Sagar moved through the night with the ease of a shadow, unseen and unfelt by mortal eyes. The land was restless beneath his feet, the magic of the witches still humming faintly in the soil. He let his senses drift, searching for that singular note of defiance he'd felt in the circle—a spark that refused to be smothered by fear.
He found it in Maelis.
She lay awake, clutching the black feather, her mind a storm of questions and forbidden wonder. Sagar watched her from beyond the veil of the mundane, not as a ghost or a god, but as something older and far less defined. Her curiosity called to him, a melody in a world too often ruled by dread.
He admired boldness. It was rare among mortals, especially those who had glimpsed the true face of chaos. Most recoiled, desperate to forget. But Maelis—she leaned forward, daring the darkness to answer.
Sagar let a sliver of his presence slip through the cracks between worlds. The shadows in Maelis's tent deepened, the air turning cool and charged. She sat up, eyes wide, as if she could sense him watching.
He considered revealing more—a whisper, a vision, a dream of power. But he was chaos incarnate, and chaos did not give without cost. Instead, he let the feather in her hand grow warmer, a subtle pulse of energy thrumming in time with her heartbeat. A promise. An invitation.
"Let's see what you do with this, little witch," Sagar murmured, his voice lost to the wind.
He turned his gaze outward, feeling the coven's magic ripple through the countryside. Their warnings were spreading—runes carved in hidden places, stories whispered in the dark. Fear would follow, but so would fascination. And where fascination grew, so too did the seeds of change.
Sagar smiled. He had seen this pattern before: the bold inspiring the fearful, the curious defying the cautious. It was how legends began, how chaos slipped through the cracks of order.
He moved on, leaving only a trace of himself behind—a lingering shiver, a half-remembered dream. But he would be watching. Maelis had caught his interest, and that was never a simple thing.
The world was shifting, and Sagar, eternal and unpredictable, was eager to see just how far one spark could travel in the dark.