Daughter of a Witch

Embers of Reunion

The campfire crackling played like a familiar melody to Agatha, almost a comfort in this place so drenched in strangeness and fear. Each flicker of flame threw shadows across the faces around her. It was her coven now — her last, desperate family — and she found herself clinging to them, in secret, with a fierce and aching loyalty. This road, meant to be her path of survival and revenge, was beginning to feel like something more. As the others joked and shared stories, Agatha's attention wandered to Rio, the person who had been her soul's twin and her curse.

"Are you even listening to me?" Agatha jerked her head to the left, noticing Rio's calm, unwavering gaze. Always, that face of marble and dark fire. Always, that familiar way Rio looked at her, even as everything else seemed to fall apart around them.

"Just... a little lost in thought," Agatha mumbled, her fingers absently twisting the delicate flower Rio had handed her just days before. The flower was a rare thing on the Witch's Road, soft and violet, an echo of the color that had once filled the world they'd shared. The color of love she didn't want to feel, the hurt she couldn't forget. She forced her gaze away from the firelight to the stars, the tiny fragments of heaven, as if that could stop the memories from rushing in.

Jen, one of the witches in their mismatched coven, chimed in. "I don't know if it's just me, but it's starting to feel like this group might just make it out of here."

Lilia laughed in agreement, and Agatha chuckled too, unable to silence the pang in her chest. Would they make it? She dared not hope. Rio, Death herself, seemed too pleased with Agatha's rare, honest laughter, but Agatha felt herself hardening once again, unwilling to give anything away.

The talk moved to stories of bravery and wit. Finally, they reached Agatha, who reluctantly felt eyes all around her, expectant, warm, yet unknowingly on edge from her closeness to Rio. She indulged them with a cryptic tale, sharing just enough to let them know she'd been fighting long before they'd ever heard of her.

Rio's calm, cold voice cut in, smoothly diverting the focus with a story of her own. "I have a scar," she murmured, so quiet it was almost lost in the crackling fire. She looked straight at Agatha, a shadow of grief glinting in her dark eyes.

"No, you don't," Agatha responded through clenched teeth, but Rio's expression didn't change. It was like watching an old wound reopen, one neither of them had dared to touch.

The words came out slowly, painfully. "A long time ago, I loved somebody... and had to do something I didn't want to do." She looked at Agatha, her gaze as steady and consuming as always. "But it was my job." Her voice softened. "She is my scar."

The camp fell quiet, and the weight of that unspoken truth, thick with everything they couldn't say, hung in the air. Agatha couldn't bear it. She abruptly stood, throwing an awkward smile at the others, her way of dismissing their attention. "Taking a walk," she muttered, storming off into the night before anyone could react.

She could hear the faint rustling of leaves as Rio followed, that unnerving sound of silence in her footsteps. When Agatha stopped, Rio was there, watching her, unshakable as death itself.

"What, exactly, do you want from me?" Agatha spat, half-angry, half-broken. Her pulse pounded in her ears.

"Nothing," Rio answered simply. Her expression betrayed none of the torment she felt beneath her cold exterior. But her hand reached out, fingertips brushing lightly over Agatha's arm. The touch was like fire against her skin, igniting memories she'd tried so hard to bury. Agatha wanted to scream and cry, to say all the things she'd left unsaid.

Instead, she found herself leaning into Rio's touch, the warmth and intimacy of the moment crackling through her until she couldn't tell if it was love or hate pulsing in her veins. They kissed — a slow, agonizing kiss, each one trying to hold onto something lost, each one silently pleading to be forgiven.