prologue; long live the high witch
The High Witch is dead.
Amaru stilled when the news reached her. It was not the sound of knuckles on wood, an announcement of a visitor. Neither was it the obnoxious ring of the phone her mother spent too much time on.
No, the news arrived in the middle of the night. Silently and mercilessly. It reached inside her and plucked the magic from her heart without warning.
The young witch's eyes had snapped open. Her body exited her bed with haste, the thick quilt she cocooned herself with falling to the floor. Her bare feet had rushed across the cold floor down the hall to her parent's room. Their door flew open under her swift movements, and she found them awake. Wide-eyed and panic stricken. They too had been intruded on.
The coven met up that same hour. Something this important could not wait until daylight. They all piled inside the High Witch's Manor, each of them eager to catch a glimpse of their leader and confirm what had already been made apparent.
Amaru remained in a corner in the living room. She did not care to learn the High Witch's manner of death. He was dead and he took with him their power. The coven would not tolerate that for long. They would lay him to rest, yes, but the return of their power would be the only thing on their minds.
That was why her brain filled with the anxiety-ridden feeling deep in her gut. The fall of one High Witch meant the rise of another. She was sixteen, a number of importance to the coven of death.
The only eligible age for The Collector's Ritual.
Amaru's eyes had bounced around the room as the situation became more and more real. Whispers of the High Witch's self-inflicted wound floated through the manor, but she did not have time to dwell on the weird fact that the High Witch before this one also caused her own death. Not when her mother emerged from the crowd with a grim look on her face, justifying her anxiousness.
Her father followed behind his wife. His face was hard like he was forcing himself to hide whatever emotions he was experiencing. He had placed his hand on her back and she could feel it shake through the fabric of her coat as he ushered her out of the large house.
The girl's gaze traveled up to the side of his face. She stared at him long enough for him to recognize her silent plea for information. It was a short moment when he eventually looked down at her, at most containing a couple fleeting seconds, but the time did not do justice to the gravity of words passed through them.
She was to die soon. That or she would become death.
"Get up."
Amaru's eyes fluttered open at the sound of her father's voice. His breathing was weighed down by the exertion of repeated sparring matches, as was hers. She ignored him because of this. Her squinted gaze remained on the harsh light of the sun that brought forth most of the sweat that rolled down her temples, and her back remained on the grassy terrain beneath her.
She needed to catch her breath, to restore her energy. Her father should know this. Except he did not, and if he did, he did not care.
His impatience was heard through a long sigh he made sure her ears picked up. "Amaru," he warned. There was a certain amount of pressure in his tone that nearly persuaded her to stand up, but she was too tired to satisfy him.
