The screaming started at dawn.

I pressed my face to the narrow window of my cell, stone cold against my cheek, and watched my world end.

They'd gathered my sisters in the courtyard below, thirteen women in gray robes, their hands bound with iron. Elder Mathilde stood at the front, her silver hair catching the morning light. She was saying something. A prayer, maybe. A curse.

I couldn't hear the words over the soldiers.

The torches came first. Then the oil. Then the fire.

I screamed until my voice broke. Screamed their names, Vera, Asha, Nell, Lyria, Mathilde, all of them, all thirteen, every sister I'd ever known. I clawed at the bars until my fingers bled, until the iron scraped bone.

No one came.

The fire burned for three hours. I watched every minute.

When it finally died, when there was nothing left but ash and the cloying stench of burned flesh drifting through my window, I stopped screaming. Stopped clawing. Stopped everything.

I sat in the corner of my cell and let the cold seep into my bones.

Three months I'd been here. Three months since they'd dragged me from the coven's herb garden and locked me away, separated from my sisters for reasons no one would explain. A hedge witch who could heal plague with her hands and curse a man's crops to rot, they hadn't known what to do with me.

So they'd done nothing. Left me to wait.

And while I waited, someone had decided to burn everything I loved.

The sun moved across my cell. Shadows shifted. I didn't move.

My sisters were dead.

The words didn't make sense yet. My mind kept sliding off them like water off stone. Vera, who'd taught me to make fever-tea. Asha, who'd laughed at my first failed healing spell. Nell, who'd held me when I woke from nightmares.

Ash now. All of them.

I was the last witch alive.

The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it settled into my chest like a cold stone, heavy and still. I had nothing left to lose. Nothing left to fear.

When the cell door opened that evening, I didn't look up.

"The Warlord requests your presence."

A soldier's voice. Young. Nervous. I could hear his heartbeat from across the room, fast, frightened. He was afraid of me.

Good.

"Tell the Warlord," I said, my voice a ragged thing, "that he can rot."

A pause. The soldier's armor clinked as he shifted. "I have orders to bring you. By force if necessary."

I laughed. It sounded wrong, a broken thing, sharp-edged and hollow. "By all means. Try."

He tried.

I let him get within arm's reach before I moved. My hand found his throat, my magic surging through his skin, finding the threads of his life force. One pull and his lungs would fill with blood. One twist and his heart would stop.

He went very still.

"Tell your Warlord," I whispered, "that I will come when I choose. And when I come, I will be counting his heartbeats."

I released him. He stumbled back, gasping, and fled.

I returned to my corner. The stone wall pressed against my spine. I counted my own breaths, slow, even, controlled. My sisters would want me to survive. They would want me to wait for the right moment.

Then they would want me to make the Warlord pay.

I waited three more days.

They brought food I didn't eat. Water I barely touched. The soldiers changed shifts outside my door, and I memorized their patterns, their voices, the way they spoke about me in hushed tones.

The witch. The last one. The dangerous one.

They weren't wrong.

On the third day, I rose.

My legs were weak from sitting. My body ached from sleeping on stone. The burn scars on my palms, old marks from spells that had demanded payment, throbbed with a pain I'd learned to ignore.

I walked to the cell door and knocked.

The soldier who answered nearly dropped his sword. "The prisoner wishes to speak with the Warlord," I said. My voice was steady now. Cold as the stone I'd been sitting on. "Tell him I've reconsidered."

It took an hour. I spent it standing by my window, looking at the courtyard where my sisters had died. The stones were scrubbed clean now. No ash remained.

But I would never forget where they fell.

The door opened again. More soldiers this time, six of them, in full armor, their hands on their weapons. They parted to reveal the man behind them.

Damon Varkoth. The Warlord.

He was taller than I expected. Broader. Built for war, every line of him speaking to violence and survival. Dark hair with threads of gray that shouldn't have been there, he wasn't old enough for gray hair, which meant something had worn him down. A scar cut through his left eyebrow, silvered with age. His eyes were gray, the flat color of winter sky. Tired. Watchful.

He looked at me like I was a problem he hadn't yet solved.

I looked at him like I was already planning his death.

"Lysandra Ashvale," he said. His voice was deep, roughened by command. "I need a witch."

