Raven Heart

by Angharad Thompson Rees

  With a violent shake of her head, Emrysa denied its charge.

  “It’s not me,” Emrysa said, looking down and scratching at her own moon-mark scrawled across her body and heart.

  “Then tell us what it is, you halfway witch!” Nimue yelled. “You’re meant to be the one with foresight. Tell us what’s going on!”

  “I… I…” Emrysa trailed off as the entire building shook, rocked by the clutches of Darkness screaming outside the great hall. “I don’t know. I only saw up to this moment. The moment where everyone agrees to help.”

  “The Council has not agreed,” Nimue spat.

  Emrysa paused for a beat, all snide and bitterness dripping from her face. “But you must.”

  The ground grumbled.

  Amara turned to Fae, whose winter blue eyes now glowed like amber flames in preparation to morph. “We need to flee,” Fae said. “The Darkness is too great, I can feel it in the pit of my stomach.”

  Beside Fae, Hemeth stepped forward, “What about Lord Cheval?” Hemeth asked. Emrysa jolted at the name—at the use of her Father’s title used upon her long-estranged brother. Hemeth, with his lilting, lyrical accent continued, “he opened the portal not once, but twice.” The otherworldly stranger softened to a lopsided smile and shrugged. “Third time lucky?”

  “No!” Emrysa yelled. “We can’t run away from this. We must—”

  Blackness crashed through the windows to a crescendo of a million shattered shards of glass.

  Witches screamed. People screamed. Fae roared. Amara watched on silent as the dark mass whipped around them. It danced, coalesced, morphed, and in a breath—reached for them; grasping with obsidian talons.

  Amara felt the pulling, the pulling of her soul, of lung and sinew. Of magic.

  “No!” She grappled, fighting back, pulling her magic back into herself.

  Mother—Nimue—fell to her knees. Emrysa clutched at her body screaming obscenities into the callous Darkness that swirled and twirled around the witches writhing bodies.

  Fae roared, white flames smothered completely by a blacker flame of smoke and bone. Trancelike, Merlin, King Arthur, Kay, and Bedivere—still under Emrysa’s moon-mark spell—stood stock still, their widening eyes the only tell of pain.

  A laugh older than time penetrated the minds of all. Amara gritted her teeth against the sound, against the pain, against the pulling of her soul. For the briefest of moments, she could nearly grasp the depth of hollowness within Emrysa’s soul broken flesh.

  The sound grew, a terrible pitch echoing between every organ, every cell. It pulsed within Amara’s blood. She dropped to her knees, then with a sudden screaming wail of terror, the Darkness lifted.

  Disappeared. Vanishing, and leaving behind an unbearable and somehow terrifying silence.

  The silence of anticipation. The silence of waiting. The silence of stalked prey.

  Breathless, Amara clutched at her wheezing chest, her eyes finding her younger sister huddled in the redhead’s arms. Her mother rose to her feet and Amara didn't know whether to help her or condemn her. Bedivere, Bedivere, blinked several times and looked around himself, confused, alongside the others lifting out from their moon-marked trance. But Amara had no time to welcome them back—no time to ask because Emrysa’s shriek was enough to stop any thoughts of the Darkness.

  “My magic!” she screamed, hysterical. “My magic! It’s gone! My…” she clutched her chest. The moon-mark dripped from her skin like spilled ink until it disappeared completely. She cried then smiled, then cried again.

  Amara had the sense to know that somehow, with the Darkness taking Emrysa’s magic, it also took some of the burdens she had been harboring for all this time—for centuries—to ensure she had the strength for this very moment. She could tell by the way the haunted look in her aunt’s eyes ebbed, softened.

  So now what?

  The Darkness had reclaimed itself.

  Was all my aunt’s suffering for nothing? Amara thought. She could not believe it. Something else was stirring, she was sure of it.

  “This is why you only saw up to this moment, mmm. Interesting.” Nimue mused. “You couldn’t see past your life without magic.”

  “Her life will still be magic,” Merlin said. Consciousness fully returned, he stepped toward Emrysa—his face a crumpled apology. The two star-crossed lovers shared such an intensely private and passionate look, full of heartbreak and fragile possibilities, that Amara had to turn away. Without meaning to, her eyes wandered to Bedivere, watching how his face suddenly came alive with joy.

  “Morganne!” he called, rushing forward.

  31

  Split

  A cocktail of hope and hopelessness pounded into Amara’s heart. My sister? She looked around for her, following Bedivere’s longing gaze. His eyes pinned on Emrysa.

  Amara gasped.

  Morganne flickered, like a mirage, for but a breath before morphing back to Emrysa once more.

  “I can’t hold her, not without magic,” Emrysa said.

  “What do you mean?” Nimue demanded.

  Amara had deeper concerns. “Oh, by the Goddess. Can either of you survive without the other? Without magic?”

  Emrysa hesitated and stammered. “I don’t know. But there must be a reason for this to happen. It was imperative I connected with the fire heart. I don’t know why, I have never known why, but I would not have gone through all this torture to ensure it would happen if this didn't have significance. The foresight is strong. The future wants itself realized. The future wants itself to happen.”

