The Witch Returns

Status: Narrative plan completed

Two years after the final ward closed, the world has learned to call Rishi gone.

Maeril has not.

The new normal is only a threshold someone else drew across her life. Maeril does not mean to honor it. She means to find the seam, put her witch hands through, and break it.

So the Witch returns.

Back to Candlekeep. Back to the doors she and Rishi earned together. Back to forbidden lore, divine custody, bodyless souls, broken vows, and the question Lantern Hall is not ready to hear: who decided the door was closed?

But breaking a threshold is not the same as freedom.

Rishi returns. So does what he carried.

When the Monk stands revealed in the truth of his body — mercy and danger, radiance and darkness, healing and harm — Maeril must answer as the Witch: abyss and green, love and command, shelter and teeth.

Can love break a prison without becoming one?