I do not own any part of True Blood or its characters.

Chapter 1: The Ashes

Raven ran through the dark, foggy woods. The ancient oak, maple, and pine trees were never-ending around her. She lost count of the number of times she'd tripped over upturned roots and uneven earth. The humidity made her skin clammy and cold. Her ribs hurt from her quick, uneven breathing, and she could hear her heartbeat drumming in her ears. She thought she heard hounds following her, but she was too scared to look back. Her house was far away now, and she was certain that she was never going to see it again - but it didn't matter. She had to find Agatha and the others. She just had to, there was no trying, and there was certainly no failing. Raven had to get them out and then Agatha would know what to do. They would move, change their names, just like they'd done countless times before. No big deal. Everything would be fine.

Raven kept running but her body was quickly going limp. She could feel herself slowing down, her legs were not obeying like she wanted them to. She hid behind a tree, leaning against the knotty, wet bark. She looked in all directions as she tried to catch her breath, her ears still ringing. Woods, endless woods, trees in every direction. The leaves covered the sky, and fog muted the horizon. She had no idea where she was, in which direction she was going or where her family was. If only she knew tracking spells. Or even a place to hide and astral project. She looked up and saw a pair of yellow eyes looking back at her. An owl.

"Tell Elijah Blackwood we were discovered. Tell him to get here now." The yellow eyes blinked, and then she could hear wings flapping through the air.

She could hear them now, getting closer. Hounds barking, men running and yelling. Panic started to settle in her bones. The Selectmen had taken her family and now they were coming for her. She knew this the second she arrived home that night, after her debutante ball. Hours ago she was performing her dark baptism ritual, drinking the blood of demons, pledging her loyalty to the Dark Lord, receiving his blessed mark on her torso, and now it all seemed so far away. As if it were a dream, or happened in another life. She got home and the inside was completely ransacked - her house, the safest place on earth, had been intruded upon and violated. Her family was ripped from it. She could hear men in the house tearing through the study and kitchen. Glass shattering, metal crashing on the floor. A man stepped out of the tea room holding a bag filled with silver plates and yelled for her. She didn't know him by name, but she recognized him as one of the Selectmen - a council of rich men who governed the town. She immediately turned around and ran for the woods.

Raven's body was now slow and uncoordinated. Her knees, shins and palms were covered in scratches, and her throat and chest burned from breathing so hard. The hounds were close now, barking and snarling after her scent. But Raven knew she had to keep going. Teeth bit and tore at her dress, a hound jumped on her back. Her body slammed into the dirt and she screamed in protest, tears falling. She could tell the dog to stop, and she knew the dog would obey her, but there would be dire consequences if she did so. Revealing magic was a sin. She could see men approaching with ropes.

Raven Blackwood had failed.

The sound of hard the steel gate crashing shut echoed in the dark. Raven's body landed on the wet, dirty floor of her cell. The whole room smelled of feces, urine and mold. She couldn't make out much of her surroundings, but she could hear voices and cries coming from somewhere. She got up, holding onto the thick iron bars. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness that dominated the room. It was a basement with large cells, and stone floors and walls. There was one small window that she could see allowing some night light in. There were two men lying on the floor of the cell beside her, sleeping. Or dead, maybe. She turned to the cell on the other side.

"Agatha!?" Raven cried into the darkness.

"Raven!" A group of voices came from down the hallway. She could see all of them in a cell across the basement, maybe 20 feet from hers. She could only see the very corner of their cell, Harriet's face tucked between the bars was crying. A wave of relief hit her.

"What the hell happened!?" Raven asked. "Why did they take us? Do they know we are-"

"Shhh," she heard Agatha. "The guards could hear you."

Raven bit her tongue. She had so many questions. She pushed her whole body against the corner of her cell, she could feel the wet rust that covered the prison bars smear across her hands and cheeks. From the edge of the cell, she was trying to see more of theirs, but she could only see half of Agatha's face now. She had been crying, and her sleeping gown was filthy and wet.

"Have you called my father? Maybe he -"

"Elijah's already been here Raven," Agatha told her.

Raven's brows furrowed. What did she mean Elijah was already there? Why were they still in a cell?

"What's his plan then? Has he gone to talk to the Selectmen?"

The basement fell silent. Agatha looked away.

"He does have a plan to get us out of here, right?" No answer. "Agatha? He's getting us out, right?"

"There's nothing he can do," Agatha muttered. Raven's eyes flooded with tears.

"No, yes there is!" She cried. "He's Elijah Blackwood! He has a duty to protect us!"

"No Raven, I had a duty to protect us."