  “The future is unwritten,” Amara scowled.

  Emrysa flickered, her image replaced with Morganne’s perfect form, her red curly hair as vibrant as always, her green, green eyes like shining emeralds. “You need to change things,” Morganne said, her voice far, far away despite her strong vision.

  Amara rushed forward, Bedivere at her side. “Morganne!” Amara yelled, heart exploding.

  “No time. You must change things.” Morganne’s voice was slipping away. Her form flickered back to Emrysa, then back once more, only this time, less vibrant. This time, less real.

  “We will,” Amara promised, looking back to Fae whose face was wet with tears, then to her mother, who Amara couldn’t decide if she still loved or loathed. “We’ll change things. We’ll work together, we can, I don’t know, maybe, go back in time?”

  Morganne shook her head. “It is not the past you need to change…”

  And she was gone. Emrysa stood stock still and stunned. Only one eyebrow arched impossibly high on her forehead. “Well… Shit. I didn’t see that coming.”

  Fae’s voice broke through the following silence. “How can we change the future without changing the past?”

  “We can’t,” Amara said, resolute, raising her chin and bracing her shoulders back with the confidence of her words. “To go forward in a different way, we must go back.”

  “Impossible!” Mother—Nimue—yelled. “You cannot go back. You can never go back. You change one thing and everything changes from that moment on. Time should not be manipulated. Ever! Do you hear me?”

  “But,” Amara began wondering what the problem of time manipulating could be. Had she not done it countless times herself? “What if we go back to the time when Emrysa went through the portal? Merlin, you could make the spell that allows nothing otherworldly back into our world—the spell you said you should have made in the memories.”

  “What about not making me get rid of my dragon heart in the first place, you prissy bitch?” Emrysa spat to Nimue full of venom.

  “Because,” Nimue continued, looking to Amara and Fae in turn. “Change that, and you girls won’t exist. Then who would there be to fight the Darkness.”

  “But the Darkness would not come,” Fae said. By her expression, Amara knew Fae understood the same as she. That somehow by changing the past, they may protect the world from the Darkness, but they would forfeit their own existence in the process.

&n
bsp; The air suddenly felt heavy in Amara’s lungs. Is this fear, or something else? She didn’t have to wait long for the answer.

  The Darkness hadn't finished with them yet.

  Beneath their feet, the ground split open.

  “Watch out!” Amara yelled as the ground continued reaching and expanding out like veins from its blackened heart. Branching out, separating everyone. Small groups of witches and innocents grappled onto each other as the ground sunk and disappeared around their feet. Debris tumbled into the deepest depths. The ground continued splitting; forming islands, each one getting smaller, and smaller.

  Amara gasped, losing her footing. Nearly tumbling with the falling stones.

  All around was chaos. Screams and shouts and sobs.

  The cracking ground exploded, continuing to split the ground in ever-smaller islands, shutting everyone off from one another. The Darkness knows how to create weakness, Amara thought sourly. She turned to Fae—she and otherworldly man, Hemeth, upon their own island. King Arthur and Merlin on another. With Amara, Kay, and Bedivere, Emrysa and Mother standing together on the last remaining large island.

  The ground shuddered again, the crack was coming. Amara could see it.

  They couldn’t stay here. She needed to cast a spell. She looked around. Other witches had already started spell casting, some failed helplessly, having somehow lost their magic along with Emrysa—though Amara had not time to ponder why or how. Fae morphed, shrieking with a fierce primal call.

  Time—Amara couldn’t make time standstill. She could neither make time elongate to help her decide what to do, she needed more focus for that, and the world was a blur. Armed only with the knowledge Morganne had shared, you must change things, Amara thought only of going backward. Backward despite her mother’s concerns. Backward in retaliation to her mother’s concerns.

  Amara pulled at nature, harder than she ever had before until her entire being vibrated with the knowledge of the cosmos.

  “Goddess save us from the Dark

  From this place we must depart

  Travel us through both time and space,

  To leave the Darkness, to leave this place.”

  The spell took hold. Amara felt the eye of the Goddess upon her—observed, tiny, minuscule against the vastness of the universes. Yet still the ground trembled and cracked beneath her feet.

  “Amara!” Mother called as the ground sank away, breaking the spell. Both Nimue and Emrysa fell with the tumbling stones.

  “Ouff!” Emrysa coughed, as she caught herself on the ledge of the loosening ground, knuckles white, fingers gripping stone. Amara lost her hold of the spell, no longer feeling the pull of time gone by. Interrupted, the spell buzzed, morphed, clung to Amara as she made one split-second choice as her mother and aunt swayed on the precipice, threatening to fall into eternity.

  She reached her hand out to help.

  She reached her hand out to help, Emrysa.

  “Amara?” Mother yelled. “You sullen bitch!”

  But it was too late. Her voice faded, the hall faded, everything faded as the spell finally grasped itself once more, pulling at lung and sinew.

