Seven Witches

eleven

Cythera knew in the same moment she saw Gaia that she was going to die.

"The saints gave birth to us the Seven Witches as a gift to mankind, beautiful women with the gifts of gods." Gaia said that day. "Man was ungrateful, killed those gifts every time the saints sent them until one day the saints grew tired of mankind and decided to use those gifts to doom them.

"I have been living for eight hundred years my golden rose, I have lived through every civilisation possible, watched each one either kill or worship us witches. The ones who worshipped us wept when we died, the ones who hated us cheered when we were killed.

"The saints blessed who loved us and cursed who did not. Those who were cursed all perished, the saints ordering the witches to use those gifts to bestow the punishment on mankind. All seven of us waltzing with demons and songs and illusions, a destructive form of nature.

"I have seen it happen seven times now, have been part of it seven times even when I tried to warn the people. Do you really think that little boy behind you or his father were capable of locking me? Did you really think I couldn't escape when I wanted?

"I locked myself here a hundred and fifty years ago, hoping to stop myself from fulfilling the saints' wishes but that had not worked. There is no stopping us, even if we wanted to, we can only obey or die.

Cythera was listening and not listening. "All will die?" she asked. "Even the innocent?"

"Everyone my golden rose, even the innocent."

Cythera looked at her feet thinking of what she was requesting, to get all her six sisters so that Gaia could end them all for once. "Witches can't hurt each other."

"I am the mother of all witches, I am only capable of ending what I started." Gaia looked at her hands as if she could see the blood of the seven civilizations she ended. "In the great sea above lies destiny, all you have is now."

Now Cythera was numbly walking behind the Tsar outside Gaia's room, minutes stretched into hours and hours into days and she was going to die.

She did not want to die but it was either seven lives or seven hundred thousand. The choice was as clear as daylight, kill or get killed. "Come on Aphrodite,"

She blinked, noticing that they were right in front of the Tsar's office. Somehow she always ended up being there and then leaving it enraged or annoyed, or both. The two walked into the office and she explained Gaia's words which was eerie because she herself did not understand.

When people spoke of Russia, they always mention three things: the snow, its power, and the stories webbed into the stones of the empire. Despite the existence of the Seven Witches, they were not the most magical thing about this ancient place. It was the people and the hardships they went through and every pebble that held on during every foreigner that stepped into Russia and bled from its walls.

For this magical place, for these sick and tired people, for the terribly cold snow and the men and women in the streets, Cythera was going to fight, with blood and bones and all the magic in her veins.

Perhaps when all this is over, the saints would receive her and repay her for all her sacrifices. When she would sit before them, she already knew what she'd ask for. Cythera would ask the saints to protect Russia and Hera.

"Will you even be capable of finding them? I have had my soldiers on the hunt for years." Vladimir unbuttoned two of the pins on his white shirt, hair unbound and falling over his face like water waves.