Chosen: Book 1 in the Ancients of Light series

by Heather Fleener

  Jortha’s head shook in the negative and his expression grew disconcerted, “Lorcan, I do not know. My sight has never been this unfocused. I can only tell you that the power rose nearly two hours past; the destruction and death began shortly thereafter.”

  The witch was never so reckless and anger surged through Lorcan. Teeth clenched, Lorcan’s voice filled the cavernous room, “Why did you wait to bring this to me Jortha?” He stepped away in anger; his hands fisted as his eyes narrowed on the male. Was his Coven to be betrayed at the hands of a witch yet again?

  The five members of the Elite Guard rose as a unit and moved in haste to take position at Lorcan’s side just as the heavy doors of the room were shoved open once more. A few of the younger members of Lorcan’s army assembled near the entrance. Their warlord’s voice raised to this level of anger within the confines of his home did not bode well.

  Jortha’s chin trembled a bit at the thought of the disappointment and anger he had raised in his protector, but his voice remained strong “I thought it was but a vision of something to come. The death and destruction, I could not see it happening, but only the aftermath.”

  Tersely, Lorcan questioned, “Why do you find it to be more than that now?”

  Jortha swallowed hard, “I can feel the power responsible for the destruction drawing close to Breslein.”

  Dropping his hand briefly to Jortha’s head, Lorcan dismissed him without temper. He turned to his gathered guard with grim resolve, “Prepare the men. It appears we war, as the Fates of the Realm see fit that we find no reprieve this night.”

  Lorcan muttered a curse as he shadowed to his own chambers to prepare for battle. He was beyond rage. Just when Fate or God or whatever divine being oversaw this supernatural realm on Earth appeared to grant him grace, it was always short lived and wrested from his grasp before he could find respite. What evil could be descending on him this time?

  His fist found the hard stone wall in his room before he leaned his forehead against the coolness of the smooth rock. He was exhausted and massaged the back of his neck wearily. Lorcan began pulling on his garments of war and allowed his thoughts to drift through memories that had brought him to this circumstance.

  He could not help but smile as an image of Kaitriana flitted past; Lorcan had seen her last at the Festival of the Moon. Prior to that, he had encountered her only one other time since saving her. She had been the awkward age of twelve. A gangly, brown-haired girl, she was remarkable only in those eyes that had remained unchanged. On that particular night at her uncle’s home, those piercing eyes had fallen on him, no fear lurking in their depths. That spoke volumes of her, as mighty warriors avoided his presence when he was irked and he had been livid that night.

  She had studied him openly, her eyes warming. The young witch had offered him a smile, despite that his mission had been to deliver a stern warning to her uncle to cease his feud with the nearby Vampire lest he wish to endure Lorcan’s wrath.

  Lorcan believed her eyes had sparkled magically at him from the depths of that dark little cottage and the little minx had actually made a face at him. He had replayed it in his mind a thousand times over in the centuries since. When he had turned to exit, she had smiled once more and given a tiny wave of her hand, like to an old friend.

  Her face had lit with a youthful excitement that she could not contain, as though she had waited so long for that very moment. He grinned a bit in response to the memory as he finished preparing himself. The little witchling had had freckles…amazingly blue luminous eyes and a cute dusting of freckles. Eighteen, in fact - he knew precisely because he could recall every detail about her.

  At the Festival of the Moon he had been too shocked to press Myrrdyn as to whether or not Kaitriana was the Chosen, though he had wanted the answer. Her sudden appearance had rocked him. He had assumed he might see her that evening, knowing Myrrdyn had finally deigned to grace the gathering with his presence. Lorcan had been curious to see if Kat was still the rotten little scamp that had the audacity to claim the Warrior of Light as ‘Mine.’ He had not expected, having seen no sign of beauty in her either the day of her rescue or the lone night fourteen years prior at her Uncle’s home, that she would have grown into the exquisite little creature that had rushed into the manor.

