Witches Vs. Fairies

The path descended between trees whose trunks twisted together like braided arms. Fairy wards gleamed beneath the moss - thin lines of silver fire, half-buried stones, white feathers pinned to bark. Mara kept her boots between them. She had crossed this border once as a child, holding Elian’s hand, before the witches and fairies turned the grove into a place where even birds refused to land.

A twig snapped behind her.

Mara drew the narrow knife from her belt and turned.

Nothing stood between the trees. Only a curtain of mist, pale as milk, crawling over the roots.

“Come out,” she said.

The mist curled toward her ankles.

A girl’s voice drifted through it. “You always did talk bravely when Elian was nearby.”

Mara’s grip tightened.

“Elian?”

The voice laughed softly. It sounded almost right. That was the worst of it.

A blue moth fluttered from the mist and vanished beneath a thorn leaf.

Mara forced herself onward. “Fairy tricks won’t slow me.”

“They already have.”

The path split ahead.

It had not split when she entered. One branch curved left beneath red-leaved trees. The other climbed toward a dark arch formed by two enormous thorn trunks.

Mara took the left path.

Three steps later, she stood before the sealed gate again.

The chain hung behind her.

She swore and backed away. The trees creaked, their branches bending inward. Thorns slid across the ground with a dry, scraping whisper.

Mara thrust her hand into her pocket and pulled out the cloth. Elian’s charm was warm through the fabric.

“Please,” she breathed. “Just show me where you are.”

The moth-shaped silver brightened.

Every thorn in the grove turned toward her.

Mara ran.

Branches tore at her coat. One hooked her sleeve and dragged her sideways. She slashed it with her knife, but the cut sealed at once, black sap bubbling along the bark. Behind her, the path narrowed with every step.

A bell rang somewhere ahead.

Not the wardens’ bell. This sound was clear and delicate, like glass struck by a fingernail.

Mara broke through a wall of hanging vines and found the gate.

It rose from a hollow in the earth, taller than any doorway, made of white branches woven into a pointed arch. Fairy script glimmered across its surface. The letters shifted whenever she tried to read them.

At its center hung a dark object caught in the branches.

The charm.

Mara stopped so sharply her boots slid in the mud.

The silver moth dangled by its broken wing, wrapped in black thread. Beneath it, the ground was split open, and pale light poured from the crack.

“Of course,” Mara muttered. “Nothing is ever left somewhere sensible.”

She approached the gate.

The air grew colder. Her fingers numbed around the knife. Somewhere under the earth, something beat slowly, like a giant heart.

Mara reached for the charm.

The gate screamed.

The sound struck her chest and threw her backward. She hit a tree hard enough to see white sparks. The thorn arch shuddered. Its branches cracked apart, releasing a flood of blue light.

From the split earth rose figures made of leaves and glass. Their faces were smooth and blank, but their wings flashed behind them in ragged pieces.

Fairy sentries.

Mara pushed herself upright. “I’m not here to fight.”

One of the figures tilted its head.

“You carry witch-fire,” it said.

“I carry nothing.”

The figure pointed at her wrist.

A thin black mark had appeared beneath her skin, winding toward her palm. Mara stared at it. She had not seen it before.

The sentries moved.

Mara threw a pinch of ash from the pouch at her belt. The ash struck the ground and burst into a ring of red flame. The fairy figures recoiled, their wings snapping with anger.

“Witch,” one hissed.

The gate collapsed.

White branches fell in a storm. Mara dove beneath the arch as the ground split wider. The charm dropped from its tangle and skidded across the stone floor.

She reached for it.

A second object lay beneath the charm, half-buried in the dirt: a black metal sigil stamped with the crooked three-pointed mark of the witches’ council.

Mara froze.

The council had declared that sigil stolen six months ago. Every witch in the border provinces had been ordered to report anyone who found it.

The fairy sentries surged through the fire.

Mara snatched the charm with one hand and the sigil with the other.

The world snapped silent.

The sigil burned through her glove.

She cried out and dropped the charm. Black light poured from the metal, racing over her fingers. The mark on her wrist opened like an ink-dark eye. Threads of witch magic and fairy light twisted around each other, tightening from her palm to her elbow.

The collapsed gate buckled above her.

“Mara!”

The voice came from beyond the trees.

A warden.

Lantern light flickered between the trunks.

Mara looked at the charm lying inches away. The fairy sentries were closing in. The warden patrol was entering the grove. The sigil had fused to her skin, its edges sinking beneath the flesh.

She could leave it.

She could run and let both sides tear the grove apart searching for what she had touched.

Then she saw Elian’s broken moth shining in the mud.

Mara lunged.

The nearest fairy struck her shoulder. Cold burst through her coat. She rolled, seized the charm, and slammed her burning palm against the ground.

The grove answered.

Every thorn tree bent at once.

Roots tore free beneath the sentries. Fairy light flared through the branches, colliding with red witch-fire from Mara’s hand. The two forces twisted together in a violent spiral. The sentries scattered, their glass wings shattering against the trunks.

The warden lanterns appeared at the edge of the hollow.

“Who’s there?” a man shouted. “Step away from the gate!”

Mara did not wait.

She ran toward the only opening left, following the red-black glow pulsing from her palm. The grove shifted around her. Paths folded over one another. Thorn walls slammed down behind her, cutting off the wardens’ voices.

“Stop!” someone yelled. “By order of the council, stop!”

Mara ducked beneath a branch and felt it rake her cheek. Blood warmed her skin. She kept running.

The exit appeared ahead, narrow and bright with moonlight.

A warden stepped into it, sword drawn.

Mara skidded to a halt.

He wore the gray cloak of the border watch, but the silver chain around his throat marked him as a witch. His gaze dropped to Mara’s hand.

The sigil glowed beneath her skin.

His face changed.

“Where did you get that?”

Mara held the charm against her chest. “Move.”

“That belongs to the council.”

“It belonged to my sister.”

“Your sister is missing.”

“I know.”

The warden lifted his sword. “Give me the sigil.”

Behind Mara, fairy voices rose among the trees. Ahead, the warden’s blade caught the moonlight.

She looked at the mark burning in her palm. It pulsed in time with the charm, as if the two objects had recognized each other.

“I don’t know how to take it off,” she said.

“Then I’ll remove the hand.”

For one terrible second, she believed he meant it.

Then the charm opened.

The silver moth unfolded against her fingers, its wings spreading into a tiny circle of white fire. A shockwave burst from it. The warden flew backward into the gatepost. The thorn walls split apart, and a flood of blue light poured through the grove.

Mara stumbled across the boundary.

The iron chain snapped behind her.

The gate collapsed with a thunderous crack, burying the path beneath a heap of black briars and white branches. The warden vanished on the other side. Fairy voices shrieked once, then fell silent.

Mara stood in the road, shaking.

The charm had folded itself closed again. Its silver wings rested against her palm.

The sigil remained beneath them.

Footsteps sounded behind her.

More lanterns approached from the road.

Mara pulled her torn sleeve over the mark, but the cloth could not hide the glow. It leaked through in thin black lines, visible against her skin.

A lantern halted several paces away.

“Mara Venn,” called a woman’s voice. “Step into the light.”

Mara turned toward the dark hills beyond the road. Her sister’s charm warmed in her hand. Behind her, the ruined grove shuddered, and blue fairy light crawled through the broken gate.

The wardens knew her name.

The fairies knew her blood.

And the stolen sigil had made certain that neither side would let her disappear.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters and about 10,009 words in the full book.