#haleir

She shifts the bundle in her arms to remove then hang her hat on the coat rack by the door. Her shoes clack across the floor as she invites herself into what looks to be the formal sitting room.

“Is the moon treating you well this cycle?” Serahlin asks. Selene gestures to the sofa and Serahlin takes a seat. Selene sits in a chair, her hair shining in the light even during the day. The full moon empowers her even now. It’s a good prediction for how Ileth will be when he is grown. But she must remember, as powerful as he will be during the full moon, he will be as weak during the new moon.

“As well as it can. Felasel has been up all night.” She can hear the exhaustion in Selene’s voice, but it is the only indicator that Felasel’s inability to sleep has been a strain. “I have been too, so it works out, but there is a certain tiredness that comes with tending to your child for an entire twenty-four period period.”

“Ileth has been practically crawling the walls at night. At one point, I let the moonlight flood his room and he got so excited, he unintentionally levitated a few inches off the floor.” She had been so proud to see the space between his feet and the floor, his face canted up to the light streaming into the bedroom. Serahlin is also exhausted, though for...other reasons that just tending to her son. Her nails tap against the plastic holding the muffins.

“He must be close to his birthday,” Selene says.

“Three more months.” She is almost sad about it. Not losing the power, that would be a horrible thing to mourn since the power is rightfully his. It is the sadness of her baby growing up so fast. She feels like he just took his first steps, said his first word.

“Darevas and Felasel have six more months.”

“Good,” Serahlin says, deciding that there has been enough small talk, “that means there is plenty of time to handle Haleir while you are empowered.”

Selene’s face flushes and her eyes flash, “That...will be difficult to accomplish.”

“When Darris took my book, I swore I’d get it back, win my freedom. But years passed and I grew convinced that I wouldn’t ever gain my freedom.”

“He took your book, too?” Selene says softly, horror and sympathy clear in her voice. Serahlin gives her a reassuring smile, full of the self satisfaction of murdering Darris only two nights prior.

“He did, and up until two days ago, it was his. But we moved only a month ago into the new house and my familiar found it, poorly warded in a box. He broke the wards and I got it back. That night I exacted my revenge. He will never take anything from me or anyone again.” The lights flicker at her intensity and Selene looks envious at Serahlin’s victory. Her fluffy white familiar mrows in approval, jumping up onto the arm of the chair Selene is in.

“Two days ago? That was the bake sale….”

“The day I finally recognized you for what you were. And I realized that if you had not approached me after all this time, then you too must be in a similar position. So I brought a few gifts.,” she picks up the tupperware, removes the lid and reaches past the first layer of muffins to pull out a pink candle. It sits in a silver carrier with the ancient tongue carved into the handle and around the holder.

“A searching candle,” Selene breathes.

“Yes. One of my favorite recipes. Now, is there a picture of Haleir around? I will also need a strand of your hair.” Selene rises from the chair and pulls a picture frame off the fireplace mantle. In the picture, Haleir is younger, standing in the woods with the sun high overhead. His induction ceremony to his coven. Certainly a precious memory for him, how perfect.

Serahlin lights the candle and Selene hands over the picture then plucks a strand of a hair and hands that over too. The picture is burned first as Serahlin whispers the spell.

“Reveal what Haleir hides, search for what he took, so that we find Selene’s spell book.” The candle’s flame sputters then turns a bright pink, smoke billows into the room. The lights flicker for a moment before the flame dies down.

“Now we walk the house to find it. When the flames start to flicker pink again, we’ll know we’re close.” She rises from the couch and they begin to walk through the house, slow and methodical, making sure to move the candle into every nook and cranny.

“How is Ileth adapting to not having Darris around?” Selene asks after several minutes of silent searching. Serahlin glances back and contemplates for a moment.

“I don’t think he quite realizes yet that his father isn’t coming home. I don’t think it will be that hard on Ileth, only because Darris was only minimally invested in Ileth. He was always a byproduct of Darris gaining control over me.” Darris was uninvolved in parenting. Uninterested. Ileth came home with artwork and Darris wouldn’t so much as glance up from whatever report he was reading. He didn’t shop for Ileth, didn’t plan parties or meet friends.

Serahlin came home late one night thanks to a parent-teacher conference to find Ileth sitting in his room crying.

“Why doesn’t Father like me?”

It broke her heart.

“My son deserves the best, and Darris was never that.”

“At first I thought I could leave, just disappear into the night but I can’t leave the twins. Not with Haleir.”

“And you shouldn’t! The boys may not fully understand why they will never see their father again, but it is for their benefit for him to leave their lives.” Selene will know peace and freedom soon, and it will be the balm to all the wounds of being held captive for so long. Serahlin understands that the wounds won’t heal overnight but gods, it is a beginning.

