Hunting the Broken-Heart Witch

Chapter 4 – Silver Coin, Silent Oath

The rain did not stop until dawn.

Elias rode through the mist, his cloak heavy, his breath a pale ghost in the chill morning air. The forest watched him, the trees tall and silent, their trunks slick with dew. It was not yet the haunted place of legend—no whispers, no shadows that breathed—but he could feel it waiting.

He reached a small crossroads shrine by noon: a crumbling stone angel draped in moss, its face eroded by time. Travelers left offerings here—coins, feathers, sprigs of herbs—tokens for safe passage into the northern woods. Elias dismounted, tying his horse to a gnarled post.

He pulled a single silver coin from his pouch. It gleamed faintly in the gray light. He had carried it for years—a keepsake, not for wealth but for memory. One side bore the crest of his homeland; the other, a name half-scratched away.

He knelt and placed it at the angel’s feet.

“For truth,” he murmured. “Not glory.”

The words hung in the damp air, an oath no one else would hear.

For a long time, Elias stayed there, head bowed. The silence pressed against him, filled with all the things he could not say. Then, from behind the shrine, a rustle—a soft sound, deliberate.

His hand went to the dagger.

“Peace, traveler,” came a voice, low and even.

From the mist stepped a woman cloaked in gray. Her hair was dark as ravens’ wings, braided with threads of silver. A satchel hung at her side, heavy with herbs. Her eyes, though kind, carried a weight he recognized instantly—grief.

“You’re far from the village,” she said. “The forest isn’t kind to strangers.”

“Nor am I kind to it,” Elias replied.

A faint smile touched her lips. “Then we are both foolish.”

She crouched beside the shrine, touching the moss with reverent fingers. “Do you make an offering to the dead?”

“To the living,” Elias said. “To a promise.”

The woman studied him quietly, then nodded as if she understood. “There was once a healer who said the same thing.”

Elias’s heart stilled. “A healer?”

She tilted her head, the faintest flicker of curiosity in her gaze. “You seek her, don’t you? The witch with the broken heart.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

“Be careful with what you seek,” she said. “Her pain is older than your courage.”

“I’m not here for courage.”

The woman’s expression softened. “Then may the gods pity you.”

She pressed a small sprig of heartleaf into his palm—its scent sharp and bitter. “Burn this if the forest begins to whisper. It won’t save you, but it might remind you who you are.”

Before he could ask her name, she was gone, melting into the fog like a wraith.

Elias stared at the heartleaf in his hand. For a moment, it seemed to pulse faintly, as though alive. Then it stilled. He tucked it into his coat and turned north again.

By twilight, he reached the edge of the true forest.

Here, the air changed—colder, heavier, thick with the scent of damp earth and decay. The trees stood closer together, their branches forming a canopy that devoured the light.

He dismounted and led his horse on foot. Each step seemed to echo louder than it should. Every sound—crackling leaves, a distant crow—felt too deliberate, too knowing.

When the path widened briefly, he stopped to rest. He found a half-buried milestone, carved with symbols long forgotten. He brushed away the dirt, tracing the grooves. Beneath the grime, one word still remained:

“Mira.”

His breath caught.

The bard’s voice returned to him in memory: “She dwells where time folds.”

The wind shifted.

Somewhere in the trees, a whisper. It sounded like his name.

Elias…

He froze, scanning the shadows. Nothing. Only the sigh of wind through the pines. He shook his head, forcing reason back into his bones. The forest was old—old enough to have a voice of its own.

He built a small fire, more for comfort than warmth. The flames flickered, painting his face in gold and scarlet. From his coat, he drew the silver coin’s twin—a small medallion, dull from wear. He turned it over in his fingers, remembering the face of the one he’d lost.

“If I find her,” he whispered to the night, “perhaps I’ll find you.”

No answer came. Only the rustling of leaves.

He closed his eyes, the crackle of the fire fading into memory. He remembered another forest, another night—his wife’s laughter, the scent of lavender and rain. The way the world had ended when she didn’t wake the next morning.

He had sworn then never to let sorrow rule him. But here he was, chasing sorrow itself.

A drop of rain hissed into the fire. Then another.

He looked up. The mist was thickening again, rolling low like smoke. Within it, shapes seemed to shift—too slow to be wind, too fluid to be real. He reached for the heartleaf and the silver dagger.

“You won’t have me,” he said under his breath.

The forest listened. Then, as if amused, fell still.

He woke before dawn. The fire had died, the ashes damp. His horse stirred nervously, ears flicking toward the east. Elias followed its gaze.

There, through the thinning fog, he saw a faint glow. Not sunlight—too early, too cold. It shimmered like moonlight caught in glass.

He packed his gear and followed it, moving quietly through the trees. The light led him to a narrow stream, its water black as ink. On the opposite bank lay something half-buried in mud—a shape small and round.

He knelt, brushing it free.

It was another coin. Silver. Identical to his own.

He turned it over. One side bore the same worn crest. The other carried a single word scratched in delicate script:

“Remember.”

A chill ran through him.

He looked around, but the forest was empty. Only the water moved, whispering softly over stones.

Elias pocketed the coin, heart pounding.

“I will,” he said quietly. “I swear it.”

And with that, his oath was sealed—not to the gods, nor to the dead, but to the unseen truth that waited for him in the heart of the forest.

That night, he dreamed of the woman by the shrine, her face now pale as moonlight, her eyes hollow and endless. She held out her hand to him, a silver coin resting on her palm.

“Every promise has a price,” she whispered. “Even truth.”

He woke to the sound of the wind—soft, almost tender.

It carried a name.

Mira…