Broken (The Immortal Coven Book 1)

by April Gutierrez

  “She took me this past year for my birthday. We walked the park and ended up at the tree.” Her image was engraved behind my closed lids. Right with the tears that I was trying to hold back.

  Dmitri placed the palm of his hand in the small of my back, “Do you want this to be over for the night?” he whispered into my ear.

  I turned, tossing him a half smile for the effort to keep me strong, “I’m okay.”

  “The tree makes little difference in this discussion. We can’t do a coven spell without Augusta. The fact remains she is in his control. Who is to say she hasn’t given him all of our secrets?” Valerie argued.

  Kyle turned to her sharply. “We don’t know, but Aerok is here and if anything happens, Perri is with him to immediately take her place.”

  “It’s almost like they want it to happen.” She sassed him.

  “It’s called preparation, Valerie.”

  She shook her head and started to pace. “We are missing something, ladies.”

  I felt the mental shut down only seconds away. No one was focusing on the bigger picture. As Dmitri had conveyed in our private conversation, the bigger picture is the key.

  “Look, our best bet is to cast the binding spell using everyone we have. Each of the individual spells will work; we just have to believe in it.” I tried to soothe her worry.

  “I need to go; I can’t do this right now.” She stormed out of the great room and back down the hall. Every step she took echoed throughout the extra space in the castle.

  “Leave her be. She gets cranky when she is tired.” Kyle assured me.

  Dmitri took my hand back into his own. “I think it’s time to rest. Our day has been too long, and you’ve had a busy several days before this.”

  Maura took a step towards us, “Yeah, we heard you bolted something to save Lisa.”

  “I didn’t even know what I was doing. It just kind of happened all on its own.”

  “That’s crazy; I’ve never done anything like that.” Gloria added, joining in on the conversation.

  “You know she has to be powerful though, Gloria, she is from Ciara’s blood line. Remember the stories Toren use to tell us about Ciara back when dark magic was running rampant?”

  “He made it sound so unbelievable though. I just never realized that we can actually use light magic like that.”

  “I suppose you just have to channel it the right way.”

  “See and I didn’t even know any of this.” I giggled to them.

  “Sweetheart, you will do just fine. Believe us.” Gloria tapped my shoulder.

  Dmitri took two steps back, pulling my body to follow his.

  “It’s time to rest. I guess we will see each other in the morning.”

  Everyone nodded and started their walk back to their own chambers.

  You say too much when you talk to them. Dmitri warned.

  I glared at him, why are you so worried about what I say to my sister witches?

  Because sometimes they aren’t all peaches and crème.

  “So freaking what!” I seethed through my teeth, the words traveling down the hallway. What are they going to do? Attack me?

  You never know, Celia. And remember I’m the one that has to protect you when you go and do something thoughtless.

  Dmitri took the doorknob to enter our room, but instinctively I reached out pausing him from opening it for us.

  He looked from my hand to my eyes and the seconds felt like an endless building of tension.

  There’s something inside! My thoughts screamed at him, the terror finally hitting reason.

  He swung the door open, shoving me behind him, and we both witnessed a cloaked figure jump up to an opened window towards the back of the room.

  I shrieked, causing every nerve ending to freeze in place.

  Dmitri on the other hand, barreled towards it, but the figure was far too quick for him. It leaped out of the window and into the dark night before Dmitri even reached the bed.

  My heart, now racing, prevented me from entering the room.

  I was immobile, practically unable to take in the air my lungs were begging for.

  Dmitri turned back to me, with a mixture of concern and anger in his eyes, and realized I was about to start hyperventilating.

  I shook my head as he raced back to my side, “I…can’t…breathe.” I gasped at each word.

  “Shhh, calm down, take a deep breath.”

  Trying to do as asked was very much like trying to take in air while being under water. His hand rubbed my back and his mouth went straight to my ear.

  “Shhhh, I’m right here.” He whispered. Slowly, my body responded and I wrapped my arms around him. I needed his warmth more than words.

  CHAPTER Eleven

  “How in the Hell did he manage to get in through the window, Dmitri!” Kyle shouted from across the guest quarters Lisa was staying in.

  Lisa, Anabel, and I sat on the floor, legs crossed in front us, and listened to them banter back and forth, the necessity of our safety.

  It was actually quite amusing to see how they brought past generation issues to compare to our current state of affairs.

  “This castle has always been impenetrable to Dark magic, Kyle, when the coven visited in its complete capacity. That’s not the case this time.”

  “There has got to be a way to make this right.” Kyle began to pace the area in front of us.