“Finding the book is one thing, but how do you propose to get Haleir to leave?” Selene asks and Serahlin laughs.

“Leave? Dear Selene, we are going to kill that husband of yours. I poisoned Darris, but Haleir may suspect such a thing. You know him best and I will assist you in any way I can.” In addition to be a talented witch, Serahlin is also educated in hand to hand combat and even knows her way around a knife. She has been carving up all the pigs and turkeys and chickens for the last few years, she doesn’t imagine carving up an elven man is much different.

Selene stops in the middle of the kitchen. Serahlin is holding the candle in front of the microwave, trying to discerns if there is a slight shift in color.

“You hardly know me, why are you doing this?” She asks softly making Serahlin turn to her with a soft knowing expression.

“Because you deserve better and Haleir deserves to be in the ground.” She takes a deep breath and shrugs, “And because I need a coven as does my son and I think so do you and your boys.”

“To have a coven again...it’s almost too much to hope.”

“I do not offer hope,” Serahlin says, moving from the kitchen and down the stairs to the basement, “I am making a promise, offering allegiance. As well as muffins, I made too many for the bake sale.”

Selene chuckles, “Felasel will enjoy that. He has a terrible sweet tooth.” The descend the stairs. Serahlin waves the lights on and eyes the flame.

It flickers pink for the briefest moment.

“We’re on the right track.”

The basement is set deep into the earth as is custom in this area. The ceilings are taller, making it an excellent place to hide witchy items. Serahlin is convinced that the people who originally settled this town were witches and set in place ordinances to allow for easier witchcraft. It’s a good place for witches, a small town that sits at the border of the Free Marches, Orlais, and Nevarra.

Now if only the Chantry wasn’t so inconveniently strong here. If only there wasn’t a horrible past of witch hunts. Templars may be mostly extinct, but the fear of their kind rising up once more is a real fear most witches have.

The descent to the basement builds with barely restrained hope and excitement, but also doubt.

“Des and I have looked in here but have found nothing,” Selene says.

“But your magic was limited, he would of course obscure it as best he could. He is sun blessed, yes?” They reach the end of the stairs and turn into one of the rooms. The candle flickers pink once more.

“Yes.”

“Then where is a window? He’d want to cast it in sunlight.”

“There’s an egress window, over here,” Selene calls from a room adjacent to the one Serahlin is in. She quickly moves over to the room and there is indeed a window there.

The candle sends up more pink, so frequently the entire flame is almost covered.

“Serahlin -

“It is here, Sister.” Serahlin slowly moves the candle around the room, watching for any changes in the flame. There! On the wall opposite of the window. They step closer and the flame changes fully to pink.

“What you hide, reveal what is inside,” Serahlin whispers, then blows the flame and the smoke out over the panel.

It clicks, then slides down.

Atop a small shelf sits what appears to be an innocuous copy of Good Omens.

A warbled sound escapes Selene, “You found it. My book.” She reaches for it only for a barrier to appear over the book. One last security measure. Selene lets out a cry of frustration.

Serahlin runs a hand along the barrier, ignoring the uncomfortable heat in her hand.

“It is a blood ward. It will only disappear if he removes it or if he is dead,” she says with grave solemnity. A plant catches fire in the corner of the room, purple flames climbing the trunk and curling around the fronds. Even this slight proximity gives her a boost in power, even if it is minimal and erratic at best.

“Selene, it is alright, we will figure this out. We were always going to kill him, this...is just a different order of things.” She sets the candle down to turn to Selene, taking her hands in her own. “You will be free. We know where it is, we know the course. We just need to figure the rest out.”

It takes a few minutes of breathing exercises and talking Selene down for the flames to dissipate and for the panic to ease from her face. Serahlin pulls her into a hug. She’ll get through this, Serahlin will make sure of it.

**

Selene and Serahlin plan until it is time to pick the boys up from school. They take Selene’s larger vehicle since it can hold all of the booster seats. The boys are all still energetic from the day - especially Ileth and Felasel who just seem to feed off each other in terms of excited energy.

“Memae! Memae! Mr. Paenir told us that that that next month’s an eclipse!”

“Truly?” Serahlin asks. Selene perks up from the driver’s seat as Serahlin turns in her seat to look into the back seat.

“He said it’s a solar eclipse,” Felasel clarifies.

“Did you hear that, Selene? A solar eclipse.” A wicked smile spreads across Serahlin’s face and it is mirrored on Selene’s.

“Isn’t that convenient.”

**

The day after the last night of the full moon, Haleir returns. It is not quite safe to return to Selene during that time, but they have set up most of their plan anyways. He is also scheduled for one more business trip before the eclipse.

