The Cloaked Maiden: A Reverse Harem Romance (Rise of the Ash Gods Book 2)

by Cara Wylde

  “I’m sixteen now. Today, my father is disappointed in me because I failed to cast a spell. He told me I’m not a gifted witch, and he’s ashamed that I’m part of his family. He told me that even though my brothers are younger than me, they’re already showing much stronger powers.”

  “You have brothers? Did you have them before?”

  “N-no... My father married a woman. A witch from an old, powerful family. Everyone was and still is against their marriage. My step-mother gave him two sons. They are three and four years old.”

  “And what about your mother?”

  “She’s just a servant. She doesn’t have rights. I see her once a week, when she comes to spy on me in the garden. I don’t talk to her. I don’t want to. I know that my powers are weak because she’s an Ordinary. Because of her, my father loves my brothers more. And because she couldn’t make him love her, now he is married to this witch who’s bent on making my life a living hell.”

  “How do you feel right now?”

  “Betrayed... I feel abandoned, like I don’t matter, like I’m not worthy of my name.”

  “What is your name, Aurelia?”

  “Conti.”

  Magny almost fell off the windowsill. He scrambled to regain his balance.

  “And what is your step-mother’s maiden name?”

  “De Rossi.”

  Magny covered his mouth with both hands. He stared at Valentina as if she’d just grown a second head. He couldn’t believe she hadn’t jumped in the air and through the roof at the words she’d just spoken. Apparently, she really was in a deep state of hypnosis. So deep that she couldn’t yet realize the implications of her discovery.

  Femi understood from the hobgoblin’s reaction that Valentina had just come across something important. He had to make sure the information was clear and correct.

  “So, your father is a Conti and he married a De Rossi witch.”

  “Yes.”

  “Everyone was against their marriage.”

  “Yes.”

  “As the story goes, there was once a witch who married the wrong man. Did the De Rossi witch get punished for it, Aurelia?”

  “Yes.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Did you punish her?”

  Valentina was silent. Her eyes were moving fast behind her closed lids, as if she was dreaming a dream that was too much for her. Too obscure, too intricate. She couldn’t keep up with it, and if she lost control, it would immediately turn into a nightmare.

  “Aurelia?”

  Val let out a deep sigh. “I’m eighteen now. I failed the Test.”

  “What test?”

  “The Test to become a Keeper of the Spades, like my father and my step-mother. My father is blind with anger. We’re in his library. He’s yelling at me, telling me how I’m worthless, how I shouldn’t even call myself a Conti, and how he made a mistake when he recognized me as his daughter and took me under his wing. His only hope is that my brothers will repair the family reputation when they turn eighteen and pass the Test.”

  “What happens next?”

  “I’m crying. I can’t stop crying and begging my father to forgive me. He locks me up in his library and says he needs time to decide what to do with me. He doesn’t want me under his roof anymore. I... I grab one of his scrolls, the one that I know contains curses, and I find the worst one. I can feel the fragile paper under my fingertips... I unroll the scroll, I place it on the table, and I follow the small lines of text with my fingers. Somewhere at the bottom... I.... I can read the name of the curse.”

  “What curse did you use, Aurelia?”

  “Maledictum de luna.”

  Femi cocked an eyebrow. He stole a glance at Magny, and the hobgoblin translated in the lowest whisper he was capable of: “The curse of the moon. It’s Latin.”

  “And on whom did you use it, Aurelia?”

  “On my step-mother. The De Rossi witch who stole my father and ruined my life.”

  With every word she forced out through her parched lips, Valentina was becoming more and more agitated. Beads of sweat covered her temples, and her hands were squeezed into fists at her sides.

  Magny begged Femi with his eyes to do something. The way she looked... like someone or something was hurting her... It wasn’t right. The hobgoblin had no idea how much of what she was saying she was conscious of, but he knew that if she were awake, Valentina would’ve reacted much worse. Still, it was bad enough for Femi to consider it best to move on to another past life.

  “Let’s leave this life behind now and try to access the next.”

  Valentina clenched her jaw. “No.” Pain and distress were painted all over her face. “I’m in a room, surrounded by women. It hurts! It hurts so bad. They keep telling me to breathe and push, but I can’t. It won’t come out.”

  “What won’t come out?” Femi asked.

  “The baby. It feels like it’s tearing me from the inside, but it won’t come out no matter how hard I try.”

  “Valentina, let’s leave this scene behind. Let’s leave this past life behind and travel to another one.”

  “I can’t. Blood. So much blood. It’s hot, I’m running a fever... I push and I scream, but it won’t come out!”

  Magny poofed himself on the couch, next to Val’s head. He touched her forehead.

  “She’s burning up,” he whispered. “Femi, you have to do something.”

  The old man shook his head. “It’s up to her.”

  Valentina started writhing and weeping, as if she was going through the pains of labor and birth all over again.

  “I can’t... I can’t breathe,” she said.

  She started hyperventilating, acting as if she couldn’t get any air into her lungs. Magny poofed himself next to Femi.

  “We have to wake her up. Bring her back. What if she dies?”

  The old man shook his head. He was tense and a bit scared himself, but he controlled it well.