  “They could try to transfer her magic to Perri, force the coven to stay intact. I mean, it is strenuous circumstances that are endangering the safety of the coven.” Lisa stated, her face going from Kyle, to Dmitri, then back to me.

  I had to agree with her on one thing, there must be something we are permitted to do when faced with dire situations.

  “Dmitri, it would be worth a try. We could bind Augusta, strip her of her magic, even from here, and ask Ciara to transfer her power to Perri.” My spine straightened as I waited for a response from either Dmitri or Kyle to refute what was being suggested.

  They looked at each other, as if speaking amongst each other, as we do to them, and then turned away from each other. Dmitri looked down to me, reaching out his hand for me to take it.

  “You need to speak to her on your own. It is after all, you who must find the way.”

  I took his hand, letting him raise me from the floor and followed him out of Lisa’s chamber, giving Lisa and Anabel one last glance before leaving. We walked down the great stairs and through a smaller room that led to a solid wooden door.

  “What’s in there?” I asked, almost curious if it was Ciara on the other side.

  “This is the room your mother use to stay in, whilst in company.” He paused, taking the door knob in his grasp. “This is where I’ve asked you to be relocated for the remainder of our stay.”

  He pushed the giant door open, the creek in the hinges bringing the feel of how ancient the castle truly was. He walked in first, pulling me behind him, by the hand.

  The room, while smaller than the guest quarters I’d been in previously, felt more secure. The windows were thin slivers of openings in the stone which are too small for anything to enter through, at least not a solid figure, that is to say.

  The room itself was decorated in mahogany furnishings, and dark linins. The entire essence felt like royalty.

  “I am going to get us something to eat. If you need me, you know how to get me.”

  He turned and left me alone.

  Being in this room, where my mother had once stayed, brought a memory to flood back in.

  ‘Mommy, Mommy, look at the flowers I just picked,’ I had excitedly cried out to her.

  ‘Yes, dear, they are beautiful.’ She picked me up, her arms wrapping around my tiny body.

  ‘Did you have a nice time with the others?’ her eyes glittering from tears she’d been holding back.

  ‘What’s wrong mommy, aren’t you happy. We are like princesses in a fairytale.’

  ‘Yes, but my love, even fairytales have a littl
e sadness to them.’

  ‘No they don’t mommy, they always live happily ever after.’ I gleefully cheered, throwing my arms out wide into the air.

  At that point, she had pulled me into her arms, holding me very tight. Her body shook softly, and she sniffled quietly.

  ‘Don’t cry mommy. I’m here. Take my flowers they will make you smile again.’

  When I pulled away, I realized there was a man in the room sitting in a chair in the far corner.

  I’d become serious at realizing he was there.

  ‘Did he make you sad?’ I asked her, trying to make sense of my mother’s odd behavior.

  ‘No honey, he makes me very happy, just like you do.’ She tried to smile but I’d never known my mother to have such sadness fill her.

  I came out of the memory still able to visualize the man that had been sitting in the chair. His face, his empty glare, I’d known that face, and had even seen it recently.

  My chest tightened the instant I made the connection, Mr. Harrison, the man from the school clinic.

  He’d been in my mother’s room, in this very place when I was a little child, a place where only one thing was of importance…my mother’s craft.

  I turned as Dmitri opened the door, startled to see him so soon.

  Carrying a tray filled with food, his eyes locked on to mine. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Shaking my head, “I’m not sure.”

  He walked to the table at the corner of the room and placed the tray on it, moving several things around so that I’d be able to eat comfortably.

  I could sense he was waiting for me to open up, but the words were hard to articulate as I’m not one to assume. “A long time ago,” my hand went up, “she brought me here.”

  “Yeah, you had to be like 3.” He turned, putting his hands on his hips, waiting for me to continue.

  “She was sad that trip.” I stated, wondering if he would remember.

  “She was…” he agreed.

  I nodded, thinking back to the tears she’d been holding when she talked to me.

  “I came in here, with flowers I’d picked, and she was crying. I didn’t understand, probably because I was so little, but there was a man in here with her. And she said, ‘He makes her very happy. Just like you do.’ She’d been referring to me, that this man made her as happy as I did.”

  Dmitri’s head tilted, his eyes scrunched in confusion, and he started shaking his head.

  “No, there was no man, Celia. Your father was gone, and she never had anyone else in her life romantically.”

  “I saw him, Dmitri. I’m not confusing this. And not just in that memory, but I saw him last week. When I ended up in the clinic sick, to my stomach, he came in just before Olivia picked me up, said his name was Mr. Harrison.”

  “You saw him at school?” he asked, his voice booming throughout the room.

