Witch Vera

Kael had taken perhaps a dozen steps out a passage that lead out of the collapsing tomb when he felt the explosion.

The blast wave struck from above like the hammer of an angry god, sending tremors through walls.

The force of it drove him to his knees, his wrapped hand pressed against the black stone floor as debris rained down around him.

But this wasn't the gradual collapse he'd been feeling, this was the blast from an angry witch.

"Seraphina." Kael said.

The fire witch had lost control of her magic up there in the excavation site, and now her power was ripping through the tunnel system.

He could smell the acrid smoke filtering down through cracks in the stone, could hear the distant screams of men who were dying because a witch couldn't contain her temper.

The sound of those voices—familiar voices, men he'd worked alongside for years—ignited something deep in his chest. Marcus, frozen to death for trying to feed his pregnant sister. Willem's brother, burned alive for dropping a cart of ore. Thomas, the young slave who'd been so worried about the ancient symbols in the tunnels.

And now seventeen more, dead or dying because witches saw them as expendable tools rather than human beings.

The rage that had been simmering in his chest for twenty-three years suddenly boiled over, fed by the fresh injustice echoing down from above.

Every beating he'd endured, every casual cruelty he'd witnessed, every moment of being treated like livestock instead of a human being—all of it formed into a single moment of pure, incandescent hatred.

The Calamity Crest blazed to life beneath its makeshift bandage.

Pain exploded through his body as energy he didn't understand erupted from the mark on his palm.

The sensation was like being struck by lightning while drowning simultaneously—agony beyond description that somehow felt right, as if his body had been waiting his entire life for this moment.

His vision went white, then black, then fully red.

Crimson light poured from his hands and eyes, bathing the collapsing the cave in a bloody radiance.

The illumination was wrong somehow—too bright, too pure. When the light touched the walls, the stone began to respond.

The walls began to crack. The fractures spread outward from where he knelt.

"What's happening to me?!" Kael screamed.

The thought barely had time to form before the stone above him gave way entirely. But instead of being crushed by tons of falling debris, Kael felt himself being pulled upward.

The crimson energy wrapped around him like protective armor, creating a bubble in the midst of collapsing cave.

He rose through the chaos, following the cracked patterns his power had carved through solid rock.

As he ascended, carried by currents of chaotic force, he caught glimpses of the destruction Seraphina's explosion had wrought throughout the tunnel.

Entire sections had been vaporized, leaving behind smooth-walled caverns lined with glass where the fire magic had melted stone.

Bodies lay scattered throughout the passages—some burned beyond recognition, others crushed by falling debris, all of them a testament to the casual disregard witches showed for men.

The sight fed the rage burning in his chest, and the crimson energy responded by growing stronger.

The cracks in the stone widened, creating a spiral pathway that rose toward the surface like a staircase.

He passed through sections of the mine complex he'd never seen before—storage chambers filled with magical equipment, workshops where bonded craftsmen had been laboring on projects, living quarters for overseers who'd been caught in the blast.

All of it destroyed. All of it meaningless in the face of one witch's uncontrolled fury.

The journey felt like it lasted hours and seconds simultaneously. One moment he was surrounded by the familiar confines of underground tunnels, the next he was erupting from the ground like a crimson comet, gasping and covered in rock dust as he collapsed onto the ruined surface of what had once been the excavation site.

The silence that greeted him was deafening.

Where once there had been the constant noise of a mining operation—the ring of pickaxes against stone, the creak of rope and pulley systems, the low murmur of conversation between work crews—now there was only the occasional groan of settling debris and the distant crackle of fires that still burned in the deeper tunnels.

Kael pushed himself to his knees, his entire body shaking from whatever had just happened to him.

The strange energy was gone now, leaving behind only the memory of power and a palm that throbbed with residual heat.

The Calamity Crest was hidden again beneath torn cloth and dried blood, but he could feel it pulsing like a second heartbeat, as if something alive had taken up residence in his body.

Around him, the excavation site lay in ruins from magic unleashed without restraint. The wooden platforms that had connected different levels of the dig were now twisted sculptures of charred timber and melted metal.

Mining equipment lay scattered across the crater like toys discarded by an angry child, some pieces fused together.

And the bodies...

Kael forced himself to look, though every instinct screamed at him to turn away.

