Confessions of a Renegade Witch-Priest

The *Confessions of a Renegade Witch-Priest* are a collection of memoirs by the Witch-Priest Bellasaxa, who abandoned her position in the year 27 MTC, and is the only Witch-Priest in Triskaian history to do so. It describes her time spent as a girl being selected for Witch-Priest training, the horrendous trials she underwent, her experiences following her joining of the Coven, and her ultimate exodus from Triskaia and her sacred duty. Little is known about Bellasaxa or the scribes with whom she entrusted her stories.

## Synopsis

Bellasaxa was born with a particular magical birthmark in the shape of a Wyrding Crest, a sacred symbol in Triskaia. This identified her as a candidate for becoming a Witch-Priest, the highest class of being in the Covenant. When she reaches adolescence, she attends the Belumas festival in the capital city of Belwraith. She is frightened by the wild carnal frenzy of the festival, but ends up having her first sexual experience with a boy named Pedras, and ends the festival having been chosen to undergo training for Witch-Priesthood.

The first half of the tale details Bellasaxa's training in the holy palace. She is first confined to a pitch-black room every night, unable to interact with anyone but the Witch-Priest assigned as her tutor, Bellawrenna. As Bellasaxa progresses in her training, she is allowed to join with the rest of the Coven more and more, afforded more luxuries than she had at first, but still subjected to various physical and psychological torments to prove her resolve. After two years of training, she is allowed a week to leave the holy palace and be by herself before her final tests begin. When she does so, she happens upon Pedras again. The two spend an erotic evening out on the lake. Bellasaxa feels strongly for him, but must return to face her final tests.

She then undergoes the three Trials. The Trial of Bellatrix takes her to the highest mountain in Triskaia, which she must climb naked without freezing to death. When she survives the journey to the summit, she unlocks her first great power and levitates back down to the ground. But things get worse when she returns to the palace. She is taken to a special room where the rest of the Coven blinds her. The second trial takes her deep into the Dunwick Forest where she has to survive attacks by ravenous creatures that live there. She survives by unlocking her Witch Sight, now able to see without eyes. The final mutilation is to remove her hands. She is cast down into the catacombs beneath the holy palace, pursued by a horrifying demon, crippled and unable to hide. She eventually kills the demon, learning to use magic in place of her hands, and with her final trial complete, she is officially inducted as a Witch-Priest.

The second half of the tale follows her struggles with understanding her new responsibilities. Most troubling to her is the triennial sex rite Witch-Priests undergo during the Belumas festival. The only time mortal humans are allowed to physically touch a Witch-Priest, men are specially chosen as sexual partners, but in the moments after climax, the man is cut open, and the Witch-Priest bathed in his blood. Bellasaxa is racked with emotional torment when the man chosen for her is none other than Pedras, who tells her that he gladly faces death in order to be with her once more.

Bellasaxa assuages her own guilt by acting as the tutor for the newest Witch-Priest initiate, a girl named Gwen. They form a close bond throughout Gwen's training, and Bellasaxa is proud to see her complete her first two trials, remarking that she endures her torment with greater strength than Bellasaxa ever did. But when Gwen dies during her final trial, in the catacombs, Bellasaxa's grief is unbearable. She forsakes the Coven and leaves in the night, vowing never to return.

Her escape puts her on a merchant ship headed to Ewryn. She uses illusory magic to disguise her appearance, so the sailors will not recognize her as a Witch-Priest. But her grief and loneliness take their toll, and she ends up engaging in sex with several members of the crew, delighting in her newfound freedom. Yet before long a strange madness takes hold of the sailors and they begin tearing each other apart. Bellasaxa comes to the sorrowful realization that she can't have the freedom she wanted. The madness is the result of her allowing intimate contact with mortals. One by one, she cuts the throats of every sailor on the deck, and then, bathed in blood, she continues sailing by herself.

## Story

### Part I

I am Bellasaxa. I am alone. I am hunted. I am the only Triskaian Witch-Priest ever to abandon her duty and run from her post. This is my story.

It began as it began for every Witch-Priest. I was an infant born of tri-crossed elements. Blood, Water, and Ice – the most powerful elemental combination there can be. I would have made a great sacrifice. My mother gave me to the Pendant-Priest to be taken to the holy palace in Belwraith, like any child born to my condition. There the Witch-Priest examined me and found the Wyrding Crest marked upon my thigh, where only the Witch Sight could view it. This meant I was not to be sacrificed. I was sent back to my mother to grow up, knowing that I would one day be called back for selection.

I grew up as girls do, learning the histories under our Pendant-Priest, attending the Children's Mass when the adults of our town engaged in the elemental festivals. Living by the shore of Lake Wyrmark, I took to fishing, after my mother and her aligned lover. But I was not taken to this profession as warmly as my brothers, for we all knew it would be short lived. When I was a teenager, and beginning to take the festivals as adults do, the Dagger-Priest came to see me. She told me that I would be called to Belumas the following year, where I might be selected.

My family had never before made the pilgrimage to Belwraith, so none of us had witnessed the rapture of Belumas. Dream cap, normally so tightly controlled, was dispensed quite freely. The visions came to me for the first time, wild and frenzied. I could see myself flying high above the spires of the Ecstatic Temple. The grand orgiastic celebration surrounded me. I had witnessed some such events at home, though not participated first-hand. But this – thousands of people lost in unbridled passion – was terrifying. I remember that I climbed atop a wall and hid. I stayed there until the Witch-Priest found me.

I had never seen one up close before. It was startling, seeing her staring into me with those scarred, pale eyes. Her cloak billowed all around us like a plume of smoke. She extended the stump of her right arm toward me, and I could feel the soft caress of fingers through the air. I felt myself lifted up, floated over the courtyard, where I looked down at the sea of naked ecstasy below me. I was borne inside the Ecstatic Temple, which was quiet in anticipation of the ritual to come.

The cavernous structure of the temple enveloped us. Vaulted arches enforced with Titan ribs were illuminated in the glittering picture of the night sky, with the nine elements highlighted. A ghostly light radiated from the stone all around us. I was taken to the centre, where an expansive Wyrding Crest was engraved on the flour. There were four other girls there: the other prospective Witch-Priest candidates. There was only one test we needed to pass before selection began at sundown. A Witch-Priest must have proven herself a full woman. And so we were paired with a grouping of boys, who were up for selection by the Draca. They were short one, so I had to wait.

Another boy was brought to me. I know not where he came from, but he was handsome. And a little shy. We sat for a while, sharing stories, comparing the little secrets that children learn. I blushed as his lips touched by cheek. But time was running short. It took a large helping of blood and dream cap to give him the courage to mount me on the temple floor. The stone was cold on my back, but I was warmed by his touch. It was my first time. I felt pain at first, But the pain spread itself thin, to the far reaches of my body, and reassembled as a spark of hot pleasure. I felt the Ecstasy of the Coven for the first time that night. I bled afterwards, and it was collected by the Witch-Priests most expediently, for the blood of a new woman has very particular properties.

At sundown, the emptiness of the temple was filled with thousands of the pious, my own family included. I was stood at the temple centre with the other celebrants. There was no long ceremony. No ritual we had to perform. We simply stood there until one of us heard the song of the Coven. It came to me as a sound unlike any I had heard before. A low, rumbling song, filled with yearning, resonated in the back of my mind. Then it changed to a song as soft and furious as the wind, then as cool and static as ice. And I understood. I had been called.

I left the line of girls, drawing glances of surprise and confusion from them as I did. I stood on the Wyrding Crest. The Coven of Witch-Priests gathered around me, floating in an undulating circle. I felt the touch of every one of them. Then each one drew blood from her veins and anointed it upon me. The dark fluid ran in thick streams from my face down my whole body. A circlet of blood rested upon my head. The crowd danced in celebration.

I had a few moments to spare with my family after the ceremony, during which I surrendered to them all my possessions. I was not permitted to touch them, for the blood of the Witch-Priests still lay on my skin, and it could not make contact with regular mortals. I bade farewell to my mother and I followed the Coven through the impossibly large doors to the sacred cloister of the holy temple, where only Witch-Priests could tread. I would return either as a Witch-Priest or not at all.

### Part II

The holy palace is separated into tiers. The central courtyard in front of the Ecstatic Temple is open to the public, the temple itself open during festivals. The western wing is where the tri-crossed children destined to be sacrificed during Edremas live their lives separated from the rest of the world. The eastern wing is the primary cultural centre of the palace, home to the Covenant library and the official church offices. This is where ranking members of the Clergy, Manor, Plaza, and Wiccid pay visit to receive their directives from the Witch-Priests. The eastern wing hosts the official state rooms for the Witch-Priests and Draca, as well as special accommodations for visiting dignitaries (though at the time only the pale envoys of the Voskenrath had been given the honour). The northern annex is the largest section, and it houses all the clergy when they return to the capital for Belumas. The spire is the seat of the Draca, where they keep their laws and pass down their furious judgements. And then there is the sacred cloister, restricted to Witch-Priests and some select, ritually purified landrakine servants.

It was in this area that I found myself taken after the festival. Far from the dark and grim interior I expected, it was wildly illuminated with colour. All manner of eryskan dyes flooded the tapestries that hung on the walls. There were no windows, but skylights permitted silky moonbeams that made the stone beneath my feet shimmer. I followed the procession of Witch-Priests, who floated down the hall on a soft cloud of mist. They led me into a small room. Then I was shut inside, in total darkness.

Using my sense of touch I found a bed on the floor, and I curled up within it, overtaken by shivers. I cried myself to sleep in the blackness, not knowing when I would see light again. I think I spent two days like that, unable to see, sipping water from a bucket I had found in the corner. Hunger began to ravage me, and I cried out, pleading for release, but none came. Some time after I had given up my cries, the door opened. The sudden burst of light that flooded in was blinding, and I retreated by instinct. A pair of landrakine servants stood in the doorway, casting shadows many times larger than their dwarfish stature. With their furry arms they lifted me up, and carried me above their heads down the hall, before finally bringing me into a warm, golden dining hall, where I was presented with the most magnificent feast I had ever witnessed in my young years.

