Sioni continued North, hoping to reach a town, to find her bearings. She felt different somehow, though she didn’t know why. As she continued through the forest, just out of sight of the path, she began to wonder.

What was all of this about?

The old witch, Malvolia, had wanted her blood for something. Helen obviously had, as well. They could be one and the same. She wondered why her blood was so special, if that was the real reason she’d been put in the tower so long ago. She remembered, when she was very young, a time before the tower. They’d lived in another town, the town of her mother’s girlhood. They’d stolen away in the middle of the night, she couldn’t remember why.

The memory flooded her so quickly she fell to her knees. A woman, old as her mother was now, had come to take Sioni. She’d come before, but this time she was much stronger. They’d left to protect her, to save her from this evil woman. It must have been Malvolia, all those years ago.

Sioni stood, she would take no more of this.