With such a rare event the sun-blessed witches stay home in their most protected place. There are wards and family to help them weather the debilitating reduction in power. If moon-blessed witches are reduced in power during new moons, then sun blessed elves are near mortal during a solar eclipse. And Haleir has grown cocky, thinking that his safest place is at home with his magically neutered wife and still-without-power sons. He will be sharing a home with someone who wishes him all the harm in the world, has every cause to harm him, who will be exponentially more powerful than him for a few hours.

A week passes before Ileth looks up from dinner and stares at Darris’s old seat.

“Is Father coming back?” He asks softly.

She looks at the seat, not missing her dead husband in the least. But she can see the confusion on Ileth’s face, the hurt that he isn’t there. He brought home more artwork today, and even after Darris never so much as glanced at the other art pieces on the fridge, Ileth still stepped into the man’s old office searching for approval.

Serahlin reaches over and takes his hands, directing him to meet her eyes, “No, your father is not coming back. He was not a very nice man. But Ileth, this was not your fault. Never your fault. I made your father leave because he was mean and he made us feel bad.” He still sniffles and rubs at his eye. Serahlin sighs and picks him up, pulling him into her arms. He cries and cries and cries some more.

That approval Ileth he desperately sought he will never get now. Serahlin has no regret, but she wishes she could take away the hurt from Ileth without doing something horribly unethical. She could take his memory away, she supposes, make it so that Darris never existed to Ileth. But those sorts of spells are always revealed in the future - the holes in the memory, other people remembering Darris and asking Ileth about him…. No, this is something Ileth will have to grow from, as much as it hurts.

She gets him ice cream after dinner and lets him sleep in her bed that night. He curls against her, and for a moment she feels a magical pull in her chest. It’s his power, growing every day and waiting to go to him. There is so little time left before he is six. He’ll get his familiar and he will need to be trained to use his magic.

Moonlight streams into the room and Ileth shifts in his sleep, soft little snores turning into brief snorts as he moves unconsciously to be more in the light. She runs a hand through his moon-white hair and thinks of how quickly he has grown. If Darris had not been evil, if she had been with someone good and kind, she would have another. Motherhood has been her light in the darkness, a reason to continue on even as Darris made it almost unbearable.

Morning comes and she drops him off at school like any other day. Another day of moving around the house and plotting and reading awaits her. A restlessness fills her. She could go back to school, finish the law degree Darris had so rudely interrupted.

She could become a divorce lawyer and help other people leave their terrible marriages.

The idea is too tempting to ignore. Further investigation shows that she will need full access to both her and Darris’s funds. He took her savings and put it with his money, granting him even more power over her because her book wasn’t enough. She almost wishes she could kill him all over for that.

Instead, she finds a picture of a death certificate and creates a copy with magic. She signs it, notarizes it, and brings it the bank. Decked out in black and crying tears of happiness, Serahlin gets the accounts turned over to her since she is legally now Darris’s widow.

All his money is hers.

Serahlin is a rich, rich witch. She celebrates by buying herself a new pair of shoes - a beautiful black leather pair that makes her feel divine. And very wicked.

By the time all her errands are done, it’s time to get Ileth from school. She spies Selene in the carpool line and waves to her.

She decides after she has helped Selene with her husband, she is going back to school to become the lawyer she’s always wanted to be. It will be good for Ileth to see her succeed after the loss of Darris.

The month passes. Haleir leaves for a trip. Selene and Serahlin firm up their plan until he comes home. A week later and it is the day they have been waiting for.

After the boys are dropped off at school, Serahlin transforms herself into a cat and slinks over to Selene’s house with her familiar in toe. Selene lets her into the house before walking down to the basement where Haleir has secluded himself. While Selene places the small enchanted bundles to bring down any ward, all connected to Selene’s growing power, Serahlin walks the rest of the house. She seals all the exits and opens all the curtains, allowing the altered light to flood the house.

Haleir is a strong witch, stronger than Darris who quite frankly was a disgrace. Selene is going to need all the power she can get. When the moon begins to cover the sun, Serahlin rushes downstairs to find Selene staring at the door between her and Haleir.

Selene takes a deep breath and opens the door.

“What are you doing?” Haleir accuses, so quick to suspect as he is right to do. Serahlin slinks into the room, behind Haleir while he is distracted by Selene.

“I will give you one last chance - give me my book,” she demands.

Serahlin paws in a small rune into the back of the chair Haleir is sitting in, chanting the spell in her head.

All who sit here

Cannot move,

Become electric chair

To electrocute

Haleir laughs. “Selene, no. We’ve been over this, I thought you understood by now -

“I understand that you have your heir, any debt there was is repaid. It’s my book,” Selene holds firm. Serahlin waits for the moment, but they are running out of time.

“It was never your book to hold, that is the point.”