Some of the corpses were recognizable—Garrett, the older slave who'd worried about the strange sounds in the tunnels, his weathered face frozen in an expression of terminal surprise.

Others were so badly burned that they could have been anyone, reduced to the price of serving witches.

"Did I do this?" Kael asked.

The thought was terrifying, but as he studied the destruction more carefully, he began to see the truth.

The blast patterns were wrong for the kind of force he'd experienced. The melted stone, the burn marks on the walls, the way the metal equipment had been twisted by heat rather than impact—this was fire magic, Seraphina's magic, that had torn through the tunnel system.

His own... whatever it had been... had simply carved a path through the chaos. The cracks in the stone were clean and precise. They looked almost like artwork.

"Gods preserve us," came a voice from behind him. "How are you alive?"

Kael turned to see a woman in brown robes climbing down from a makeshift rope bridge that connected two stable sections of the tunnel complex. She moved with carefully, her hands glowing with soft earth magic that helped stabilize the treacherous footing beneath her feet.

She was older than most of the witches he'd encountered, with dark hair and brown eyes that held an unexpected warmth.

A glowing pattern of intertwined vines and mountain peaks covered most of her left forearm—a witch's crest, marking her as a member of the Earth Coven.

But unlike every other witch he'd ever seen, she approached him with something that looked almost like concern.

"I..." Kael began, then stopped. How could he explain what had happened when he didn't understand it himself? The mark on his palm, the crimson energy, being sent down there because of Seraphina.

None of it made sense according to anything he knew about how the world worked.

"Don't try to talk yet," the witch said quickly, mistaking his confusion for shock. "You've been through something no human should survive. The magical feedback from whatever exploded down there..."

She shook her head, her expression troubled. "I've never felt anything like it."

She knelt beside him, and Kael tensed, expecting the familiar crushing weight of magical authority to press down on him. But nothing happened. Her power felt... distant. Present, but somehow unable to focus on him directly.

"Incredible," she murmured, her hands hovering over his body as she attempted some kind of examination. "You should have massive internal injuries, broken bones, magical burns. But your life force is actually stronger than it should be for someone who's been working the deep mines."

She paused, studying his face with growing confusion. "How long have you been assigned to this excavation?"

"Five years," Kael lied smoothly, knowing that telling the truth would raise uncomfortable questions about his survival.

"Five years in the deep sections and you're healthier than men half your age who work the surface operations." Vera's brow furrowed as she continued her magical examination. "There's something very unusual here."

You have no idea, Kael thought, but he kept his expression neutral. "What happened to the others?"

The witch's face fell, and she gestured toward the ruined excavation site. "Seventeen dead, six injured badly enough that they might not make it through the night. You're the only one who was working the deep section when everything went wrong."

"And Witch Seraphina?" Kael asked.

"Alive, but barely. Whatever magical feedback she triggered when she tried to force her way through that structure nearly killed her. She's been unconscious for over an hour."

The witch's voice sounded like personal distaste. "When she wakes up, she's going to want someone to blame for this disaster."

A cold knot formed in Kael's stomach. As the sole survivor, he would be the obvious target for Seraphina's rage. Unless he could find a way to redirect her attention.

"What do you think caused it?" he asked carefully.

The earth witch stood and walked to the edge of the crater, studying the destruction with expert eyes.

"The structure we were excavating was pre-coven, possibly pre-civilization. My theory is that Seraphina's fire magic interacted catastrophically with some type of magic."

She gestured at the twisted debris. "This looks like what happens when someone tries to break into a vault that actively resists intrusion."

It was a perfect cover story, Kael realized. The explosion, the collapsed tunnels, even his miraculous survival could all be explained by ancient magical defenses responding to Seraphina's assault.

"I'm Vera, by the way. Earth Coven." The witch turned back to him. "What's your name?"

"Kael."

"Well, Kael, you're either impossibly lucky or..." She studied him with an unreadable expression. "Let's get you to the medical station. You need examination for magical contamination."

As she helped him to his feet, Kael became aware that something had changed. The oppressive weight of Vera's magical presence, which should have made his knees buckle with terror, was completely absent.

Her magic seemed unable to properly focus on him.

"What am I becoming?" he wondered as they walked toward the tunnel entrance. "And how long can I hide it?"

The natural order of things was about to change, one heartbeat at a time.