Chapter 16
The Coven Divided
The betrayal and mounting pressures fracture the coven. Old wounds reopen, and the witches find themselves fighting not only the external darkness but also each other.
The air in the clearing hung thick and heavy, a tangible thing that pressed against my lungs with every ragged breath. The crimson moon, a swollen, malevolent eye, leered down at us, its light bleeding across the ancient stones of our gathering place. It was a light that promised no warmth, only a chilling illumination of the rot that was festering within our coven, within Oakhaven itself. The Solstice was a breath away, and the darkness, once a whisper, was now a roar that threatened to drown us all.
“We cannot stand divided,” I said, my voice a fragile thread against the rising wind. It felt like a lie even as it left my lips. The trust, once the bedrock of our sisterhood, had crumbled, leaving behind jagged shards that threatened to tear us apart.
Maeve stood apart, her back to the rest of us, her shoulders a rigid wall of defiance. The earth hummed beneath her feet, a low thrum of suppressed fury. I could feel the raw power coiled within her, a tempest waiting to be unleashed. Her secret, the desperate pact she’d made to cheat death, was a wound that bled into her magic, tainting the very ground she protected. I saw it in the way her hands clenched, the subtle tremor that ran through her.
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