The Enchantress

Takah chanted ancient verses in forgotten tongues and bled the fattest goats from the steepest hills—yet death kept her lover all the same.

She built his pyre one memory at a time: a base of stone from the home he never left, a kindle of the branches from which his body had hung, a pinch of the potion she had used to lure him away from his wife.

Her fingertips summoned a flame like a gentleman caller, and she watched as it, too, took from her without giving.

“Why,” she lamented, “do men love the enchantments but not the enchantress?”