The darkening forest was full of beauty, but the girl saw none of it as she stomped along the winding path.
Glowing flitterwings danced through the twilight, leaving trails of luminescence in their wake, but she swatted them away, oblivious to their fleeting grace. Eyes downcast, she kicked a rock, sending it skidding over twisting roots. The delicate violet petals of a blooming night-sable unfurled to release its glowing pollen into the warm evening, but she reached out and twisted the flower off its stem as she passed. Her face burned with shame and anger. Her mother’s scolding. Her brother’s laughter. She still heard the sound echoing in discordant cacophony.
Along the path that she had walked many a time before, ended by her only comfort. The Ghost-Willow. It’s limbs moved languidly, as if underwater, accompanied by the faint, musical whisper of the bone chimes.
While the anger still coursed through her, hot and fierce, she closed her eyes and forced her fists to unclench. She breathed in, deep, heavy, and let it out, slowly. Breathing away her feelings. Just like the old master had taught her, she tried to rid herself of rage. One breath at a time.
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Something hit her, hard, in the back of the head. She fell face-first, stumbling towards the tree. Leaning against it for support. She touched her head where the swelling pain originated. A warmth welled over her hand. She turned to see the trio, laughing. Her fury surged.
Flooded the banks of her mind, until all that remained was anger. It was all she could to focus her sight, but she barely saw through the fog.
Her breathing was heavy and short, and her hands clenched once more. Washed in a wave of anger. With every wave, her rage swelled, compounding, growing like a malignant cancer. The air around her shimmered. The Ghost-Willow withered and wizened behind her. Weeping red sap, it’s leaves curled and blackened.
The magic of the land had nourished the ethereal tree, just as in turn it nourished the land and its people. Such the priest had told her. Now it was dying, its supple limbs turning bone-dry and brittle, its roots curling and turning. Its chimes tolled a mournful death-rattle, but the girl did neither see, nor hear, anything beyond what happened in her seething, boiling mind.
The ancient, primordial tree perished, and the little girl lifted off the ground, rising into the air. Pulled as by invisible strings. Three orbs, dark as the blackest night, swallowing any light leaving a mirror into pure shadow, formed around the newly coronated sorceress.
The laughter was silenced, replaced by a dread stillness of the quietest winter.