The day had started out pleasantly enough, bringing with it a thick fog that rose up from the valley and brushed a dewy freshness against Lenesa's face. She wiped the moisture from her skin as she hurried through the trees, shoes crunching over twigs and sending pebbles skittering away across the forest floor.

"Audeste! Ralios!" she called out, but was only met with the shifting mist and a distant laughter that echoed against the trunks of the pines around her. Lenesa spun, trying to determine the direction it came from, but the sounds faded until the only noise left was the soft creaking of branches overhead.

Lenesa's breath came out in ghostly puffs that shone in the blueish-white glow of the newly-bonded wisp beside her. After a moment of indecision, the young witch started forward again, determined to win the game they were playing. The others might be ahead of her, but she had a better understanding of plants, and could use that to her advantage in finding a silver toadstool first.

The wisp followed behind her, making a small sound that tripped upward with a questioning lilt at the end.

"This way," Lenesa replied in a voice just as low, her gaze alert as she rushed over to inspect a fallen log, then a lichen-covered rock. The mist swirled with each step she took, drawing back a few paces only to be disturbed again moments later.

As Lenesa continued her search, the looming shape of an old tree gradually became visible through the fog, tall and with a dark hollow at the base of its wide trunk. The air here was heavy with the smell of wet wood and dark moss, and the ground looked as though it had been undisturbed for quite some time.

"There!" Lenesa pointed at the hollow, feeling a thrill run through her at the discovery. "There's bound to be one in there!"

She picked up her pace, encouraged by the pale light now visibly stretching up from the darkness at the base of the tree like reversed shafts of moonlight. When she was close enough, Lenesa crouched down, heedless of what her great aunt would say about dirtying her clothes, and frowned into the gloom.

"I can't see it," she said at last. Even her wisp's light wasn't enough to see all the way down. Lenesa took a deep breath and reached her hand into the hollow, eventually lowering onto her stomach to stretch her arm as far as it could go. Her cheek pressed into the cold, damp earth, while her fingers scrabbled on loose soil and threadlike roots. Any moment now, and she would have it—

A scream pierced the air, startling a crow out of its perch in a nearby tree. Lenesa jolted upright, all thoughts of the competition forgotten as she looked around for the source of the noise. No matter how much she wished it to be, it hadn't sounded like a playful shriek of surprise.

"Audeste?" she shouted, but her voice was swallowed up by the fog.

Lenesa scrambled to her feet, heart pounding, and tried again. This time, she cupped her hands around her mouth to amplify her voice.

"Ralios?

The only answer was the disgruntled cawing of the startled crow, growing ever fainter as the bird flew away. Lenesa worried her bottom lip with her teeth, wondering what had happened. Had one of the twins sprained an ankle, or broken a bone? She should help heal the injury, but she hadn't managed to reach the toadstool yet, and might never find her way back to it if she left now.

The next scream made the decision for her.  This time, it was more than just a mixture of surprise and pain—the sound cut through the air like the violent rush of a blade, full of grief and rage. Lenesa's eyes widened. This wasn't just an injury. This was something much more dangerous.

Lenesa whirled to face her wisp. "Go get Aunt Mona," she said, and the ball of light answered with a worried hum. "I'll be fine. Hurry!"

The wisp bobbed and sped off, vanishing into the clouds of billowing white fog that lurked among the trees. Lenesa turned away, feeling her magic spark green at her fingertips. She needed to locate her cousins, in a way that the disorienting echoes bouncing off the trees and rocks never could. But she knew of no spells to shape her raw magic into a trail or virtual compass.

She forced her breathing to stay even as she thought, finally dropping to the ground in a sudden rush.  Lenesa pressed her hands into the earth and sent her magic out in a searching arc around her. There was the huffing breath of a badger rooting through its burrow and the rapid tapping pulse of a sparrow in a nearby tree. Both were healthy, but it wasn't what she was looking for. She let out a breath and pushed her magic wider, envisioning tendrils of green spreading across the ground.

There! Lenesa felt a heartbeat, strong and human, somewhere a little east of her current position. She lifted her head in that direction, only to frown as her magic sensed another heartbeat, and then many more. But there was no time to dwell on what it meant—she had to get to Audeste and Ralios first.

