My Wives Are Seven Beautiful Demonesses-Chapter 174 - No. Witch Queen

[Location: Morningstar Manor, New York]

Selene exhaled slowly, like she was bracing herself to open a door she’d kept locked for a long time.

"I was eight," she said. "Maybe nine. Hard to tell. My village didn’t do birthdays. We did ’still alive this winter’ celebrations."

"Charming," I murmured.

"Rural mountain town," she said with a shrug. "Lots of fog. Lots of superstition. Zero therapists."

That tracked.

"I was... odd," Selene continued. "Not in the cute way. In the ’milk curdles when she cries’ way. Windows cracked if I had a nightmare. Birds would land on the roof and just... stare at me."

Eris made a soft snuffling sound against my ribs. I carefully shifted a hand to steady her. Grayfia’s fingers tightened again, even in sleep.

Selene noticed. Her expression softened for half a second before she looked away.

"My parents thought I was cursed," she went on quietly. "Which, in fairness, was not an unreasonable guess."

"What happened?" I asked.

"They took me to a shrine," she said. "Old one. Older than the village. Moss-eaten torii gate, half-collapsed stone foxes, that kind of place."

"Shinto?" I asked.

"Originally," Selene said. "But by then it was... layered. Offerings to things that didn’t have names anymore. Paper charms written in dialects no one spoke. It had that feeling."

"That feeling," I echoed.

"Like the air is listening."

I didn’t like that I knew exactly what she meant.

"They left me there overnight," she said simply.

I went very still.

"They thought," Selene added quickly, "if something had marked me, maybe something else would claim me instead."

"That’s not how children are supposed to work," I said quietly.

"Nope," she agreed. "But desperation and folklore are a dangerous combo."

She hugged her knees tighter.

"I remember being cold," she said. "I remember being angry. Not scared. Angry. I kept thinking, Fine. If I’m a curse, then curse something back."

That... tracked too well.

"So I tried," she said.

"You tried... what, exactly?" I asked cautiously.

"I copied a charm I’d seen once," she said. "On a festival banner. Didn’t know what it meant. Just traced it in the dirt with a stick and said, ’If someone’s watching, fix this or I’m breaking something.’"

"...Bold strategy."

"I was eight," she said defensively. "Subtlety had not yet patched in."

"Fair."

She looked down at her hands again.

"Something answered."

The room felt quieter.

"Not a voice," Selene clarified. "Not a face. The air just... aligned. Like a lock turning into place."

A faint chill crept along my spine.

"The dirt circle I drew?" she said. "It rewrote itself."

"...Rewrote," I repeated.

"The lines straightened," she said. "Symbols I didn’t know filled the gaps. The shape stopped being something a kid scribbled and became... correct."

My mind immediately and aggressively did not think about systems correcting input.

Good brain. Stay in your lane.

"And then?" I asked.

Selene swallowed.

"Then I understood a word I’d never learned."

"What word?"

She hesitated.

"Candidate."

Silence settled over the room like dust.

"Candidate for what?" I asked.

"I didn’t know," she said. "I just knew I’d been... noticed. Evaluated. Like a form had been stamped."

Stamped.

Filed.

Infrastructure.

Love that for me.

"What happened after that?" I asked.

"I didn’t freeze," she said. "Didn’t faint. I just... knew where to put my hands."

"On the circle?"

She nodded. "When I did, the cold stopped. Not because it got warmer. Because the concept of being cold... didn’t apply inside it."

"...Selene."

"Yeah," she said quietly. "That was my first ward."

I stared at her.

She gave a small, crooked smile. "Accidental genius origin story. Very marketable."

"What did it cost?" I asked.

Her smile faded.

"I stopped belonging to ordinary magic after that," she said. "Spells came easily. Too easily. Like muscle memory from a body I didn’t remember having."

"Your village?" I asked.

"They stopped getting sick," she said. "Crops grew better. The shrine stopped feeling abandoned."

"That sounds good," I said.

She shook her head. "Witches started showing up."

Ah.

"They said the land had a new anchor point," Selene said. "Didn’t know it was me at first. But they could feel... structure settling."

"Structure," I repeated.

She nodded. "They tested me. Harmless stuff at first. Then not-so-harmless. I passed things I shouldn’t have even understood."

"And that’s when they realised?"

"That I wasn’t just talented," she said. "I was aligned."

"With... magical gravity," I said.

She huffed. "I am never escaping that phrase, am I?"

"Not in this lifetime."

Selene’s gaze drifted toward the window, where dawn light was just starting to dilute the night.

"One of them," she said softly, "took me aside after. Old. Scary. Smelled like herbs and bad decisions."

"Mentor vibes," I said.

"She asked me if I’d dreamed of a woman with no face."

I went quiet.

"...Had you?" I asked.

Selene nodded once. "Standing in a forest made of threads. Every thread humming. Every step she took rearranged the paths."

"Threads," I echoed.

"She didn’t speak," Selene said. "But when she looked at me, I felt... formatted."

