The Drowned Sanctum Chronicles

Recorded fragments from beneath the Veiled Marshes of Kenttra, transcribed under moonlight only.
Those who copied these words claimed they
heard the river breathe.

---

I. The Gathering Beneath the Veve

In the twilight centuries after the Serpent Circle's unison,
seven witch houses remained in Kenttra, each guarding fragment of the Black Veve Psalms.
Their sanctum stood half-submerged,
its towers like ribs rising from the swamp's black skin.
The witches named it Maison Sere, the House of Still Waters.

No bells marked the hour within those halls;

Reflection across the flooded floors.
They lived in constant half-light,
speaking only in the Quiet Tongue,
writing upon reeds that dissolved once read.

It was here that the legend of the Drowned Sanctum began -
the night the silence itself turned upon its keepers.

---

II. The Keeper of the Seventh Psalm

Among the houses was matriarch named Virelle du Kenttra, blood-kin to the Silent High Witch by dream rather than lineage.
She bore the mark of the serpent's eye upon her wrist,
a circle that shimmered like oil when the moons waned.

Virelle was keeper of the Seventh Psalm -
a psalm said to mirror the First but turned inward,
a verse that calmed rather than awakened.
It was meant to soothe the Witch's slumber,
to ensure the Black Psalms never reached her dreamed consciousness.

But there were others within Maison Sere
who believed the silence had grown too deep.
They whispered of using the psalms together,
to summon the Witch's breath just long enough to ask one question:

"Why did she leave us mute?"

---

III. The Night of the Rising Waters

The ritual began beneath a moonless sky.
Thirteen witches knelt in the flooded crypt,
their reflections forming a perfect ring around the Serpent Veve.
They breathed in rhythm until the air itself stilled.

The First Psalm was thought -
the First Psalm was thought -
the Second traced in water -
the Third withheld in breath.
As the sequence neared completing,
the surface if the water blackened to glass.

One by one, the witches' reflections looked upward -
but their bodies did not.
The reflections smiled,
and began to move on their own.

The Choir's watchers who stood above the swamp heard no screams,
only the sound of an exhale that lasted far too long.

When dawn came, Maison Sere has vanished beneath the waters.
The marsh had widened by a mile,
and the air above it shimmered with a silver dust.

---

IV. The Aftermath

The surviving covens declared the Veiled Marsh forbidden.
They built no bridges, drew no sigils upon its banks.
Even the wind refused to cross it.

But each century, on the anniversary of the night the Sanctum drowned,
the swamp exhales a mist that smells of wax and salt.
Through it, faint outlines of the Sanctum's towers appear - not ruins, but whole,
as though they still stand in another reflection of the world.

Witches who venture close report hearing voices beneath the water, chanting in reverse the old psalms.
Some swear they see faces in the current -
their own, staring back, lips, moving without sound.

---

V. The Return of the High Witch’s Shadow

When Bramwell Zuwa returned to the divine Realm thirty years after his mortal dusk,
the ripple of his ascension reached even these drowned halls.
For one night, the waters of the Marsh stood utterly still - a mirror unbroken.

In that silence, the reflection of the Sanctum shimmered, 
and beside it stood a woman woven from candle smoke and moonlight.
Those who saw her said she lifted her hand, traced a sigil upon the water,
and whispered nothing at all.

By dawn, the reflection had faded,
but upon the surface floated a single golden reed,
burning at one end without consuming itself.

The witches named it Her Parton.
They said the Silent High Witch had forgiven the drowned ones,
binding their restless reflections into the Choir's keeping.

---

VI. The Seal of the Still Marsh

The Drowned Sanctum remains lost,
but every grimoire since bears its mark -
a faint watermark in the shape of a broken serpent,
its head mirrored in still water.

When the veve glows upon a page,
witches know the High Witch's silence watches through it,
reminding them of the price of a spoken secret.

And so ends the Chronicle of the Drowned Sanctum,
sealed with the High Witch's own law:

"Let the silence drown what the tongue would betray."