Chapter 4: Salem

“A long time ago in a lifetime far, far way”

The year was 1692, and Salem burned without fire.

Not flames, but fear. Not smoke, but whispers. The narrow streets of the Puritan town choked on suspicion. Each dawn, cries echoed as women were dragged from their homes, accused of speaking to the Devil. Each dusk, the gallows creaked under new weight.

Sera walked among them, unseen.

Her cloak swallowed the shape of her wings, her eyes dimmed to mortal hue. Yet even behind her disguise she could smell the fear — thick and acrid, clinging to the walls, seeping into prayers. Fear was always mortal, yes. But this… this was different. It was sharpened, honed like a blade pressed into every heart.

She followed the trail.

The meeting house loomed at the town’s center, a crude wooden hall that reeked of sweat, candle wax, and zeal. Inside, the air was heavy, not just with bodies but with hysteria.

“Tell us, child,” boomed Magistrate Hathorne, his voice cracking like a whip, “what did she whisper to you in the night?”

A girl no older than twelve clutched her chest, eyes wide with rehearsed terror. “She bade me sign her book! She bade me give myself to Satan!”

A ripple of gasps. The gallery murmured, voices tightening like a noose.

Another magistrate, Corwin, leaned forward, his face pallid and drawn. “And who else stood beside her?”

The child’s lips trembled. She pointed into the crowd — to a woman pale and trembling, clutching her apron.

“She did, sirs! She danced with the Devil in the wood!”

The hall erupted. Some crossed themselves. Others spat on the floor. The woman sobbed, shaking her head violently.

“I did no such thing! I swear upon the Lord—!”
“Silence!” Hathorne’s fist struck the table. “The Devil cannot be denied with words alone.”

Sera’s gaze rose to the rafters. There, carved into the beams where no mortal eye could see, a sigil smoldered faintly, pulsing like a black heart. A knot of sorcery — twisting truth into lies, feeding terror into frenzy.

So that was it.

This was not hysteria born of mortals alone. Someone had sown this madness, tilled the soil of fear, and reaped it for themselves.

She lingered in the shadows, listening as zeal masqueraded as justice.

“You will confess,” Corwin intoned, “or the noose will welcome you as Satan’s bride.”

The accused woman’s sobs broke into screams. She clutched her apron until her knuckles bled. “Please! I am no witch! Have mercy!”

But mercy had long fled Salem.

Sera’s hands curled beneath her cloak. She could almost feel the sigil hum in the beams above, pulling the magistrates’ tongues, steering the children’s cries, twisting the very air of the meeting house.

This was not the Devil’s hand. No. It was something more deliberate, more cunning.

Someone was feeding Salem fire without flame.

And Sera had come to find them.


That night, she found him.

The woods beyond Salem were thick with mist, branches clutching at one another like withered hands. The moon cast its pale glow, silvering the earth where a man in a long black coat crouched over a circle of runes. His voice hissed like steam, each syllable a spark feeding the sigils that crawled across the ground like veins of fire. From them stretched invisible threads that coiled into the town — threads that bound hearts, sharpened suspicion, and turned neighbor against neighbor.

He was no Puritan preacher. His aura was older, darker. A sorcerer who drank deep from human frenzy, thriving on fear as if it were wine.

“You fatten yourself on fear,” Sera said, stepping into the clearing. Her voice was soft, but the air shivered with its resonance.

The man straightened, the runes pulsing red beneath his boots. His eyes gleamed, reflecting the firelight. A smile tugged at his lips, cruel and mocking.

“And who are you,” he drawled, “to deny me my feast, witch?”

Sera’s wings twitched beneath her cloak, hidden still but restless. “I am the one who ends it.”

The sorcerer’s laughter rolled low, curling around the trees. “Ah. Not mortal, then. I smelled something different in the air tonight.” He tilted his head, studying her like a hunter sizing prey. “Not witch. Not demon. An exile, perhaps? Yes… one cast out, wearing mortal skin.”

His words were knives, meant to probe, to unsettle.

Sera’s gaze hardened. “Your poison has already killed innocents. Every false tongue, every false cry in that hall bears your mark. For what? Power? A brief crown over a broken town?”

The sorcerer raised his hands, and the runes flared brighter, shadows writhing up the trees. “Fear is the purest power, angel. Prayer bends weakly. Love falters. But fear? Fear endures. It chains kings, topples nations, feeds gods and demons alike. Why waste time in Heaven’s stale light when terror offers such bounty?”

Sera stepped closer, the mist parting around her. “You mistake frenzy for strength. Fear devours itself. It will swallow you as surely as it swallows them.”

“Then let it swallow!” His grin widened, teeth flashing. “Better to be devoured as master than starve as slave.”

The ground trembled as the circle’s power deepened. The air grew thick, foul with the scent of ash and iron. Faces flickered in the fire — twisted echoes of Salem’s accused, their fear trapped and magnified by his spell. They wailed, voices warped, binding themselves into his enchantment.

Sera’s hand slipped free of her cloak, fingers glowing faintly with hidden light.

“Release them,” she said, her voice cutting like steel.

The sorcerer sneered. “Or what? You’ll redeem me? Spare me? You are mercy bound in flesh — and mercy breaks.”

“No,” Sera whispered, her wings beginning to unfurl, shadows rising like storm clouds. “Mercy bends. Justice does not.”

