She scrambled on hands and knees to a box that laid, tipped on its side from the blast and, cackling like the evil witch, pulled a velvet bag free.
“You were never going to win,” Serena scoffed, undoing the ribbon that held the bag shut. She reached inside and pulled out a round object the size of her palm.
Cian’s vision went white.
“No,” his voice came out on a half sob. Cian turned to look at Ashlynn, to see her face one last time.
They’d stopped Serena from granting her wish, but she’d gotten her filthy hands on the orb of Thessula.
With it, she’d have access to all five elements and Ashlynn’s powers.
Chapter Fourteen
“How did she get it?” Cian’s broken whisper sounded from beside Ashlynn, making her shudder. She couldn’t turn and face him, couldn’t explain it. She kept her gaze frozen on Serena, riveted to the scene unfolding before her as the orb began to pulse. The light created an echo, waves floating in the air, and Ashlynn felt the connection to the device inside her. She’d used it so many times, she could feel it as if it had its own life force, coursing through her veins.
Serena smiled smugly, raising one dirt-covered arm in the air, fingers outstretched. The other hand she placed on the glowing globe. Tilting her head back, she stood there, chest heaving, her power resonating over everyone. A crack of lightning shot through the sky, landing in Serena’s palm, and her skin lit a bright white.
Cian stepped forward, but Ashlynn stopped him as Serena opened her mouth and cried out, “Abrendo!”
The orb stopped pulsing and shook, seeming to rattle, and then split wide open. It let out a shrill cry, like a bird of prey, and a slithering smoke the color of the sun on the horizon, growing like a flame. The cry grew louder, and those still left standing covered their ears and fell to their knees.
Ashlynn stood her ground with Cian at her side, and watched as that stream of smoke morphed into a hand, with long and gnarled fingers. Serena’s eyes rolled back in her head as she opened to the power, and for the briefest of moments, one jagged clawed finger of the smoke curled and caressed Serena’s cheek.
The sorceress shivered and uttered a laugh that would have curdled the blood of the devil himself then opened her eyes. The hand reared back, outstretched in crooked lines, then lunged forward, like a cobra attacking. It dug into her flesh and began to move, drawing from her, devouring her. Serena gasped, then fell silent and unable to breathe. Her chest seemed to collapse on itself, and Ashlynn bit her lip, knowing exactly what was happening. It was the moment she’d come to witness. Plan A.
She could feel the way Serena’s power drained, feel a connection to the orb that swallowed the evil magic as if hungry for the black mass.
“What the hell…” one of the nearby warlocks muttered, but Ashlynn didn’t turn to him. She was mesmerized by the fact that the orb so efficiently stole every bit of power and magic within Serena’s being.
“It’s working,” Faith’s somber voice sounded quietly at her side. “As we planned.”
Ashlynn understood her friend’s reluctance to celebrate. They shouldn’t count their blessings just yet; the plan could still backfire, and they’d have to resort to Plan B. Ashlynn shuddered. She didn’t want to be responsible for Plan B.
“What’s working?” Cian asked, his voice a bit harsh with what sounded like fear as well as caution.
Ashlynn felt bad for leaving him out of the plan she and Faith had hastily devised, but it had been for the best. The fewer people who’d known the truth, the better. The safer. Ashlynn watched dregs of black soot and rot suck free from Serena’s soul and prayed it was over.
She took a deep breath and turned to look at Cian, whose face was all confusion. “We couldn’t risk Serena getting her hands on the orb and using its power. It would make her too powerful, too dangerous. That’s how Faith realized it was the perfect weapon to use against her. We found a way to alter its purpose, so it would devour her magic instead of releasing mine.”
“We basically booby trapped it,” Faith stated surely, a hint of humor to her tone. “Our spells were directed at black magic. Should anyone try to use black magic through the orb, it would be absorbed, leaving the user powerless.”
Ashlynn looked back at Serena and frowned. Something was wrong. There was no darkness left in Serena. She was pale, no magic emanated from her, and she could barely stand, but the orb still drew from her.
Ashlynn reached for Cian’s hand with one hand and Faith’s with the other as the hand that reached from the orb to steal Serena’s magic, grabbed her body and squeezed it between ethereal fingers. In an instant, she was gone, disintegrated into nothing more than stardust that was sucked into the orb.
Instantly, the crystal silenced, falling to the ground with a heavy thud, and the lightning Serena had called disappeared. The ball no longer glowed, and the lack of motion was almost deafening. A murmur went up around them, and Ashlynn turned to Faith, who looked as perplexed as she felt. The spells were intended to capture Serena’s magic, but, her brain tried to piece it together, it seems the device had captured the woman herself.
“Is – she dead?” Ashlynn asked, not wanting the blood on her hands, even if the sorceress had nearly destroyed everything in her life.
Faith shook her head slowly, a look of awe and relief on her beautiful face. “No,” she said as a smile started a grew. “She’s not dead. But she’ll never get out. She’s trapped, forever.”
Ashlynn felt laughter bubbling up from her, from deep down inside. She turned and flung her arms around Cian, tears pouring down both their cheeks and blending together in relief and joy.
“We did it!” he murmured, pressing his lips to the side of her head as he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” Ashlynn whispered, knowing the words could never be enough. She knew he’d felt it, though, the peace and overwhelming love of their child, of Masilda’s soul in their child, and they’d talk about it when they were home.
Ashlynn smiled and pressed her face into Cian’s neck, breathing in the delicious scent of him. Finally, they could rest and focus on a future together. They could build a life with their new clan and the old, bonded together in love and support. They would build a future for their people and their child.
