The Spirit Witch | Bewitchment #1

Seven

The spell brought Charlotte to her knees.

She lost track of time after four hours. With the first incantation, a thread of magic appeared, squirming up from the stone floor.

But it wasn't silver, as Charlotte was used to. It was black. Its darkness hummed like the plucked string of an instrument.

She was nearly afraid to touch it, worried that it would contaminate her in some way as the darkness had done for that witch, rotting in the spirit realm. Or like The Endless One, pressing against her magic and her mind for his freedom.

But Charlotte grabbed that black thread of magic anyway. The shock of power snapped her head back. Her knees gave way, striking the cold stone floor with a jolt of pain.

Charlotte held on. She gathered her strength of mind against the magic trying to turn her dark.

No matter what form craft took—spirit, hedge, water, or fire—there was always a shiver lurking underneath it, waiting to control those who wielded it. Most witches hardly noticed. It became nothing but a chattering little voice, stowed away and ignored if the witch knew how to manage her craft well.

For the rare few who faltered, magic bit down and controlled them in turn. A backwards state of affairs that resulted in a witch who destroyed, burned, tore apart, and drowned everything in her path.

Now that Charlotte had taken hold of another form of craft that wasn't her own, that she hadn't been familiar with since a young age, she felt the pull, the seductive whisper teasing and taunting her.

You could be far more powerful than you allow yourself to be.

Let go. You're holding too tight. Control isn't needed. Let yourself feel the magic burn in you. Burn everything. Burn.

Charlotte gritted her teeth and pushed the voice aside. She started over, focused on the incantation, shutting everything else out. The words weren't quite right. She couldn't read the language, but she could make an educated guess from the sketches.

Witchcraft tended to be exact, based on tried and true knowledge. Approximations were dangerous, producing a spell far off the mark, mangled beyond recognition or discipline.

But an approximation was all she had to go on.

She already knew she wouldn't succeed, not on the first try. She simply needed to get close, to see if she could feel some change, a tiny ripple of fear from The Endless One. That would be enough to tell her she had found the right direction.

Charlotte conjured another black thread, this one from the stone wall of Laeves Keep. Stone. Rock. Dirt. All variances of earth craft. The grit of it was strange to feel, rasping in her veins, scratching at her fingertips as she summoned it.

Spirit craft was smooth, silky, and feathery light. It was a joy to work with, so long as she wasn't encountering wayward or violent spirits who didn't wish to speak with her, no matter how she entreated them to cooperate and find peace.

Charlotte managed to balance the pull of the second string much better. But she was only two pages into the text.

The spell required over fifteen threads of magic, spun from earth, stone, trees, and sky. All the while, she had to maintain the incantation without faltering or stumbling—a low, mumbling chant that rose to a grand crescendo with each page she turned.

When fifteen threads of foreign magic were twined around Charlotte's fingers, tangling up her arms, the building pressure was making it hard to breathe, each gasp of air she pulled in a rough, rattling wheeze. Sweat was streaming down her spine, soaking her clothes to a chilled dampness.