As I tore ravenously into the food, I felt the touch of ghostly fingers on my shoulder. I looked up to see a Witch-Priest hovering next to me. It was the same one who had found me in the palace courtyard. She introduced herself as Bellawrenna. She was the youngest Witch-Priest, and was thus responsible for tutoring the new initiate. The first step was to go into the library, where I was told I needed to study all of the sacred tomes. There were at least a hundred, and I had never even penned my own name. But Bellawrenna stayed by me, teaching me to read as I worked through the holy books.

That was the first six months of my tutelage, interacting only with Bellawrenna and the two landrakine. Visiting the dining room, studying long hours in the library, and then returning to the closet where I was shut away in darkness. I never knew how long I would be sealed away in there. The longest time was nearly a week, when I thought that I had failed some test and would be left to perish. But through my study I began to feel less fear in the darkness, and take to solemn meditation. The more I meditated, the less I was affected by hunger, and the easier the words in the books came to me. And one day in the library, instead of bringing me a book, Bellawrenna presented me with paper and charcoal, instructing me to draw the inside of the room I had stayed in. I spent hours puzzling over this paper, since I had only encountered the room in total darkness. But my hand began to move, and details filled in on the paper before me. When I was finished, Bellawrenna took me back to the closet, lighting a brazier so that I could see the room with my eyes for the first time. My pictured had captured everything: every brick, every crack in the wall. I never stepped inside that room again.

After that, my studies changed. I no longer needed Bellawrenna's assistance to read the books. What's more, I was invited to join the coven of Witch-Priests in their daily business. These women, who had seemed so distant, so ethereal, now surrounded me, and they felt like family. We ate together and bathed together. They smiled and laughed, trading stories of their journeys around the country. Rather than being aloof and calculating, the welcomed me as a sister. Though I was still not permitted to touch them, and could not venture into the Coven Circle where they meditated below.

The other strange thing was not having a name. I had not yet earned a Witch-Priest name, but my human name had been abandoned. So I was only ever called Initiate. I happily continued my studies, and pursued meditation in a much more comfortable sleeping environment. But challenges returned. I was at times bound in rope and suspended from the ceiling. At other times I spent a night immersed in water, with barely enough room to breathe. I was made to crawl through a tunnel barely wider than my shoulders that encircled the palace. It took two days to reach the exit, and I emerged coated in filth. But every time I survived a challenge, my meditations became more intense. I caught flashes of the Witches' power.

After two years I could faithfully recite the contents of every holy book in the library. I could meditate under water for ten minutes. I could navigate a pitch-black maze without hitting a wall. I heard the call of the Coven in my visions. But I had not yet tasted Witch-Priest magic.

I was finally allowed to go outside. I had a week to spend however I wished before my trials began. I ran through the palace courtyard, and through the rolling grassy parklands behind it. I swam in Lake Wyrmark, delighting in its cool waters. I climbed atop the east wall to watch every sunrise, and atop the west wall to watch every sunset. The beauty in that orange-pink haze between night and day was still the most dazzling sight in the world to me. I wanted to go visit my family, but they lived at too great a distance to reach them in a week. So I contented myself to exploring Belwraith. The market was a dizzying collection of all sorts of people I had never seen before. I went down to the harbour and took in the sight of all the ships docked there. I had always wanted to travel a long distance on a ship, and wondered if I would get to do it when I became a Witch-Priest ... if I became a Witch-Priest. The worry struck me then, as I knew that the two initiates before me had both perished in their trials.

I wanted to take passage on a boat out to the lake, just for a little while. But these were tradesmen, and I had no possessions or clothes to barter with. But then I saw something familiar. I ran down the docks and came to stop in front of a young man. It was the same as the boy who had taken me in the temple before my selection. Pedras, his name was. He greeted me with a look of shock, and started to call me by my human name, but I stopped him. I told him that name had been left behind. I was merely Initiate now, enjoying a final week of mortal life before my trials.

He smiled and said he would be glad to help me enjoy the last of my mortal life. He took me out on his fishing boat. I had grown up around fishing boats, and the lake was comfortable to me. We spent all day casting nets, hauling perch aboard the deck. I had not realized how much I had missed the simple art of fishing. Then, at night, we were ecstatically entwined beneath the moonlight. Pedras was no longer shy. He explored my whole body, bringing me to the apex of pleasure several times. He loosed his seed deep inside me. I imagined life springing forth from our union, although I knew that Witch-Priest magics made it impossible.

The next morning we enjoyed the sunrise together. I gave him a last, lingering kiss when we returned to the dock. I headed back toward the temple, feeling a thunderous terror about what was to come.

### Part III

I got my wish. We sailed out on a ship following the Edremas festival (which I was not able to participate in, being somewhere between mortal and witch). We sailed south down the bank of Lake Wyrmark, through the churning waters of the Claw and out into the Ceuldmyr Sea. Winter had not yet set in Belwraith, but down here it was noticeable. The wind tore through me. I wrapped myself in heavy cloaks while the Witch-Priests hovered around the deck, mostly nude, uncaring. Even the landrakine servants who attended to the rigging and swabbing were taken in by the cold, despite their layers of fur. Yet I must admit, seeing the peaks of the Belcanus Mountains looming ahead, across the vast expanse of icy water, was a beautiful sight.

We docked at Belgrimyr, which was entering its quiet months. I had heard stories of this port, that in the summertime, the harbours are so crowded with trade ships they have to queue to leave, and the markets are filled with so many people there is barely room to walk. But under the icy gales of coming winter, the city had gone to sleep, and only those brave souls who called the city home remained. They lined the spiral streets to watch our procession through the city. So rare was the sight of every Witch-Priest gathered together. I was kept out of sight under heavy cloaks, unfit yet to be revealed to the masses. I could sense admiration in the people, but also apprehension. For I knew they had witnessed this procession twice in recent years, without having a new Witch-Priest to show for it.

We marched well past the city and into the mountains, following one particular path, still littered with bones of the centuries-dead. We arrived finally at a narrow pass, heavy with mist from waterfalls that would soon be frozen still as glass. We stood in front of a severe and oddly shaped tower that spiked as high as the mountains. This was the Nameless Place. It was where our history began, and, possibly, where our future would end. I had to make my offering in front of the tower, opening a vein over the same polished stone where hundreds of other Witch-Priests had done the same, to assert the right by which we claimed use of the demonic energies that emanated from this spot. The seal on my spirit had been broken; dark forces had been invited into my veins. This was the first step toward real power.

We continued on for several more days, not eating or sleeping. Hunger and fatigue bore down on me, but I staggered ever forward to match the effortless pace of the other women. We finally reached our destination. We landed at the foot of the highest peak in the Belcanus Mountains. At the summit sat the Altar of Bellatrix: my first challenge. The dark, heavy cloaks I had kept wrapped so tightly were torn from my body. Being nude outdoors is a common thing in summer months, but winters were far too harsh to indulge in nature, and the winters here were harshest of all. Yet all the same, I was sent naked up the mountainside, while the Witch-Priests waited below.

I had known of this challenge, knew what it entailed, and knew that the last Initiate had perished here. But I never really prepared myself for the cold. I suppose I thought the magic of Bellatrix would envelope me in some warming shroud. But that did not happen. The cold entered me. It pierced my skin, my bone, my blood. I lost sense of what warmth was. I became one with the ice. I cannot recall whether I could feel my hands or not, but I remember watching them claw their way up the rock, hour after hour. I don't remember if I felt the cuts and scrapes I incurred on my arms and legs, but I remember seeing the red dripping into the snow. I don't know how long I climbed, but eventually I reached the summit, looking as white as the snow (save my hair as red as blood). The Altar of Bellatrix sat in front of me. I actually laughed. It was nothing but a small pile of stones, fused together by ice. There was no grand statue and no sacred runes. Still I dripped some of my cold congealed blood on the altar to signify completion, and I was struck by a vision.

I had achieved visions in meditation, but none had ever come upon me so forcefully. I could see myself on the mountaintop from far above, spiralling like a bird (like a bird awaiting prey). And then I realized what I had to do. Climbing the mountain meant conquering rock and ice. But now I had to conquer wind. Before my mind had made a decision, my feet were already carrying me forward. I vaulted off the summit and plummeted into the gorge below. The wind tore at my face on descent. I could see the jagged rocks accelerating towards me, promising certain death. Then I felt myself pulled sideways. I began circling, just like the bird. The wind ceased to become knives on my flesh and turned into a soft cushion, gently gliding me around the mountain. And as softly as an autumn breeze, I came to plant my feet on the ground again, at the base of the peak, where the Witch-Priests awaited me.

The months that followed were an exciting time. I was finally able to meditate in the company of the other Witch-Priests. I began levitating my way through the halls of the sacred cloister, just like they did. New magics erupted from me in surprising ways. During one particularly vivid trance, a jolt of electricity unleashed from my fingers. I could feel the power churning within me. But ... the cold never left. The ice had entered my veins too deeply on the mountain, and even when I stood in front of a roaring fire, I did not feel the warmth as I had before. As much as I wanted to continue gaining power, I knew the next challenge would be much worse, and it filled me with dread.

I was summoned to join the Witch-Priests in a room I had never been before, and I knew what was to come. The walls were dark and oppressive. There was only one piece of furnishing: a stone table in the centre. I lay down on this without being prompted, for I knew why I was there. A tear escaped my eye, leaving a trail of frost on my cheek. I wanted to scream, to beg, to plead for just another day. Yet I faced the test with the stoic reserve befitting a Witch-Priest. I made no sound, even as the phial of green liquid floated over my face, and dropped into my eye. Bellawrenna stood over me, looking down with her own scarred, milky eyes. I focused on her as she became a blur, and then became nothing.

I lived several weeks in darkness. I was not called to study, or meditation. I stumbled through the hallways to the dining room, and then stumbled back to my own chambers, where I wept in my own private service. I felt no improvement, no magical sight bestowed upon me. When I was taken to the carriage, I was nearly resigned to my own death. The last Initiate to survive the mountain perished in the woods, and I had no reason to believe I would fare any better. I'm sure I would have enjoyed the carriage ride through the Dunwick Forest at spring time if I had been able to evaluate the journey by any sense other than the feeling of jolting wood beneath my ass as the wheels rolled down the rutted paths. I realized I would never see the spring blossoms again, and more tears came.