  Lorcan had thought her gorgeous in the sparkling ruby gown that accented her creamy skin and onyx curls. With his acute vision, the black cape that had draped her had not been able to hide the fineness of her form within its dark folds. She had stolen his breath and he had wanted, for the first time in his life, to shirk his duties and drag her away so that he might have seen if she still possessed the impish spirit that had been so enchanting.

  A frown took his face. The Chosen had been destroyed that same night and for the five hundred years since the witch girl had perished, the Realm had been in a cycle of unending and vicious wars. The Light and the Dark were in constant conflict and even the Witch and Vampire within the Ancient Light often broke their tenuous truce to kill one another at the slightest provocation. Those centuries had taken their toll, battle after battle, and no purpose seeming to be behind any of it except that of surviving.

  Her death continued to pain him. He had relived the brief scenes of when he had encountered her again and again, during melancholy nights after horrific battles. He oft had wondered what she would have brought to the Realm if given the chance. He was certain that the girl had been the Chosen, the one that could restore the Realm as Myrrdyn’s prophecy foretold. Lorcan had begun to believe that had the little witchling lived to fulfill whatever great role she had been destined for, these past five centuries would not have been filled with gore and death.

  He heaved a sigh and shoved his broadsword in place. His thoughts returned to her frequently in times of great trouble as though haunted by an unseen presence. Lorcan seemed destined for eternity to regret a Sorcerer’s prophecy that would never come to fruition. If Fate was bringing evil to his steps tonight, he would fight in honor of that little witch that should have been more.

  CHAPTER 8

  As he exited his room, the rumbling of the men in their war gear and the voices of various members of the Coven echoed off the stone walls in the hall below. The noise all but overtook the sound of Jortha’s voice as he called above. “Sir, Sir, you must hurry.” Lorcan glanced down and finally caught sight of the witch, braving an entire room of Vampire this time. He shook his head in disbelief. Jortha remained pale and had a noticeable sheen of sweat on his brow, but he brushed vampires from his path as though he were set upon by hellhounds. “Sir, hurry, there is no time.”

  The fact that Jortha seemed oblivious to the three hundred Vampire milling around him created a knot of dread in Lorcan’s chest. Lorcan shadowed to the young man’s side and the room quieted. Jortha looked as though he would retch at any moment, the pallor in his countenance growing, as his eyes shifted in the direction of the panes of glass at the front of the keep. A tremendous bolt of lightning split the dark sky. His voice hushed and his eyes fell closed, “It is here Lorcan, she’s arrived.”

  She? Lorcan frowned. With an encompassing sweep of his arm towards his men, he marched with determined purpose towards the heavy iron doors of the keep. He did not shadow, but took measured steps. He would meet Fate’s latest challenge this time, on his own time, his own terms. The thought crossed his mind that he was turning bitter in his old age, his thousands of years of existence weighed heavily on him. Jortha trailed in the wake of the armor clad warriors filling in the ranks behind their leader and again found his voice “At the gates, Sir, at the gates.”

  Catching Lorcan’s grunt of acknowledgement, Jortha withdrew towards the warmth of the towering hearth in the sidewall. Lorcan threw both iron doors open in a flourish of strength and anger. Taking a deep breath of the unseasonably cold night’s air, he briefly studied the gates. Continuing down the stone steps and onto the grounds below, he eyed the high stone walls that surrounded as far as he could view. Jortha had w
orked his magic well to provide protection to those walls and no evil had found its way through in well over a century.

  Lorcan made the journey across the sloping grass quickly to those massive metal gates that towered well up towards the sky. He was conscious of the sounds of the metal weaponry of his armed Elite and Coven warriors behind. Lightening continued to wreak havoc in the sky above his home.

  He stopped short, a good ten feet from the scrolling metalwork. His gaze was drawn down in puzzlement as his foot crunched…snow. Lorcan heard the strength of his men behind him, fanning out across the rolling grounds. His eyes began to scan the area quickly, aided in the dark by his species’ exceptional vision. The night was broken by gusts of cold air but the trees in the forests that surrounded his fortress were unmoving. The scene before him was bright under the light of a full moon. The snow – it was not cold enough for such snow – coupled with the lightning storm, contributed to a growing sense of unease.

