The Witches’ Road was a place few dared to tread more than once.

It twisted outside of time — a shimmering scar that slashed through realms and epochs, lined in the scent of burning herbs and whispered warnings. It was not a road meant for mortals, nor for the soft-hearted. It was a proving ground for the old kind — and the wicked.

And tonight, it was stirring.

Agatha walked alone. Her boots kissed the earth in rhythm, her dark cloak whispering behind her, spells humming against her ribs like a second pulse. She had heard the rumors for months now — caught between candle smoke and broken hex circles. Always spoken low:

“A Blood Witch walks the Road.”

“She learns what she shouldn’t.”

“She remembers magick that’s been buried.”

Most thought it superstition. Agatha, however, had lived too long to dismiss warnings dressed as fairy tales.

She had once taught a Scarlet Witch.

She knew the taste of chaos when it was close.

And this — this you — felt worse. Older. Hungrier.

She found you near the fork where the River of Time kissed the broken orchard — the place where spirit magic thinned and the green began to rot from the inside out. You were kneeling in the soil, bare hands deep in the earth. A circle of sigils carved around you in bone-meal and ash.

Young. Barely grown. But with power bleeding from your very presence.

You looked up before she spoke. You already knew she was there.

“You’ve been watching,” you said quietly, brushing earth from your palms. Your voice wasn’t childlike. It was ancient, folded like pages in a forbidden book.

Agatha narrowed her eyes. “You’re not supposed to exist.”

You tilted your head. “Neither are you. Not anymore.”

A smile flickered across her lips despite herself. Sharp little thing.

“They say you’ve tasted every kind of witchcraft,” she said, circling you now. “Spirit. Divination. Green. Even potion-binding. That's not possible.”

“I don’t steal it,” you said, rising slowly. “It comes to me. The way birds know where the storm is headed. Or how the trees know when to rot.”

Agatha felt the pressure shift in the air. Not raw chaos like Wanda’s. Not bright like sorcery.

Something red. Deep red. Like blood on black velvet. Like a promise made in bone.

“Blood witches aren’t real,” she whispered.

But her voice betrayed her.

Because you were standing in front of her, and her wards — all four layers of them — had cracked the moment you looked her in the eye.