The capital of Greycastle never truly slept.
By day, its markets roared with noise—merchants calling out wares, carts rattling over cobblestones, beggars chasing scraps. But by night, the city changed. The respectable folk barred their shutters and kept their lamps burning low, while the alleys belonged to shadows and the people too poor to be noticed.
Morgan belonged to the shadows.
She was seventeen, though hunger and hardship had carved her features leaner, sharper, making her look both younger and older at once. Her hair hung unkempt about her face, and her hands bore calluses from odd jobs done for coins that barely kept her fed. She had no home, not truly—just whatever place kept the rain off her head. Tonight it was an abandoned loft above a cobbler's shop, its roof half-collapsed, walls drafty, but for now, it was enough.
She sat on the floor, knees drawn to her chest, listening to the muffled rhythm of the city. Somewhere nearby a dog barked. Somewhere farther, drunken voices sang in slurred tones before trailing into laughter. Morgan's stomach growled, but she ignored it. Hunger was nothing new.
What was new was the strange sensation gnawing at her insides.
It had started the day before—an odd heat that pulsed beneath her skin, as if she had swallowed embers. By dusk, it had worsened into waves of nausea and pounding headaches. Now, in the dark of night, it grew unbearable.
Her breath came in ragged gasps. Sweat dripped down her temple, cold against her fevered skin.
"What's happening to me…?" she whispered, pressing a trembling hand against her chest.
The stories clawed at her mind. Cursed tales whispered in taverns and markets—of girls stricken by the Devil's power when they came of age, of monsters born from within them. Witches.
Morgan's heart hammered. She had seen what happened when the Church found a witch. Public pyres. Screams swallowed by fire. The stench of burning flesh.
"No… not me… please…"
Her voice broke, though no one was there to hear it.
The pain in her chest ignited into fire. Her body convulsed, jerking violently as something unseen surged outward. The air around her thickened, vibrating with invisible force.
Cracks splintered the rotting floorboards beneath her.
From the corners of the loft, shadows writhed—stretching, twisting, condensing into shapes that had no place in the mortal world. An eyeless hound, its skin stretched too thin across its bones. A raven with wings like jagged knives. A serpent made of smoke, its coils vanishing into nothingness before reappearing.
Morgan's eyes widened in horror.
"No… stop… please—"
Her words dissolved into a scream as blood spilled from her lips. The constructs screeched and thrashed, their forms unstable, collapsing and reforming as if the world itself rejected them. Windows shattered, shards raining into the alley below. Distant shouts rose as neighbors stirred, torches being lit.
Morgan's vision blurred. She felt her body weaken, every muscle trembling, her veins aflame. The energy inside her raged uncontrollably, too vast for her fragile frame.
*I can't… I can't hold it…*
Her last breath left her lips in a broken whisper.
The world went dark.
---
Silence.
Then—awareness.
Not hers.
The void gave way to sensation: cold stone beneath his cheek, the sting of blood in his mouth, the weight of exhaustion pressing down like chains.
A man—or what had once been a man—opened his eyes. His vision swam before sharpening into the ruined loft, moonlight streaming through the holes in the roof.
"What…?" His voice cracked, high-pitched, unfamiliar.
He froze. The voice wasn't his. The hands trembling before him weren't his either—too small, too thin, the nails cracked from neglect.
Memories not his own poured into his mind. A girl named Morgan. Seventeen. Orphan. The streets of Greycastle her only home. Her last moments—pain, terror, the explosion of magic that had torn her apart.
He staggered back, clutching his head as two lifetimes warred within him. His own memories were mundane: alarm clocks, commutes, bills, nights spent reading novels to escape the monotony of life. A forgettable man in a forgettable world. Until death had come—quiet, sudden, merciful.
And now… this.
"I transmigrated?"
The thought struck like lightning. He had read stories of it, countless ones, but never dreamed it could happen. Yet here he was, in a body that wasn't his, in a world that felt too vivid, too raw to be anything but real.
His gaze fell on the warped shadows writhing nearby—the remnants of Morgan's magic. They pulsed faintly before collapsing into nothingness, leaving only the echo of their presence.
Witch. The word rose unbidden in his mind.
And then another: Greycastle.
His breath caught. He knew that name.
*Release That Witch.*
He had read it—binged it, even, long nights stolen from sleep to follow the story of a transmigrator who became a prince, who built an empire through reason and invention. He remembered the witches, cursed and hunted by the Church, their powers awakening in pain and fire.
And if he was in Greycastle… if he was a witch…
"No way…" His hands shook.
A noise outside jolted him from his spiraling thoughts. Shouts. The clatter of boots against stone.
"There! Up there!"
His blood ran cold. Torchlight flared in the street, shadows dancing through the shattered window. The creak of armor, the sharp bark of orders.
The Church.
His heart pounded. Of course they would come. A magical outburst like that couldn't go unnoticed in the heart of the capital.
He scrambled to his feet, swaying on unsteady legs. The body felt frail, malnourished, drained from the awakening. He could barely stand, let alone fight.
*Think, think…*
But there was no time. The door below crashed open, boots thundering on the stairs.
"She's here! The witch is here!"
The man-turned-girl—Morgan, now and forever—froze as light spilled into the loft, blinding her. Armored guards surged inside, swords gleaming, followed by a robed figure bearing the insignia of the Church.
The priest's eyes locked onto her, cold and triumphant.
"Seize the witch."
Morgan's breath caught in her throat.