The Silent Watch

The Silent Watch

Yaga - Witchwood Maw

The finality of the empty doorway was a physical ache in Yaga’s chest, a hollow space where a lifetime of memories had once stood. Aga was gone. He had chosen the path of the storm, the fool’s road, chasing a ghost on a dream-ridden isle.

She turned from the door and moved back into the cluttered heart of her cottage. The air was thick with woodsmoke, drying herbs, and the faint, liar’s scent of ozone from her wards. On the rough-hewn table, the Heart of the Witchwood pulsed with a slow, steady, crimson light, a second, magical heartbeat in the otherwise silent room.

Luka slept in his cradle, a porcelain doll in the firelight. He was a puzzle she was no nearer to solving, a fulcrum upon which the world might one day break.

A soft, melodic chime, a sound like a single, perfect note struck on a crystal bell, echoed not in the air, but directly through her mind.

The song of her outermost wards. Someone had crossed the threshold.

It was not a blundering hunter, whose clumsy passage would have felt like a thrashing in the undergrowth. It was not a creature of the forest. This was something else. It moved with a silent, deliberate purpose, its presence a perfect, unnatural nullity in the vibrant, thrumming life of the Maw. A spot of absolute blackness moving across a rich tapestry. It did not belong.

Yaga’s hand went to the small knife at her belt. She stood in the center of her cottage, a spider in her web, and waited. The presence moved swiftly, unerringly, toward her clearing. It was not hunting; it was homing.

She was at the open doorway as the figure emerged from the treeline. He wore the opulent, layered robes of a foreign king. But it was the mask that held her attention: a masterpiece of shifting, liquid gold, shaped into the stylized, emotionless face of a feline.

"He's gone, then?" The figure’s voice broke the silence. It was perfectly modulated, impossible to read.

Yaga didn't startle. "He made his choice."

"He chases shadows," the voice retorted. The figure glided into the cottage, stopping near the cradle, seeming to drink in the sight of the child. "A choice you allowed."

"Aga walks his own path," Yaga said, her voice a low warning. "As all men must."

"And what of this one's path?" The masked figure gestured to Luka. "You feel it, don't you? The wards are weakening. His departure has consequences."

Yaga’s gaze returned to the pulsing flower. "The foundations hold."

"Foundations crack." The figure leaned closer to the child, the scent of damp earth and cold stone clinging to him. "His fear breeds power, Yaga. And you have just set him loose upon the world."

"Then I will strengthen the foundations," Yaga said, her voice firm.

The figure’s head tilted, the golden mask catching the firelight. "Protection from what, Yaga? From the truth?"

Yaga didn't answer. She turned back to the Heart of the Witchwood, her fingers tracing the delicate curve of a petal. "I will not allow the Isle to claim him," she said, her voice a low promise. "Not while I draw breath."

The figure chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. "Brave words. But words are wind. And what lies ahead... is a storm."