Coven

ꌃꏂꁅꀤꈤ

"Don't worry." Hyrion says to me. "You'll feel better in no time." My stomach is splitting apart, and I can only view glimpses tinged in the blur of pain as I fade in and out of consciousness.

There's something foreign and wet dripping down my legs, and the sheets under me feel mangy, soaked with sweat and smelling strangely of salt and metal.
"What's happening?" I mumble, but Hyrion shushes me. There's an alien feeling under my ribs as he presses gently on my belly. "You're cramping up. Try to relax. It'll hurt more if you think about it."

I'm trying, I'm trying so hard not to think of it, but it hurts. It hurts so much. I lurch forward as a particularly strong wave of pain overwhelms me. "URGH!" I groan as I empty the contents of last night's dinner onto the floor. A part of me registers the muffled sounds of someone banging on my chamber doors. "Mel! MEL! What's happened? Are you alright?!"

Myx.

I feel like I'm dying, Myx.

"She's alright. It's painful, becoming a woman." Hyrion says, creaking open the door and shutting it again.
"Let me in!" Myxos cries, and while I do want to see him, I look at myself, writhing in pain, vomit on the floor, bedsheets and vision soaked red, and shake my head. Hyrion seems to understand. He locks the door, and quickly shifts to my bedside, hands over my stomach, chanting.

Tendrils of blue wrap around my stomach as I feel the familiar touches of his magic comfort me. The pain lessens, but nausea overtakes, and the hurt erupts anew in my head.

"Make it go away! Make it go away!!" I scream.
"I- no...fuck!" He jolts away from me like he's been burnt. I strain to see what the hell's going on.

Wisps of smoke rise in grey tendrils from his hands.

He's actually been burnt.

By what? Did his magic backfire somehow?

I can't think properly. I sit up, somehow, and look at him, and in that moment, the look on his face scares me more than the pain does. He's staring at me, sheer terror on his face. Like I'm some kind of monster.

"W-what...?" I grunt, grabbing my stomach. "No- come back....it, it h-hurts!"

"No fucking way..." Hyrion says, his face covered by his hands, his entire body shaking with an intensity similar to mine. "I'll be killed..."

"Hyrion." I moan. I need him to heal me. I need this pain to go away.

"R-right, Your Highness." He seems to shake out of his shock, and I don't even care for an explanation, I just need his magic to heal me. "I...I have no other choice. Yes."
He stands near me again, a grim determination on his face. "Your Highness, this might hurt. You need to trust me. Is that okay?" He cups my face in his charred hands, and it's only then that I notice the tears dripping down his face. "I would NEVER hurt you." He whispers, and I nod.

He gets in position again. He begins to chant again, but it's a different chant this time. The words feel heavier, more ancient, with words and syllables sounding clumsy on his tongue as he chokes them out.

The pain increases.
"NO THIS IS WORSE!" I cry out, but he pays no attention to me. "NO- FUCK- AGH-" My body is ripping apart, being reshaped. I knew, from the stories of my handmaids, that maturing would be painful, but this- this was definitely something abnormal. I feel like something's being carved into my back.

Time passes, or does it? I cannot tell. It could have been hours, days, or a few seconds.

Perhaps I will never know.

The agony goes as suddenly as it came, leaving behind a void, an emptiness which feels like something has been ripped from me along with the torturous ache.

"Sleep now." Hyrion says.

And so I do.

I sleep.

And when I awaken, I am born anew.

What was that?

I try to remember what I'd just seen.

My first blood.

What had happened? I remember being in a mild pain, and then Hyrion healing me.

Not...all this.

Memories I don't remember experiencing flood back over me.

The same intensity of pain, the same chanting, every year, like clockwork.

And in the midst of it all, Hyrion.

What the fuck had actually happened?

"Uh. Princess."

"What?" I'm snapped out of my thoughts by Nakshatra, and only then do I realise that I'm being held up by her, my legs unnervingly weak, my body shivering. The smell of burnt skin and fabric rests heavy upon the air, but I feel oddly comfortable.

"What did you do to me?" I ask, my voice unusually raspy. Nakshatra looks to her side and it's only then do I notice my right arm being supported by the High Witch.

My right arm. "Oh my god." I whisper.

The exposed skin is marked with red, runes burned into the flesh, curling around my wrist, and disappearing into the folds of my charred sleeve near my elbow.

"You...did you fucking burn me?" I squeak. Nakshatra immediately interjects. "We didn't burn you, Princess Melrose. I believe one, or more of your royal wizards may have."
She and the High Witch slowly support me as I stumble and collapse onto the couch. "And, considering the intensity of the spell, " Nakshatra snaps her fingers, and my dress lifts itself. The scars continue, like snakes entwined on my limbs, over my legs and feet. "...This wasn't a one time affair." She pauses and nods in the direction of the High Witch, who coughs and continues. "Magic blocking rituals are painful, but they're also temporary. Repetions are required, to maintain its effect.  Judging by the marks...I'd say yearly or so."

Hyrion. The name floats through my mind.

"How do you know that's what it is?" I ask. I don't want to believe my memories.

The High Witch scoffs, and Nakshatra looks at me, a deep sadness in her eyes. "Because I've had to watch many such tortures being performed on my fellow sisters."
I'm silenced by the sorrow in her voice. They aren't lying.

For the first time in a long time, I break down and cry.

The two women head to the balcony, leaving me to cry alone.

When they head back, I've called down, but I note the concern in Nakshatra's voice as she asks me if I am alright.

For the first time, I smile at her. "I'm okay." I say.

She nods, and I think she understands. To have magic blocked in me, that would imply...

"I'm a..." The word is rough in my throat. "Witch, aren't I?"
Nakshatra nods.

I look at my scars, marks on my body which I doubt would ever get off me, and while there is pain, and betrayal lying within them, I see a new future in the faces of the two women standing in front of me.

A day ago, they were foreign, Forested Ones, far removed from my world in the palace, powerful, but also inaccessible.

Today, right now, they look at me as if I belong, as if the scars on my body are not repulsive to them as they are to me, but instead a mark of sisterhood.

Nakshatra places her hand on my shoulder.
"Welcome to the coven."