Page 158 of A Weave of Lies
Estevan was awitch—that meant he had felt it when the Wyrdtwined Oath unravelled his threads. It had never been the warwitches that shocked him.
It had been what she’d turned him into. He hadn’t known what the rituals meant, but he had known what itdidto him. It must have been terrifying—just as terrifying as when she exchanged their vitality without warning him during the glade’s wolves attack.
Her throat tightened. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You think I will believe that? After all the times you have spied on me?” Estevan wiped the sweat off his brow, then stood. “I believe I am a tolerant man, Semras, but you crossed the line. You seduced me only to poison me! I told you—”
“You left me no choice!” she spoke over him. “How was I supposed to know—”
“… to go back home, that this did not concern you any longer. This entire mess is mine to fix. My family started all this, and—”
“… the witch was your mother? I thought you would torture her, or worse! You’ve shown me only—”
“… I will put an end to it. And I admit,” he seethed, voice overlapping hers. “I am not by any means above reproach, but how could you—”
“… the worst of you, and even after I confronted you about your secrets, you kept lying! And you expected me to—”
“… manipulate me, stalk me here, and poison me! How could I ever—”
“… trust you again?” their voices mingled into one.
Silence embraced them.
Trust. That had been the issue from the moment they met. It shouldn’t have ever existed between them, yet it had.
And they both abused it until it broke.
Semras’ words had expunged all anger from her. Now, she felt depleted, like skin stretched thinly over frail bones. She was tired—tired of their lies, of their secrets, of their constant fighting.
With a long exhale, Estevan looked away first. “It does not take so long to prepare tea, Mother,” he said.
“I didn’t dare interrupt such a lovely conversation,” Leyevna replied, stepping down from the staircase. In her hands, cups and a teapot were balancing precariously on an old wooden platter. “Are you two lovebirds done?”
After placing the tray onto the small table, the warwitch waved at them to sit back on the chairs. She put one cup in Estevan’s hand, slid another toward Semras, and then stood still in front of them both, fingers drumming against one of her crossed arms.
Semras looked down at the greenish liquid within her mug. Swirling slowly at the surface, the tea dust couldn’t hide theshame blooming in her eyes’s reflection—Leyevna had heard everything.
“So, you poisoned my son?” the matriarch asked flippantly. “With what?”
Wincing, Semras kept her head down. “Wolfsbane.”
“Quantity?”
“A single seed,” she replied, then added hurriedly, “A small one.”
Leyevna scoffed. “You would eat just about anything a pretty girl gives you,Vanya? I thought your father raised you wiser than this. I should have known that by leaving you with him so young, you’d become just as naive as he.”
“I tricked him,” Semras protested. “I—” She paused, unsure of what to say exactly. Admitting how exactly she had done so was a little harder than coming to Estevan’s defence.
“Shekissedme,” he said, sneering, “and slipped the damn thing while I was … distracted.”
The bastard. Holding back her breath, Semras waited for the matriarch’s castigation.
Instead, Leyevna chuckled. “Oh, you both remind me of my youth. I nearly killed your father too,Vanya.Did he ever tell you? He was so understanding about it.” The matriarch’s hand—warm and comforting—fell on Semras’ shoulder. “You didn’t mean to harm my boy for real, did you, Semras of Yore?”
Semras glanced up—and froze.
Despite the levity of her tone, Leyevna’s icy glare held a quiet threat within. When Semras didn’t answer immediately, the hand on her shoulder turned into gripping claws. A warning, she reckoned.
