The bone-masked witch - the Inciting Witch

"High Priestess."

The question came from a witch near the front of the crowd. She was masked in bone and sinew, her body still covered, her arms crossed beneath her breasts.

"Has the Black Lord spoken?"

The High Priestess turned her head slowly toward the speaker.

The clearing went quiet.

Other witches began muttering among themselves—doubts, anxieties, questions they had been holding back. Has he spoken? Why hasn't he spoken? Does he even know what's happening to us?

"Fool." A sharp voice cut through the muttering. One of the High Priestess's seconds—a tall woman with cropped gray hair and a face full of old scars. "Do you think the Mother would not inform us if the Horned Lord had spoken? Better to keep quiet."

The bone-masked witch lowered her head.

But her gaze did not lower with it.

Her eyes remained fixed on the High Priestess—sharp, unwavering, hungry. The look of a hawk watching from a low branch. The look of something that had already decided to strike and was only waiting for the right moment.

Her lips moved.

The words came quietly at first. Then louder. A stream, barely controlled.

"The coven weakens," she said. "You all feel it. The virus takes our power drop by drop, and what do we do? We dance. We sing. We send each other to find men—as if that will solve anything." Her voice dripped with contempt. "The Church smells blood. They always do. Their hounds are circling tighter every season. Every full moon, I hear them. Closer. Closer."

She took a step forward. The witches around her parted instinctively.

"The Horned Lord has been silent too long. Too long. I ask myself—what does that mean? Is he watching? Is he waiting? Or has he..." She paused. Let the silence stretch. "...turned away?"

A murmur rippled through the crowd.

"I wonder," she continued, her voice dropping to something softer and more dangerous, "where this is all heading. I wonder if the leadership we once trusted without question is still... capable. I wonder if the weakness we feel in our bodies has spread higher than any of us want to admit."

Her eyes never left the High Priestess.

The implication hung in the air like smoke.

The bone-masked witch straightened her shoulders. But she did not speak again.

She did not need to.

Her words were already spreading through the coven like poison through water.

The clearing erupted.

Witches turned on each other—shouting, pointing, accusing. What had been nervous tension now cracked open into something uglier.

"The Church isn't circling, they're already inside!" one witch screamed.

"Quiet, you fool—"

"She's right about the silence! When did he last speak? When?"

"I heard him three moons ago—"

"Liar. You heard nothing. None of us have."

A younger witch burst into tears. An older one shoved her aside, face twisted with fury.

"This is why we're weak! This squabbling! This doubt!"

"Doubt is not betrayal. Questioning is not treason. Or has the Mother taught us nothing?"

The bone-masked witch straightened her shoulders.

Then she raised her arm.

Her finger—long, bony, pale as old bone—extended toward the edge of the inner circle. Toward Clarissa.

The gesture was slow. Deliberate. A blade drawn in plain sight.

"How much longer," she said, her voice cold and steady now, cutting through the murmurs, "will we indulge witches like that one? The ones who do not follow the rules. Who come and go as they please. Who bow when it suits them and mock when it does not."

She did not look at the High Priestess when she spoke. Her eyes remained on Clarissa. Accusing.

"How much longer will you shield her, Mother? How many times must she arrive late, leave early, speak out of turn, wear her insolence like a crown—before someone asks the question no one dares to ask?"

The clearing went silent again.

The bone-masked witch lowered her arm. But her finger remained pointed—a ghost of a gesture, an accusation frozen in the air.

"How much longer," she whispered, "will the rest of us suffer for the exceptions you refuse to discipline?"

She turned her head toward the High Priestess.

Slowly.

Meaningfully.

"How much longer?"

The silence stretched. Witches held their breath. Some looked at Clarissa. Some looked at the Mother. Most looked at the ground, unwilling to be seen watching.

The High Priestess did not answer immediately.

She simply stood there, bare-breasted and unmoving, her dark hair stirred by a wind that no one else could feel.

And somewhere behind her, barely visible in the firelight, Clarissa smiled.

It was not a nice smile.