  His eyes drifted back to the gate and he found her then, apparently at the same moment as many of his men, as there was a collective murmuring among them. Shoulders bared in a rich gown, the material was so fine it gave the appearance of fog settled around her legs. She was on the ground, seated with legs curled under and head bent forward. From this distance, only the long fall of midnight dark curls over her face and arms, those exquisite ivory shoulders, and the fluff of gown gathered around her legs were clearly visible. All was becoming covered in the falling snow. The female’s hands seemed to work together slowly in her lap. She was otherwise motionless, settled on the far side of the locked gate a solid thirty feet from where Lorcan now stood.

  If she was this great power, why did she linger there? Why did she not enter and seek their end? The gates would be no match for any magic that would bring this level of alarm to Jortha. As Lorcan studied her, somewhat disbelieving, he thought that if this little creature carried such immense power, the Realm had surely just been turned asunder. All had yet to see her face, but the ethereal looking form at his gates had fascinated his attention and that of his men, he guessed, based on their stillness.

  The gates creaked open slowly of their own accord, startling him out of his study as more lightning painted the darkness overhead. Lorcan reminded himself that great beauty at times hid great evil; the image of his deceased mother flashed in memory as his hand readied at his sword.

  A voice, whispering and nearly lost in the soft fall of snow and the distance that separated them, broke the night, “She adored you and would not seek your harm.” Her hands continued kneading the layers of gown.

  Eyes narrowed, he took another step forward. Lorcan could not believe any of the Realm would dare speak to him of his mother, “Were your words for me?”

  In the same soft tone, “More for your mother than for you…but for you, I suppose, since she is no more.” She shrugged daintily at that, as if presuming her answer should have been known to him already. Another whisper, with certainty, “Though you share not the prejudice of your kin towards the Witch…Vampire.”

  Anger blazed on Lorcan’s face at the reference to his mother and his steps quickened in her direction, accompanied by general murmurs of caution from his Elite. Lorcan waved them off, he needed not the reminder. His warriors held back, readying and watchful. Within arm’s reach of the creature he stopped again, witnessing that her hands were not worriedly working the folds of her gown as he had thought. The fingers were taught, tensing claw-like and relaxing repeatedly in reflex, and stained red. Her nails were actually shredding the gossamer material gathered in her lap.

  Though the scene was being witnessed by hundreds of warriors, at this moment none existed but the two before the gates. Lorcan’s tone was icy, “What know you of my mother?”

  “Apparently more truth than you….Lorcan.” Her inability to locate Myrrdyn tonight had caused her to seek the Vampire warrior; she instinctively trusted him and she needed his protection. Kaitriana had not intended to insult him nor broach the subject of his Witch mother, but the pain, fatigue and hunger plaguing her now made her testy. She was not in the mood to argue vampires and the falseness of their beliefs.

  Anger rising, apparently she knew her enemy by name while he had no inkling of her origin or purpose, Lorcan still managed to check himself and he stepped no closer in response to her taunt. She had kept her head down, the curtain of her hair continued to hide her face from him. His ears and all those within the yards of the keep were keen enough to hear her sharp intake of breath, accompanied by an ever so slight moan of pain. The girl’s hands extended shakily from the skirts of her gown, still tightened in a claw-like grip as though in reaction to immense suffering. Her fingertips scraped over the snow, raising dirt as she hunched slightly forward.

  He witnessed it at the same time a faint trace reached his senses; a smattering of blood was on the bodice of her gown, much more of it smeared over her arms. Anger abated slightly for the moment with the realization that the creature was suffering. Lorcan released his hand from the sword and in direct opposition to his cautionary nature he squatted closer to her level. He scooped up a handful of the powdery snowfall, patiently sifting it through his fingers. He provided her a minute, attempting to allow her to regain some composure before he pressed, “You are injured?”