Lenesa jumped to her feet, chanting a swiftness spell her great aunt had taught her, one that bound to the soles of her shoes and sent her speeding through the trees. She gasped at a near-missed collision with a tree trunk, still unused to the spell made doubly treacherous by the reduced visibility in the fog. Her heart pounded along with her footsteps, a frantic beat spurred on by worry at what she would find.

Whispers of color appeared ahead, muted shapes and voices that grew louder at Lenesa's approach. With a last leap forward, she came to a stop just before the trees ended and rocky ground stretched out to the edge of a cliff.

Audeste was kneeling with her back to the forest, rocking back and forth as she held a limp figure in her arms. Lenesa's eyes caught on the body, immediately recognizing the hair, clothes, and even shoes, but refusing to make the connection. It couldn't be Ralios. Ralios was alive, but there was no movement from the person Audeste held, not even the rise and fall of a steady breath. And there was blood—so much of it, spreading outwards and seeping into the ground. Tears stung at Lenesa's eyes, threatening to fall. It couldn't be.

Motion drew Lenesa's gaze up, and the sight filled her lungs with ice. In front of Audeste, a pack of twenty men or more stood, bristling with all manner of swords, axes, and knives. Witch hunters, Lenesa realized. One of the younger men in the group, with broad shoulders and eyes that danced with wicked shadows, looked up at Lenesa's approach.

"Looks like we've found another creature to hunt," the man announced, the corners of his mouth twisting upwards in a satisfied grin. "Farlon, you deal with the first one. The rest of you come with me. I've always enjoyed a good chase, and that one looks like it's ready to run."

The man he had spoken to, Farlon, drew an arrow from the quiver at his back and raised his bow, aiming directly at Audeste. Lenesa looked to her cousin in alarm.

"Audeste!" she cried, but the other witch gave no indication she had heard. Lenesa looked back to the man with the bow, envisioning the arrow's path. It would pierce Audeste's skin, furrowing through muscle and bone to puncture her heart beneath her ribcage.

She couldn't die too.

Protect. Lenesa sent her magic out almost instinctively, knitting skin before it was broken, healing bone before it was cut. The arrow flew forward at almost the same instant, bouncing harmlessly aside as soon as it hit Audeste and the healing magic that covered her.

The clattering of the arrow against stone accompanied the silence that followed, and a few men took a surprised step back. The broad-shouldered hunter, however, narrowed his eyes, undeterred.

"Audeste," Lenesa urged again, this time taking a pleading step forward. "We have to leave."

This time, at least, her cousin seemed to hear her. Audeste raised her head, looking back at where Lenesa stood just behind the trees. "They killed him," she whispered, her voice hoarse with a mixture of sadness and fury. "They killed him!"

"Farlon," another one of the witch hunters prompted, this time an older man whose lean, wiry frame warned of a quiet and deadly strength. "Try again."

Farlon again reached for his quiver, and Lenesa braced herself for another attack. But before the hunter could even nock the next arrow, Audeste suddenly let go of her brother and jumped to her feet. Rather than run away, as Lenesa hoped she would, Audeste bore down on the men like a falcon diving at its prey.

Half the witch hunters scattered like dandelion seeds in the wind at Audeste's approach, but the rest remained where they had been originally standing.  Lenesa soon realized that the men who stayed still did not do so of their own volition.

"Jump," Audeste commanded, in a voice that dripped with death like the spattering of blood from a blade.  She came to a stop just a foot away from the nearest witch hunter, who stared back in a wide-eyed, motionless fear.  "Die, and rid the world of your pestilence forever!"

Her persuasion latched onto the men, and the arrow fell from Farlon's fingers as he too was caught in the thrall of her magic. But Audeste's power wasn't strong enough to sway them all. Several of the hunters, including the lean, older man and the young man with a hungry darkness in his eyes, edged away where the hooks of her magic couldn't reach.

Lenesa gripped the fabric of her skirt to keep her hands from shaking. This was dark magic, and it reeked of long-suffering agony and loneliness. Her great-aunt had warned them about this, about the misery that would follow if they turned to such desperation.

"Audeste, don't!" Lenesa cried, trying to ignore the way Ralios's empty eyes were now turned to her as he lay cold and sprawled out on the ground. "He wouldn't have wanted this!"

The fog at the edge of the cliff twisted and reformed, beckoning the doomed men closer. Audeste ignored Lenesa's pleas, and instead threw out a hand, gesturing towards the cliff.