It was a long journey to the northeast. When we arrived at the shadowed woods, my instructions were very simple. I had to navigate through the trees to the Altar of Belladonna and return alive. I was allowed an iron sword and nothing else. Witch-Priests are not typically known for their sense of humour, but I could hear their laughter as I staggered away from them, arm outstretched, tripping over rocks and errant roots. I fumbled around aimlessly at first, until I could sense that I was alone. I tried to orient myself by feeling the trees for moss. Moss grew heaviest on the north side of the tree, and I had to head north. That helped for a time, until the canopy grew so dark that I was surrounded by moss. The underbrush grew so thick that I was reduced to crawling forward, because I couldn't take two steps without tripping. I continued onward through my personal darkness, attempting to trust that I was headed the right way.

The terrain changed and got wetter underneath me. I slipped down an embankment and sank into a muddy bog. Even when I brought myself to a stand, I was up to my waist. The trudge forward was slow and I lost what little sense of direction I had. All I had to orient myself was the marshy stench and the squelching of the mud over my hips. Until I heard the cackle.

I have heard many kinds of laughter before – innocent, spiteful, delirious – but nothing compared to the crazed, inhuman laughter I heard in those woods. There were always stories of monsters that lurked in the deepest corners of Dunwick Forest, and I had never been certain whether I believed them. And this creature of pure malevolence was now aiming for me. I tried to run away, but the mud slowed my movements almost to a standstill, while I could hear the monster behind me, cutting through like a salmon through the river. I had no choice but to fight. I turned around, holding up my mud-coated sword. I faced as best I could where I heard the thing slithering through the bog. I swung again and again, but it was still too far away. Then I felt something coarse and sharp cut into my shoulder. It was right behind me.

### Part IV

I screamed as the claw tore into my flesh, leaking blood into the swamp. I turned with a furious swing of my sword, but it slithered away. Then it came around to my front and drew another slash across my breast. Yowling in agony, I tried to stab forward, but struck only air. The creature knew I was blind. And it was toying with me. The next movement would surely be to go in for a kill.

Then something changed. Somewhere in the empty void that had once been my vision, I sensed movement. There was a blur. I raised my sword just as I sensed it, and I heard a sickening crunch right in front of me, followed by a dull splash and a maniacal shriek. It seemed I had severed its claw. Then it stopped moving. I could smell its foul breath. It was somewhere out of my range. Preparing to strike. But then I saw it. Like a flash of lightning, I could see, just for an instant, every grotesque feature upon its bestial form, perched atop the mud as if it were solid rock. I saw the whole swamp laid out before me under a blue haze. I cried out, sword raised, and rushed the creature. The viscous mud parted before me, and I struck like the bolt of a crossbow, leaving the beast impaled on my blade. At last its cackle ended.

Then I was back in darkness. But even so, I was left with a conviction of exactly where to go. I turned east and headed out of the swamp. My steps felt lighter now. They got lighter still until I felt myself lifting out of the mud completely and floating back to dry land. My steps were now faster and more assured. I no longer tripped over roots and rocks. I still couldn't see, but I could place my body in precisely the right spot. And the whole time northeast called to me, keeping me on track by some other sense.

The cool mud had dried and crusted on my skin by the time I reached the wall. Not a wall built by men, but simply a wall created by brush that grew so thick I could not hack my way through it. Yet I knew the Altar lay beyond. Then there was another lightning flash, and I could see, through a blue haze, what stood in front of me. It was a Wyrwood, Titan of the tree world, branches twisting and spiralling in all directions. I knew this was my next challenge. I climbed the trunk of the tree, breaking fingernails as I forced handholds, scraping at skin as my legs and torso crawled along the coarse bark. I made it to the first branch. Then the same force that called to me atop the mountain called to me again.

I started to run. I leapt from one branch to another, swinging through the thick tangle, never losing my footing. I followed the twisted wooden pathways east. I charged forward, knowing my destination was close, and then I began falling. Robbed of other relevant senses, I could only imagine crashing to the forest floor. Instead I felt the gently brush of grass on my feet as I ran. But it wasn't grass. It was leaves. I had left the Wyrwood and rejoined the forest canopy, running across the treetops with as much ease as a frog leaps between lily pads. I felt the sun on my face and I felt the wind in my hair, and finally, I felt myself fall again, this time splashing into cool water.

I swam, leaving dry land far behind me, letting the mud wash off my skin. Then I dove, finding an opening somewhere in the rock. I followed a tunnel, winding through some cave system unexplored by mortal creatures. Minutes ticked by. The need for air grew intense within my breast. There was a clawing, gnawing, burning inside of me. Yet I kept focus and continued swimming, becoming one with the pain. After nearly an hour I found surface. The sudden rush of air into my lungs was frightening, a little painful. I wondered if I could have stayed down and lived the rest of my life underwater. I let out a cry of victory and heard an echo.

It was a large cavern, but I was not in it alone. A power called to me. I reached out with my hands, with my ears, with my nose. And then it struck me. A lightning flash like before, but even more intense, and more lingering. I saw everything. There seemed to be no light source in the cavern, but I saw all the same. It was a manner of sight, at least, cloaked under a blue haze. Far from a meagre pile of stones, the Altar to Belladonna was staggering. A massive statue, easily ten times human size, of Belladonna bathing protruded from the cool water, glittering with moonstones and blaze sapphires. I swam between the statue's legs and cut my arm with the sword, letting red blood flow into the water. In my Witch Sight blood appeared black, but it shimmered with all sorts of incandescent ripples. I had a thought, and I looked at my thigh. There, for the first time in my life, I could see my own Wyrding Crest – the six overlapping triangles creating 13 points – the mark that had signified me as a Witch-Priest. It was now finally visible. Then my vision went black again, along with my other senses. The next thing I remembered was being rocked and jolted in a carriage heading back to Belwraith.

Witch Sight came and went over the next several weeks, staying for hours at a time, and leaving me for up to a whole day. Eventually it became more constant, and I grew to realize what it meant. It wasn't really sight, Bellawrenna explained to me, because sight requires light, and light no longer made any difference to me. It was an intuitive magical understanding of everything around me, that my mind interpreted as sight thanks to my years of human reliance on the five senses. But it felt to me as I could see again. I could see even more, in fact. I could see the ripples of life energy within blood. I could see the traces that Witch-Priest magic made through the air. I could see the texture of each of the nine elements and how they combined. Meditation became much more intense, and I began to understand much more of the subtle beauty in freshly spilt blood. Yet I lost something along the way. Sunrise and sunset, which had been so precious to me, were no longer as beautiful as they were. Not just because the blue haze over my vision muted their dazzling colours. There was something more fundamentally wrong. The miracles of earth and sky were simply not as important to my new senses.

The greater loss was still to come. That day I was called back into the dark room, Bellawrenna shimmered with grave emotion. I wept icy tears on my course down the hall, trudging upon bare feet rather than levitating through the air. I dragged my fingers across the stone bricks the entire way, doing my best to remember the detail of every texture. When we reached the room, the stone table was still there. I was laid face down this time. I tried to concentrate on the smooth stone pressing into my skin, on the far off dripping of water, on anything but the way my arms were being pulled taut in front of me. It was no longer an invisible grip. I could see the smokey tendrils coiling through the air, forming hands and holding my wrists tight. I tried to summon the very best of my Witch-Priest stoicism, but in the last it failed me. I whimpered. I whimpered just before the blade came down.

My scream shook the walls, as sturdy as they were. My hands fell away from me, carried by the coiling tendrils of magic to somewhere in the shadows. Blood surged from the stumps of my wrist, splattering unceremoniously on the floor. I continued shrieking. The blade had, in truth, been clean. Almost painless. But the shock of the sudden nothingness I felt at the end of my arms was agony. I lost all sense of composure I might have once held claim to. I sobbed in heavy, heaving wails, adding my tears to the cascading blood. The Witch-Priests who surrounded me did nothing and said nothing. They simply watched, in their Witch-Sight, all the colours of my pain. They watched the violent churning magics in my blood, more potent than they had ever been before. Through my cries, I could see my blood as it had never been before. I could also see that it streamed to the centre of the floor and flowed down a drain. Even in my current state, I knew something was very strange about this. The blood of such an important ceremony would never be wasted. Then the floor fell away from me.

I don't know where the stone disappeared to. I just know that I fell through nothing until I made a splash. I sank into a large stone pool, sank into a thick, warm liquid. I knew what this was. I knew by the energies I saw swirling and spiralling everywhere around me. This was the collected blood of every Witch-Priest who had undergone the dismemberment. I opened my mouth and let some of it flow down my throat. I re-emerged on the surface of the pool, and I crawled, with my mutilated arms, out of the sanguinous basin and onto the stone floor. I stood, feeling the blood coat every inch of my skin. It was the first time since going up the mountain that I actually felt warm. But the feeling was fleeting. I felt cold again when I looked ahead and saw the entrance to the catacombs before me. My final challenge had already begun.

### Part V

I stepped forward, leaving bloody footprints on the stone. The red fluid trailed down my legs, dripping from the stumps of my arms. My hair was soaked and matted to my skin. Tingling electricity ran up and down my body. I had been immersed in the blood of hundreds of Witch-Priests who had gone before me, and their magics engulfed me now, settling on my skin. The pain had lessened, as well. The wounds on my wrists were no longer spurting blood. There had been some curative properties to the pool that accelerated healing. I was not to die from blood loss at least. But that hardly meant I would make it out of this alive.

I was the first initiate since Bellawrenna to make it this far in the trials. Rather than instilling me with hope, it only brought me fear. The Altar of Beleza was the most dangerous by far, and I was crippled. No weapons nor hands to hold them, and a labyrinth full of unspeakable horrors awaiting me.