Selene casts her green eyes to Serahlin and in a moment she is no longer a cat, but an elf.

“What a shame, Haleir, that you are too stupid to just hand it over,” Serahlin purrs. With a shout, Haleir launches himself out of the chair. Or, he attempts to. Electricity shoots over the chair and into Haleir. He collapses against the furniture, panting.

“Release me and I won’t kill you, bitch!” He grates. Serahlin tilts her head and smiles wickedly.

“Tsk, tsk, Haleir, see that is what we are going to do to you.” Without any more warning, Selene and Serahlin start to walk in a circle around the chair, chanting in the old language. Des and Risin join in the walk between their mistresses.

It is an old spell they use, one to strip the magic first, pulling it from his body.

“Once imbued with power, no more, cede your power to us,” they chant as they weave the magic purposefully into him. Haleir screams and thrashes as his magic is rent from him.

“Where man walked, where life bloomed, death lies, death consumes.” They repeat the chants three times before there is a pop and they feel Haleir’s magic separate from him.

They stop walking as Haleir begins to thrash in his chair. Serahlin kicks the chair to recline as Selene flicks out the knife she has been carrying. She leaps on top of him, hair and eyes glowing as the moon reaches its peak.

She is the last sight Haleir sees, a glowing witch of death as she drags the knife across his throat. Blood flows from the wound as his eyes go wide in horror, as if only realizing what is happening.  

“Die, bastard,” she murmurs.

Haleir gurgles, and dies.

Magic coils around him then snaps. The house trembles as all his wards come crashing down. Selene climbs off his body, dropping the knife as she moves to the wall. The false panel falls, Haleir’s magic no longer holding it up.

The book rests inside. Selene reaches for it and lets out a cry of relief when her fingertips finally touch its cover.

“My book,” she cries, grasping it firmly to her. The air around her moves, rustling her hair as her power is reunited within her. She holds the book to her chest as it flickers from its Good Omens cover to its true form of a leather bound tome emblazoned with Dirthamen’s symbol.

Serahlin glances down at Haleir’s corpse, covered in blood and grimaces. She’s never much liked the mess of sacrifices and this is no different. Still, it had to be done, and when Selene turns to her, full of incredulous gratitude.

“I do not know how to thank you,” she says, eyes still glowing.

Serahlin smiles, “You’re free, you can do anything you wish. Though I do hope that perhaps you would consider forming a coven with me?”

“Yes,” Selene says without hesitation. Serahlin raises a brow.

“You do not want to return to your coven?”

“No, my father sold my book to Haleir in the first place.” That bastard. Perhaps if he comes to town soon, they can kill him too. Only if Selene wishes of course.

But now she simply smiles and hugs Selene close, “We will make our coven good and raise our children to be better.”

Selene nods against Serahlin’s shoulder. Serahlin doesn’t even recoil from the blood. They will need to cement the coven bond with blood and a small rite, but already she can feel the bond begin to form.

Her book, Darris dead, and now a coven, even as small as it is. All within a month.

“Now, time to dispose of this bastard,” Serahlin says pulling away from Selene, who wipes her eyes and nods in response.

“Right. There is a spot at the edge of the backyard that will do.”

Together they wrap Haleir’s body in an old blanket that Haleir brought from his coven then haul him out into the yard. Selene guides them into a small copse of trees. They lean over the brush, casting beautiful shadows as the moon starts to uncover the sun once more. They start to dig, and dig, and dig some more until the hole is deep enough.

They toss Haleir in and cover him once more. Selene casts the spell for a tree to take root to harvest the last of Haleir’s energy to prevent him from haunting the house and the boys.

Once he’s buried and the tree is properly seeded, Selene and Serahlin return to the house for a proper cleanse. They burn incense and murmur incantations as they shift the decorations of the house to resemble more of Selene’s style. The altar to Falon’din is replaced by a modest look desk with an inkwell, quill pen, a book, and a blackened raven skull.

The furniture grows softer and a purple fire roars to life in the fireplace. It is truly Selene’s home now. A place that is free of the malignant presence that was Haleir.

“How did you tell Ileth his father wasn’t coming home?” Selene asks, standing in the middle of the room, still covered in dirt and blood but looking more vibrant with every passing moment.

“I was as honest as I could be without saying ‘I killed him because he was an evil sod.’” Serahlin sighs. “It’s not easy, but it is for his own good. Already he was feeling the sting of Darris’s inability to properly parent. And it wasn’t like he was getting any better with me.”

“Right. Haleir was a terrible father, I’m glad my sons are free of him.” But there is the concern that her sons will hurt from this. Serahlin places a reassuring hand on Selene’s shoulder.

“Whatever struggles you face, I will be with you, Sister.”