Nobody spoke; the delay so long that Emrysa wondered if the scrying board had stuck in one place. However, just before she dipped her finger in the blooded tree sap to restart the vision, somebody else spoke up. A middle-aged man who still possessed a teenage look of innocence in his dark eyes.
“What would you mean by ‘our future?’”
“The future of witches, the future of magic.”
The room in the scrying board hushed. As did the witches staring into the vision.
“If we do it now, now while we have the opportunity, we can turn this prophecy around. We can claim our place in the future, ensure witches will not become extinct. Ensure magic will not become extinct.” The old witch looked at each Alchive Council member in turn, allowing the gravitas of her words to sink in. She undid her silencing spell but the young pretty witch remained quiet all the same, taking in the words, taking in the impossibility of a world without magic.
A world without magic? Emrysa’s heart clenched.
“Then pray tell us, what would you have us do?” The pretty witch asked, but everybody already knew the answer.
The old witch spoke again, and when she did, it was if the very chords of nature clung to her words. “To stop this terrible future from transpiring, we need to kill the cause at the root. We need to kill the Golden Oak. We need kill the Cheval bloodline dead. And we need to kill them tonight. For this is the prophecy I have seen.”
The old witch hammered her hands together and a clap of thunder reverberated across the room, across time and space through the scrying board. Her ancient hands palled apart an image, shaking and blurry that grew on the canvas of the air above the long dining table. And then it cleared. The prophecy there, for all to see...
16
The Prophecy
Rose stood at the water's edge, hands splayed by her sides, face upturned toward the moon. An untrained eye would see an old woman dreaming of golden days once passed. But the old woman was not looking into the past—she was staring into the future.
Her faraway gaze remained fixed, unblinking. Eyes glazed with a pale white film—a shimmering glow as if the moon itself shone from them. The art of scrying was all but lost to modern witches, but Rose was no modern witch. Her blood boiled with her ancestor's powers and time did little to weaken them. Despite her frail form—back hunched, knuckles gnarled, and fingers twisted—the moon listened intently to Rose's commands. Its pallid light reflected upon the witch and the midnight-blue lake. It shared its secrets, shared its knowledge—it shared the future.
Rose gasped; her eyes flinging open as she reached for a heavy pendant nestled over her heart. She looked around herself, startled as if waking from a nightmare. Her fingers trembled with magic... with knowledge.
"The prophecy," she whispered, nodding thanks to the moon as it slunk behind a blackened cloud.
She lifted the hem of her skirt, flitting from the riverside as fast as her frail legs could muster. Her ragged breath caught in her throat, but panting, she continued through the woods. In the darkness, branches struck her face but her urgency was too great to stop and she cast a parting spell. Clouds, their outlines illuminated by the moon's secret, rumbled and darkened. Electricity—the conduit upon which magic travels—prickled in the old woman's blood.
She didn't have much time.
Lightning crackled, illuminating the sky with a simultaneous roar of thunder.
The magic of the world would soon be lost and with it, everything the world held dear. It was a price Rose was willing to pay but she knew she would have to pay with more. For the moon's secret, Rose would pay with her life. It would be the first of many lives lost to the prophecy. The war on witches was about to commence.
Nobody was safe.
Magic, for all its beauty, power and grace, would have to die.
17
A New Direction
“That has to be the biggest load of horseshit I’ve ever heard!” Emrysa stamped her foot into the vision, and the images rippled away to reveal nothing but the flagstones. “Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. As if magic could be taken from the world, as if I’d have a hand to play in it. Who is this Rose woman anyway? What the hell has she got to do with me?”
Emrysa continued rambling. The images made no sense, the words, the tales, the prophecy. What even is electricity? Magic was shaped by will and nature, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?
“We have to get you somewhere safe,” Merlin began.
“Aren’t you listening to me?” Emrysa yelled. “It’s utter rubbish.”
“It doesn’t matter what is true, Emrysa,” Merlin said. “What matters is what people believe.”
The terrible truth of his words hung heavy in the air.
“What he says is right,” Nimue butted in. “People—witches—will be scared, they’ll believe whatever lies promise to keep them safe. Witches might not love the Alchive Council, I know that only too well, but they do trust their ability to protect them from harm.”
“Shit,” Emrysa said again, then, turning to her brother. “I’m so sorry this has happened, it is all my fault—”
“I am the dunderhead who opened the portal with little more than alchemy and senselessness. I should never have done it; this wouldn’t have happened if I just allowed you the time to work out your own spell.”
Emrysa took his hand, and even with her heavy heart and fraying soul, she could not bring herself to tell him what she believed. Yes, perhaps it was his fault. If he had only given her the time to work out another spell. Regardless of her thoughts, she squeezed his fingers gently and offered him a wan smile.
“Come Dermot, we’ll saddle the horses, we’ll ride away. And then we’ll find a way to fix this, fix the Darkness, the mess.”
“I’m coming with you,” Merlin said.
But Emrysa shook her head. “No, Merlin. It’s too dangerous. I need someone who knows what has happened here—to share my truth so one day someone will believe me. And if the Council get me... I need someone to tell my side of the story. People need to know what happened to the Chevals.” She stared deep into his eyes. “Merlin, will you tell my story?”