I really, really did not like that word in this conversation.

"The witch asked what the faceless woman gave me," Selene said.

"What did you say?"

"A place," she replied. "Not in a house. In a pattern."

That sat heavily.

"The witch knelt," Selene finished. "And called me princess."

Silence lingered between us, thick but not suffocating.

"Did you ever see her again?" I asked quietly.

"The faceless woman?" Selene nodded her head. "Yes, in fact, I think I’ve seen her face—"

"You think?" I echoed quietly.

Selene nodded once, slowly.

"Yeah," she said. "I think I did."

The room felt smaller somehow.

Grayfia shifted in her sleep, breath brushing warm against my collarbone. Eris made a tiny noise and tightened her grip around my waist like a possessive octopus.

I did not move.

"Start from the beginning," I murmured.

Selene exhaled through her nose, gaze unfocused as if watching a memory instead of the bedroom.

"It wasn’t right away," she said. "For years after the shrine, she was always faceless. Not blank — just... undefined. Like a silhouette made of moonlight and static."

"Comforting," I muttered.

"Extremely," Selene deadpanned. "Ten out of ten childhood guardian entity. Would recommend."

I huffed softly.

She continued.

"Every time I pushed my magic too far, I’d end up in that place again in my dreams. The forest of threads. Paths weaving in and out of each other. Knots glowing. Some threads frayed. Some cut."

Her fingers absently traced shapes on her knee.

"I learned things there. Not in words. In corrections. I’d try to cast something the wrong way in the waking world, and that night, a thread would snap in the dream. I’d wake up knowing how not to do it again."

"...So she taught you," I said.

"She refined me," Selene corrected. "Like debugging code."

I stared at her.

She squinted. "What? That’s the only metaphor that fits."

I swallowed my reaction.

Careful. Neutral face. Mild concern. Zero internal screaming.

"Okay," I said slowly. "So when did she get a face?"

Selene’s jaw tightened just a little.

"The first time I almost died."

Well, that was cheerful.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I was fourteen," she said. "Cocky. Thought I understood structure enough to bend it."

"That’s never gone badly in history," I murmured.

"Right? So I tried to reroute a ley trickle to help a drought-hit village."

"Trickle," I repeated.

"Tiny," she insisted. "Like magical plumbing. I wasn’t trying to hijack a river. Just... nudge a pipe." 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"And?"

"I didn’t see the load stress," she said quietly. "Didn’t realise the surrounding lines were already compensating for something deeper underground. When I moved one, the pressure redistributed."

"Let me guess," I said. "Badly."

"A sinkhole opened under the ritual site," she said. "Ground collapsed. Backlash tore through the circle."

Grayfia’s fingers flexed again, as her body objected on instinct to the idea of magic backfiring.

"I remember falling," Selene said. "I remember the threads screaming."

"Threads don’t scream," I said automatically.

"They do when you’re linked to them," she replied flatly.

Fair enough.

"I hit the bottom," she continued. "Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Magic was misfiring through me like exposed wiring."

"...Selene."

"I thought, ’Oh. So this is the consequence patch.’"

"That is the least comforting thought a dying teenager has ever had."

"Look, gallows humour is a survival trait," she said defensively.

I didn’t argue.

"In the dream-space," she went on, voice softer now, "the forest was burning."

My stomach dropped.

"Threads snapping everywhere," she said. "Paths collapsing. Feedback from my mistake rippling outward."

"And her?" I asked.

"She was there," Selene whispered. "Closer than ever before."

Her hands stilled.

"For the first time... I could see her face."

I didn’t breathe.

"What did she look like?" I asked quietly.

Selene smiled faintly — not happy. Not sad. Something else. Something reverent.

"She looked like everyone," she said.

"...That is not helpful."

"I know," she said. "But it’s true. When I looked at her, my brain kept trying to assign features and failing. One second, she looked old. Then young. Then familiar. Then like a stranger I’d pass on the street."

"Like a composite?" I asked.

"Like a template," Selene corrected.

Oh, I absolutely hated that phrasing.

"She knelt in front of me," Selene said. "And touched my forehead."

"What happened?"

"The burning stopped," she said. "Not because the damage vanished. But because the spread was... contained."

"Quarantined," I murmured.

She pointed at me. "Yes! That word!"

I immediately regretted speaking.

"She didn’t fix my mistake," Selene continued. "She stabilised it. Like saying, ’This failure is now local. Learn.’"

"Harsh teacher."

"Effective one," Selene said.

I watched her carefully. "Did she speak?"

Selene shook her head.

"But I understood," she said. "Not language. Intent."

"What intent?"

Her eyes met mine.

"You are not here to cast spells," she said quietly. "You are here to maintain coherence."

A chill slid down my spine.

"...Selene," I said slowly, "that sounds less like ’witch’ and more like ’maintenance department.’"

She barked a quiet laugh. "Yeah, welcome to my identity crisis."

***

A/N: Might be the last Chapter for a while now, NOT DROPPING, just taking a break from this one.

Stone me, I can take it!

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