The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch

The stairs leading down into the dungeons were narrow and spiral, carved from ancient stone that had been worn smooth by centuries of use.

Isolde descended them carefully, her hand trailing along the cold stone wall, her expression never wavering.

But as she reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the main dungeon chamber, her composure faltered slightly.

The stench hit her like a physical blow.

It was the smell of human waste, of damp and decay, of despair accumulated over years and years of prisoners rotting in cells. It was a smell that no amount of perfume or elegance could prepare someone for.

Isolde raised her handkerchief to her nose, covering her mouth and the lower half of her face with the fine linen fabric.

Her eyes watered slightly, but she composed herself.

She would not let this place, or the prisoner in it....see her weakness.

”My lady,” Marta said softly, appearing at her elbow. ”She’s here.”

The sound echoed off the stone walls, bouncing back at them in a distorted version of the maid’s voice.

***

Morgana had been lying on her cot, staring at the ceiling.

She had been doing this for what felt like forever, lying in the cold darkness, her mind running through endless loops of despair and denial and rage that she couldn’t safely express.

When she heard Marta’s voice calling out, she initially didn’t move.

The dungeons were rarely visited. Prisoners didn’t get visitors, that wasn’t how the system worked. You were locked away and forgotten. You were left to rot until your trial, and after your trial, you either hung or were executed or, in rare cases, were released.

But no one came to see you. No one cared about you. You were removed from the world, erased from it, as if you had never existed at all.

But something in Marta’s tone, something urgent and formal, made Morgana understand that this was not a routine dungeon visit.

Someone important was coming.

Morgana sat up quickly, her heart beginning to race.

She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to make herself look presentable, though she understood that this was probably a futile effort. The dungeon had destroyed any semblance of beauty or composure she had possessed. Her face was pale from days without sunlight. Her dress was torn and stained. Her hands were marked with calluses and dirt.

She stood as footsteps echoed through the dungeon chamber.

And then she saw her.

Lady Isolde approached the cell with Marta at her side.

The light from the torch Marta carried illuminated Isolde’s face, and Morgana’s breath caught in her chest.

She knew.

In that instant, looking at Isolde’s satisfied expression, seeing the way she moved with absolute confidence through the dungeons, understanding the hierarchy that allowed a noble daughter to visit a prisoner with complete immunity....Morgana knew.

Isolde had come to torment her.

Their eyes met through the iron bars of the cell.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Isolde simply looked at Morgana....took in her appearance, her desperation, her hopelessness, and smiled.

It was a wicked smile. A cruel smile. A smile that contained absolute satisfaction at what she had accomplished.

”What do you think of your new room?” Isolde asked, her voice dripping with mockery.

The question was so obviously mocking, so obviously cruel, that Morgana felt rage bloom in her chest like a fire.

She stood up straighter, gathering whatever dignity she had left.

”You planned all of this, didn’t you?” she said, her voice low and intense.

The certainty in her words seemed to amuse Isolde even more.

Marta immediately stepped forward, her loyalty to her mistress overriding any sense of fairness or compassion.

”How dare you speak to my lady like that!” Marta snapped, her voice sharp and threatening.

But Isolde simply raised a hand, and Marta fell silent.

”Don’t argue with her, Marta,” Isolde said, her tone almost conversational. ”Let her shout all she wants to shout for now.”

She turned her full attention back to Morgana, and her smile widened.

”We can give her that luxury before she is beheaded,” Isolde said softly.

The words hung in the air like a death sentence, because that’s exactly what they were.

Morgana felt the air around her begin to shimmer.

It was just a slight disturbance in the space immediately surrounding her body, the kind of thing that might be attributed to heat or imagination or the tricks of poor lighting. But it was there. The magic responding to her rage, wanting to break free, wanting to burn and destroy.

She closed her eyes tightly.

She forced herself to breathe slowly, deliberately, carefully.

Because if she let the magic out, if she allowed her emotions to override her control, she would expose herself completely. And the judgment for being a witch would be infinitely worse than the judgment for theft.

They might execute her for theft.

But they would burn her for magic.

After several long seconds, she opened her eyes.

The shimmer had faded.

She was controlled again, though the effort had left her trembling.

”Why?” she asked, and the desperation in her voice was genuine. ”Why would you do this? What did I do wrong?”

Isolde moved closer to the cell, her fingers trailing along the iron bars as if she owned them.

”Because you were becoming a nuisance,” she said simply. ”And did you think I would sit around and allow a mere servant girl like you to steal the attention of the kings?”

She stepped even closer, until she was almost pressed against the bars, her pale blue eyes burning with something that was almost like madness.

”A mere uneducated and wretched girl like you has no right, no right at all, to be seen anywhere near the kings,” she continued, her voice becoming quieter and more intense. ”You don’t have the status for it. You don’t have the education for it. You don’t have the breeding for it.”

She leaned so close that Morgana could smell her perfume, expensive and cloying and absolutely suffocating.

”So I decided to teach you a lesson,” Isolde whispered, and her voice was almost gentle now, which somehow made it more terrifying.