Chapter 11 Preview

I've been stoking Cathedra's fire again, so here's a snippet from what i'm finishing up soon 🦋💜 i love you all, thank you for having so much patience with me

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When the sun started to peek through the cracks of the tarps, she was still sitting with his head in her lap, her body slumped over his but ages away from sleep.

She didn't feel hunger, or care for the rain and mud that was stuck to her legs and dress. Thoughts didn't color her mind, and warmth wasn't present on her fingertips.

There was only the grief she would house for days, for months, for how long?

“My queen,”

Morn’s soft voice gently brought her back, and the fire that had been tamed for a few fleeting moments while the light limbo of sleep had overtaken her.

Her head poked in before the rest of her body to follow, her tender eyes falling on Callie and Nik. Morn swallowed her own tears.

“Oh, love,” she sighed, coming to sit beside Callie and moving her stiff hair from her face and shoulder.

The queen didn't move, only her bloodshot, swollen eye moving to look up at her friend.

“Don't ask me to move, because I can't,” Callie croaked.

Morn nodded. “You don't have to move. I'll bring it to you,” she told her, the back of her hand stroking across Callie’s cheek. “You're where you need to be right now,”

She could see Callie’s eye fill with fat tears, her brow tightening.

“I hate myself, Morn,” she said from behind clenched teeth, her eye pinching shut.

“He wouldn't hate you for this, so don't hate yourself,”

Her head shook, her face disappearing back behind her hair. “He would call me stupid and foolish and that's exactly what I am,”

“You were attacked, Calista. You did what you had to and he would say the same. This is no one's fault but Patricia’s,”

But it didn't do anything to ease the self loathe, the guilt, the regret. A pathetic whimper rumbled in her throat, her arms tight around her fallen King.

“I want him back,” she silently sobbed, shoulders shaking under Morn’s touch.

Morn recalled this particular ache. The furiosity, the duration, how it followed her even into her dreams, and she also recalled how words did little to help. What her friend needed now was to simply grieve, but there was nothing simple about it.

Calista sitting up straight as a board startled Morn some, her hands withdrawing and hairless brows furrowing. “M- Callie?”

Her big amber eyes were wide, her shoulders stiff, but before Morn's eyes she saw the veil of sorrow slowly start to slip away. Calista turned to face her, blinking away fresh tears that spilled freely down her dirty cheeks.

“Witches,” she whispered.