The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch

She sank into the seat and pressed her hand against her chest, feeling her heart racing beneath her palm, feeling it pound with the terror that had gripped her.

Her breathing was ragged and uncontrolled.

Around her, the cottage was still dark,,,,it was pre-dawn, that time of morning when the world existed in a kind of liminal space between night and day. The first hints of grey were beginning to touch the eastern sky, but true morning was still some time away.

In that half-darkness, Elara sat and tried to make sense of what her nightmare had shown her.

She hadn’t heard from Morgana in weeks.

A month. Time had become strange since her daughter had left for the palace, each day felt both endless and impossibly short.

Morgana had promised to send word, to let her know that she was safe. But the palace was far away, and communication was slow and unreliable. Letters took time. Messages were sometimes delayed or lost entirely.

Still, a month was a long time.

A very long time.

And now, this nightmare....so vivid, so real, so absolutely terrifying in its specificity, had shattered whatever fragile peace Elara had maintained.

Something was wrong.

She could feel it the way a person feels a sickness settling into their bones before a fever breaks. It was certain. It was absolute.

Something terrible had happened to her daughter.

Elara sat in the chair as the pre-dawn grey slowly lightened to something approaching morning.

She sat and let her heart gradually slow, let her breathing gradually steady, even as her mind raced through possibilities, each one more terrible than the last.

What if Morgana had been hurt?

What if she had gotten sick?

What if....and this thought came with the weight of the nightmare still clinging to her mind, what if someone had discovered what Morgana was? What if someone had found out about her magic?

Elara’s hand clenched into a fist.

She had always known that there was a risk. She had spent eighteen years teaching Morgana to hide, to suppress, to be invisible. She had drilled it into her daughter’s very bones: never reveal what you are, because if they know, they will fear you, and fear will make them cruel.

And now, something had happened.

Elara was certain of it.

The certainty sat in her chest like a stone.

She could sit here, in her cottage, safe and isolated and helpless. She could wait for word that might or might not come. She could spend weeks in agony, not knowing, imagining, fearing.

Or she could act.

It was not a difficult choice.

Elara stood....more carefully this time, giving her body time to adjust, and moved to the small trunk at the foot of her bed. She opened it and withdrew her second cloak, the one that was warmer, the one she rarely wore because she rarely left the cottage.

She wrapped it around herself, fastening it at the throat.

Then she made her way to the door.

She paused there for just a moment, looking back at her cottage, the small space that had been her sanctuary for eighteen years, the place where she had raised her daughter, the place where she had hidden from a world that wanted to use Morgana for its own purposes.

But Morgana wasn’t here anymore.

And Elara could not save her from this cottage.

She opened the door and stepped out into the pre-dawn air.

***

The village of Ashford was only beginning to stir.

A few early risers were already about....farmers heading to their fields, servants beginning their daily work, a baker’s apprentice heading toward the ovens to start the morning fires.

But mostly, the village was still asleep.

Elara moved through the quiet streets like a ghost, her cloak pulled tight around herself, her purpose driving her forward even as her body protested.

The cough came, sudden and violent, doubling her over.

She pressed her hand to her mouth, trying to muffle it, trying to contain it. When she pulled her hand away, she could see the dark stain against her palm in the growing light.

Blood.

There was blood in the handkerchief she pulled from her pocket.

But she didn’t slow her pace.

There was no time for illness. There was no time for the weakness that was slowly consuming her body from within. There was only time for this: getting to Thomas, asking for help, finding a way to discover what had happened to Morgana.

The baker’s cottage was on the edge of the village, situated in a way that allowed convenient delivery to his customers but also provided privacy for his family. Elara had known Thomas for years, he had been kind to her and Morgana, had often given them bread when they were struggling, had asked few questions about their lives or their circumstances.

She hoped that kindness would extend to helping her now.

She approached his cottage and raised her fist to knock.

For just a moment, she hesitated.

Asking for help meant admitting that something was wrong. Asking for help meant stepping out of the careful isolation she had maintained. Asking for help meant becoming visible in a way that she had spent eighteen years avoiding.

But she knocked anyway.

Because nothing mattered more than Morgana’s safety.

***

Thomas was already awake, bakers had to wake before dawn to begin their work, when the knock came at his door.

But a knock at this hour was unusual. Visitors this early were rare.

He opened the door, expecting perhaps an urgent customer or a delivery person.

Instead, he found Elara standing on his threshold.

For a moment, he simply stared at her, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing.

Elara, who rarely left her cottage, the one whose pale face was rarely seen in the village proper.

Elara was standing at his door in the pre-dawn darkness, wrapped in a cloak, her face pale and drawn, her eyes wide with something that looked like barely contained panic.

"Elara?" he said, his voice carrying confusion and immediate concern. "What are you doing out so early? Are you okay? Is your cough flaring up?"