  “She can’t die. She’s just reliving something from a past life, nothing more. It will pass.”

  After another two minutes of struggling against something invisible that seemed to be holding her down, Valentina relaxed. Her breathing turned back to normal, the tension in her muscles dissipated, and when Magny checked again, she wasn’t burning hot anymore.

  “What happened, Valentina?”

  “I died. Aurelia died,” she said in a tired whisper.

  “What about the child?”

  “A boy.”

  There was a long pause. Femi waited for her to recover fully, then started guiding her to another past life. The idea was to travel to as many past lives that had something to do with the Curse of the Moon. Even though they now knew who had cast the curse, Femi had the feeling there was more to it.

  “Where are you? Look at your feet and your hands. Are you a man or a woman?”

  “Woman. I’m wearing this long dress. It’s heavy. My shoes are uncomfortable, my corset barely allows me to breathe. I think I’m getting ready for a party. No, a family gathering.”

  “How old are you?”

  “In my thirties, maybe? I know I... I’m married. I have two children, a boy and a girl. They’re waiting for me downstairs, with my husband and the rest of our family.”

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  Valentina focused. She was silent for a long minute, as she searched frantically for the information Femi had requested.

  “I don’t know... Wait. A maid comes into the room. She calls me... Lady De Rossi.”

  Magny poofed himself on Femi’s shoulder to whisper in his ear: “This is getting more and more complicated. She was first a Conti, and now she’s a De Rossi?”

  “Go to the party, Lady De Rossi,” the old man encouraged her. “Tell me what you see.”

  “No, I can’t.” Valentina furrowed her brows. Her eyes were flickering like mad behind her lids, as if she was trying to catch a dozen images that were flas
hing through her mind at the same time. An impossible task. “I’m somewhere else now. Another day, another place. I’m in the garden, I think. It’s huge! Roses and lilies everywhere. The summer air is heavy with their scent. I’m with my daughter. Bees are buzzing all around us, and there’s a blackbird singing somewhere near, in a tree.”

  “Why are you here? Why is this memory so important that you had to visit it?”

  Valentina shook her head. “I’m not sure. I’m sitting on the grass with my daughter, and there’s a book open between us. She turns the page, and I... I tell her to stop and go back. She’s not allowed to practice any other spell until she learns the one I’ve been trying to teach her for the past few days.”

  When Val fell silent and didn’t say another word for two minutes, Femi pushed her further.

  “What spell are you teaching your daughter?”

  “It’s a complex one. It requires a lot of focus and clear intention. A blocking spell. No, it’s more than that. Protection. I’m teaching her how to protect herself from a curse that befell our family centuries ago. I learned about it from my mother, and my mother from her mother. It’s my turn to pass it down to my child. For some reason, it only appears to affect the De Rossi women, but never the men. It’s too old and powerful to break it, so our only option is to protect ourselves from it.”

  “Do you know why the women in your family were cursed?”

  “Not really. I mean, it’s more of a legend. So much time has passed that no one can say for sure whether it’s myth or reality.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “The story says that a De Rossi witch once married a Conti, and no one agreed to their marriage. Even though they were together for years and she gave him two sons, her family poured so much poison in her ear every day that, at some point, she decided to divorce him and start a new life with the cousin she’d been promised to since she was a young maiden. Her second marriage was a disaster, but at least she gave birth to a daughter, and the girl was one of the most gifted witches of the De Rossi family. The daughter was the woman’s only joy. So, when she fell ill, the mother almost died of worry and sorrow. She did everything in her power to save her child, but she could hardly understand what she was suffering from. The girl kept saying that she was haunted, and that there was someone inside her who made her do bad things. To stop herself from doing those bad things, she hurt herself with her own spells and sigils. She claimed that the physical pain distracted her from the voices inside her head. Eventually, the mother discovered the cause of her daughter’s illness. It was a curse that had been cast by her step-daughter, her first husband’s child. The curse should have affected her, but instead, it had befallen on her own daughter. It behaved chaotically, and it couldn’t be broken. Her belief was that the Conti witch who’d cast it had done it wrong, and now the whole De Rossi family was stuck with a curse no one could fully understand, break, or control.”

  There was silence for a long while. Magny poofed himself back on the windowsill to make sure the phone was still recording. They were one hour into the session, and they had already made so much progress. Well, Valentina had. He was there for moral support.

  “Is there anything else we can learn from this life, Valentina?” Femi asked gently.

  “N-no. I don’t think so.”

  “Then let’s move on to the next one.”

  Val nodded and Femi started guiding her, his monotone voice leading her deeper into hypnosis. She was rattled from what she’d just uncovered, so he gave her time to relax and adjust. Traveling from one past life to another could be exhausting. Especially in her case, and not necessarily because she was a witch, but because she was an old soul trapped in a young body. She had a past. No, she had more than one past.

  “Are you ready to see the next life?”

  Valentina tensed up. Her hand flew to her throat, and she started making choking sounds. Her eyes were still closed, which meant she wasn’t in danger here and now, but she was, once again, reliving her death. The death of Lady De Rossi.

  “What’s going on? What do you feel?”