Raven dropped to her knees. The Bishop, her own father wrote the rule: once caught, a witch must perish alone. This was to reinforce the importance of keeping their powers hidden from mortals. It was a rule meant to protect the many, by only sacrificing a "deserving" few. Elijah had sacrificed his home and life in war- and disease-riddled England to bring his daughter to a safe new world. He campaigned at many covens for witches to come to the colonies - and it didn't take much convincing. Witchcraft was punishable by death all over Europe, and it was as easy as floating in the water to be convicted. His movement took off, and the man was quickly awarded the title of 'Bishop of New England'. He left Raven, a small child at the time, with Agatha in order to govern as Bishop. All in the name of keeping her safe. She grew up without a father, in order to be safe. He made Agatha and her coven relocate every 7 years, in order to keep Raven safe. She couldn't go to mortal schools or have mortal friends, or date mortal boys. All his exhausting rules, and now he'd decided he wasn't going to keep them safe anymore? Was Raven to believe there was nothing he could do? No. That couldn't be real. They did everything Elijah asked, not once had Raven disobeyed. They were so careful, so precise in how they assimilated each time they moved. They had such believable and well-rehearsed backstories. They didn't deserve to perish alone. They didn't do anything wrong.

"Then what are we going to do?" Raven asked, cleaning the tears off her face with her dress sleeve.

"There will be a trial," Agatha said after a moment.

"And then they will release us, right? We didn't do anything wrong!"

Agatha turned around and sat down on the floor. She could see Catherine and Mabel sitting in the cell as well, blank expressions on their faces. Their eyes were red, faces puffy. Mabel's head rested on Catherine's shoulder, where she gently sobbed. They all looked broken and defeated. Raven felt angry. Those were not the incredibly stubborn, intelligent, powerful witches she grew up with. These were just men. And mortal men at that. They could set this entire city on fire and dance on its ashes by morning if they wanted to. Why weren't they doing anything?

"Okay, so how about this," Raven got up, ready to formulate a new plan. "We summon,"

"Raven shut your mouth," blurted Catherine, resentment strong in her voice.

"No listen, we can try-" she insisted.

"There's no we Raven, it's over."

"Catherine," warned Agatha.

"It's not over! We can get out of this!" Cried Raven.

Catherine pursed her lips and looked up at the ceiling. She looked furious.

"It's not her fault Catherine," Agatha whispered. "She didn't choose this."

"I didn't choose this either, Agatha," she spat through her teeth.

Raven was confused. She was trying to save them all, why was Catherine fighting her on this? Why did none of the others speak up?

"So that's it then?" Raven asked, but no one said a word. "We are just going to lie in this filthy prison and do nothing, just wait for our deaths?"

None of them answered. Mabel was gently rocking back and forth, face still buried in Catherine's shoulder. The stench was starting to turn Raven's stomach. The more her eyes adjusted to the dark, the more she could see how absolutely filthy this place was.

"Don't you get it, you foolish child?" Catherine said, looking at Raven for the first time, eyes wide in anger. "We are already dead."

It was a cloudy afternoon when the Warden came to collect them. Raven and the others were shackled with irons and taken across the Boston Gaol courtyard where a huge crowd of the town's people was already waiting for them. They passed right by a dozen men building a very large wooden pyre on a platform. Catherine's words echoed in Raven's mind. We're dead already. The tall wooden pole stood tall among the buildings. Raven's stomach sunk even further. They were pushed into the crowded courthouse, where the people yelled in rage, called them the most horrible names and accused them of things Raven hadn't even heard of. The Warden kept pushing Raven forward, into Violet's back, yelling for people to make space for the accused. They were all wearing dirty nightgowns, and Raven was still wearing her black and red ball gown, now limp, dirty, and torn. She looked like she didn't belong with them. They were pushed into a gated section, in front of rows and rows of pews. She looked up, and three judges sat above in the mezzanine, looking down on them. Everyone was still yelling, when the Warden's voice roared and echoed louder than the rest.

"Stating in evidence that the accused, one Agatha Beekman, Catherine Shaw, Harriet White, Mabel Reid, Violet Davis and one Raven Blackwood, all standing before Church's court for the crimes of witchcraft, thievery, arson, and the death of citizens of Boston by their practice of unholy arts."

Her eyes met Damien Williams. He wore a fine wool jacket and sat front row and center, next to the court officials that scribbled down every word the Warden yelled. He sat there with a small grin on his face, motionless in front of the chaotic crowd. He looked deeply into her eyes as if he were happy to see her. The Warden then sat down beside him. The crowd hushed and took their seats. Raven recognized no one. No one that worked with Catherine and Mabel at the hospital, not Ms. Duncan who was teaching Raven to become a seamstress or Mr. and Ms. Garrison whom Agatha worked for. Or anyone who regularly bought their goat's milk at the market. It was a room of strangers, who sat eagerly watching them. They watched them with bright eyes as if they were exotic inhuman creatures.