"What are you waiting for?" she shouted, and Lenesa could hardly even recognize Audeste's voice anymore. It had twisted into something thorny and bitter, driving out any kindness from her tone. "Jump!"

"No!" Lenesa rushed forward, but she knew she would never reach Audeste in time. The men under her cousin's control were already stepping forward, teetering at the cliff edge as tendrils of mist stretched forward hungrily.

Their screams were drowned out just as a roaring gust of wind ripped through the air. The blast curled the fog back and knocked aside a knife Lenesa hadn't realized had been hurtling towards her, thrown by one of the hunters not under Audeste's influence. Lenesa sucked in a startled breath and turned, looking up for the source.

A figure came into view from above the treetops, cloaked in storm-colored robes that snapped with motion and with hair the shade of midnight clouds passing over the moon. Lenesa's great-aunt drew nearer, borne on a wind that lowered her to the ground until she finally touched down in front of her eldest grand-niece. Mona set her arms on Lenesa's shoulders, giving her a quick once-over before turning to face the remaining hunters in a solid battle-ready stance, despite her advanced age.

"And another one appears!" the witch hunter with the hulking frame called out, his shadow-ridden gaze even darker after having just witnessed the deaths of several of his comrades. "It looks like we have our work cut out for us."

"Sarav, let me handle the old crone," the hunter's wiry superior ordered. "You get the brats. I want at least one alive to bring back for interrogating."

"Lenesa, run," Mona said, voice calm despite the hunters' terrible words.

"But Audeste—" Lenesa began.

"It's too late for her, now," her great-aunt interrupted, giving a single shake of her head.

Lenesa looked over to her cousin, where dark spirals were now shifting across Audeste's skin like the shadows of clouds on a sunny day. Audeste's gaze was cold, oblivious to her surroundings as she stared over the edge of the cliff.

"Run," Mona repeated. Lenesa took a stumbling step back, confusion and hurt carving an aching hole in her chest that made it difficult to breathe.

"Get her!" one of the hunters cried out. The order speared Lenesa with enough panic to force her to turn and face the treeline. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her great-aunt cast out her arm in a perfect arc, sending a blast of air that swept the hunters off their feet.

The use of magic was enough to jolt Audeste from her trance, and Lenesa's cousin turned, heedless of the fallen men around her, and ran into the forest.

"Audeste, wait!" Lenesa shouted, hurrying after her. Twigs snapped and colors blurred as Lenesa gave chase, trying to follow her cousin's path, but Audeste was too fast. Soon, her cousin's figure vanished, and Lenesa became aware of a different presence among the trees. Footsteps pounded behind her, and fear coated her tongue. Was it one of the hunters?

A hand wrapped itself around her wrist, its grip light and steady.

"Hurry," Mona whispered, slipping her hand into Lenesa's and pulling her along, far away from the terrible scene at the cliff edge.

But there were other footsteps behind them too, a rapid pounding of hard-soled boots against packed earth that quaked the pine needles on their branches. They were too slow!

"Aunt Mona, they're catching up!" Lenesa worried, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder. She gripped her great-aunt's hand tighter as they ran, their feet barely touching the ground as a desperate wind urged them on.

"We need to split up," Mona said at last, and Lenesa looked up to meet her determined gaze. "I'll meet you at the cottage. Go!" The last word came out more as a growl, and before Lenesa could protest, another gust of wind lifted her away.  Her shoes skimmed over knobby roots and half-hidden rocks that littered the ground before she dropped back on her feet, several yards away.

Lenesa stumbled forward, breathing heavily as the snarling echo in her great-aunt's tone continued to ring in her ears.

No—not an echo, Lenesa realized. This was more of a rumble than a growl, like the grinding of stones and earth splitting in two. Lenesa lunged forward to wrap her arms around the trunk of a nearby tree just as the ground began to quake and a sudden jolt nearly knocked her off her feet. In the aftershocks that followed, she could hear the dismayed cries of their pursuers as they were caught off-guard at the attack.

Then there was nothing.

Face still pressed to the rough bark that scraped against her cheek, Lenesa looked back, but the fog had crept in again and hid everything from view. She knew she should move, but the stillness that now permeated the forest had her paralyzed with fear of the unknown.

Then a snap, like the brittle breaking of a bone, shot through the silence. Lenesa's gaze flew to a spot between the trees where the fog swirled with movement, coalescing and thinning.  She watched, barely daring to breathe, as a hulking shape finally emerged, his face shadowed by the branches overhead.