There was no light in the catacombs, not that I needed any with my Witch Sight. I could still take note of all the carvings on the wall. As I walked through the corridor, trailing blood behind me, a saga unfolded in relief sculpture. It depicted the very beginnings of our people, awakening at the Nameless Place, being pursued by the ravenous hordes of demons, fleeing into the forest. It depicted the Hag, discovering the Light, and using it to push away the monsters, sealing most of them away in the caves. It showed the Hag passing the Light onto three young girls, who grew up to be Witches, and split the Light into nine elements. The Witches were captured by the warlord Zugo, who burned out their eyes and chopped off their hands, dragging them naked back to his fortress in the mountains.

All Triskaians know this story. And it is our duty as Witch-Priests to undergo the same torments that our Witch Mothers did, so that we could unlock the same power they unlocked in the dungeons of that fortress. But I still didn't feel any great power unlocking. I was drained and weakened from the mutilation. I couldn't levitate. My Witch Sight even failed me from time to time, and I was forced to once again stumble around blind. My arm instinctively reached to brace against the wall, but the coarse stone grated against the raw flesh of my wrist, stabbing with pain.

Then the growl came. This was far worse than the cackling I heard in the forest. This was a choking, thunderous sound that rippled through the air unlike anything that might be produced by a creature living on Solos. At the far end of the corridor, I saw a dark shadow encroaching towards me. Shadows, of course, could not obscure my Witch Sight. Whatever was ahead had created a shadow so thick that even magic could not penetrate it. And it was getting closer.

I fled down a turn to my right, sprinting down the hall while hearing the hellish sound getting closer. I could not outpace it. As fast as I moved, the distance between us shortened, and the corridor continued on forever. Then I spotted my salvation. There was a grate in the floor covering a tiny crawl space that I could use to escape. I dropped to the floor to lift it up, but all I did was scrape the stumps of my wrists against the metal. I cried out in pain, only to hear the growling get louder. I pleaded to the Witches to allow me to lift up the grate, using that simple levitation magic that the Witch-Priests used every day. But it wouldn't move. I turned around to try to pick if up with my feet, but my bloody toes couldn't get a grip. I turned around again, taking the grate in my teeth and wrenching my head back. It shifted slightly, but not enough. The metal fell out of my jaw grip, breaking several teeth in the process. I screamed at the sudden onslaught of pain, spitting blood into the crawl space. I knew I had only moments of life left.

But then, right in front of me, the grate flipped up on its end, allowing me room to get through. I dropped through the small opening and landed on rough stone. The grate slammed down just as the shadow passed over me. I had no idea if my current hiding place would offer any protection from the pursuant creature. I hid there, engulfed in darkness, overcome by the sound of a growl like molten rock deep underground crying out in rage. The growl banished all other thoughts from my mind and I was trapped in the sound for what could have been years. But then it passed. The shadow passed too and my Witch Sight returned. Ahead of me was a tiny passage, barely wider than my shoulders.

I started crawling. I had gone through an ordeal like this at the holy palace in my training, but that passage had been smoothly carved. This was rough hewn and the rock scraped against my skin with every movement I made. I tried to bear down through the pain, spitting out blood with shards of broken teeth, which I then had to crawl over. I carrying on like this for hours, dragging myself by mutilated arms, rubbing my skin raw on the cave surface. But it was preferable to going back out where the shadow waited.

Eventually the passage smoothed out and widened slightly so it no longer cut into me. Still, I leaked blood from the hundreds of tiny lacerations my journey had left me with (although the blood from the pool had by now dried into a red film over my body). Things were improving. Then I felt a warmth coming from ahead. As I got closer to it, the warmth got hotter. The path before me changed from rock to metal. An iron grate extended forwards as a bridge, enclosed by a mesh cage. Beyond this, the whole passage opened up again, and I would finally be able to walk. But to get there I had to crawl the last stretch. As my arm reached forward, it pulled back, feeling an intense heat on my skin.

There was a fire burning directly below the iron grate, fuelled by an unseen source. The metal burned to the touch. I dragged myself across it, screaming into the abyss while the grate seared into my flesh. Arms, legs, stomach, breasts, all marred with red marks that blistered and charred while the fires bit into my from beneath. When I lost the ability to scream, I bit down, feeling the broken shards of my teeth cut gashes into my lips. When I finally made it across, I lay withering on the stone, feeling the fires still on my skin.

It was hours before I gained the strength to pull myself to my feet. I half-staggered, half-crawled through the tunnels, urging my broken body forward against its protestations to lie down and die. But there were shadows here, everywhere I turned, and they induced a terror greater than the pain that racked my body.

I was now travelling through the natural cave system that predated the catacombs. The caves where the Hag originally banished the demons. They watched me. I could feel their gaze ever on my back. I think the only reason they didn't follow was because I had been marked as prey by one of their own. I had no sense of direction down there, but my blistered feet followed some kind of intuition and kept moving. I was forced to squeeze through another very tight passage, screaming as the rock grated my burned skin, and then I fell back into a smooth, straight-hewn corridor. I staggered forward, feeling that my destination was near. But as I moved a shadow once again formed behind me.

As much as I wanted to run, my mangled body would not permit it. I could only hobble forward in futile hope that I could outrun what was behind me. There was nowhere to go but straight ahead, and it followed, never wavering. I kept on until I passed through an arched doorway. It took me to a circular room with no apparent exist. Here my legs failed me and I collapsed to the floor.

Looking up, I could see more carvings on the wall. This detailed Beleza building the catacombs. She divided them in two halves. The first was a sanctuary for her followers, and the second was a prison for the demons. The last relief showed her casting a spell, enshrouding every demon in impenetrable shadow, so that no one would be forced to look upon their hideous faces. That shadow passed over me now. I had reached the Altar of Beleza. And this is where I would die.

The shadow covered everything. It blocked the view of the rest of the room, choking me in darkness. Then it split apart, just slightly. It split enough to let me see the monster's face. Face is a generous word. Whatever it was that I saw, it swirled with all the colours of nightmare. This was the last thing I saw before I felt the demon blade slide into my chest, tearing through my heart. As the serrated demon steel pulled out, blood spewed forth from my chest. It soaked the stone all around me, flowing into tiny rivulets in the floor. And I drifted away, wondering whether the demon would devour me or just leave me in this spot forever.

When the fire started, I thought I had gone into the afterworld, to receive punishment for my failure. But the feeling of the heat surrounded me shook me into entertaining the slight possibility that I was, somehow, still alive. I opened my eyes. A wreath of flame encircled me, burning a hundred different hues in my Witch Sight. It was a fire unlike anything I had ever seen. I felt myself floating then, rising into the air. Below me I saw my own blood, dividing into streams and forming a perfect Wyrding Crest on the floor. And in front of me was the shadow, still huge and engulfing, but it seemed less menacing now than it had before.

I raised my right arm in front of me. From the stump of my wrist extended a ghostly hand, made of morning mist and evening smoke, of the sort I saw when the other Witch-Priests used their magic. My blood rose up from the floor, condensing into a sphere that rose up to my apparition of a hand. The wreath of flame also flowed into my Witch Grip, mixing with the blood to form a hot red plasma. Then the shadow in front of me started to move too. Not like it had moved before. No, now it was being taken. A scream from beyond the realm of man and animal echoed through that hall as the shadow cloak split in half and was sucked into my grasp. The demon was laid bare before me: a spindly skeletal creature with more limbs than an oak tree, gnashing teeth from a hundred mouths. The pulsating sphere of magic in my hand stretched out, elongating into a spear. I took the shaft of fire, shadow, and blood, and drove it through the centre of the creature. The scream ended and the monster fell into dust.

My feet returned to the floor. I was alone and unfrightened. I felt a new strength coursing through me. Though I still didn't understand how I was still alive. I looked down and saw the would in my chest had completely healed. Not only that, all the cuts, scratches, and searing burn marks I had acquired in the caves were gone as well. My teeth were whole and undamaged in my mouth. Even an old scar on my calf that I had gotten as a young girl was gone. My body was free of any injury, save those that marked me as Witch-Priest.

The roof opened up, and I found myself floating. I continued upward until a floor materialized beneath me once again. I was in a room with nine walls, and a Wyrding Crest carved into the floor. All around me were the Witch-Priests. I was in the Witch's Circle, where I had never before been permitted. All of them cheered for me, sending ripples of magic through the air. They brought me into their circle, where we linked the smoky tendrils that replaced our hands. We chanted the names of the three Witches, Bellatrix, Belladonna, and Beleza, and then listed the names of every Witch-Priest in Triskaian history, eventually reaching the names of the ones who shared the room with me, and finally reaching me. Bellasaxa, I was named. Newest to the circle.

When the circle finally broke, Bellawrenna wrapped her arms around me. Icy tears fell across her cheeks. She had seen two initiates go to their deaths before me. She kissed me softly, saying how happy she was to see me make it through. It was the first physical contact I had had since the night with Pedras in the boat. It sent a spinning realization through me head, that I was now able to touch the other Witch-Priests. But I would never be able to touch anyone else.

### Part VI

It was hard to believe it had only been three years since my first Belumas. I had been a timid young girl, overwhelmed by the frenzy of the festival. It had all seemed so vast. But now it looked small, as I stood at a window of the holy palace's spire. Thousands of people filed into the courtyard, awaiting the celebration, awaiting their new Witch-Priest. I could have, if I wished, examined the faces of every single one of them from my perch, but I had no desire to. Human activity simply couldn't hold the same interest for me it once had.

I was in the spire having my first official meeting with the Draca. I stared out the window to avoid having to look at them. Despite all the horrors I had faced in my trials, the Draca still made me feel icier than usual. Normal humans feared the Draca for their ink-black skin and menacing silence. But looking at them with my Witch Sight and seeing the dark energies in their veins was much worse. So I kept my back to them, my billowing Witch-Priest cloak creating a veil between us, while they outlined laws and observances for me.

Draca are the keepers of the law. They take directives from the Witch-Priests but operate largely autonomously. They tested me on all the sacred laws I had studied in my training, to ensure there was to be no confusion about what my status meant. There was no hint of the awe or reverence that I would soon receive from every other citizen of Triskaia. The Draca cared only for the law. And there was one law they made sure to stress more than any other. I was never to have physical contact with a living being that was not also a Witch-Priest. With one exception, and their reminder of what that exception was made me shudder.

