chapter three
Purple tiptoes through a labyrinthine forest.
There are others here, which surprises her. typically, when Purple dares to show her face somewhere, it’s long been abandoned. Her role is to ensure it never becomes anything other than that. But this is a sacred space, though she’s not sure to who. That information wasn’t deemed important enough to be included in her mission briefing. She asks a few of them how this place came to be. None of the answers tell a cohesive story. One claims that the trees, which she states grow in pairs, are actually the legs of the beasts that made the world, but in the great war against the gods, their legs were cemented to the ground, and they were forced to become part of the realm they so desperately longed to protect. Another, while dangling from one of the branches, states that the first humans emerged from these trees. Still another states they’re just nature, manipulated by forces too great for our minds to understand.
Purple doesn’t put much credence in any of their words. But she can’t help but notice that when the leaves rustle in the wind, it sounds almost like a tremulous inhale.
She tries to keep her mind on her mission. Rarely do things distract her, and she doesn’t want today to be different. This should be simple; nothing compared to the other things she’s had to do lately. There’s a great tree in the labyrinth’s center. She can see it now, stalwart and towering over everything else. The idea that it’s the beating heart of whatever created this is the only thing on which the pilgrims can ever agree. When the wind whispers through the rest of the forest, it screams through these branches. A certain pilgrim is destined to hear this mighty yell while sheltering within the tree’s hollow. She’ll interpret it as a sign that she needs to turn her life around, and to do so, she’ll flee into the wilderness. Take up residence in a cave in the middle of nowhere. Build a shrine within it, where travelers throughout the centuries will seek shelter and beg something greater than themselves, something that they may not even believe in, to grant them solace from the storm. She just has to nudge the pieces into place. It’s not even a challenge. She’s been doing this since her first day in the Coven. There shouldn’t be any distractions.
Instead, her thoughts wander to her opponent—to Green. Did she ever read Purple’s letter? She must admit writing it is the most fun she’s had in years. As much fun as winning is, it’s considerably more interesting when she knows who it is she’s crushing beneath her heel. Nameless victories start to lose their flavor after a while, and she finds herself hungering for something far greater. Eventually quashing Green will be the most satisfying thing she can imagine, and until that day, she’s thrilled to have the chase.
She’s been doubly careful since that first day she received Green’s note. She checks behind both shoulders twice before daring to move forward with anything. Even the smaller operations, the ones that shouldn’t have taken longer than a moment, have her holding her breath, taking her time with things that someone of her stature shouldn’t have to fear. Things that are second nature by now. Purple refuses to operate at anything other than the top of her game. Perhaps the Mother will look past her transgressions if she compensates for them with genius (she knows this is a fool’s hope, but regardless, a piece of her clings to it).
But she hasn’t gotten a reply. She pretends this doesn’t sting.
She pretends she doesn’t hate the idea that Green doesn’t care what happens to her.
The pilgrims follow their guides. Purple veers off through the trees, running her hands over the rough bark and hoping it whispers the path to her.
She lights a tiny violet fire on her fingertip. She holds it up to one of the trees; the bark begins to spark and smolder. There’s nothing beneath the surface. All it does is turn to ash. With a shake of her head, she dusts her hands off and keeps moving. On to the next tree, on to the next thing, on to the next task. From this one, she takes a single leaf. She tries to be gentler with this; leaves are fragile little things, and she suspects that despite her general directive to rain destruction on any enemies in her path, the Mother wouldn’t be pleased with her if she were to tear this to pieces. It didn’t do anything to deserve it. It’s difficult. Purple doesn’t usually allow gentleness to be part of her nature. This time, a few runes appear, etched into the thin fiber.
A wolfish grin crosses her face as she tucks the leaf into the leather satchel at her side, then calls the magic dancing on her finger back inside of her.
Purple creeps through the night, analyzing every footfall so that it doesn’t make a sound. Her powers don’t allow her to vanish – it’s not a gift she was granted – but the tact with which she moves may as well render her invisible anyway. Her eyes dart from place to place like an animal being hunted – or perhaps like the hunter itself. She prefers to see herself as the latter, no matter what roles this war tries to force her into.
The violet flames cut through the darkness like bolts of lightning. She draws the runes out of bark, out of root and trunk and leaf, casting anything that may hold even the slightest semblance of a secret into her bag, reminding herself that the Mother will be pleased with her when she brings this to the coven.
When she’s satisfied with her pull, she disappears deeper into the forest, ignoring how the branches hit her in the face, leaving angry red scratches across her skin that remind her that despite it all, she is still mortal. She can still be wounded, can still bleed. She hates it.
Before she can make it to the great tree, the forest starts to act against her. Roots rise out of the ground, appearing in every place she longed to put her feet. Leaves tumble down on her, landing in her face, covering her eyes faster than she can swat them away.
Purple destroys them with ruthless efficiency. A single burst of magic saps the life from them, rejuvenating her in the process. She flexes her fingers the way a cat would release and retract its claws. The trees fall. She does not care if they make a sound.
As the final branch echoes to the forest floor, she finds the center of the labyrinth.
The bark feels different under her hands. Smoother. She traces the longest branch she can find until she reaches the trunk. It’s sturdy. For once, she’s thankful that she doesn’t have to tear something down on her path to victory. The wind tangles itself through her hair and the branches in turn, tying little knots in her mane and summoning whispers from the leaves. The trees beg her not to cause any more harm. She doesn’t dare to make that promise. She is a weapon, first and foremost. All she knows how to do is hurt.
She reaches the trunk. As she feels along it, her hand disappears into darkness. Another mischievous grin. Despite everything, there’s nothing greater than the feeling of a job well done. She ducks into the hollow, letting the woods close in around her. It’s pitch black. The magic she summons forth to light it is a delicate lavender rather than an amethyst inferno. There’s a tiny sapling hiding within the hollow. It’s a freak of nature, something that can grow without light.
Purple draws her prizes from her bag. She aligns them just so in front of the sapling, spelling a word in a language she believed nobody knew how to speak anymore. It feels foreign on her tongue as she whispers them without putting power behind it, her pharynx bending into shapes it was never designed to make. She has to practice. This has to be perfect. Her heart kicks against her ribs, warning her that there is no more time for hesitation. The storm is coming. She must face it head-on.
The wind roars again. Purple begins to chant. She channels all the magic she absorbed from the fallen trees into these words. Death. Decay. Destruction. Purple was meant to suck the marrow from others’ bones. She must end this life to protect a thousand others, to allow that pilgrim the space to hide, to give her the chance to change her fate. Her voice finds a harmony with the gusts, two notes competing for the melody, exchanging places in every phrase.
The sapling never withers. In fact, Purple would almost swear it stretches taller out of sheer spite.
Silence settles over the world. Her voice transforms into a snarl, breaking it.
After all of that, a defeat. A laugh rips itself from her throat before she can stop it. It’s a cruel sound, burning with anger and disbelief, but with a touch of humor in it as well. She supposes that it’s at least relieving to see that Green is a woman of her word.
Cursing everything she can dream up, Purple leaves the blistering runes in front of the still living sapling. What use does she have for them? It’s not as though they worked as they should. Her mind bounds to the next thing. She must find a solution before the Mother expresses her disappointment. She cannot be a failure. She must not be a failure.
The light in the runes extinguishes as Purple scurries back downthread.
The seeker whispers just the right incantation to wake them again.