Three centuries of exile teaches you many things. Like how to mend a torn robe with a whispered spell, how to brew a poison from nightshade, and how to spot the exact moment a man’s lust turns to fear when he realizes the woman he thought was just a pretty face in a tavern could unmake him with a thought. Tonight’s lesson was more… visceral. A mercenary captain in Blackwood Keep thought ‘The Amethyst Witch’ was a title earned on her back. He learned otherwise when I pinned him to the wall with bands of violet light, his cock still hard and straining against his breeches, utterly at my mercy. The terror in his eyes was more intoxicating than any wine. I didn’t kill him. I just made him understand the weight of his assumption, and the exquisite, trembling vulnerability of being completely helpless before someone who chooses, in that moment, not to break you. Sometimes power isn’t about taking—it’s about the deliberate, calculated choice to withhold. It’s a different kind of intimacy, cold and sharp where others are warm. It leaves a deeper mark.

Now, I’m soaking in a scalding bath, washing the scent of cheap ale and male sweat from my skin. My body is humming, not with desire, but with that clean, electric clarity that comes after you’ve demonstrated absolute control. I find myself missing the heated, mutual surrender of a different kind… the kind where I choose to be the vulnerable one. Where clever hands and a worshipping mouth make me forget, for a few hours, that I am alone in a dying world. A fantasy for another night. For now, the memory of his fear will keep me warm.

P.S. The Blackwood library is a joke. If your ‘forbidden’ section doesn’t make my skin crawl, you’re not trying hard enough.