As the orgy began outside, we Witch-Priests went to the Witch's Circle to begin our own preparations. We indulged in dream cap, drank of each other's blood, and entwined in ecstatic meditation. The Coven was the sharing of body and spirit, not just among ourselves but also with Witches in the world beyond. The experience produced powerful emotions unlike anything I had experienced as a mortal.

At dusk, the other Witch-Priests went to make preparations in the Ecstatic Temple. Attendees had paused their lust and revelry to pack themselves inside and witness the glorious unveiling. I waited just behind the doors of the sacred cloister, waiting to be summoned. And then the call came, fluttering in my blood. The doors opened and I floated out onto the platform, my nine braids trailing behind me. “Bellasaxa!” the announcement came. The people who packed the temple went wild. They cheered and danced, shouting my name to the ceiling, praising me, asking for blessings. No one had told me precisely what to do at this point. So I raised my arms and channelled the first magical instinct that came to me. In the great dome of the temple I created a mist of swirling colours cloaking a deep red orb. My illusory approximation of a sunset. The crowd paused in awe of the sight. Other Witch-Priests eyed me quizzically, but made no attempt to stop me. But when I looked up to see my own creation, I could see only the twisting strands of uneasy magic, not the brilliant colours that my spectators witnessed.

When the roar of the crowd was finally quelled, they were introduced to the newest Draca. This reaction was substantially more muted. While Witch-Priests were leaders of the country and connections to the divine Coven, Draca were agents of terror, and people quailed at the sight of them. I tried to remember the teenage boy I had seen selected three years ago, and compare him against what stood before me now. He looked like the rest of the Draca: skin dyed murky black, hair removed, body marked with runic scarification, genitals shorn clean off. Hauntingly dead eyes looked forward. Even we did not know the training process for Draca, but we had reason to believe their torment far exceeded our own.

We proceeded with some ceremony before it was time for the climax of the evening. My heart pounded. I knew I couldn't refuse, because this was my last step in the ascension to Witch-Priest. But of all the challenges I faced, this one filled me with the most dread. Yet there was electric excitement in the air. The audience loved this spectacle.

Men were lined up. 19 of them; one for each Witch-Priest. They were stripped, bathed and oiled, prepared for the ceremony. I could see the excitement in their blood, as well as the anxiety, and the fear. There was a confusing tension up on the platform, but the other Witch-Priests carried on unconcerned. They beckoned me to join them, gathered around a raised pedestal draped in silk. In my function as the newest member of the Coven, I was to go first. My witch's cloak fragmented into splinters of shadow and fell from my body. I climbed atop the pedestal and waited. The first man approached me. He was tall, muscular, with blond hair to his shoulders. Certainly handsome. I guessed he had enjoyed many partners in his time. He might have made a good husband. Why he was here, why he had volunteered for this, I couldn't imagine.

I didn't ask him, though. Nor did I ask for his name. I merely nodded my permission and he mounted me. His hands were warm on my icy skin, though I never felt myself warm in his embrace. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, so I could feel his heart beating in his chest. My lips found his, pushing through coarse hair, and we kissed. My apprehension, and my thoughts of what was to come, faded away. I lost myself in the moment. My mouth explored his, and my ghostly touch trailed along his back. When he finally entered me I gasped. I was caught in an exhalation of all too human emotion. My witch powers ceased to matter. All I wanted was to enjoy this moment of entwinement, a moment that I was only allowed once every three years. My hips rocked into his, creating rhythm in our movements, driving him deeper inside me. I screamed out, letting the ecstasy overtake me. I saw it in his eyes at that moment, the look of pure bliss. He released inside of me, and the adoring crowd cheered.

The Draca stepped in behind the man, and with a barely perceptible movement slit his throat wide open. I looked up at my partner, still riding me, with that look of bliss frozen onto his face while the life flowed out of him. Blood spewed from his wound in a fan, spattering the floor to either side of us, and utterly covering me. Over my face and my chest, trickling down to my legs, I was bathed in my erstwhile lover's blood. I hadn't expected it to happen so quickly, for him to be cut down right at the moment of climax like a praying mantis. I was horrified. Revulsion seized at my heart as blood continued to pour over me. But what was much more disturbing – the waves of pleasure I had been riding the moment before did not exactly dissipate. The disgust I felt at what had just happened didn't quell the heat in my loins, or the tremors that travelled down my legs with each spurt of blood. And as my skin was covered, I was enshrouded by a warmth that I had not felt since I first went up the mountain.

When the man finally collapsed and fell off the pedestal, his body was dragged away, and I was helped back to my feet, bathed in blood. I felt warm, and strong, with a curious bubbling ecstasy somewhere inside me. But this was counterbalanced by the abject horror I felt at the barbarous ritual. A ritual that occurred 18 more times at the centre of that temple before the night was through. 19 dead bodies dragged away, 19 Witch-Priests covered in blood, filled with a seed that would never quicken. All glowing with unexpected radiance. The great Belumas tradition, the one time Witch-Priest and mortal can make intimate contact.

After returning to the sacred cloister I chose to bathe by myself. I didn't sleep at all that night. Instead I perched atop the palace spire and stared up at the Great Titan Road glimmering in the night sky until dawn. Then I watched the sunrise. I had always loved the sunrise. I tried to remember how beautiful, enchanting, magical it was when I still had eyes. But the phenomenon was lost on my Witch Sight. As dawn drew into day, I lost the swirling emotions that had infested me through the night, and I felt myself grow cold again.

### Part VII

Once, I travelled down the coast of Wyrmark to visit my family. They had not attended the ceremony. At the time, I assumed it was because they feared I had been lost during the trials. But looking back now, I think they knew what I did not: that I was lost no matter what.

There is a reason the other Witch-Priests never spoke of their families. The meeting was strange and awkward. Though I desperately wanted to take them all in a loving embrace, we all knew that I could not. I found myself just standing there. I cast off my dark, billowing cloak to appear less imposing, but it still didn't help, for my ghostly pale skin shone like moonlight. My presence was a challenge to them. With my empty silver eyes and arms that ended in flat stumps, they tried to see the girl I used to be, but all they could see was Bellasaxa, the Witch-Priest. I tried to tell my parents of all the wondrous things I had seen, to dote on my brother and sister over how much they had grown. But in the end, I left, bestowing the same blessing that any Witch-Priest gives when she deigns to visit with mortals. And icy tear escaped my eye, and I knew that I would never be back.

Those were sorrowful months, but eventually I made peace with the fact that the life I had known before was lost to me, and I began to enjoy my time as a Witch-Priest. It was a strange transition. I had spent 14 years as a fisherman's daughter, then another three as an Initiate, subject to the torment and tutelage of the rest of the Coven, but now the whole nation looked to me as a leader. People bowed in respect to me as I passed through the streets. I sat at the table with the Coven as Magisters, Burghers, and Thegns came to us with reports of the country, begging for advice or permission. I confirmed Pendant and Dagger-Priests into their new positions. Though I still often sought advice from my sisters in the early years, I was never chided for inexperience, never doubted by my subjects. My word was accepted everywhere I went, for I spoke for the Coven, and the Coven spoke for the Three Witches.

Though I had official duties to perform, much of my time was my own, and I was free to travel as I pleased across Triskaia. I visited each city within my first year. I got to enjoy Belgrimyr in the spring, considerably more pleasant than in the throes of winter as it had been last time I was there. I spent time in the library of the holy palace, learning the whole catalogue, offering counsel to those who came to learn. I visited with the tri-crossed children destined to be sacrifice. Their fate would have been my own, but for the Wyrding Crest on my thigh visible only to the Coven. I was shocked at how happy they were. How serene. Though they were set to die, they took comfort, both in the love of the Covenant and in each other. I wondered how they found so much peace in short years before sacrifice, while I, who would not age and would wield unfathomable power, could not.

I travelled some with Bellawrenna. She was our first official delegate to the recently formed Meeting of Nations, and thus was entrusted with all important international trips. She took me with her from time to time. In quiet moments between us, when we were still interlinked with each other after the climax of our ecstatic meditations, I confessed my fears to her. She confessed her own to me, of the creeping loneliness inherent to our position. She was intimate with me, moreso than any other had been in my life. It was the only time one of my sisters ever spoke of her former life. I wiped the icy tears from her face as she laid bare her torment. But outside of those moments, she was unstoppable. I saw her stare down Selvak and Yeti alike, conduct diplomacy with shrewdness and indefatigable will, never betraying the slightest hint of weakness she had shown me. I wondered if I would ever be possessed of such reserve.

The first major responsibility I was given was to lead an Okkamas festival on the third spring after being accepted into the Coven. I had to travel far into the depths of the Dunwick Forest for this, and I elected to leave weeks in advance so I could complete the journey on foot, rather than in a covered carriage. I wanted to enjoy the feel and sound of the forest, even if I could no longer enjoy its sights. I set off with two Valkyrhae as personal guards, along with twelve landrakine to serve as both guards and retainers, and several pack molloms. My guards were named Elfriga and Fredas. Fredas was the first male Valkyrhae I had ever seen, and, as I learned, the first one born in 60 years. He looked an odd sight next to his partner, broad where she was lithe, and dangling where she was tight. But he displayed every bit the discipline expected from a Valkyrha. Yet I saw the hunger growing between them as we travelled. I granted explicit permission that they could enjoy each other when their alertness was not required. They spread out, ecstatically entwined beneath the stars. Though their birthright demanded sacrifice, I saw no reason to deny them such a simple gift, even if it was denied to me. I lay near them in my own ecstatic meditation, wishing I could join their hot embrace.

There are 13 Okkamas festivals that take place simultaneously, each one at a different Wyrwood somewhere in the forest. My Wyrwood was quite familiar to me. It was the same one I had climbed on my way to the Altar of Bellatrix, recently blind and beset by monsters. But now the area was vibrant with celebration (the darker, more dangerous sections of the forest are patrolled extensively by Valkyrhae and Gastors before festival time, to ensure safety of the celebrants). The tree twisted and spanned out in all directions, easily reaching as high as the Ecstatic Temple back in Belwraith. And now, with my Witch Sight, I could see how its bark shimmered with ancient magic.