Lenesa dug her dirty fingernails deeper into the bark, hoping against all reason that the man stalking her way wouldn't see her. But when the hunter took another step forward, raising the sword at his side, she knew it was a futile wish. But she was still frozen in panic, and couldn't bring herself to move.

"There you are," the man said, his eyes glinting like the blade in his hand as he stepped from the shadows. "Cowering like a pathetic fool. Weak."

I'm going to die.

The sword arced down, and Lenesa cringed against the tree, waiting for the blow. Instead, a rustle of fabric met her ears, and a firm hand hit her shoulder, shoving her out of the way. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs, and Lenesa staggered back, looking up just in time to see the sword strike her great-aunt instead.

"No!" Lenesa screamed, horrified at Mona's anguished cry and the deep gash that cut across her great-aunt's face, barely missing the older witch's left eye as the blade jumped from brow to cheekbone and continued down. The sword skimmed over her shoulder and finally down her arm before Mona was able to twist away, blood dripping down her arm and onto the forest floor.

"Get out of here, Lenesa" Mona panted, her eyes still fixed on the hunter before them. Overhead, dark clouds roiled and gathered in a dense, ominous mass.

"I'm not leaving you!" Lenesa cried, even as more witch hunters began to emerge from the mist around them, having caught up once again. They loped forward like wolves on the prowl, surrounding and outnumbering the two of them.

"Finish them off, Sarav," the older hunter from before called out. "Then we'll go after the other one."

In a motion almost too fast for Lenesa's eyes to follow, the man before them drew a dagger from his belt and flung it at Mona, then leapt at Lenesa.

Lenesa did the only thing she could and flung up a brittle shield of raw magic, knowing even as she did so that it would shatter as soon as the man touched it. But there was no time to create a more complex defense. This man would kill her.

Rather than watch her fate approach, Lenesa turned to her great-aunt, who bent backwards to avoid the blade flung at her. Supported by a rush of air, Mona continued to turn even after the dagger had passed, whirling to her right to put herself in-between Lenesa and the witch hunter.

Wine-dark eyes met Lenesa's own wide-eyed gaze for just a moment that lasted no longer than a single exhale of breath.  Then the sword disappeared from Lenesa's view, behind her great-aunt's shoulder. Mona arched back, her eyes shut in pain as the blade cut deep into her back.

If Lenesa was screaming, she didn't realize it. She only registered the expression on her great-aunt's face as she fell. Lenesa fell with her, crashing painfully onto her knees as tears filled her eyes.

The man, Sarav, was still holding his sword, fixated on the scene before him. But Lenesa didn't care how close he was anymore, or that she would be his next victim.

Her great-aunt stretched out a hand, clasping Lenesa's own in a blood-soaked grip.

"Close your eyes," Mona urged.

The only other warning Lenesa had was a split-second charge in the air that raised the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck. She closed her eyes just as a thunderous boom shook the air, accompanying the blinding white light that burned even from behind her closed eyelids.

Lenesa hunched over her great-aunt, shaking at the force of the impact and the screams as the smell of burnt flesh permeated the air. Her tears still fell, but now they were mixed with colder rainwater as the heavy storm clouds finally unloaded their burden.

It seemed like ages before she found enough courage to open her eyes. When she finally did, she found the remaining witch hunters on the ground, scorch marks covering their skin in various degrees. Some, like the man named Sarav, bore gashes and burns that would heal over time, but there were others that had gotten the full impact of the lightning, and their skin was charred beyond recognition.

The realization hit her with a sickening punch to the stomach. Dead. Her great-aunt had killed them.

Lenesa turned her attention back to the woman on the ground before her.

"Aunt Mona," she whispered, her hands shaking as she held them over the older woman's wounds. Fear coursed through her veins, followed by a sudden jolt of determination.

I can fix this. I will fix this.

First Ralios, then Audeste. Lenesa wouldn't lose her great-aunt, too.

Mona's eyes were unfocused and clouded with pain as Lenesa started with the first wound, willing the skin to close and the muscle to heal. But it was too deep, and too large of an injury. It would never be finished in time. Too much blood had already been lost, soaking into the ground around them.

Lenesa fought down her rising panic. It wasn't working!