"Where are your husbands?" Yelled an old man sitting above in the mezzanine. "It's my understanding that you lot live in a house by yourselves?"

"Arthur Beekman, John Reid and Matthew Shaw died fighting the Indians, your honour," lied Agatha. This was a lie that they told often. "David White died of smallpox seven years ago, and Ian Davis's fishing boat sunk five years ago."

"How very unfortunate," the judge said, displeased. "And how do you all come to live together?"

"Catherine Shaw is my cousin from my father's side, Violet is my cousin from my mother's side, Mabel, Harriet and Raven are my nieces," she continued. Another well-rehearsed lie.

"And none of you remarried?" He asked suspiciously.

"A couple of times, but the Lord tests through loss, your Honors. Raven was just sent upstate to meet a prospective husband, a very nice boy who just turned of age, from a very nice family." That was, of course, another lie. Raven saw Damien William's shift uncomfortably in the pews.

The judges frowned, examining the women standing in the middle of the court.

"How do you plead?"

"Your Honors, as we are all aware," started Agatha "the Witchcraft Act of 1563 was repealed by the House of Lords in 1735. I, therefore, state that this entire trial is illegal."

The crowd burst into protest. They wanted blood. The judge hit the gavel on his table, demanding silence.

"This is an ad hoc proceeding, under the administration of the Church, Ms. Beekman."

"I see we have gone away with British Law, which pleases us greatly. But your Honor, we are innocent of all charges and would now request a lawyer to help us proceed with such a trial."

"If you are innocent as you claim, you won't need a lawyer, Ms. Beekman," another judge said. "Now let's proceed with our first witness."

Citizens came forward, one by one. A man saw them gathering herbs in the fields - foraging for food and spices was not a crime, Raven was aware. Women and men, counting their tales of witnessing one of the witches selling talismans, potions, and hexes - absurd, they would never be so careless… Witnesses swore street dogs and cats would run away from them on the streets - as they sensed the evil within the women. A young woman told a tale of six women dancing in the Salem woods around a fire, singing in tongues - another lie. A man saw Mabel and Harriet fornicating by the river - although that could be true, she was shocked they would be so careless. Another saw Agatha in Mr, Garrison's wheat crops, where she drew a large circle of symbols, chanted and then set the whole field on fire in the middle of the night. For hours, strangers built what sounded to be convincing cases against them. They were all rigorous and detailed in their accusations. And every witness that stood in front of the court, the stories grew larger and larger, as if they were competing with the previous one.

They blamed ships coming with smallpox on them. Drought, bad harvests, terrible storms, tales of pregnant women who went to see Mabel the healer, and walked out with dead babies. A man told swore he saw Raven in the woods growing wings and flying off into the sky. The longer Raven stood there, the more she wanted to scream. They didn't deserve to be the scapegoats for every little shitty thing that had ever happened in this town. These stories were absurd. If only they knew how magic worked if only she could tell them. They would then know that half of what they were being accused of wasn't even possible. But it didn't matter. They needed relief from their miserable lives, and sentencing them to death was the best way to get it.

A man entered the court - the same man she saw in her house, and he dragged a sack over his shoulders. The judge asked what evidence he brought with him.

"The house was filled with China and silver, your Honours," the man spoke.

"They were heirlooms of my late mother," Agatha responded, but it's like she didn't say anything at all, the court ignored her.

"And I also found these."

He turned the sack upside down, and a series of small bodies hit the floor. Two dead cats, a dead ferret, a dead toad, and two dead hares, with their throats cut. She heard her sisters gasp behind her. The man had found their familiars and murdered them. The crowd burst in rage once again. Damien Williams stood. Prosecutors were allowed to be last witnesses if they had something to say to the court. Damien told the judges of a poisoned loaf Raven had gifted him. She felt her face burn. The ugly loaf. Damien told in great detail how he saw the devil after he ate it. She felt her face get hot, and panic was taking over her body. Raven must have made a mistake in the potion. Hallucinations were not a side effect of the anti-love potion. Damien then proposed the punishment to the judges: five of the women were to be burnt at the stake, and the youngest was to be flogged 12 times and made to watch the burning of her fellow witches. She was then to be given to the Church to be reformed.

"Do the accuse accept God's judgment?"

"We accept," Agatha said quickly.

Before Raven could protest it, the Warden opened the gate and pulled her forward to the middle of the courthouse. The crowd stood up in anticipation, yelling. The people called them awful names, some cursed them.

