coming from all over the sage scented house and one particular gasp from a stunned Crafter standing right before me.

Before she could scream, I sent a dagger flying right between her eyes and caught her body right as she was about to drop to the ground and attract unwanted attention.

There were five other Crafters bleeding on the old oak floors of the mansion when I reached the makeshift war room where Melanthe and Salma with her little minions had been making their plans to move against Macaria and take over Red Coven—and eventually all of Eldmoor.

None noticed my presence, not until I slammed the door behind me and loudly dragged a chair to sit beside them.

All of them shot up like the ground below had lit on fire, red gleaming from their hands. So much power in one small room.

Shadows began elongating and melting off the walls, slithering like phantom serpents on the ground and crawling over their bodies, drying them off magic at Malik’s silent command and wrapping around their throats.

“Sit,” I said, lifting my dagger to the neck of the young Crafter sitting on my right. “All of you.”