He paused. “I am your story, Emrysa. Take me with you. We can work this out together.”
Emrysa wished to either slap his stupid face or kiss those beautiful lips, she couldn’t decide, so drawn to him she was, it made her angry. It simply wasn’t fair to find someone like this, now, when her entire future was unravelling.
Nimue stepped between them, cool and calm as always. “Enough.” Her icy stare penetrated Emrysa like her tongue had earlier in the evening, but her eyes were rimmed with something… something else. What was it? Jealousy? Defeat? Heartbreak?
“Merlin, you will stay here with me, we can stall the Council, give the Chevals time.” She turned to Emrysa now, her stare longing. Pleading. “Go, I know of a place where it will be hard for them to find you. A place that will conceal you. At least give you time—or us time—to figure out our next move.”
“But what about the Darkness?” Emrysa asked.
“The Council will find a way to work it all out, they always do,” Nimue said. “But I won’t let them take you. Now, go! Saddle the horses, command the faerie roads. There’s a cave to the west of the Winterlands. Ride like lightning and keep in mind a place to scry so we can contact you when we have any information.”
Emrysa nodded, heart thudding.
“But—” Merlin said.
“There’s no time for discussion,” Nimue pressed. “They are coming.”
The thud of horses’ hooves grew ever closer. The pounding of the castle door in the distance. The demand to open at once.
The Council were not coming.
They were here.
It was Nimue who grabbed Emrysa and kissed her ardently as Merlin watched on dumbfounded.
“Go!” Nimue said. “Save yourself.”
18
Sworn with Oath
Emrysa pulled herself away from Nimue and stole on
e last glance at Merlin’s face, before spinning to see only Dermot’s terrified eyes.
“Quickly, through the tunnels,” she hissed.
And in a second the siblings were gone, disappearing though a hidden trapdoor and fleeing through the underground tunnels made to protect the family if under attack from warfare. It was here she found them—the women who kept the castle household running, the men sworn with oath and heart to protect their lord and kin.
“It’s a massacre.” The words slipped unbidden from Emrysa as she stood upon piles of bloodied, dead bodies. A river of blood ran through the cylindrical passageway as she and Dermot tripped and sloshed their way through the mold-covered tunnels. The touch of Darkness ever-present despite their flame spells lighting the way.
“They must have tried to flee, only to get caught. But what does it gain from killing?” Emrysa asked, helpless.
Dermot ignored her question. “I cannot believe this to be our fate.” Dermot tripped over a body whose face was covered in shadow and blood. He didn’t dare look back, he didn’t dare look down... he would not allow himself to recognize the faces of the men and women he had known his entire life now dead beneath his feet. He wouldn’t allow himself to imagine that amongst them could be the sweet, Rhian. Where had she gone?
“I won’t let this be our fate, Dermot,” Emrysa said, pinning her eyes ahead, neither daring to glance down at the soft bodies she tread upon in their escape. “I’ve told you before, I’ll do anything to protect you, and brother—” She stopped now, spinning to face him. “If I have to sacrifice myself to do that, I will. Know that.”
“No!” Dermot whispered as urgently as a whisper would allow. They could both hear footsteps above them, could both feel the force of the magic held in that space. The Council was close. “You are the one with the most power, it should be me sacrificing myself for you. You need to keep our bloodlines going, I have nothing to offer the future other than alchemy and silence. You have so much more.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, Emrysa. It’s the truth. You know the truth is hard to hear, even harder to accept. But know I will, if the time comes. You have to keep our story going.”
They shared but a moment of gratitude; gratitude for the unflinching love they felt for one another... yet there was a lingering worry in the pit of Emrysa’s stomach.
What if the Darkness did pull me under its spell? What if, without my dragon heart, without my soul intact, the Darkness wins me over? No, Emrysa knew exactly who had to be the one to survive if all this went wrong. She smiled at her doe-eyed brother with his soft heart and kind mind, and was momentarily pleased that at least it was she who had to sacrifice so much of herself. She couldn’t imagine a world in which her brother was forced to experience the dull ache as she did. She wished to send him a soothing spell, as she had done only hours before when the entire world was different, but with the Council so close, she daren’t. Instead, she threw a half-smile before they ran again, over bodies of the men who had succumbed to the Darkness that had encroached their castle, their lives.
But where is the thing now? Emrysa wondered. And what would be waiting for them as they escaped the clutches of the Council and fled into the throes of the darkness beyond?
19
Midnight Stealth
Emrysa knew the underground tunnels like the freckles upon her nose. She had spent her childhood playing games of hide and seek, or chase, or simply running from her parents when she was in trouble, to find some peace in the stables. The farther they went, the less bodies they found, until there was nothing but a constant black hole ahead and echoing drips, hollow and tinny in the dank subterranean air. Still, left turns, right turns, straight aheads, Emrysa knew them all until she found the wall ladder that would lead them to the trapdoor to the stable.
“Maybe I should go first,” Dermot suggested.
Emrysa screwed her face up at him. “Why would you do that? I’m the eldest, and the eldest always goes first, remember?”