  I will make everyone safe, I will make everyone safe, Amara chanted—prayed, snapping her eyes shut as the sensation of shooting stars and comets sailing through the vastness of space gripped her. It was a feeling she had felt before, the feeling she felt when she first laid eyes on her sister’s love, Bedivere.

  Bedivere.

  His image interrupted the spell in her mind’s eye. She couldn’t imagine a future without him.

  The Future, Amara heard the Goddess repeat in the throes of the spell casting. Velocity changed, and Amara found herself propelled forward at impossible speed until…

  It stopped.

  Amara was no longer in Camelot.

  Epilogue

  A warm breeze played through Amara’s jet-black hair with a heady floral scent of spring—and an unusual sweetness. Bird song whistled and chirped. A rhythmical creak of rope and swing swayed behind her. She opened one eye, then the other.

  “Bedivere?” Amara whispered, seeing only him ahead of her, his face twisted in horror. “Are you okay, are you…?” Her words trailed off. He was not staring at her, but behind her. She was about to turn around but;

  “Where, by the Goddess’s tits, have you taken us?” Emrysa croaked, stepping from behind the dumbstruck knight. Emrysa’s eyes followed the line behind Amara’s shoulder, her ruby lips twitched with a snarl.

  Amara held her breath as she turned, inch by inch to the creaking, rhythmical groan behind her.

  She staggered backward. Bedivere grabbed her wrist, keeping her from falling to her weakened knees.

  It was their feet Amara noticed first. Swaying to the gentle breeze above her head. Then their faces, eyes bulging, thick tongues lolling. Necks jutting at the wrong angle—the thick ropes seeming the only thing to keep their heads attached to their bodies.

  Four dead women swinging to the breeze.

  No, not women. Witches.

  “I asked you where have you brought us?” Emrysa asked again. Nobody looked at each other, instead they stared up at the dead hanging from the gallows.

  “I lost my concentration somehow in all the commotion. I think we’re… I think we’re in the future—”

  “The future?” Emrysa barked. “You stupid, stupid girl. How could you do such a spell? We’re doomed. Do you hear me? We. Are. Doomed!” Emrysa paced a circle, talking to herself—perhaps a trait learned through her centuries in solitude. “Great. My magic has gone, and we’re stuck in another time. This will not end well.” She stopped, looking around herself then once more to Amara. “And where is everyone else?”

  Amara bit her lip but before she could reply, Emrysa flickered from view. For a moment Morganne stood in her place. Her vision coming in and out of focus with the breeze. Bedivere made to grab her hand, but found no purchase, grasping instead fresh air.

  “Oh dearest sister,” Morganne sighed softly. “What have you done?”

  Amara stalked to the gallows, not knowing how to answer. She pulled from a nail a letter written in intricate, swirling handwriting. She read it aloud.

  “We’ve been expecting you. Meet us at the White Hart Inn. Be sure to conceal yourselves beneath their cloaks—”

  “—Whose cloaks?” Bedivere interrupted.

  Amara pointed to the dead swaying bodies. Bedivere recoiled.

  “We have little choice,” Amara said as she grappled a spell to transfer the cloaks from the bodies onto themselves. But nothing happened.

  “What?” Emrysa barked. “Has your magic gone too?”

  Amara shook her head. “It’s not gone, it’s… different. It’s weaker, like it doesn’t have the strength to pull the threads of the spell together.”

  “That’s because magic is dying.” A voice said from behind.

  Amara spun. “Who are you?”

  The woman smiled the most melancholic smile Amara had ever seen. “I am Anne West. And you, my dear visitors, are not safe.”

  “Not safe from what?” Emrysa barked.

  “The biggest witch hunt history has ever known.” Anne’s eyes lingered to the four women swaying on the gallows, and Amara had a feeling things were about to get a lot, lot, worse.

  “Welcome,” Anne continued, “to the demise of the witch.”

  Amara watched as Morganne flickered into view once more. They shared a stare, a longing recognition only felt between those who had shared a womb. No words needed. They knew they were in trouble. Deep trouble. Amara held up the letter to Anne.

  “You know of this?” she asked.

  Anne nodded and said only one word before turning and walking away, “come.”

  With only a short pause, Amara, Emrysa, and Bedivere pulled at the cloaks of the dead to conceal themselves, and followed the witch of a future time toward White Hart Inn, and a future yet unwritten.

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  Also by Angharad Thompson Rees

  Young Adult

  Magic and Mage Series

  Witch Hearts

  Fire Heart

  Dragon Heart

  Raven Heart

  Middle Grade Books

  Magical Adventures & Pony Tales

  The Making of a Knight

  About the Author

  Angharad Thompson Rees is an author and scriptwriter, writing across a broad spectrum of genres and age groups; from children’s and middle grade fantasy, to young adult gothic horror. She is an award winning spoken word poet and creator of whimsical illustrations and creative journals. Find out more at:

  www.angharadthompsonrees.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Angharad Thompson Rees

  Cover Designed By StoryWrappers

  Edited By Phoenix Editing

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