  Her head remained lowered and Kaitriana eased back as the wave of pain slowly subsided. She refolded her hands demurely in her lap and followed with a short, rueful laugh. “I have been tending my injuries for nearly half a millennium, Milord. At this moment I am in pain, yes… but this blood is not mine, nor have I been injured during all the bloodletting that has left me in such a state.”

  Lorcan was appreciative of the response she gave though her words were a bit odd. ‘Milord’…her language was dated. Damn, if the creature would just push those curls back so that he could see her eyes and ascertain her intentions. Lorcan did not lie to himself; he was curious and cared to see if she was as pretty as he was imagining. How he could feel such intrigue towards a supposed threat he could not gather, but there was something about her that pulled at him on an instinctive level.

  He could not garner a clear scent of her either, which perplexed him further. She did not reek of any of the Witch Castes. Her scent might be masked somewhat by the blood that marred her skin and gown, but to be undetectable to one with his senses was odd indeed. In order to be responsible for the death of the magnitude described by Jortha, the little thing must be Ancient and of one of the stronger Castes.

  Those delicate shoulders raised, just enough to send snow cascading from them as he watched, “I am not an Ancient…nor nearly so old as you...”

  Lorcan stiffened; was she probing his thoughts?

  As if to confirm, Kaitriana slowly lifted her head, raising her face to his view. The effort cost her. The splitting in her head amplified immensely with the slight movement and her body felt as though it were being torn apart on the inside. Her nails began shredding the fabric of her skirts in earnest again as she attempted to control of the shrieks of agony that wanted to escape her.

  Lorcan took in the pain etched in her face, the tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and the pallor of her skin. He understood immediately her issue, noting the tips of tiny white fangs and the marks they had had left on the bottom of her lower lip. Those observations registered with him simultaneously through the impact of a shock that nearly knocked him back physically. Lorcan’s gaze locked on her. Those eyes swimming behind the pools of tears appeared as shards of ice. There was no sparkle within them at this very moment but those eyes had haunted him for centuries. He knew them well and only one in the Realm had ever possessed that amazing look.

  CHAPTER 9

  Lorcan’s entire body weakened in a rush, requiring all his brute strength to keep himself steadfast. The air expelled rapidly from his lungs as he began counting; Lorcan realized he was crazed even as he did it. Eighteen…eighteen little freckles smattered across the beauty’s face. The creature at his
feet was the very image of the beautiful witch that had been burned to memory nearly five hundred years before when she had fled at the Festival of the Moon. Kaitriana. Did he whisper it aloud?

  Maybe he did, he thought a smile was taking her lips before she gasped in pain again. The fang on the right side pierced her lower lip as she arched back in agony. There was a rumbling among the men behind him. They were aware too that she was near the end of transitioning. The pain of the process that changed one into the Vampire form could cause a strong warrior to beg for death. Blood traced from the corner of her mouth and this time he could scent her. Lorcan reacted, his fangs extending sharply.

  He closed the distance between them in less than a blink. The streaks of light in the sky were nearly unceasing now and Lorcan thought it may be connected somehow to the pain she suffered. Heedless of the female’s current state, he knelt down in front of her; his hands tightened around her arms and he gave her body a hard shake. He was uncaring when she responded with a tortured cry. Lorcan was greatly tormented now too, the brief feeling of relief and hope that had risen in him had been extinguished just as quickly. The despair he had felt earlier this night increased tenfold as he gazed down at the being.

  Lorcan dragged her writhing form flush against the metal plating on his chest, demanding through gritted teeth, “What treachery is this? The witch is dead!” His mind was not making sense of her appearance and fury ensued. Lorcan shook her again, harder, before tossing her bodily ten feet from him to the snowy ground. A bolt of sizzling light flew from the sky and pierced the ground but a few feet from him, accompanying her shriek of pain. He was oblivious to the threat but his men began to shift uneasily as Lorcan ground out “Answer me!”

  She moved not from where she landed but only drew her knees towards her chest. Kaitriana was panting through the pain, tears freely flowing down her cheeks. She lifted those watery eyes to him, hearing the crunch of his boots over snow as he approached, and extended a trembling hand in his direction.