  “I can’t...” She struggled to speak. It was as if her air pipes were blocked. “The wine...”

  Magny poofed himself next to her.

  “She was poisoned!”

  Femi nodded. He was doing his best to keep calm. If he were to be honest with himself, this was the most intense and difficult session of hypnosis he’d had since he’d started practicing.

  “Were you poisoned, Valentina?”

  “Y-yes.”

  She struggled and choked for a few more seconds, then she relaxed against the pillow. Magny pushed her sweaty hair away from her forehead.

  “Why did she relive her death again?” he asked Femi. “It wasn’t relevant. Can you make her... like... not see her death?”

  The old man pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m trying, Mr. Luchtar. She always seems to go there on her own.”

  “We don’t want to know how she died every single time.”

  “I agree.”

  He stood up and lit the sage stick he had on the coffee table. He took a minute to sage the room, then sat back down, dragged in a deep breath, and resumed the session. Valentina looked like she was sleeping peacefully. Where her mind actually was... It was anyone’s guess.

  “Valentina, let’s travel to another life where you encountered the Curse of the Moon.”

  “Okay.”

  “Imagine yourself...”

  She started shaking. Femi jumped to his feet and approached her carefully. He touched her forehead. She was burning again.

  “What’s happening? Tell me.”

  “Pain. Fire. Hot, so hot. I’m... I’m melting. I can smell... hair. Burning hair, burning flesh...”

  “She’s dying again!” Magny poofed himself on her chest, hoping the feel of his weight would wake her up. “Keeper, come on! Get out of there! Get out of the memory.”

  “They tied me up,” she said hoarsely. “They’re watching me burn, and no one is doing anything.” She started coughing violently.

  “Femi, do something!” Magny begged the old man, who simply shook his head.

  “She’s in the driver’s seat, Mr. Luchtar.”

  “Guide her!”

  “Valentina, let’s leave this life behind. You’ve seen enough. We now have what we were looking for, so you can come back to the present. I want you to imagine...”

  She screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Magny slapped her lightly on the cheek, but it was as if she couldn’t feel or hear a thing. She was completely immersed in her visions.

  “Are you still burning?” he asked. Not to be mean, but he thought she’d have suffocated by now. The smoke alone should have destroyed her lungs.

  “No, I’m... I’m...” She coughed once and spat saliva all over Magny’s shirt front. “Drowning...”

  “Seriously?!” The hobgoblin took a couple of steps back, staring disgustedly at his shirt. He snapped his fingers and his clothes were clean again. “How many violent deaths did you have, woman?!”

  Valentina relaxed for a moment, then dragged a gulp of air into her chest, held it there, and finally exhaled softly. Magny could only hope the torture was over. He poofed himself on her pillow and pulled at her hair gently, trying to wake her up.

  “Shouldn’t you guide her back, Femi?”

  The old man shook his head. He was at a complete loss. “She’s not listening to me.”

  “Are you trying to say that you’ve lost her?!” He was getting ready to poof himself on the man’s head and apply a good old smack to show just how displeased he was with his answer, but Valentina started flailing her arms out of the blue, knocking him to the floor. “Ouch! For real?! What did I ever do to you?”

  She was kicking her legs and arms now, as if she was trying to free herself. She screamed, cried, and when she got tired of kicking, she started doing a strange motion with her f
ingers. Holding her hands above her head, palms up, she was clawing at something invisible, her fingernails digging into something she seemed unable to break.

  “What are you doing, Valentina?” Femi asked. “What do you see?”

  “I’m in a box,” she said in a trembling, frightened voice. “It’s dark, it’s damp... I can’t get out.”

  “A box?!” Magny’s eyes had grown so wide that they looked ready to pop out of his head. “You mean a coffin?”

  “Yes. I’m trapped.” She started sobbing. “I don’t want to die like this. Please, please... I don’t want to die like this!”

  Magny poofed himself right on Femi’s chest, holding tightly onto his collar.

  “Do something! Do something now, or I swear I... I’ll poof you out of existence!”

  Femi took a step back but didn’t say anything. He looked helpless and clueless. If there was one thing he’d never imagined would happen in his life was to find himself in the position where he had to defend himself from the magical powers of a hobgoblin. What a strange creature Magnus Luchtar was! Barely eleven inches tall, plump to the point of, maybe, overweight for his height, covered in brown, coarse hair from hair to toe, and with round, bright eyes that were currently throwing daggers at him. Except from transporting himself from one place to another through some kind of magic teleportation, Femi had no idea what else he could do. And he didn’t want to test him, either.

  “I’m sorry, I wish I knew how to...”

  “Magny? Femi? What’s going on? What are you two doing?”

  Magny was on top of Valentina in the blink of an eye. She’d woken up and she was looking around her, confused.

  “You’re back!”

  “Yeah. How long have I been out?”

  “You weren’t out. You were traveling. For... err... two hours now. Don’t you remember?”

  She thought for a second, then shook her head. Magny brought her the phone.

  “Then you’d better listen. Also, it’s a relief that you don’t remember. The last few lives were... ugh!” He shook his head frantically. “I don’t even want to think about it.”