Tomorrow they would bury their dead, grieve their loss, then live life in their honor.
She linked her fingers through Cian’s and turned towards home.
FOUR MONTHS LATER
Ashlynn ran her fingers through Cian’s hair. His head pillowed on her full belly as she leaned against a tree, the breeze blowing over her and tickling her arms. “Can you hear me in there, young Maisie?” He tapped on Ashlynn’s stomach gently and began to sing his Celtic rhymes again.
He’d been doing this for over an hour, ever since they’d come out to get some air. It was deliciously warm with a soft breeze that chased away the flies. She’d told him this morning she wanted some quiet time with him. The clan had settled in, and she had news for him.
“It’s a girl,” she’d told him, and he’d been beside himself with excitement.
So happy, in fact, that he had wanted to make an announcement to the entire clan and had sent out an enchanted message in the sky telling everyone the news. They hadn’t been alone for long, with many wanting to wish them the best and congratulate them.
But it had finally died down again, and they were alone at last. They had settled on a name – Masilda Aoife Eadlyn Boswells, honoring the most influential women in the child’s life. And the little girl would have the perfect nickname, Maisie. It was shimmery and felt good rolling off Ashlynn’s tongue.
“You know, we have to go back soon,” she told Cian as he rounded out the end of yet another lovely tune. She’d been drawn in by his singing voice; she could have listened to it for eons and forgotten the world existed. She could sense that her unborn daughter felt soothed by it as well. But they couldn�
��t stay here for all eternity.
“I know. But we can blow off responsibility just a bit longer, can’t we?” Cian asked, pleading like a small child.
One of the older witches wandered past, chuckling. “Having a day in the sun, are we? With so many more to come, too. Take your time. Live your best lives. You deserve it. You saved us all.”
She kept going, and Ashlynn looked down at Cian, raising an eyebrow. “She has a point.”
“I told you,” Cian said, shifting so he could raise his head and kiss her. “I want all the time I can get with you now, before we’re distracted by our little girl.” He patted her belly and Ashlynn smiled, content.
Finally, and forever.
Epilogue
Reader Disclaimer: If you prefer happy ever after endings, Candace and JJ suggest you stop here and smile happily for Ashlynn and Cian’s beautiful ending. If you love the element of surprise and a smidge of suspense, then read on to find out what may have become of Serena Cineal.
Ashlynn yawned as she wandered into her bedroom. It was insane how tiring a day of doing practically nothing could be, but she her pregnant body yearned for bed. Cian stayed behind with the rogue Travellers – no longer truly rogue – to discuss more of their future. Ashlynn wasn’t particularly keen on falling asleep without his arms around her, so she walked into the spare room and flipped on the light.
Her sister’s trunks sat in the corner, and she knelt down to open one of them. Something she’d seen before wiggled in her mind, but she couldn’t quite place what bothered her. And yet, she couldn’t let it go. For some strange reason, it had worried her all day, and now, she was going to pinpoint exactly what was causing her so much consternation.
And anxiety.
Browsing through the pages of Gwendolynn’s journal, Ashlynn stood and then sat on the top of the second trunk, perusing lines of her sister’s careful and beautiful handwriting as she searched. For what, she still didn’t know, but she felt she would recognize it once she came across it. There were entries that were pages long about travels, or about experiences and meetings. Her children. Others were barely a few words, as if a reminder of something, or as if she just needed to make an entry and yet had nothing to say.
And then she landed on a page, and her eyes focused on an eerily detailed doodle down in the corner, at the bottom. It was a face, with long hair swirling around it, and the woman in the tiny drawing looked very much like Gwen. Too much. It struck a chord, and Ashlynn held her breath as she returned to the top of the page. She read, and her heart pounded.
The Nameless Woman 1726
She arrived at my home in Scotland one day, dirty and bruised with no memory of who she was or where she came from. I don’t know what made me take her into our home. But I did. Perhaps it was the memory of my late sister, fresh in my mind as that very day marked ten years since she’d disappeared from my life. Or perhaps it was the odd, alarming likeness the Nameless Woman shared with my own self. Like looking into a mirror at times. Regardless, I’ve decided to welcome her and nurse her back to health in hopes her memory returns and I may help her find a way back home.
Wherever that may be.
Ashlynn shook her head as a cold fear raced through her veins, her fingers trembling as she reread the words her sister wrote. She remembered the first time she’d met Serena. Ashlynn had made the same mistake, noting the likenesses between the woman and her sister Gwen. It had pained her, made her remember how much she missed her beautiful, sweet sibling. And now, she read a similar experience here, in Gwen’s journal.
There was a simple explanation, of course. In the grand scheme of things, Gwen had parented children that fostered the growth of Serena’s family line. In actuality, Gwen and Ash were Serena’s ancestors. It was unfathomable in some ways, but then, so was travelling through time, falling in love, and the magic that she felt coming from the soul of her unborn child.
But the fair-skinned, golden haired genetics that had once mixed with the Bricagos’s Scottish line had all come from Gwen. Eventually filtered down through the centuries. Showing prominently within Serena in modern day. So – how could a woman show up on Gwen’s doorstep with the same likeness she shared with Serena when those genes had yet a chance to give birth throughout the generations?
Unless….
Ashlynn’s throat squeezed as a chilly gasp escaped. Her wide eyes re-read the words again and again. Then she stared at the drawing of the Nameless Woman and saw a flicker of familiarity. In the eyes. The way they slacked with a careless ease, a dark intent.
“No,” Ashlynn whispered. “It can’t be.”
The End
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