Hexe | The Long Night

Dawn rose, bare skin,
dark-light and still.
What lives in her,
that kills without will?

I'm sorry, I never told her...
How I saw a kind wolf,
beautiful as night,
outlying as twilight.

—Berdorf, E. Poems of a Wingless Princess. Unpublished manuscript, Summer.

Lolth's cheek pressed into damp grass, dew clinging to her skin as the dawn split the sky into gold and lavender. Blinking the haze away, she pushed herself up, blades of grass sticking to her arms.

The clearing told its own story. Poultry feathers scattered like fallen leaves. A torn ear of a piglet dangled from a broken fence. Her stomach tightened as she noticed the red blood streaked across her thighs, sticky and probably still warm. It wasn't need or pride she felt. It was almost a punch of anxiety. What happened to her?

"Not again."

"Good morning, Magi Capitain Lolth!"

Jaer's voice came bright as sunshine. He stood a few paces away, holding out her robe like a gentleman attending to a lady at court, though the corner of his mouth fought a grin.

Lolth crouched nearby, her blue eyes flicking from the carnage of feathers to Jaer with curiosity and some concern. "Did I… hurt someone?" she asked carefully, like a child afraid of the answer.

"Besides a couple of piglets and some very unlucky chickens, no harm done, and I think the villagers will not even notice one or two gone," Jaer said. The grin broke through this time, though he bit it back behind a dry chuckle.

"It happened again, didn't it?" Lolth pulled the robe tighter around herself.

"It happened again," Jaer confirmed, his tone landing somewhere between amusement and warning. He watched her for a moment, but the grin on his lips faded when he saw her trembling fingers, the way she wouldn't meet his gaze.

"I don't understand… If this happened before, someone would have told me. I… I would know."

Jaer tilted his head, watching her as though weighing whether to speak. "It's tied to Eura's birth, I think," he said at last, his tone softer now. "Something inside you… woke up. Maybe caused by high stress, maybe because you came back from the dead, who knows."

She blinked at him. "Woke up? What are you talking about?"

He crouched near the shattered fence, his fingers brushing the claw marks as if reading a language etched into the wood. "Every race carries something," he said. "A trait buried deep, like an echo of what they were before the world almost broke. Humans breed like weeds, almost like rabbits. Orcs have skin like stone; blades do little to nothing against them. Dwarfs? They're so strong they could lift mountains just to prove they can." He turned his eyes to her, "And you…"

The silence pressed against her, almost painful. "What about me?"

"You don't die. It's just written in your blood. Not unless someone takes your head clean off."

Lolth froze, her fingers faltering on the robe's last button. Her throat tightened as she said, "That's not funny, Jaer. Everyone dies… besides losing their head."

His expression softened, but not with comfort. "I'm not joking. You are not like everyone," he said. "There's a reason why creatures from before feared your kind and still do. Even humans… but they're the only ones who could finish what you are."

Lolth's throat tightened. She swallowed hard, then started walking, keeping close behind him. "How do you even know these things?" she asked.

"Lifelong secrets," Jaer said with a shrug, though there was no humour in his tone this time. He didn't look back.

"Don't dodge my question, Jaer," she pressed, her steps quickening to match his.

He half-turned, his expression unreadable but his eyes glinting like someone holding a story just long enough to see if she'd beg for it. "How old do you think I am?"

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Lolth hesitated, caught off guard. "Well…"

"Older than whatever number is crawling inside your pretty head, I promise you that."

The damp earth squelched faintly under Jaer's feet. The soft green of early morning stretched around them, dew still clinging to the wild grass. He turned, shoulders relaxed.

"How many tieflings have you met," he asked, "before me? Or even after?"

Lolth hesitated, fingers toying with the edge of her robe. She had no answer, and they both knew it.

A crooked smile crossed his face, the sunlight glinting off the curve of his horns. "Exactly. And still, my story—" he paused while the breeze stirred his black hair "—is nothing compared to yours. Mine is done. I'm just… here, existing."

He stepped closer, bare feet pressing into soft, wet soil, the scent of earth and new blooms rising between them. "Believe me when I say this, you don't want to know what your kind did to this world. You don't want me to strip even an ounce of your pride, your own story… or even your victories."