  “I’m telling you, I feel like there is something missing here, this guy, this cloaked figure, Augusta being seduced by Kalvati. I have a gut feeling it’s all connected, and my mother was killed because she figured it all out.”

  Dmitri sat down, a first for what I’d seen of his reactions. “If Kalvati is this Mr. Harrison, and also the cloaked figure, we have bigger problems than we think.”

  “How so?”

  “Don’t you see, Celia? He knows the coven. If your mother loved him, she would have done anything for him, lied even, to me to protect him. She did the same with you for so many years.”

  “Why would he seduce a witch he would later destroy?”

  “We don’t know that he did, there is obviously something we are missing in the bigger picture here, as Ciara has said.”

  I reached out to him, my hands grasping his shoulders, “I have to talk to Ciara, Dmitri.”

  He nodded his head and took my hand. “I will help you.”

  The process for channeling her looked easy enough, but none of the other witches had ever been successful in their attempts. Here I was, repeating their steps when in fact Ciara had already channeled me twice in the span of my learning I was a witch.

  “Because she is in all of you, you have to think of her as an extension of yourself and then let her pull you in.”

  “Hmm…” wondering why it seemed she had really just transported me somewhere. “Where do I go?” I asked him.

  “To your subconscious” he stated plainly.

  “Eww, my subconscious is a creepy place.”

  “Mine is worse!” he huffed.

  I laid myself on the bed and closed my eyes. I searched for her, for that place I’d been in before, but nothing. I laid there, eyes closed, feeling like I was walking through a maze of thoughts. Clearing my mind, from cloaked figures, to memories of my mother crying, it was no wonder I couldn’t find my way to Ciara.

  I decided I would go back to the moment I was in front of her the last time. I visualized her face, the porcelain look of it. Her eyes, filled with a mixture of sadness and strength.

  Everything became hazy and I lost her face and could only see a thick white fog surrounding me.

  “You did right in finding your way to speak to me.” Her voice filled my ears.

  The haze moved, cleared in front of me, and it became apparent that I was in that place I’d been before. I was in my subconscious.

  “I’m afraid, Ciara.” I admitted whole heartedly.

  “Then we are in trouble.” She sighed, “You can never be afraid to do what must be done, but maybe it is fear of something that, deep down, you know will not solve the current problem.”

  “We have to do a coven spell, but Augusta has been seduced by Kalvati.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “So you know then that we are trying to figure out a way to transfer Augusta’s magic to Perri.”

  “There is only one way to fix the current state of affairs.” She looked away, as if upset I hadn’t figured everything out yet.

  “Will you help us?” I asked her plainly.

  She snapped her head towards me, her body stiffened by the response. “Dear child, I help you with everything you do. I am a part of you, your magic and your strength.”

  To this I had only one internal reaction, the deep feeling of being utterly alone. Fine, she is always with us, but I don’t feel a part of her when I can’t fix something.

  “I will always be with you, and maybe, when you find the path that you are supposed to take, you will realize the answer is in our connection.” She reached out and placed her palm on my cheek in a very soft and loving manner. Very much like my mother use to when I was sad.

  Finally, my eyes met hers, and I caught the change, as if the cold drop in temperature caused them to change. They were violet with sparkling flecks of glowing amber.

  “The truth is never as we believe, Celia my love, where the heart has claimed a truth, reality finds a sad lie to taint it. Your mother, tried to protect you, as I did my own child, but the lie she held will haunt you in the end, and it is a sadness I too will be burdened with when the path is chosen.”

  “What does that mean, Ciara?” I asked, seeing her shed a single tear. I watched as it slid down her cheek and left her face. It was in the falling of the tear that the haze returned and I could feel I was awakening from the dream like state.

  Dmitri grasped my hand and squeezed it as I opened my eyes. “Are you okay?”

  I shook my head, yes, but in truth I was shaken by what she had said to me. How truths are tainted with sad lies.

  “I need to find out what my mother was lying about.” I said, sitting up.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dmitri, Ciara made it clear that there is only one way to fix the problem with Kalvati, and that she is already helping us the only way she can, by giving us her magical strength.”

  “How does finding out about your mother’s past help defeat Kalvati and get Augusta back?”

  “Because I feel, very strongly, that her lie is the key to defeating him.”

  Dmitr
i shifted positions on the bed, his body facing the entrance way, just as it opened. Kyle came in, walking to the edge of my bed.

  “I need to talk to you.” He directed to Dmitri.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked him, looking from Kyle, to Dmitri, and back to Kyle.

  He pierced his lips together until they made a thin line on his face, paused, and shook his head, “Valerie isn’t going to play nice anymore. She refuses to see reason regarding Augusta.”