A trill sounded from the trees, soon followed by a pale blue light and a larger yellow one. Lenesa looked up as her wisp and her great-aunt's wisp zoomed towards them, stopping to hover anxiously about the dying witch.

"Gaelna?" Mona murmured, her eyes flickering open long enough to recognize the flickering figure near her.

Bathed in the full-moon glow of Mona's wisp, Lenesa was reminded of a discussion with her great-aunt months earlier, before Lenesa had joined with a wisp of her own. Bonded with a wisp of her own.

It serves as a protective link between two people. If one is in danger, the other will save them.

She had to try.

Lenesa searched the ground for something sharp, giving up after a few anxious seconds and holding her fingers against the palm of her great-aunt's hand instead. Though Mona was already covered in wounds, Lenesa forced herself to whisper the spell to cut another gash along her great-aunt's palm, then her own. Lenesa pressed their hands together, muttering the words that would form the bond, growing more impatient with each word that left her lips until finally it was done.

As though sensing the sudden change, Mona stirred, regaining consciousness just in time to see Lenesa press her hands back onto her wounds.

"What are you doing?" she asked, wariness in her tone.

Lenesa ignored her, instead scrunching her eyes shut as she focused on her next task. If simply healing her great-aunt wasn't enough, the next step would be painful. She would have to alleviate the severity of the wound, and take some of the injury as her own. Then it would heal twice as fast.

The first stabs of pain lanced across her face, slicing down in the same way she had seen the witch hunter's sword travel minutes earlier. Soon after that, Lenesa felt a deep cut open across her back, and she bit her lip to keep from making a sound at the ache that followed. She forced herself to ignore the pain, to not notice the way the injuries grew deeper, or how dark shadows were beginning to shift beneath her great-aunt's skin.

"Stop!" Mona's voice was faint, barely reaching Lenesa's ears through the shroud magic she had wrapped herself in. "It's too late. Listen to me.""

Lenesa opened her eyes to assess her work. Her great aunt's wounds were shallower now, but it still wasn't enough. How much more of the injury could she transfer to herself before she put her own life at risk, too? She wasn't willing to give up just yet. She would take all the pain, all of the wounds if she had to. She was a healing witch. If anyone could survive this, it would be her.

She didn't notice how Mona's shadows were beginning to slip beneath her own skin.

"Lenesa!" her great-aunt found enough strength to grab her arm, jolting her from her concentration. "You must let me go."

Lenesa shook her head vehemently, refusing to give up. "No. You can't! I won't let you!"

"This time must come for every witch," Mona said softly, "but it is not your time to join me."

Lenesa continued to shake her head. "No..."

Mona gave a small, sad smile. "I love you."

Lenesa stretched forward, but Mona was quicker. The last thing Lenesa remembered was her great-aunt reaching out, and then everything faded away to darkness.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

UGH.

(WARNING: Long author's ramble ahead.  Feel free to skip.)

So, a few things.  You may have read my announcement that the computer I was originally writing from turned out to be a terrible traitor last week and erased this entire chapter as soon as I had finished writing it (in addition to several other chapters that had at least already been posted on Wattpad). I even tried going to the store to get it fixed, and endured the terrible embarrassment of the computer guy opening the document and it's all ~witches~.  I mean, I guess it's close to Halloween but somehow fiction/fantasy never meshes well with strangers and real life, you know?  But I guess it could be worse.  I could be a smut writer trying to recover my documents instead.

Also, I never realized until now just how difficult it is to rewrite something you've already written without being able to LOOK at what you've already written.  Basically, this was me:

Me: Okay, so I know what happens in this chapter.

Brain: Yes. We will tell everything.

Me: No, SHOW everything.

Brain: Oh, you mean purple prose.  Yes, good.

Me: NO--what's with all these dramatic descriptions?!  Get rid of them!

Brain: It needs more obscure metaphors and frivolous adjectives, don't you think?

Me: *gives up*

And so that is how this chapter somehow went from 5 Word pages to 7 in the rewrite. Gah.  Also, I also ended up being a lot more descriptive this time with the deaths, so I'm sorry.  I didn't want to make it too vivid but I'm too tired to change it at the moment. And I feel like either everything is either horribly over-described or I half-heartedly cut sections out to horribly under-describe it. D:  But it's done.  Finally.

Also, yes, this is a flashback, but I'm not going to make you all read italics for the whole thing.