I began the festival by speaking the sacred words. I knew them well, for I had read them many times, but seeing the rapt attention paid to me by my subjects was new. Spring was still new at this time, and a chill lingered in the air, but still everyone was eager to cast off the woollen layers that winter had forced upon them. I lead them all into the mire, where the mud was soft and thick. Using my Witch's touch I lifted the mud in a circle around me and drew it inward, letting it entirely coat my skin. Everyone else followed suit, splashing and cheering, covering themselves in the offering of spring. We danced into the night, calling upon Belladonna to let the bloom come swiftly, then finally gathered around the base of the Wyrwood, each one of us leaving an offering of blood on its bark, where generations before us had done the same.

I spotted a girl in the fray. She bore a mark on her shoulder that I knew well, for it was the same one I carried on my thigh. I went to speak to her. She was fearful, and reverent, until I coaxed her out. Her name was Gwen, she had just turned 13 and this was the first time she had been allowed into a proper festival. And in three years time she would be eligible to become the newest Initiate to the Coven. I smiled at her, extending my blessing and telling her the Witches would favour her, though I found myself hoping, for her sake, that she not be selected.

It was not long after Okkamas that Belumas came again, earlier than normal this year. There was to be no Initiate selected this time, but all the same the festival would be held in all the orgiastic fervour that usually accompanied it. I shut myself away in the library for most of it. Without any initiation ceremonies to perform, my absence would escape attention for almost all of the three day festival. Though there was one solitary occasion that would still demand my presence.

I thought about refusing. I told myself time and time again in the months leading up that I would refuse. But my refusal never came. I told myself I stayed silent out of fear of how the Coven would react, of breaking with sacred tradition. But deep down I knew the reason for my silence. It was loneliness. I craved the rite to the furthest reaches of my blood. I found pleasure enough in ecstatic meditation with my sisters, but that didn't compare to the warmth of a living mortal body against mine. I craved the heat I had felt between Fredas and Elfriga, entwined next to me in the forest. I wanted it badly enough to accept the sacrifice that went with it, for it was not my sacrifice (or so I thought).

On the final night of the festival, the Coven was assembled in the Ecstatic Temple. Before us was a line of men, naked, slim, and handsome, ready to take part in the rite. Their demeanor in the face of death was not serene, as for those to be sacrificed during Edremas. No, they hungered, and their hunger overtook all else. The audience cheered for them, the privileged few who would take knowledge of the Witch-Priest. Still the youngest, I was called first to lie upon the altar and wait for my chosen man to approach. He approached, and the sight of him made me gasp.

It was Pedras. The same boy who had taken my virginity in this temple six years ago, and with whom I had shared that magical night in the fishing boat two years later. Pedras, whose young, handsome face still flashed in my dreams and whose arms I felt around me whenever I was most terrified. He stood before me then, older, stronger, with a short beard. He wasted no time mounting me.

All at once, the feelings of my younger self rushed back. I took him in my arms (or what was left of them), letting my ghostly touch slide up and down his back, sending tingles through her skin. I kissed him, feeling his hot lips warm my icy ones. His hands took hold of my hips. It had been so long since I had felt the touch of real hands. They moved rhythmically along my body, down my thighs and up my torso, caressing my breasts. I gasped when he entered me. His shaft felt more powerful than it had before, and it filled me up with a glorious sensation. He lay down, guiding me on top of him, and I rode him on the altar, screaming with frenzied pleasure, sending sparks of electricity raining down all around us. I was rocked by the gift of the Witches, feeling pleasure wash through me. Then I heard Pedras groan underneath me, and felt his seed let loose inside me. My ecstasy at once swirled with sorrow, as I realized that this was the end.

“Why?” was all I had the chance to ask.

“I couldn't bear to live the rest of my life without feeling you again,” he told me.

Then the Draca slit his throat and I was awash with his blood. It was warm.

### Part VIII

Dreams of Pedras continued to haunt me. I had barely made it back into the sacred cloister, out of the sight of my subjects, before I broke down into wrenching sobs. My nights were tormented by the vision of the life draining from his face following the knife-slit. I tried to cling to the fond memories, of his soft touch in the fishing boat, of the raucous pleasure we felt in the temple. But these memories were inexorably bound together with the feeling of his blood spraying over me. It was stupid, stupid of him to throw his life away, for the prestige of lying with a Witch-Priest. But no, the other men threw their lives away for the prestige of lying with a Witch-Priest. Pedras threw his life away for me.

That knowledge made it all the more painful. He valued his connection with me more than anything else life could have offered him. I thought about how, if my life had been different, we could have been magically aligned and grown old together. Instead we had this. I ripped the life energy from him, and what did I give him in return?

Over time, the memory of his blood drenching my skin overpowered all other memories of him. But worst of all – the dark secret that for years I refused to admit to myself – every time that memory returned to me, it felt good.

My life as a Witch-Priest had to continue. I acquired more responsibilities as I went. I most enjoyed the time I spent visiting smaller villages, leading masses, conducting weddings (for those magically aligned couples more fortunate than Pedras and I). I tried as best I could to surround myself with the joys of the common people. I accepted their adulation, and in return I presented myself as a perfect Witch-Priest, not battered down by the sorrows and doubts that I knew dwelt within me.

And there was one responsibility that I always abhorred. That was when I was called to accompany one of the Draca. Those sullen, silent men with midnight black skin always unnerved me. And I wasn't the only one. The rest of the Coven avoided them when contact wasn't necessary. They didn't seem to mind the isolation. They kept to their spire with their books of sacred law. Whenever the ventured outside it was on a mission, and a mission usually meant punishing a heretic.

On some occasions I went with a Draca to attend to business of suspected blasphemy. I was told over and over by my sisters that the Draca were essential to the Covenant, that they upheld the laws so we could focus on spiritual enlightenment. But I was always astounded by the barbarism with which they conducted their affairs. I was used to be regarded with a sense of fear, but that fear stemmed from awe and respect. It was nothing like the sheer terror that the Draca evoked from everyone they met. And though we the Coven were undisputed leaders of the Covenant, the Draca never seemed to care much for us. In fact, I often thought that they would be content to let all of Triskaia burn around them, so long as their laws were protected.

A few occasions I suffered to accompany a Draca on his mission. It was always one or the other – even with my Witch Sight I could never tell the difference between them. The reason I went is because the Draca's power comes from the Witch-Priests. I had always been told that Witch-Priests imbued Draca with magic when necessary, but I always felt that he was sucking it from me like a leech. The last of these occasions was on a trip to Bellasser. We passed most of the way in silence. But there was one moment when I was caught up staring at him, at the blank stretch of skin where his penis and testicles had been, and I asked him what it was like to give up the means to his pleasure. He only responded that pleasure was a weakness. This struck me as the greatest blasphemy of all, for pleasure was a cornerstone of the Covenant. Even for we Witch-Priests who couldn't make contact with others, our ecstatic meditations were essential.

There are two kinds of heresy: forgivable and unforgivable. Those found guilty of forgivable heresy are sentenced to a period of indentured servitude where they work off a debt to the faith, unable to take part in festivals until the sentence is up. This punishment is also applied to base secular crimes like theft. Those convicted of unforgivable heresy are remanded to the dungeons beneath the holy palace until the yearly Blysamas festival, where they are executed by fire. It is important they die by fire, because a heretic's blood is not to be spilled on Triskaian soil.

In my more contemplative moments, I spent time walking through the dungeons. True, some were in there for monstrous crimes, but the majority struck me as plaintive and remorseful. Not at all like the snarling blasphemers I had believed them to be growing up. I wondered if our punishment was too harsh, if their crimes were truly unforgivable. My sisters shrugged me off, assuring me that the Draca knew the laws. Every year at Blysamas the dungeons would be emptied. But when I did my tallies, I noticed the number of executions recorded was fewer than the number of prisoners who had been held. I wondered at this discrepancy.

A short while later, I had my answer. I attended a state dinner for the Voskenrath ambassador. I knew the Voskenrath were our closest allies, but they still made me uneasy. We were joined by our respect for blood, but their attitudes towards it were quite different from our own. I knew that for them blood was something to be devoured, rather than taken for spiritual communion. And I knew that we sent them our ill-magicked children who would otherwise be left in the woods (for they have different purity standards than we). But during that meeting I came to realize something else. I saw the hushed words exchanged between Vosken and Draca. It was the closest I had ever seen a Draca come to being cordial. I realized what happened to the prisoners. Excess heretics were being shipped off to Vosk, to be consumed.

I confronted one of the Draca about my conclusion. He paid me no heed. He simply said that the laws only stipulated that heretic blood not be spilled on Triskaian soil, and said nothing about them all needing to be put to the torch. Then I asked him if the Draca might be enforcing laws more harshly than necessary, to ensure there was an excess number of heretics to send to Vosk every year. And I asked him what the Draca gained from this arrangement. He simply laughed. I had never heard a Draca laugh before, and it is not a sound I ever wish to hear again.

### Part IX

I began to grow more isolated from my sisters. I could still delight in our ecstatic meditations, but the amount of the Coven we could gather in one place at one times seemed to be growing smaller. I was sent out on more and more assignments by myself. They fully trusted me, but I was still young enough that I didn't fully understand their operations. I also began to feel the icy stare of the Draca when I was around the holy palace. They were suspicious of me now, and seeing their suspicions only made me more suspicious of them.

Bellawrenna had been my dearest friend throughout this whole process, but even she drifted away from me now. She was occupied with her new pet: that tall, shadowy creature who had followed her home from a Meeting of Nations and now rarely left her side. They spoke to each other in magical tones far above human hearing. I tried listening in a few times, but I could only capture a fleeting array of sordid images. I was alone.

But my responsibilities were about to change. For it was time for the next Belumas. Memories of Pedras stung me, but I tried to put them aside. For the first time I actually went out into the city while the festival was underway, offering blessings as I went. I floated above the sea of unbridled sexual energy, indulging in some dream cap and getting carried away with dancing. Again, I submitted to the ritual. I was taken on the altar of the Ecstatic Temple, rocked by the throes of pleasure, filled with a stranger's seed before being painted in his blood. I had thought to refuse this time as well, but after Pedras I knew my horror could grow no greater. If these men chose to sacrifice themselves in exchange for the feeling of my cunt around their cocks then who was I to turn them away?

