Morgan's breath rasped in her throat, her back pressed against the far wall. The guards filled the doorway, steel flashing as they advanced. Behind them, the priest's lips moved, shaping a prayer-turned-curse, his voice low and sharp.
"By the Lord's light, the Devil's spawn shall be purged."
Morgan's heart thundered. Her hands shook. She had never felt so small, so fragile, yet something else stirred beneath her skin. A restless heat. A whisper in her blood.
Do something. Now.
Her body moved before her mind caught up. She raised her trembling hands, desperate, not even knowing what she called for—only that she didn't want to die.
The air rippled. Shadows writhed.
A skittering sound filled the loft.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of shapes poured from the cracks in the walls, from the broken floorboards, from the dark corners where light faltered. Insects. Not ordinary vermin, but twisted constructs of her unstable power. Beetles with shells like shards of glass. Centipedes with too many legs, their bodies pulsing faintly. Spiders with eyes that glowed a sickly green.
The swarm erupted.
"By the—!" one guard cried, flailing as beetles crawled across his armor, biting through the gaps. Another stumbled back, swiping at the writhing mass of centipedes surging over his boots. The priest recoiled, torchlight flickering in his wide eyes as spiders dropped from the rafters, their legs clicking against his robe.
The loft became chaos. Shouts. Curses. The sickening crunch of armored men stumbling, striking out at the crawling tide.
Morgan didn't wait.
She bolted.
Her bare feet slapped against the warped boards as she darted past the distracted guards. One reached for her, but she slipped low beneath his arm, heart hammering, legs trembling with terror and adrenaline. The stench of sweat and iron filled her nose as she pushed through the stairwell, stumbling into the open street.
The night air hit her like ice.
Torches burned along the cobblestone road, citizens leaning from shuttered windows, whispering and pointing. "A witch," someone hissed. "The Devil's work."
Morgan ran.
Her lungs burned, each step sending pain lancing through her malnourished body. She ducked into a side alley, vaulted over a pile of broken crates, and pressed herself against the wall, listening.
Boots pounded behind her. Voices shouted commands.
"She went this way!"
Her chest heaved. Too slow… I'm too weak like this…
The restless heat inside her pulsed again, urging, pushing. She clenched her fists, fighting to control it, to not lose herself as Morgan once had. For a moment, the sensation steadied.
Shadows stirred at her heels, insects crawling briefly into being before dissolving into smoke. She shuddered. The power was there—wild, unstable, terrifying—but it listened, if only barely.
She forced her legs to move again.
Through twisting alleys she fled, dodging patrols, stumbling more than once in the dark. Twice she nearly fell, but instinct drove her onward. Finally, after what felt like hours though it could only have been minutes, she slipped into the ruins of an old storage cellar half-buried beneath collapsed stone.
Her hideout.
It was damp, the air stale with mold, but hidden from the streets. A hole in the wall, barely large enough for her thin body to crawl through, opened into the forgotten chamber. She slid inside, chest heaving, then dragged a broken crate across the opening.
Darkness swallowed her.
Morgan collapsed against the wall, her legs trembling too violently to hold her. Sweat plastered her hair to her face, her lungs screaming for air. She pressed a hand against her chest, as if to cage the furious beating of her heart.
The silence was deafening.
For the first time since the awakening, she was alone.
Slowly, her breathing eased, though the tremor in her limbs did not fade. Her body was exhausted—too thin, too fragile, wracked by the awakening and the frantic escape. Yet her mind churned, sharp and restless.
I transmigrated…
The thought echoed again, almost laughable in its absurdity. A man's soul, dead in his mundane world, waking in the body of a witch in Greycastle. A witch whose first awakening had killed her.
No. Killed me, he corrected. He was Morgan now. This body was his. Her.
His hand curled into a fist.
The ability—those creatures. The hound, the raven, the swarm. Animal constructs, twisted and half-real, pulled from magic like nightmares given shape. Was that truly her gift? Or was it just uncontrolled chaos?
He tried to focus, breathing slowly, imagining the crawling swarm he had unleashed. For a brief moment, he felt the pulse again—a thread connecting him to the shadows. Shapes began to writhe faintly at the edge of his vision, the outline of an insect flickering before dissolving.
Yes. The power was there.
But it was fragile. Dangerous.
And he had no idea how to control it.
Morgan leaned her head back against the damp wall, closing her eyes. The Church had seen her. There was no doubt. Word would spread. To be branded a witch in the capital was a death sentence.
Her thoughts turned, unbidden, to the story she remembered. Release That Witch. Roland, the prince who would arrive in Border Town, far from here, and begin building his kingdom of reason. He remembered the witches who became his allies, his companions.
But when was it now? Before Roland's arrival? After?
She had no way of knowing.
A wave of exhaustion washed over her. Her body slumped, drained by fear, by magic, by the frantic escape. Her eyelids grew heavy despite her desperate desire to stay awake, to plan, to think.
"No… not yet…" she murmured, but her voice was weak, slurring.
The last thing she heard before sleep claimed her was the faint tolling of a distant bell.
The Church was still searching.
And she was still alive.