The Seventh Secret

Chapter 17: The Witch Mother

Rhiassa Greer was the leader of the Grearciel clan, the only witch clan that survived the purging of the witches that happened after the death of Lucrezia Grendel many years ago. Lucrezia was the leader of that clan; the clan lived in the castle in the Juroph Mountains until Garbur Greywyn killed Lucrezia and her clan was destroyed. Rhiassa (who succeeded Lucrezia) led the surviving witches to the Darkwood Forest, where they made the place their home and survived the purging of the witches.

The Grearciel clan hid in the forest for many years while the humans arrived in Ostlea and turned a weak primitive land into a huge empire. While the empire flourished under the Earthchaser rule, the clan began to decline. Rhiassa had forbidden the clan to leave the forest and steal deformed children; in fact, she preferred to use her powers to lure unsuspecting humans into the woods. In fact, the deformed children were allowed to live (since human laws had forbade the killing of children or handing them to witches) and deformed children quickly spread all over the empire.

Rhiassa was angry to see so many deformed people living in Ostlea; she wrote letters to the Earthchaser kings, begging them to get rid of the deformed people or else their reign would come to a terrible end. But the kings refused to heed her warnings; the elves and witches quickly destroyed the Earthchaser family and the empire.

Out of the survivors, only 100 or so of them remained, as they began dying out or becoming part of nature. There were witches forced to marry human orphans, which also hastened the decline of the witch clan. At one point, wizards and witches had mated and their children received powers from both parents, but very few of them chose to marry and have children, as they lived longer lives than the average human, who often lived to be over 100 years old.

Rhiassa frowned as she watched her clan being infiltrated by elves, dwarves, and humans who had fled their homes following the fall of the Earthchaser Empire and the rise of the Silverheart family. Most refugees had married into the clan, which made the decline worse. While all the girls in the clan and those who were born in Darkanta were witches, there was a growing population of boy witches living in Darkanta as well. Many of the older witches didn't want the boys to be taught magic and tried to remove the magic from the boys, but the magic returned stronger than ever.

At this point, Rhiassa was sitting in the den of her palace pondering her next move. She was already upset that several human girls throughout Ostlea had received her name and she had to find them and change their name to a flower name, such as Pansy, Daisy, or Lily. She also didn't forgive Salvatore Benat for taking her students Kyler Dawn and Rista Blueflame as wards of Greywyn after a witch had tried (and failed) to infiltrate the school and find the secret library, and she never failed to let him know that.

Now, she heard from her students that the school had bestowed the name Rhiassa upon an orphan human girl named Elva Shepherd, but they quickly changed her name to Poppy before the effect of the name got to her. She shook her head, knowing that she and Salvatore were overdue for another long chat.

She picked up her leaf phone and dialed Salvatore. The elf was sitting at his desk in the Greeting Room, going over the notebooks the children wrote in when they first came to Greywyn. He sighed, knowing that somehow, Rhiassa Greer would be angry with him as far as the girl Poppy was concerned.

He picked up his oak phone and said, "I take it you've called to complain about the girls...again."

"Well, not this time," said Rhiassa. "But I'm calling to inquire about the girl named Rhiassa Twilight. What have I told you about giving humans my name?"

"This time, it wasn't me," said Salvatore. "In fact, it was the students who did this. You can take it up with Skefan if you wish to complain to someone about her name."