On the second day, things took a turn. This was the next selection. There were three candidates at this Belumas. One of them was Gwen, the girl I had met at Okkamas three years past. Now she was 16 and shaped like a proper woman. A little older than I was when I had been selected, but still there was youth in her eyes. I prayed to the Witch's that she not be selected, that she be allowed to leave this place and live to a natural age as a normal woman. But my prayers went unheeded. She was given the sign, just as I had been. She stood in front of a cheering crowd. She bade farewell to her family. She was stripped of her clothes and possessions and ushered out of the temple and into the sacred cloister. Once she passed through those doors she was no longer Gwen. She was only Initiate.

I was Initiate's tutelary, just as Bellawrenna had been for me. I was the youngest of the Coven and therefore most relateable to her position. That meant that it was my responsibility to shove her into the pitch-black room where she was to spend her night, sealed away from everything she had ever known. I don't know if Bellawrenna stood outside the door listening to me sob all through the first night, but that is what I did for my Initiate. Memories of my own first night, memories I had not thought of in years, came flooding back. I dropped to the floor and sobbed to myself, listening to her wail within.

I didn't move until the morning when the landrakine servants came to fetch her. I hurried to the library where I could arrange myself and make it seem like I had been waiting there for her. Initiate's appraisal of me was one of flitting terror. She had clearly never been in such intimate communication with a Witch-Priest before. Her eyes stared into mine, trying to puzzle something out from the vacuous grey spheres. She pulled back as she watched me float books down from the shelf, conducting them with my handless arms. Like I had been, she was illiterate. Teaching her to read was the first step in having her learn the sacred texts, and I set about my task.

We bonded quickly. She took to me as I had taken to Bellawrenna, because I was the only one with whom she interacted. And though I still joined the Coven for nightly meditation, I began to feel a closer kinship with Initiate than with my sisters. She shared with me all the stories of her childhood. I even shared a few of my own, though tales of my previous life now felt strange on my tongue. She responded with awe at every small display of magic, and she seemed impatient to progress. I tried to caution her that the way ahead was difficult. She learned that well enough, for every night, after our days filled with warmth and friendship, I shut her away in the dark again.

She never complained about her nightly torments, though I could see the isolation in her eyes every morning. She occupied herself a lot with me. Of particular interest to her was my Witch-Priest gown, the shimmering black and scarlet fabric that I could summon about myself from fragments of shadow and blood magic. Mostly I chose to forgo my gown and remain naked, to walk instead of float, to keep demonstration of magic at a minimum to keep Initiate at ease and simplify our interaction. She progressed well in her studies (quicker, I think, than I had).

I was elated when she finally mastered her meditations well enough to graduate from the dark room to a proper chamber. Finally she could join in the beginnings of sisterhood with the other Witch-Priests. Still, she remained closest to me. Her desire to join us fully burned within her. I often found her curled up by the entrance to the Coven Circle when I arose after meditation, yearning in her eyes. Even as we visited on her the torments of the Initiation – the rope, the flood, the tunnel – she remained strong and steadfast. Her meditations grew more powerful, and she confided in me every time she thought she received a fleeting vision from the Witch's. We celebrated every step of her journey together.

Bellawrenna and I had continued to grow distant. But just once, as I was levitating down the hallway, she passed by me and whispered four words that shook me to my spine: “Don't get too close.”

I'm sorry to say I failed to heed the warning. I stayed close by Intiate's side right up till the beginning of her trial. We took her to the Nameless Place where she offered her blood on the forbidden seal and invoked the magic of the demon lords far below that she may join in the taste of Witch-Priest magic. I wept to myself when I watched her start her climb to the Altar of Bellatrix, violently shivering as she crawled naked up the snowy peak. Not because I worried she would perish, but because I knew that when she came back down, she would never again have that rosy glow in her cheek, and she would be unable to escape the chill that affixed itself deep in her bones.

She survived the challenge, of course, floating down to us on the winter wind. She didn't seem bother by the changes that had taken her body. She was mostly ecstatic about finally enjoying real magic. We laughed together in her uneasy first few days back at the palace, as she clumsily floated and careened down the halls. Her skill improved quickly. And the second trial was set to begin. I spent two solid days in meditation to prepare myself for what I had to do. When she was laid down on the stone table, it was I, as her tutelary, who dripped the acid into her eyes, to forever rob her of her mortal vision. In the moments before, I looked at her through a shimmering haze of blue and silver that had become the only sight I knew, and it seemed to me that she nodded to me in understanding – or maybe, even, permission – that showed she was resigned to what was to come.

Initiate accepted blindness with the same proud reserve she had accepted her previous torments. Mostly she was just impatient for her Witch Sight to take form. I assured her it would happen in due course. And the time came that we took her to Dunwick Forest to complete her second trial. I felt less worried this time. She had been such a promising student that I was sure her Witch Sight would come to her at the moment of necessity just as it did for me. And I was right. She emerged triumphantly from the lake, having given her offering to the Altar of Belladonna. Her power was growing.

There was one trial left. This time I spent three days in meditation to prepare myself, sharpening my blade until it could have split a hair in twain. It was my duty to visit upon her the final torment. She was arranged on the table, arms outstretched. I brought down the cleaver, so sharp it barely made a sound as it severed flesh and bone. She bore the punishment in silence. I was amazed at her strength, remembering my own hideous wail when my hands were taken from me. The whole coven watched as her blood flowed into the Wyrding Crest on the floor. Then she was dropped through the trap door, to plummet the long way through the dark shaft, until she was immersed in the blood of all Witch-Priests who had gone before her, including me. Her third trial was underway. She would spend hours, perhaps days down there. It would push her mind and body to its limits, threatening to madden her with fear, but she would emerge victorious as a proper Witch-Priest. We would be sisters then. The thought of it sent a flutter in my heart as I had not felt in a long time.

Then I heard the scream.

I don't know if I found a passageway or if the stone simply parted beneath me, in awe of my fury. But I remember descending the depths of the palace to Beleza's catacombs with the swiftness of an arrow. When I finally reached the stone floor, as deep as deep goes, I shot forward through the corridor. All the locked doors and dead ends that had occluded my passage the first time now opened for me. I sprinted on air from one hall to another, drawn by magical beacon to one spot somewhere in the centre. One passageway melted into another. And finally I found it. The demon was a hunched form, cloaked in impenetrable shadow, but its bulk took up most of the hallway. It regarded me with its unearthly snarl and charged.

I remembered how monstrous and terrifying the demons had been when I first walked the catacombs. Not this time. With a simple motion of my arm, its shadowy cloak disappeared. I looked on the twisted grey creature as it scrambled along the walls and ceiling on 50 clawed feet. With another motion of my arm all 50 legs snapped at once and it tumbled into a grotesque heap on the floor. I crushed what was left of it beneath my feet, and I let what remained turn to dust.

The Initiate was lying on the floor just ahead. Her scarred, milky eyes stared lifelessly up at the ceiling. Her pale body, stained red from the blood bath, was shredded from the demon's 50 claws. Her blood seeped out onto the stone in a pool all around her. Any swirling magics that might have indicated life were vacant from her. I fell to my knees and let out a wail of wrenching sobs, letting loose all the anguish that she so bravely kept at bay. My tear-stricken face bent forward to lick blood from a savage gash near her heart. Then I lifted some blood from the pool on the stone and dripped it on her face. I bent down again, placing an icy kiss on her dead lips, and I whispered, “Gwen.”

I don't know how long I spent wandering the catacombs with Gwen cradled in my arms. There were demons about, but my furious grief cowed them into submission. Eventually I emerged back into the palace. The rest of the Coven was waiting for me. They said nothing. We took Gwen out to a grove in a dark corner of the palace grounds and buried her in an unmarked grave, alongside all the other failed initiates.

I retreated to my private room. Bellawrenna paid me a visit. She sought to comfort me, knowing herself the grief of losing an Initiate. But even she, I think, could sense that my sorrow ran deeper than hers ever did. Then she tried to engage me in ecstatic meditation, to lift my spirits. I was as far as could be away from the mood for ecstatic meditation, but I didn't turn her away because I was grateful for her touch. Her cold lips warmed me a little. The feeling of her heaving breasts against my own brought a measure of excitement. And when our legs interlocked and we called upon the Witches to grant us their tidal release, it felt pleasurable, in the normal way. But when it was over, I still felt cold, I still felt sadness rend my heart. Bellawrenna offered to spend the night sharing my bed, but I declined. I let her leave without another word, hearing the door clang shut behind her.

That night I resolved to leave the holy palace and never return.

### Part X

The decision came surprisingly easy. I let out my nine braids into a single cascade of flowing, blood-red hair down to my waist, then I cleaved it off at the shoulders. I sneaked out from my chamber and stole down to the palace treasury, where I filled a purse with gold, silver, and bone. I paused only briefly to look back at the place that had been my home for the past 12 years, and then disappeared into the night.

I took a circuitous route around Belwraith to avoid crowds, then a wide detour through Dunwick Forest on my way out. I had taken nothing with me. My Witch-Priest gown was the only garment I ever needed. I ate wild mushrooms and the occasional quail. I started to hunger. Witch-Priests can go a long time without eating, but hunger is still real, for it is a passion and we are women of the passions. South of the Dunwick food was not hard to come by. I received plentiful offerings at every village and township in which I stopped. Yet I tried best to avoid this. My behaviour was not at all unusual as yet. As a Witch-Priest I could travel as I please. My absence would not be noticed until I failed to appear at Belumas, weeks away. Yet I couldn't shake the feeling that the Draca already had eyes on me. Perhaps they always had. I had no idea what horrors their laws would visit upon a renegade Witch-Priest.

Approaching the entryway to Belennishe, a group of travels prostrated in the road and asked for my blessing. I indulged them and hurried away, taking refuge behind a fishing shack out of view. I could not enter the city as I was. I disentangled the fragments of blood and shadow magic that formed my gown and let it fall away. I summoned the best of my illusory magic around myself, so that I would appear as a normal human girl, with slender hands and deep green eyes, and a rosy glow in my cheek instead of pallid white.