I let the quiet pool between us. Let him see me taking his measure: the set of his shoulders, the way his hand rested on his sword hilt, the exhaustion carved into the lines of his face.

Then I spat at his feet.

The soldiers moved. Swords cleared sheaths. I stayed where I was.

"You murdered my coven," I said. "And you expect me to help you?"

"I didn't..." He stopped. His hand lifted, and the soldiers went still. "Stand down."

They obeyed. Slowly, reluctantly. But they obeyed.

He stepped forward. Into my cell. Into my space. Close enough that I could smell him, leather and sword oil and something underneath, something that smelled like sleepless nights and desperate decisions.

"I didn't give that order," he said quietly. "And if you believe nothing else I say, believe this: I needed those witches alive."

"They're not alive." My voice cracked on the words. I hated it. Hated that he'd heard it. "They're ash. And you..."

"I know what they are." A muscle in his cheek jumped, the only tell that he felt anything at all. "I know what was done. And I know that you're the only one left who can save my kingdom."

I laughed again. That same broken sound. "Your kingdom. The kingdom you built on conquest. The kingdom that murdered my sisters."

"My kingdom is dying." He said it simply. Factually. Like he was describing the weather. "There's a blight spreading through the land. Crops rot in the fields. Children sicken. Villages are turning to dust. Without magic, without witch magic, everyone will die."

"Good."

The word hung between us. I meant it. In that moment, with the memory of fire still burning behind my eyes, I meant it completely.

His expression didn't change. "You'll watch children die. Innocent children who had nothing to do with what happened here. You'll watch them wither and starve, knowing you could have helped."

"You think I care about your children?"

"I think you're a healer." He said it like it mattered. Like he'd known other healers. Like he understood what that meant. "I think watching suffering goes against everything you are."

"You don't know what I am."

"No." He stepped closer. Close enough that I could see the pulse in his throat, count the beats of his heart. "But I know what you could be. The last witch. The one who saved a kingdom. The one who proved that your sisters' magic wasn't destroyed, it lived on in you."

The words hit like a blow. I turned away, facing the window, facing the courtyard.

"What's your offer?" I asked.

"Help me end the blight. Heal my people. And when it's done, you walk free. Gold. Land. Protection. Whatever you want."

"I want my sisters back."

Silence.

"I can't give you that." His voice was rough now. Honest in a way I hadn't expected. "I can only give you a choice. Help me save what's left. Or stay in this cell and watch it all burn again."

I kept my gaze on the courtyard. On the stones that had been scrubbed clean.

The truth was simple. I couldn't kill him yet, not from a cell, not without knowing how he'd die, not without making sure it hurt. But if I agreed to help, I'd be close to him. Close enough to learn his weaknesses. Close enough to find the perfect moment.

Proximity was the best way to destroy a man.

I turned to face him. "I have conditions."

"Name them."

"I don't answer to your generals. I answer only to you."

A pause. A nod. "Agreed."

"I keep my magic. No bindings. No suppressors. No chains."

"You could kill me the moment..."

"I could." I smiled. It felt like a knife. "That's rather the point."

His chin lifted slightly. Surprise, maybe. Or respect. He nodded again. "Agreed."

"And when this is done, when your blight is ended, I leave. No pursuit. No conditions. I disappear, and you let me go."

"Agreed."

I watched him. Looked for the lie. The trap.

I found nothing but exhaustion and desperate hope.

"Then I accept your terms, Warlord." I stepped forward until my breath touched his face. Until he could see every ounce of rage I carried. "May we both get exactly what we deserve."

He didn't flinch. Didn't step back.

"I'll have rooms prepared," he said. "We leave for the first blighted village at dawn."

He turned. Walked away. The soldiers followed, leaving my cell door open.

Freedom. Of a sort.

I stayed where I was until their footsteps faded. Until the corridor went silent. Until I was alone with my grief and my rage and the cold certainty of what I would become.

He needed a witch to save his kingdom.

I would save it. I would heal his sick and cleanse his land and make myself indispensable.

And then, when he trusted me, when he believed he was safe, I would make him pay for every sister I'd lost.

I walked to the window one last time. The courtyard was dark. Empty. Just stone and shadows and the memory of screaming.

"I'm coming for him," I whispered to the ghosts of my sisters. "I swear it."

The wind ate the words.

Somewhere in the palace, the Warlord slept.

Not for long.