The Witch of Bone

Rosaline's POV

The world beyond the curtain wasn't a room.

It was a place that had been forgotten by the laws of architecture and reality.

There were no walls, only arches made of twisting roots and hanging moss, their ends vanishing into smoke. The floor was damp stone, but it hummed underfoot, as though something buried beneath was breathing.

Candles floated midair in bowls of black water, burning in shades of blue, violet, and green. Each flame whispered. Some wept. One screamed quietly, on a loop.

I didn't know what language they spoke.

But my blood recognized it.

Books lay open in piles, their pages blank on first glance but shimmering with runes when I passed. There were jars on high shelves filled with strange things: knotted hair that moved on its own, bones wrapped in red thread, and tiny glass phials with liquid stars inside.

It was terrifying. And beautiful.

And at the back, at the very center of the woven chamber—

She sat.

Maera.

She looked both young and old. Her face was smooth, but her eyes had the depth of crushed centuries. Her hair was thick and long, black threaded with vines and thorns. She wore no shoes, just a robe of moss-colored silk, one side slipping off her shoulder to reveal skin that shimmered with faint tattoos that moved.

Her eyes were blind. Entirely white.

But when they turned to me, I felt seen for the first time in weeks.

"So," she said, her voice like wind moving through a wet forest. "The last flame arrives."

I didn't speak.

She tilted her head, listening to the silence between us.

Then: "You wear the Saint's touch around your neck, girl. That's not something that comes without consequence."

My hand flew to the pendant instinctively.

"You know him?" I asked.

She laughed. Low. Not cruel. But sad.

"Know him? I helped bind him."

I moved closer, instinctively wary, but unable to stop. The deeper I stepped into her circle of candles, the more the world behind me seemed to dissolve. The alley. The city. Even Adam's voice in my memory faded to a dull echo.

"You're not surprised I came," I said.

"Of course not," she replied. "I called you."

I froze. "What?"

"I've been seeding your dreams for weeks. Whispering through the veil. Pushing you here."

"The Saint—"

"The Saint found you first. But I helped him reach."

She leaned forward, and for a moment, the blind eyes blinked once, slow and deliberate.

"I didn't think you'd come this soon," she added. "But the mirror cracked, didn't it?"

I nodded once.

Her smile widened.

"Then the fifth is stirring."

Maera stood slowly, her robes dragging across the stone like moss brushing bone. The candles leaned toward her as she moved as if pulled by breath, not flame.

She motioned for me to sit across from her on the stone platform that had risen silently from the floor. A shallow bowl rested at its center, carved from obsidian, veined with silver cracks. The inside glistened faintly.

"I can take you back," she said, "but only if you're willing to bleed."

"I already have," I muttered.

She gave a slow smile. "Then you'll know how to survive it."

I knelt across from her. The platform was cold against my knees. Maera pulled a thorned dagger from the folds of her sleeve—not metal, but bone carved into a wicked curve.

She didn't offer it. She didn't ask.

She simply took my hand and sliced across the palm.

The pain was clean and fast.

Blood dripped into the bowl. The pendant flared once.

And the air shifted.

She cut her own palm next, letting her blood mix with mine. It hissed when the drops collided—glowing briefly gold.

Maera chanted low under her breath, words in a tongue that made my ears ache.

The air thickened. The walls pulsed like lungs.

"You will see her," she said. "But you will feel everything she felt. You will not just observe. You will become."

I nodded, heart pounding.

She pressed two fingers to my forehead.

And the world—

Burned.

It wasn't a dream.

It wasn't even a memory.

I was inside her.

But "her" was also me. A deeper, rawer version unburdened by shame, untethered by doubt. A being that had never once apologized for her existence.

I felt her breath fill my lungs hot, sharp, and tasting of smoke and starlight. The weight on my head wasn't a crown in any mortal sense, but a halo of light forged from celestial screams. A circlet made of dying suns and broken promises.

The robe that dragged behind me was thick and impossibly long, stitched not from cloth but from chains and black banners soaked in blood. It whispered with every step.

Not my enemies' blood.

Not strangers'.

My own people's.

And I had spilled it without hesitation.

The land around me was ash.

Miles of it. Endless, scorched, silent.

Mountains rose in the distance, but their peaks had been cleaved, sliced open like bone under divine fire. Rivers glowed crimson where water once ran. The sky above had cracked in three directions, stars bleeding through the seams like wounds refusing to close.

The moon hung high and full. But it was bleeding.

And it bled in the shape of an eye.

Everywhere, bodies lay in grotesque stillness—burned beyond recognition.

Human. Vampire. Celestial.