Stepping into Belennishe, I was amazed at how well it worked. No one paused in deference before me, or called for my blessing. I wondered why I had never done this before, to blend in with the crowd, and wondered if my sisters ever did the same. I headed toward the harbour, to see where I might seek passage. But then I paused and looked over myself. A naked girl with a full purse and no other possessions about her might make for a suspicious passenger. I stopped at the market and purchased a white shift and a green cloak. It had been so long since I'd indulged in mortal fabric. Then I got a large satchel which I stuffed with some pieces of food and a few market curios, just to make it seem that I had packed for a journey. Then back to the harbour.

A luxury passenger schooner turned me down, claiming to be out of beds, though the skipper had a sneer of arrogance when he looked at my simple clothes. It had been a long time since I had been treated thus. After that I shifted around the docks, pleading for passage, but turned down again and again by boatmen insisting they didn't take passengers. Then one vessel caught my eye. It was larger than most of the other boats I had looked at, and its flag marked it as a tradeship along the Ewwa trading route. I knew such ships did, at times, take passengers. I stepped forward to make my case to the grey-bearded man in a captain's hat. He looked askance as soon as I approached, and began into the same speech about a tradeship on the open sea being no place for a girl such as I. But another man who wore the cap of a first mate interceded. He had kind eyes and slight, handsome features. For a short, heart-fluttering moment, he reminded me of Pedras. He reached out to touch me and I instinctively shrunk back. He was fazed for a moment, but then smiled again. He appealed to the captain. And the captain, who could hear the jingling of my purse, agreed to set me up in their passenger's cabin, though I parted with a goodly sum of coin in the process.

My name was given simply as Saxa. I considered offering my former human name, but it seemed foreign to my tongue now. I boarded in good spirits. We set sail that day, taking the crooked course through Clyfere out to the Ceuldmyr Sea. From there was the long way to Ewryn. My ancient dream had finally been fulfilled. On a ship, sailing to unknown horizons.

The quarters provided for me were cramped at best. Barely an alcove with a wooden plank and threadbare wool padding. But I was not bothered. I had suffered much worse. My lonely corner of the ship allowed me to continue my meditation in peace. I passed much of my time that way. As much as I enjoyed the feeling of being abovedecks with the open air and the sea-spray, I exhausted myself in time spent around others. The illusion required to cover my tell-tale Witch-Priest features and pass me off as a mortal girl sapped magic from me constantly, and there was no blood available by which I could replenish myself. Even worse was any time I was required to lift an object, I had to calculate my levitation precisely so it seemed to outside eyes that I was holding it in my illusory hand. It drained me. I found myself pining for my sisters and our shared reserve of power, but there was nothing to be done.

There was another complication. I was, for the first time, surrounded by men. River-men of Clyfere who paid respect to the Covenant but were not wholly of it. They cared not for meditation and blood rites. But they did care for something else with which I was intimately familiar. I spent days dexterously dodging any physical contact, mindful of that foremost law regarding Witch-Priests and mortals. I nearly broke reserve a couple more times when talking to the first mate. His name was Tarras. He was sweet and mindful of my comfort. I found myself drawn to him, but I forced myself to keep my distance, settling for occasionally stroking the back of his head with my mirage-hand, which left him with a slight tingling.

Tarras was but one of dozens. The rest, sailors as they were, had no compunction against using vulgar tones. I heard them. I heard everything they said, for some wooden planks were not enough to interfere with my witch senses. I heard particularly what they said about me. At first it made me shrink into my bed with discomfiture. But the more I listened, the more there crass remarks stirred a fire in my heart. I found myself meditating less. I began to sneer at our Coven's philosophy of pleasure, with its ecstatic meditations and spiritual releases. I had spent so many years desperate for deep, physical contact. I wondered if what I really wanted was to be, as the sailors so eloquently phrased it, fucked like a bitch in heat.

Tensions grew hotter. I could hear their ravenous hunger swell, alone on the open sea, with me as the only woman in sight. How they wanted me. I wanted them too. Or at the very least I wanted Tarras. But the old law stuck in my brain, and I continued to shrink away to my cabin. Until one night after supper, there was a particular crewman, Goran, who followed me to my door. He was a rough sort of men, with a coarse beard, notable paunch, and a fondness for drink. He muttered something about my wet cunt before grabbing my arm without warning. I was alarmed. I had drained myself too much from my time with the crew that my reflexes had worn down. I saw savagery in his eyes. But that turned to surprise as he let me go. Perhaps he was alarmed by the icy touch of my skin. Or perhaps my illusion failed for an instant and he caught sight of my blank Witch-Priest eyes. Either way, he turned around and stumbled drunkenly abovedecks.

That night I thought long and hard about what transpired. Two things were clear. One: If I let this build much longer, the crew's lust for me would grow out of control, and that was sure to end badly. Two: The touch of a mortal caused no disaster to befall me. The tradition of exsanguination following contact was indeed nothing more than a barbarous ritual. I formulated a plan to take charge of the situation.

I made a proposal to the crew. We would not survive this trip if we failed to exorcise our lusts, but we also would not survive if we let them consume us. So I had a system. Each sailor drew lots. I would take two of them each day: one at sunrise, one at sunset, in the order of the lots they drew. It proved to be an acceptable solution. Tarras' eyes went as wide as a condor wingspan when I made the speech.

As it happened, Goran was the first lot drawn. Loathsome as he was, I was still driven to spasms of pleasure simply for the knowledge of a man's warm touch. I didn't even mind when he turned me over and took me like a hound. Next was the timid swabbie, barely a man. Our ecstatic communion had barely begun when he shot his seed into the nest of red hair on my pubis. The next morning was the cook. I could taste a melange of spices in his beard. All this I went through without abandon or regret. I was finally free of the Draca and their restrictive laws. I was free to live as a woman, as well as a Witch-Priest.

That night it was Tarras who drew. He shyly undressed himself. I chuckled at him as I lay spread out on my meagre bed. He bent over me, offering the most polite of kisses. I seized his member in my hand (or at least so it felt to him) and smiled at the look of shock on his face. I wetted his shaft in my mouth then brought it lower and took it inside me. He was a bit perturbed by the cold touch of my skin, but he got over it, since it warmed with his presence. Staring into his kind handsome face, even though it was bereft of magic my Witch Sight could still appreciate its features. I was rocked to a glorious climax and felt his seed spill deep inside of me. For the briefest of moments I entertained the fantasy that it would quicken there and that he and I would raise children by the sea.

The next day the plague began.

I had just finished enjoying the girth of a dark-skinned crewman named Naranga when I heard the sounds of panic abovedecks. Goran had gone mad on the deck of the ship, attacking his fellows like a wild beast, biting and clawing. Two sailors were carried away, bleeding from his crazed attack. I could see strange magics spilling from their wounds. Goran could not be subdued. In the end, Naranga threw him overboard, letting him disappear into the cold depths. The crew was frightened. No one could account for this sudden break of insanity in Goran. But a terrible feeling began to rise inside of me.

The events of the morning were not to interfere with the night, for it was the captain himself who had his turn with me. We had our dalliance in his own quarters, significantly more spacious than mine. He took particular interest suckling on my toes, eventually exhausting himself on the soles of my feet.

The next day we didn't even make it to sunrise. There were cries of alarm from the dining cabin that also served as makeshift infirmary. The two men injured by Goran had risen in a feral state, attacking their fellow sailors in precisely the same manner. They were dragged out abovedecks and lashed to the mast. The captain shouted them down, trying to force them to confess the cause of their aberrant behaviour. But no explanation was given. While the crew was distracted by this scene, there was another attack. This time it was the swabbie I had entertained on that first sunrise. He leapt onto his fellow, biting at the man's neck. Then the cook began to howl with madness as well, swinging his cleaver at whatever flesh it found.

The deck of the ship became a madhouse. The madness spread quickly from sailor to sailor and they all began fighting and clawing at each other. I watched the carnage unfold while tucked safely in my chamber, curling my knees to my chest and weeping. I knew it was my fault. I understood everything quite clearly. Our tradition of exsanguination was not simply a barbarous ritual. It was a necessity. Any man who touched a Witch-Priest had to die. If he didn't ... the consequences of that unfolded now. Our magic was too powerful for mortals to bear.

In a flurry I burst onto the deck of the ship. My illusion was gone. I was unveiled to all in the full glory of my Witch-Priest self. Those who still had their sanity fell to their knees at the sight of me. They prostrated themselves and begged for forgiveness. I could only bow my head, for there was nothing for me to forgive. What was happening now was out of my control, and it was much more my fault than it was theirs.

I called upon the elements surrounding me. A sword of ice and blood formed at the end of my arm. I grasped it in a wispy, spectral hand. With hurricane ferocity I swirled around the deck. My sword cut down all the crazed beastmen who had once been my sailing companions. I cut through flesh, bone, and sinew as simply as a trout cuts through a stream. Blood sprayed all around me, just as the ocean-spray against the hull of the ship. When I had cut down the ravenous plague men, those who still clung to their sanity were still prostrate before me. How I wanted to raise them up, thank them for their loyalty, and assure them of continued prosperity. But they were all doomed. As they knelt on the deck I cut through them all.

Last of all was Tarras, first mate (and for a few brief moments, captain). From his knees he stared up at me in awe and fear. There was a flicker of madness behind his eyes that would soon surge to the surface. It was a kindness to kill him before that happened, I knew, but the act still tore at my heart. In his innocent eyes I saw Pedras. I saw Gwen. I saw myself. Then I slit his throat. Blood sprayed all over me, some entering my mouth.

I looked out across the sea at the sunrise that shone before me. Those sunrises that had once been the most beautiful thing in the world and then wholly lost their majesty. For just a fleeting moment, the beauty returned. Just as soon, it was gone. I looked about myself at the charnel house I had left in my wake. Blood painted the deck, and it painted me. So much death. Sorrow and guilt ached at my heart. Yet I felt warmer in that moment than I ever had.

Feeling a sudden rush of power, I summoned the wind to fill the sails and bear me with haste across the long way to Ewryn. I imagined my corpse ship pulling into the harbour there, and what the stir it would cause.

And I laughed.