by Plum Pascal
All the seats are mostly taken except at the very front. Never one afraid to sit at the front of the class, I step past a lady and sit by the one empty window seat and tuck my suitcase underneath me.
As a dryad, forest magic flows through me, but communing with nature requires… well, nature. My new home will be the beautiful spiral of the Enchanted castle in Arcadia. I’ll be able to see the oldest oak in the world, talk about new magic with the fae, and practice techniques with other students. I don’t expect to have time to grow my own nature Circle and even if I did, it wouldn’t be anything like the Circle at home. I laugh to myself as I think about making a forest that big, but a small, grassy knoll to sit and listen to the forest would still be nice.
The lady next to me smiles, pushes her silken, black hair aside and says, “Off to school?”
“Yeah.” I tuck a strand of my lavender hair behind my ear and keep my eyes down. I’m a bit shy when it comes to new people. And that’s something I will need to work on because I intend to make lots of friends at the Academy of Enchantment. It’s one of my resolutions—to come out of my shell and be more social.
“Which academy?” Her eyes are completely black, with no flecks of color. It gives her an eerie ambiance, but her smile is wide and genuine.
“Enchantment.” I can’t help my smile as I look up at her approving expression.
She nods. “It’s a good fit for dryads. You’ll do well there.”
Just before the doors close, a person-shaped shadow steps onto the train. This shadow-person is like seeing the aura of someone or the outline of a person, but not really seeing the face inside the shadowed shell.
Instantly, all my senses curl in on themselves. A ball of sickness, fear, and the taste of rot lodges in the pit of my stomach, and I double over in my seat. The passengers in the full car hastily part and make room as the shadow-person steps past everyone and heads towards the back of the car.
Full body shakes overtake me as the lady beside me gasps. Nausea and the absolute feeling of repulsion go straight to my head. My seatmate grabs my hand, and the overwhelming need to throw up abates. I take sips of air, letting my mind relax.
A wave of compassion, not mine, but from the lady beside me, washes away the spinning in my head. In my mind, I see her stirring pots, tending to the sick, and prescribing medicines to a host of patients. Her compassion rivals my own family of healers.
Witch doctor. She’s a witch doctor.
“Thank you,” I whisper, and a plume of heat warms my cheeks as visions of her daily life play in my head. I hope she won’t be angry with me for the intrusion, but the uncontrolled clairvoyance is the bane of my perfect school record.
“I’m sorry, dear.” Her expression lifts into concern. “I didn’t mean to touch you, it’s just…”
“No, no, thank you.” I try to smile, but feel it more as a grimace than a genuine grin.
She extricates herself and flashes a sneer at the back of the car. “Shadow demon. Nasty things.”
“That’s a shadow demon?” I don’t dare look back. Just thinking about the creature makes me feel sick all over again.
“Yes.” Her lips compress to a thin line. “I don’t know why it insists on being shadow dressed. No doubt it has something to hide.”
“Shadow dressed?”
I watch her straighten, pulling her hands closer to herself. “It’s what they call that…” She waves her hand towards the back of the train. “The aura thing. It’s them being shadow demony.”
Her term makes me laugh. But my amusement doesn’t last long. Even from the back of the aisle, residual pain seeps to the front. I cringe as the backs of my eyes prickle.
My passenger friend furrows her brow. “Is it true, dryads are empathic?”
I nod.
But it isn’t the whole truth.
Clairvoyance is the only class I didn’t get a grade of at least a ninety-eight percent. I still technically got an “A” in the class, but I never fully learned how to control the ability. Especially when someone touches me. Thing is, these flashes don’t happen all the time. Thus the reason for my ninety percent grade. I couldn’t control it.
My clairvoyance mishaps combined with my natural empathy as a dryad compounds my senses. Pain stabs at my head. “Why does it hurt so bad?”
“Shadow demons, all they know is pain,” the witch doctor explains with a shrug. “Inside and out.”
“How… how was it allowed on here?” I ask as she touches me again and the pain abates.
She shrugs. “There are no rules prohibiting them from entry… anywhere.”
“I’ve never seen one before.”
She nods. “They are rare to find in these parts. Usually they stick to Dread.”
How horrible. A life knowing nothing but this agony. My very nature as a healer, a dryad, draws me to fix the problem. I look back at the shadow demon.