“Factually, we’ve discovered that’s not actually true.”
Of course, Emrysa conceded the truth, but not the argument. “I always go first, there’s no need to become the big brave brother now you’ve discovered you are my big brother.”
Dermot almost smiled. “It’s not that, you almighty plum. It’s just you’re still wearing your nightdress and quite frankly, I don’t want to see what’s under there if I climb the ladder behind you. I’ve seen enough masses of darkness to last me a lifetime.”
Despite everything, Emrysa barked a laugh. “Here, will this do?” She swiveled her hand around her body and incanted beneath her breath, content that they were far enough from the castle for the Council not to feel her magic. But her magic was different from before, when she had a full soul. Not stronger but...
Her nightdress morphed from the blood and gore splattered white to shades of black, shiny as a raven’s eye. The material clung to her like a second skin, to every contour of her skin.
“By the Goddess, Emrysa?!” Dermot looked wide eyed.
It was not what Emrysa had planned. She had wanted an outfit to help her agility to escape with stealth in the darkness. She looked down at herself in shock. Emrysa had never before worn men’s trousers, only they were not men’s. They clung to her—a thick, supple, and shiny leather as soft as calf skin against her own. No skirts to cover her modesty. And the bodice, instead of hiding flesh, enriched it, highlighting her cinched waist, her full breasts.
“Well,” she said, a little lost for words.
Dermot humphed with a disapproving older-brother glare that came quite naturally to him, he was pleased to admit.
“Just get up that bloody ladder.” He swooshed his hand at her, turning away as she raised herself up the first rungs of the ladder, her leather boots thumping upon the wooden steps.
Her fingers trailed a worn symbol engraved into the wood at the ceiling of the tunnel. It glowed a pale blue as she whispered the words she knew so well. It groaned open. Strands of golden straw fell from the barn above their heads, a beautiful color in a world devoid of it.
They raised themselves up, the horses snorting in disgust at being interrupted in their peaceful slumber.
“At least the Darkness hasn’t reached here,” Emrysa said, helping her brother. “I hadn’t even taken that into consideration.”
“Don’t be so quick to count our blessings, we’re yet to know what awaits us outside,” Dermot said with grim reality.
“True,” Emrysa mused, eyeing the Council’s horses—Merlin and Nimue’s horses—she wasn’t sure if they would be Council members for much longer after tonight. “Come here, boy,” she said, clicking her tongue and holding out a hand to the small herd. She magicked up a ripe apple in her palm, and one horse forced its way through the wary beasts, succumbing to her bribe.
Its breath was warm on her skin as it chomped fearlessly, unaware of the task ahead. Its eye, darker than coal, looked up at her through long black eyelashes. The horse was beautiful. A long wavy mane flowed from a thick, muscular crest, trailing past long its shoulder toward its knees. The beast’s strong muscles rippled even at rest, and its coat sparkled blacker than a midnight sky, in contrast to the Cheval’s white beasts. With any luck, Emrysa thought, they would be hidden away in the night with these horses.
“Come on, sister, there is no time for caressing,” Dermot urged, dropping saddlery to the ground with a whomp. The horse sensed her sudden anxiety—getting agitated as she rushed to get the bit in the horse’s mouth and the headpiece over his ears.
Emrysa tried calming the fidgeting horse as she saddled it, losing her patience when it whinnied and pulled back.
“Stand still, will you?” she scolded, putting a spell in place to make the horse compliant. It was not a spell she relished but needs must, she considered, and time was precious.
“You know, if you trusted him a little more, he would stay calm for you.” Merlin appeared from nowhere, making Emrys
a jump and curse.
“By the Goddess? How do you do that?” Emrysa clasped her heart-space. “Anyway, how can I trust a horse I don’t know? And how can I trust the beast isn’t riddled in magic that will take me to the Council instead of fleeing from them?”
“Oh come on, Emrysa.” Merlin shook his head and had the audacity to smile his charming smile. Despite how it made her feel inside, Emrysa refused to smile back.
Merlin’s hand soothed the horse’s neck, then stroked his forehead under the mass of wavy black forelock. “His name is Protector, and that’s exactly what he’ll do.”
Emrysa shot Merlin a contemptuous galore. “You have to be joking me?”
Merlin laughed, a sound sending calmness and elation through Emrysa’s veins at the same time. “His name is Bruce, but it hardly seems like a gallant name for a steed galloping under the stealth of midnight.”
Merlin smiled again, the charming rascal, then laughed. It was a beautiful sound and Emrysa wished she could have heard it before, when her world and life wasn’t in danger, when her heart still pounded strong and her aura still pulsed with the fiery red that matched his own. Now her aura pulsed with deep burgundy that started to darken to black at the edges.
“Nice outfit,” Merlin chimed in, with a comical expression. Dermot groaned in the background and mumbled something inaudible under his breath.
Emrysa did smile then. “I suppose you’re right—about the horse’s name, I mean. Not the outfit. But I like it... the horse, I mean. Shit.” Emrysa stopped to catch her breath, wondering why she babbled so much just because Merlin was close to her. “Bruce,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “It’s a name that sounds true.”
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