Raven was wide-eyed, terrified of the crowd. She had seen men get flogged before, and she thought all public punishment was vile and humiliating. Damien approached her and held her arms. She looked straight at him and remembered all the evenings he stopped by the tailor shop to watch her sew dresses. His piercing blue eyes and bright red hair were never so close than they were right now. She was shaking from head to toe. She had known Damien for two years now. He was always gentle, and kind. Even now, he held her gracefully. But the way he looked at her, calm and serene in amidst of absolute chaos chilled Raven down to her very soul. Damien Williams was enjoying all of this. His face was the face of true evil all along, and she didn't even know it. She never hated anyone until this very moment. She hated him. Her skin crawled when his fingers touched her arms and back. He turned her around, away from the crowd. The Warden and another guard held her wrists. She looked up, facing her family - they looked back in horror. She felt Damien's fingers tugged at her corset, loosening it. How did she get here? The crowd roared in anticipation, she felt the room vibrating under her feet. She heard a knife cut the back of her dress, and her skin being exposed. Her heartbeat ringing in her ear drowned all the sounds out. Everything started to move in slow motion. The place was alive with the excited crowd, cheering for the spectacle that was about to start.

The first hit of the whip on her bareback shocked her entire body in pain. It felt as if her left shoulder blade was cut wide open and burnt all at once. She let out a loud scream. Her sisters all cried out in vain for Damien to stop.

"She's just a child! She's barely 15!" Cried Catherine, reaching forward, trying to grab Raven, but she was just out of reach. "You know her Damien! How can you do this?! Have mercy!"

"This is mercy," said Damien firmly. The crowd begged for the next whip.

They kept coming. Raven fell to her knees, in a failed attempt to stand further away from Damien. She could hear the leather cut the air a half-second before she felt it lick at her skin, the excruciating pain made her see stars. The crowd cheered with each one. Raven cried for Agatha. She cried for Damien to stop, she begged him. Raven cried for her dad. She cried for the (dark) Lord, to curse everyone in this court. The room was starting to fade into black when Damien stopped. Sounds were distant, her body was limp and numb, with the exception of her back which was on fire. She felt the guards dragging her body outside, past the crowd, several of them, who spat on her. An older man kicked her in the ribs.

They dragged her out of the courtyard and up to the platform. A guard handcuffed her wrists to the pillory post. Her knees gave out and she sat on the wooden base, she watched her sisters being tied together on a pyre, extra wood and branches being put against their legs. The crowd surrounded them, cheering on. Unceremoniously, the Warden brought over a fiery torch and lit the pyre. Her sisters stood side by side, eyes closed, holding hands. Raven cried and sobbed, but she had no voice left to scream anymore. Her back was still exposed blistering from the whip. Raven still believed Elijah would show up, kill them all with a single curse and save them. He had to. A father is supposed to protect his family.

The villagers grew angry with the lack of screams from the witches. They threw things at the stand, old shoes, rotten food, stones. She just sat there watching her family die. First, their gowns caught fire, and their thighs blistered. They stood still, eyes closed. As the fire slithered upwards, it swallowed them whole. Their flesh and skin started to melt, and turn black. The smell made Raven vomit. The fire burned bright and tall, for hours. The night fell quickly and the people left the town center slowly - mostly disappointed at not seeing the suffering they so eagerly wanted. As the fire started to die, the guards left too. She was left alone with the burning remains of her sisters. They didn't even look like human bodies anymore.

The night proceeded to fall, as the moon got higher and higher. The courtyard and empty and silent. She had never been so exhausted. She had nothing to drink or eat all day. The dying fire was no longer keeping her warm. She just shivered there, telling herself that none of this was real. This was just a terrible nightmare. She laid down, her body giving up. Maybe if she prayed hard enough, the Dark Lord would take her too. The cold breeze blew ashes on her face. She could taste it. Raven had no more tears to shed. She just wanted to lie there and die before morning arrived.

She heard someone approach but had nothing left in her to react. The figure stood by what was left of the pyre. He cursed in a foreign language. She looked up, and saw a young man in white. She recognized him and was relieved that it wasn't the Warden. He then spun around and approached her, his familiar eyes looked at her. They were dark and pierced her very soul.

"Will you avenge them, Raven?" Godric asked her calmly.

A sudden fire lit within her. She nodded.

"Will these men suffer?"

She nodded again. Tears of anger rolling down her cheeks.

"Good." He said as he broke iron shackles off like they were made of brittle glass. "I will take you home."

A.N: And we're back!

Book 2 has proved to be MUCH harder to write than book 1 haha season 5's original story is a fucking mess, it's no wonder most fanfics in this fandom skip it (at least the ones I've read). But I'm enjoying the challenge, I really like where Book 2 is going. It's going to be longer than Book 1, probably closer to 20 Chapters. I'll TRY to keep my weekly posting schedule but there may be weeks I won't be ready to post. If you have any feedback, questions or suggestions PLEASE PM me.

Also SHOUTOUT to my superstar beta Lokidokie9 for editing Black Moon Lilith, you are an ANGEL!

Please fave/comment below if you liked the story! The more praise, the more readers.

See u next week y'all