“Don’t,” the lady next to me says, shaking her head. “You can’t help him.”
“But…”
“Trust me.” Something in her eyes tells me she speaks from experience.
As I sit, I reach my hand out to touch her, to distract me from this swirling queasiness.
She looks down and clutches it with a smile. “Better?”
The bile rising in my throat stops and the need to vomit fades. “Yes.”
“Good.”
It’s a testament to how clouded my senses are when the train slows. I don’t remember it taking off. We stop and people push their way out. Unfortunately, the shadow demon stays. More than half the car leaves and I have to wonder if the shadow demon has anything to do with the mostly empty car. Especially when a businessman takes one step inside, whips his head to the demon and then steps back onto the platform, letting the train continue on without him. A huge nope if I ever saw one.
Another station goes by, and another. More people get off. Few come on. It’s as if they know this car is off limits—the train of pain.
“Listen to me, honey,” the lady squeezes my hand. “You should get off at the next stop if that thing doesn’t.”
“I can’t. This is the only train that goes all the way to Arcadia.” The next train isn’t until next week. Without this train, I have no way to get to my new school. Money is a strange concept for dryads, but mom made it a point that if I get off the train before my destination, I won’t be able to get back on again.
The witch doctor sighs, and her dark eyes mourn for me. “Well then, since you’ll learn it anyway, and it doesn’t look like you know how yet, close your eyes for me.”
I smirk. “I know how to close my eyes.”
She grins like a Cheshire cat and says, “Don’t be ornery.”
I do as she says.
Tingling, then warmth spreads through my hands. “Now,” she says. “Focus on your heart, your core, the place where your healing comes from. Feel the compassion swirling like mist. Are you there?”
My nod satisfies her as I reach inside myself. The core that is my heart glows brightly. A foreign pulling draws me in, and then I’m inside a round chamber. The best way to describe what I’m feeling is—pink. It’s love and hurt. It’s forgiveness and redemption. Hope blooms as I look around myself in awe. Hundreds of little nicks scar the sphere. But a peaceful strength I’ve never felt before shines through. I can’t see in colors, but I feel the pink cascade into orange, yellow, and a lighter shade of red as if they shimmer on the curved walls.
“You have a beautiful heart, little kin,” the lady says, and I can hear her in my head. I can also feel her as if she’s standing next to me in this room.
“Is this my heart?” I ask.
“It is.”
It’s as if I’m inside a fortress, only the outside barrier of the fortress is actually me, in the world. But the “real” me, the eternal me, is within this sphere. This “room” is the power source of all my magic.
“Little kin,” the lady whispers, “learn well at the academy how to protect this.”
The outside me feels her press warm a hand against the upper part of my breastbone.
“Stay in here,” the woman continues. “And it will protect you from the pain of the shadow demon.”
I know what she means. Stay inside my power source. My heart.
She’s right. My nausea’s gone. With a clear head, I’m able to think again. I open my eyes. “Thank you for showing me.”
“You’re welcome, little kin.”
She starts pulling away, but as the last of her essence fades, I hear her from the outside world. “This is my stop.”
My outside self nods. “Okay, thank you again… for everything.”
Then she’s gone, both from the sanctuary of my power source and from the train. A small part of me is sad and nervous to be left alone.
I can maintain my concentration for a long time. My body sways to the inertia of movement, but I’ll be able to stay inside my own heart. At first, it’s the wonder of it all. I’ve heard some people rule their magic with either their minds or their hearts. It makes sense that my power resides in my heart.
Some think the mind is more powerful, but I disagree. Maybe people who use their minds as a power source are clever, or can do intricate magic, but all I want is to become better at helping The Circle. It’s the place where all dryads are born. The place where we’re safest. And soon, after my time at the academy, I’ll be best qualified to become High Priestess for the next generation. But before then, it means leaving the Circle to study and bring that information to the Enclave.
It seems I’m well on my way. I learned something new. Something important. And it’s just like me to test the boundaries of this new talent.
I open my eyelids a crack to see if I can remain inside my heart, but still be aware of my surroundings. The barest of light and shadow comes through, and I sense being inside my heart again. I’m doing it! This is big. I could be fully connected to my magic and be aware. I turn my head to the side, but see no one. Slowly, I lift my chin to look down the car.