Some still wore armor. Others carried sigils I half-recognized, glyphs of houses that no longer existed.

The silence wasn't peace.

It was reverence.

I looked down at my hands.

They weren't hands anymore.

They were made of flame and bone and void. Moving, shifting fingers like blades, skin like molten stone, light breaking through cracks as if the body itself couldn't contain the power inside it.

A voice rose behind me.

Not Maera's.

Older. Male. Familiar and not.

"This is what you were."

The voice echoed in the windless air.

"This is what they fear."

I turned, and the world warped. The battlefield vanished like mist.

In its place stood a temple. Towering, ancient, wrapped in chains of silver light. Its pillars were carved with names I couldn't read but somehow knew.

This was not a place of worship.

This was a place of containment.

Inside, everything was quiet. Still.

Until he stepped forward.

The Saint.

Not veiled. Not masked.

Radiant.

His skin was pale gold, and his eyes were deep wells of sorrow and brilliance. His armor shimmered, etched with constellations I'd never seen. Wings unfolded from his back, but they were cracked, with light leaking through the fractures like stained glass splintering.

He walked slowly. And then

He knelt.

Not in submission.

Not in fear.

In love.

His head bowed. His eyes never left mine.

"You could unmake it all," he said.

"The heavens. The hell. Time itself."

He reached for my hand.

I didn't move.

"Your flame will burn us all," he whispered. "Even me."

And from somewhere deep in my chest, her chest, my voice answered.

Stronger than I'd ever spoken. Terrible and beautiful.

"Then burn."

I gasped—and fell forward.

My palms scraped hard against the stone, but I barely felt it. The impact reverberated up my arms like a thunderclap made of bone and blood. My body shook. Every breath was a knife. Cold sweat slicked my back, soaking through the thin fabric of my shirt, chilling me to the core.

The floor didn't feel solid.

The world didn't feel real.

It was like I had come back through fire—and it hadn't let go.

The pendant at my throat pulsed once.

Then again.

Hot. Not warm—scalding, like a brand pressed to skin. I clawed at the chain, but it had already seared into me. The metal throbbed with too much residual power, too fast.

I was suffocating under it.

The vision hadn't faded completely.

I could still feel her—the first Rosaline, the one born of celestial fury. She lingered like embers behind my eyes. Every blink brought flickers of memory I hadn't lived but couldn't deny.

Ash.

Chains.

A temple built to contain her—and broken by her.

That wasn't me. That couldn't have been me.

But the blood in my veins said otherwise.

Maera moved beside me—silent as a shadow—but her hand was steady as she pressed it to the center of my back. Not to comfort.

To anchor.

"Now you understand," she said softly, though her voice held no gentleness.

I shook beneath her palm, choking on the ghost of fire in my lungs.

"Who… was she?" I asked, the words barely audible through my cracked throat.

"That wasn't me."

Maera's hand didn't move.

"She was the first version of you," she said. "The raw flame. The true flame. Before mercy diluted you. Before love softened the edge."

I turned my head slightly, staring up at her through tangled hair and blurred vision.

"She destroyed everything," I whispered. "She… she burned it all."

Maera gave a slow nod. Her expression never changed.

"She was made to."

The words echoed louder than they should have. Not accused. Not excused.

Stated.

Like fate written in stone.

I tried to push myself up. My arms buckled. My bones felt hollow.

"She wasn't human," I said, still trying to deny the taste of divinity lingering on my tongue. "She wasn't even a goddess. She was something else."

"A flame born in a star womb. Carved from war. Fed on ruin," Maera replied. "No soul. Just purpose."

I sat up shakily, wiping the sweat from my brow with a trembling hand.

"Then why bring me back?" I asked, voice barely holding together. "If she was made to destroy… why reincarnate her at all?"

Maera leaned forward, her white eyes almost glowing.

"Because she never chose. She was a weapon wielded by others. You were born to decide what she never could."

That hit like a blade to the ribs.

I pressed a hand to my chest, trying to calm the rising pressure behind my sternum. But the pendant still pulsed. The air still felt wrong.

"She chose to burn everything," I said.

"No," Maera corrected, her tone sharp now. "She was told to burn everything. By kings. By saints. By lovers. You saw what she did—but not why she did it."

My lips parted—but no words came.

Because I had seen the saint kneel.

Not to conquer. Not to fight.

But to love. And fear her.

And she… had turned away.

"You carry her blood," Maera said. "But not her leash."

She reached into the folds of her robe and pulled out something that glimmered.

A shard of mirrored crystal, black and gold, shaped like a fang.

She placed it gently in my hand.

"The next time the vision comes… you may not come back whole." r

She held my gaze.

"But you must go deeper."