THE SIGIL:I
456 Words
The house had not revealed itself to anyone in centuries.
It stood buried in the forest like a memory the world had agreed to forget. Its beams were warped with age. Its roof sagged beneath moss and time. The air inside carried the scent of old wood, damp soil, and something older than both.
Magic lived here. Sealed old magic.
The floor beneath Elias’ feet still held the remnants of ritual circles carved by hands long turned to dust. The house had once belonged to a coven that understood how to bind beings greater than themselves. After the war, after the m******e, the house had hidden itself from the world, and nobody could find it.
Most witches could not find it even if they tried.
This girl had stumbled into it while bleeding.
That alone told him what she was.
Elias stood in the center of the ruined room and inhaled.
He looked down at the girl, where she lay bleeding and half-conscious. After a few seconds, he shifted his attention from the girl to the sigil.
It was imperfect in places. Lines wavered where her hand had trembled. But the structure was correct. The sequence intact.
There were different kinds of witches.
Elemental witches drew from earth, water, wind. They were common enough. Useful, but limited.
Seers glimpsed fragments of possible futures. Their magic came with madness more often than clarity.
Blood witches traded life for power. Dangerous, but predictable.
Summoners were rarer. They understood the language of binding. The language of calling.
And then there were the ones whispered about in covens that still remembered history.
Harbingers.
Witches whose blood carried the ability to reach beyond veils without permission. They had the ability to call beings who did not wish to be called.
He had not felt a true Harbinger in centuries.
He crouched beside her.
“You should not exist,” he murmured.
Her eyelids twitched. She did not hear him.
The hunters outside moved closer. He could sense them at the edge of the clearing. Their footsteps pressed into the earth. Their weapons carried iron and stone laced with suppression runes.
They knew what they were hunting.
His gaze returned to her hand.
A witch powerful enough to summon him without training would destabilize more than this forest. Covens would seek her. Councils would mark her. Enemies would hunt her relentlessly.
If hunters captured her, they would not kill her quickly. They would dissect her knowledge. Extract what they could. A summoner who could reach him would become a weapon.
He had been a weapon once and he would not allow it again.
The simplest solution was mercy.
End her life before they arrived. Close the circle and erase the trail.
- Writer