Only the shadow demon remains.
Why is it here? What does it want?
I turn back to watch it again and immediately right myself. It moves from the back of the train to the middle. It appears almost as black mist, coming closer to me. I can feel my heart start pounding as fear creeps inside me, and I can’t help but look back again.
“Eep!” The high-pitch squeak brings me out of the protective walls of my heart. The thing is in the seat behind me, and now I’m ready to vomit again.
Crap. Crap. Crap!
I want to double over and puke all over my shoes. An H-bomb of pain explodes in my head. Breathing comes at a labored price. My heart hammers.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” the thing whispers in my ear. Instantly, I feel coldness all over my body. I shiver.
“Why are you here? Go back… over there.” I fold, putting my head to my knees as I try to keep my stomach contents intact.
“You’re needed. I hope you’re the one.” The voice is a quiver and shrouded in an echo as if it’s speaking from far away, but the tone is definitely male.
“The one what?” I say into my knees.
He hisses and I recognize the sound as a sigh.
“Close your eyes.”
Panic laces my soul. Close my eyes? Why? “No.”
The shadow demon hisses a sigh again. “Go back inside yourself, like the good witch doctor showed you.”
I feel something reverberating off him. So much pain. I stutter and sit up. I turn and face him. If only I could heal what ails him, maybe this throb of anguish would stop. I reach my hand out to touch him.
“No!” The shadow demon jumps to the other side of the aisle. His yell reverberates like a vice against my head.
“Shit,” I whisper. But the unrelenting stabs to my brain, my body and even my soul ease.
“Don’t touch me, not while I’m dressed.”
Despite the pain, a smile curls the ends of my lips and I can’t help a retort. “So touch you naked?”
A gurgle bubbles up from the shadow demon and his coughs echo, but it’s the kind of hack that hides his surprise. “Bit of a masochist, are we?” His mirth is as transparent as his body.
“I’m a 5.0 student, what do you expect?” I wait for the question everyone asks—how do you get a 5.0? Simple. Weighted grading scale. Better known as honors classes.
But he doesn’t comment, and I’m still drowning in pain. Agony shoots off him like ocean waves. I gasp and fall back to my seat. I want to get away from him, but it’s almost like I’m trapped there, like I can’t move.
“You are beautiful…” He whispers as he steps forward, and my vision goes white. Blinding hot knives dig into my arms, my legs, my organs. I can’t even get used to the hurting; it changes and twists, never settling on one type of pain. “I’ve never seen one of you before…”
I muffle a cry. “Go away!”
Another sigh-hiss is my only indication that he comes closer.
“I’m sorry I must put you through this,” he says.
“Then stop!” I cry out, tears running from my eyes.
“It won’t be much longer.”
Then, I’m in so much pain, the only thing I can do is escape into the blackness of unconsciousness.
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ALSO BY H.P. MALLORY:
Paranormal Series: (Writing as HP Mallory)
Lucy Westenra Series
Mists of Magic and Mayhem Series
Lily Harper Series
Dulcie O’Neil Series (over 1 million downloads of the series!)
Jolie Wilkins Series (New York Times bestselling series!)
Sinjin Sinclair Series
Peyton Clark Series
NuLife Series
Reverse Harem Series: (Writing as Plum Pascal)
Happily Never After Series
Sacred Oath Series
F My Life Series
About the Author:
H. P. Mallory is a New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author who started as a self-published author.
She lives in Southern California with her son and two cranky cats, where she’s at work on her next book.
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Table of Contents
ONE ARIA
TWO ARIA
THREE ARIA
FOUR HOOK
FIVE BASTION
SIX Aria
SEVEN HOOK
EIGHT ARIA
NINE ANDRIC
TEN Aria
ELEVEN ARIA
TWELVE BASTION
THIRTEEN ANDRIC
FOURTEEN ARIA
FIFTEEN ANDRIC
SIXTEEN ARIA
SEVENTEEN BASTION
EIGHTEEN ARIA
NINETEEN ARIA
TWENTY ANDRIC
TWENTY - ONE HOOK
TWENTY - TWO ARIA
TWENTY - THREE BASTION Two Days Later
EPILOGUE ARIA
