The Colour Between | ONC2026

Chapter One: The Witch

White.

The colour that haunted me my entire life.

White, like the linen on my narrow bed. Like the plates we dined from each evening in brief council. Like the bones polished by the sea east of the castle.

White, like my aura.

I saw it every time I passed a reflective surface, marking me as incompetent, lesser, unworthy, unneeded, and yet making me look like a newborn star.

I was the greatest disappointment the Lascaux clan had seen in generations. A witch with a passive power. A warrior's shame. And, as fate would have it, the Matriarch's only daughter.

For hundreds of years, my ancestors had led our people in a never-ending war against the Zealots, generations of bloodied women fighting to reclaim our homeland. And here I was, seeing rainbows where others saw only weapons.

I made my way into the council chamber, carved from pale stone and old victories.

Every surface gleamed. Polished floors and grey banners. Long tables scrubbed to bone-bright perfection. Even the air felt bleached, stripped of warmth, as if colour itself were considered an indulgence unfit for war.

I took my place where I had been told to stand, behind my mother's chair. Half a step back. Not hidden, but not invited.

True Sight bled through me whether I wished it or not.

Red flickered along the wrists of the blood witches seated closest to the Matriarch. Not out of honour, but out of caution. Their auras were thick and pulsing, as if they could reach beneath skin and command what flowed there. They were the rarest among us. The most feared. Too volatile to lead. Too valuable to dismiss.

Blue shimmered higher in the chamber, and mind witches gathered in quiet clusters beneath the vaulted ceiling. Their illusions did not merely bend light. They bent perception. They mapped the terrain before a battle began. They decided wars before the first spark of fire was cast. Most Matriarchs in our history had worn blue.

Yellow burned sharp and impatient along the outer rows, the warriors restless as wildfire waiting for wind. Their magic was simple and vast. Fire. Only fire. But in quantities that turned cities into memory. They were the first of our people.

Green threaded itself through the chamber's stone seams, subtle and steady. Nature witches strong and enduring. Their power crept, healed, strangled, fortified. Slower than flame, but far harder to extinguish.

And then there was me.

A pause settled after the Matriarch finished her opening speech, the kind that invited dissent under the guise of discussion.

I stepped forward and placed the war mat before her.

"May I suggest we approach from the west. The weather will be favourable, and we may conceal our presence long enough to strike fast." I said with conviction.

My voice sounded small anyway.

One of the fire witches, Agness, the next chosen leader of our clan, leaned back in her chair, boots propped carelessly against the table's edge. She was striking, with her short red curls and scarred knuckles, a yellow aura flaring just enough to announce confidence.

"We are preparing for a siege," she said, her voice carrying easily. "Not contemplation."

Her gaze slid toward me, open and deliberate.

"With respect," she continued, smiling thinly, "perhaps the Matriarch would do better to keep her daughter out of these councils. Sight is a luxury, and strength is what keeps us alive."