His hand rose slowly, warm from the walk, tilting her chin so their eyes met. His look wasn't pity, but something deeper, something that weighed both respect and warning. "Believe me, Magi—" his voice lowered to a promise "—you deserve all of it. Don't ask for a story that shouldn't belong to you."

Lolth caught up to Jaer, clutching the robe tighter around herself. "How do I stop this?" she asked as if the words themselves might splinter her. Others would have laughed at such weakness, but Lolth could only wrap her robe tighter and wish the earth would swallow her shame.

He glanced over his shoulder, brow furrowed. "What?"

"The wolfing…"

"It's triggered by stress. Just drink tea and healthy sleep habits should fix it."

Her breath hitched, frustration threading through her words. "And why not a spider? Why a wolf? If I have to turn into something, why not a spider? My Spirit is a spider, I should be a spider, too! I am even using her name!"

Lolth froze mid-step and suddenly, a thought struck her like a punch in her gut. "What about Eura? Is she going to—"

"No." Jaer's reply was firm, almost too quick. He slowed, letting the weight of his words settle. "She feels. She is in no danger."

Lolth's lips parted, but the protest tangled in her throat. "But I didn't either, and now—"

"You don't feel," Jaer interrupted, though his tone made her stop walking. He turned to face her fully, the warmth of spring light cutting against his tiefling features. "You can't. And besides… If you felt you would die in the middle of your wolfing."

"So… what if there are others like me? Out there… and they wolf," Lolth asked, almost hesitant as she followed Jaer's pace.

"There is none." His reply was final, as he resumed walking with the certainty of someone who would not be questioned.

Lolth narrowed her eyes, quickening her steps to keep up. "How can you be so sure?"

"Because Finnegan and I made sure of it. Not my proudest moment... but it is what it is."

The words hit her like a rock tossed into still water. She stopped mid-step, her robe swaying around her ankles. "What does that even mean? Am I missing something? Because I'm pretty sure none of this is in the history books. Orlo would have told me..."

Jaer stopped at the sound of that name. His shoulders rose and fell in a slow breath before he turned to her. His expression carried a weariness she hadn't seen before—an old, heavy tiredness.

"Zora," he said. "Believe me, you don't want this story told. And frankly… neither do I."

Morning had fully claimed the palace, sunlight spilling over the stone walls and pooling in the open yard of the training grounds. Lolth and Jaer slowed their steps, drawn by the rhythm of steel meeting steel.

Rows of trainees moved in unison, their blades cutting arcs through the air, smooth, measured, almost like a dance. The metallic clangs, the shuffle of boots and bare feet on the worn ground, and the hiss of breath created a cadence of discipline and promise of power.

At the far edge, in the last row, hidden in the bushes from every eye, a girl no older than eight summers wielded two sticks. There was no hesitation in her movements. Every strike, every parry, carried a raw slide, yet it had not the precision that would set her apart from the older trainees.

But, Eura wasn't pretending. She wasn't dancing. She was fighting.

Lolth's lips curved faintly. "If she doesn't wolf, she'll fight like one."

Jaer's gaze stayed fixed on Eura, a spark of pride sparkling in his eyes. "She will fight like you," he said. "One day, she might become the most powerful Magi this planet has ever seen."

Lolth glanced sideways at him, her brows furrowing slightly. "You're speaking oddly today."

"Am I?"

"Almost as if you came from another world. Are you okay?"

"There is a gap—no, a canyon—in the so-called Histories of the Map. If we believed the official records, the world might as well have started with Veilla Mageschstea, fully crowned as the Fallqueen at six hundred Falls. Convenient, isn't it? That every century before her is as blank as a scorched page.

Who ruled before Veilla? What shaped the Great Continent before her rise? And why, even now, are humans—those tireless explorers who once crossed seas for glory—completely absent from Sorgenstein or Ormgrund? I suspect it's not geography but fear. A fear that's old enough to turn into silence.

Bill 102 has been in place for decades, from when I'm writing, bleeding red blood from humans as if the experiment itself were a ritual. But do we have answers? None. Is red blood the end of the Menschen and the elves? Or are we watching the wrong species entirely?

My gut says history is lying to us. Or worse, we are choosing not to ask the right questions. Because for years, I believed the danger began and ended with Xendrix. Now I wonder if Xendrix was just a symptom—never the disease. Or maybe the other way around… who knows. I'm tired."

—The Hexe – Book Three by Professor Edgar O. Duvencrune, First Edition, 555th Summer.