The circle shuddered as her light struck against his flame, mist coiling and hissing between them. The woods held its breath.

The battle had begun.

Their duel tore through the forest.

The sorcerer raised his hands, and chains of shadow lashed outward, binding tree trunks in writhing knots. The branches groaned, bending like prisoners at the gallows. Sera lifted her hand, and a low hum resonated from her palm — the chains quivered, then shattered into strands of sound, dissolving into harmony that rang through the night.

The sorcerer snarled, his lips curling back. He whispered curses, words in a tongue older than Salem itself. The air sharpened into blades, rushing toward her with the shriek of a thousand unseen mouths.

Sera closed her eyes. Her voice rose in reply, soft but unwavering, weaving a resonance that caught the knives mid-flight. Their edges bent, light scattering along their surfaces until they softened into drifting feathers. They fell gently to the ground, pale against the black soil.

“You meddle in every age, don’t you?” he spat, his fury igniting the circle beneath his feet. Flames coiled upward, twisting into the shape of a gallows, a burning noose swinging above him. “Do you think mortals thank you for it? They call you demon, exile, witch. They burn your disciples. They curse your name while you bleed for theirs. They fear you more than me.”

His words struck deep. She had heard them before — in Rome, in Constantinople, in Jerusalem. Always whispered in the dark: demon, fallen, other. Always fear, no matter what she gave.

Her hands trembled, just for a heartbeat.

But then she opened her eyes.

They glowed red and violet, twin stars in the clearing, as she raised both hands to the heavens. The air itself bent around her, trembling as though creation remembered her voice.

“I do not seek gratitude,” she said, her voice carrying beyond the trees. “Nor worship. Nor memory.” Her wings spread wide now, dark feathers drinking the moonlight. “I seek only balance. To mend what is broken. To silence what feeds on ruin.”

The resonance swelled, a deep thrumming that shook the earth. The sorcerer’s gallows cracked and splintered, flames unraveling into sparks that fizzled into the night air. His web of sigils writhed and twisted as her song broke their knots one by one, unraveling the fear he had sown.

“No!” he screamed, clutching at the air as his power faltered. Shadows poured from his skin, but they slipped through his fingers, scattering like smoke torn by wind. “You cannot erase me! Fear never dies!”

“No,” Sera whispered, her voice both sorrow and steel, “but it does not rule.”

Her resonance surged, washing over him in a wave of unmaking. The sorcerer shrieked as his form fractured, scattering into ash carried on the night wind, his voice fading into silence.

The forest fell still.

No chains, no fire, no shadows. Only feathers settling gently onto the ground, and the faint scent of burnt cedar drifting through the night.

Sera lowered her hands, her wings folding once more beneath her cloak. She stood alone in the clearing, the echoes of fear dissolving into quiet. But she knew Salem was not healed — hysteria would linger, wounds would deepen. Mortals would hang their own, with or without a sorcerer’s hand.

Balance had been restored, yes. But never fully. Never forever.

Sera turned back toward the town, her face unreadable, her eyes dim once more. The night was silent, but her steps carried the weight of centuries.

But Salem did not.

Even with the sorcerer’s magic gone, the fire of suspicion still burned in mortal hearts. The noose still swung. The trials still thundered. Families still shattered beneath the weight of a lie that needed no spell to sustain it.

Sera walked the streets by night, a shadow moving between shadows. She cloaked innocents when she could, bent whispers into courage, turned a mob’s eye aside for a fleeting moment. Yet she could not save them all. Not in this place. Not in this age.

At one execution, she stood unseen in the throng. The crowd jeered and spat as a young woman was dragged to the gallows. Sera’s heart clenched. She had shielded the girl before, once, with a breath of courage in the night. Now that courage carried her to the scaffold.

The noose was lowered. The magistrate asked for confession.

The woman raised her chin, eyes scanning the crowd — and for the briefest instant, her gaze locked with Sera’s. It was impossible; mortals could not see her unless she willed it. Yet somehow, this one did.

“I am innocent,” the woman said, her voice steady as the rope brushed her skin.

Gasps rippled through the crowd. To their ears, it was defiance, arrogance, proof of guilt. But to Sera, the words rang differently. They resonated, a clear tone against the discord, a final note of truth sung into the storm of lies.
The trapdoor fell. The body swung.

The crowd exhaled, some in triumph, others in unease. Sera turned away before the sound of breaking bones reached her ears. Her steps were slow, her heart heavier than when she entered.

That night, under the cover of storm clouds, she left Salem. Her cloak was damp, her hair clung to her face, and each step felt like walking deeper into exile. Behind her, the town was a smear of light and fire in the darkness — a wound still bleeding.

“They will never know I fought for them,” she whispered to the storm. “History will only remember the flames.”

The wind answered with silence.

She stopped, her wings hidden, her shoulders bowed. For the first time in a long age, her voice cracked. “Perhaps that is all mortals ever need. Their myths. Their monsters. And someone to burn in their place.”

A rumble of thunder rolled across the sky, like the low laughter of a god she no longer served.

Sera did not weep. She had long since spent her tears. Instead, she drew her cloak tighter, folding herself into shadow.

Let them whisper of the Celestial Witch.Let them curse the unseen hand.Let them condemn the savior they would never name.

If they needed a monster to keep their fragile order, then she would be that monster.

As lightning split the clouds, Sera vanished into the night — leaving Salem to its myths, and her memory to silence.

Chapter 4: Salem End