by Linsey Hall
The darkness.
It was a presence that I couldn’t deny—not human, not Fae.
All evil.
It burst from the ground, reaching for me. My skin burned where it touched, and I breathed it in, unable to escape. The evil stained me from the inside, feeling like spiders crawling inside my skin. It reached inside my mind, turning me toward cruelty and rage.
Burn the moor.
The thought screamed in my head, making my fingertips ache to release my fire upon the land. I would scorch the earth, raze the ground and the people. It would all burn before me, forever.
A tiny blur of white caught my eye, racing across the ground.
Puka.
The sight of my familiar snapped me back to the present.
The dark mist surrounded me, evil seeping inside my veins, polluting me.
I screamed, terror and rage bursting through me. Magic exploded out from me, a bright supernova that forced the black mist back into the earth. The fissures closed, and the tor returned to normal.
Weakness caught me, my wings faltering.
I fell, plummeting from the sky. Every bit of magic I’d had was gone. Not permanently—my soul felt complete—but I was too weak to keep myself aloft.
The ground raced toward me, and fear burned bright.
From below, I caught sight of Iain. He shot toward me, wings ragged and burned. He caught me right before I hit the ground. We crashed to the grass, panting.
I scrambled off of him, emotion surging through me.
I had wings. A crazy tattoo. The SoulStone was gone.
And the darkness was inside me.
I could feel it, writhing and twisting.
It was still in the ground, but it was also in me.
I panted, clawing at my shirt, trying to tear the darkness from me.
What was happening?
“Caera!” Iain grabbed my arms, and I shoved him off me.
“Don’t touch me!” I would taint him. I would taint everything. “Get away!”
His brow creased, his face blackened with soot and burn marks all over his body. “What’s wrong?”
“Get away!” I had no magic left, so I hit him with a hard right hook, sending him stumbling backward.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
My mind raced. I couldn’t be with him. Not when I was like this.
The ceremony.
My mind caught on the memory of our mating ceremony, and our suspicions that it couldn't be broken. That he’d been lying to me about that.
“We’ve saved my people and stopped the fire,” I said. “We can undo the mating ceremony now, right?” The darkness within me seemed to rejoice at these words. I ignored it, fear and anger pushing me onward. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew that I shouldn’t be with Iain.
It was dangerous for him.
And dangerous for me.
The Oracle’s words echoed in my mind. Doomed to fail.
“Well?” I demanded. “Can we undo the ceremony?”
His jaw tightened. “No.”
“So it was a lie.”
“It was.”
Hurt and anger surged within me, made stronger by the darkness that was creeping through my soul. The strength of it was unnatural, but I couldn’t fight it.
I had to get away from him.
In the distance, I caught sight of Puka racing for me. I dropped to my knees as she reached me, gathering her to my chest and speaking against her fur, “Get me out of here.”
I hoped she had the power that I thought she did.
Her magic vibrated around me, and I looked up at Iain. “Your debt is repaid.”
As the ether sucked me in, I heard his words, strong and fierce. “I’ll come for you, Caera.”
***
The next day, I sat in the back of a small carriage alongside Connor as it rumbled up the hill along the road that led to the Court of Flame. It was definitely an upgrade from the last time I’d come this way, led in shackles by the palace guard.
All around, people stared out of their houses, watching my brother and I. Though I resisted making eye contact, I was elated to see that everyone had made a full recovery. The land around the Tor of the Ancients was still damaged, though not irreparably so. The remaining scars in the land would be smoothed over by time and growth.
I’d successfully put things back to rights, though fear still shivered through me at the knowledge of what was to come.
The darkness was still out there, the Great Burning threatening. I could feel it inside myself, along with a presence that seemed to egg it on. As if the embers of the Burning were now within me, and the evil urged me to stoke it and let it lose.
I shuddered and fought the feeling, turning to Connor.
“It’s so strange to be back,” he said.
“Do you like it?”
“I’m not sure. It’s different when I’m not really Fae anymore.”
“You’re still Fae, even without the wings.” Though my wings were not out, I could feel the shadow of them at my back. I hadn’t had a chance to try them again since I’d passed out almost immediately after returning home from the Tor of the Anceints, then the king and queen had called us to them as soon as I’d woken.
He shrugged. “I’m not sure it matters. I have my life in Magic’s Bend now. I’ve come here today for you, but when you’ve fulfilled the prophecy, I’m done with them.”
Connor was more of a loner than I was. Always had been.
Would I be done with the Court as well?
I had no idea.
Iain hadn’t contacted me. Not since I’d run from him. But I knew that he would. Our bond was undeniable.
The carriage rumbled to a stop in front of the palace and the guard led us into the throne room. The king and queen waited, their gazes intense on us as we walked toward the throne.
Any nerves that I’d felt the first time I’d come here were gone. I’d been through too much to be afraid of them, and the darkness that lurked inside me seemed to give me a strange extra courage.
We stopped in front of the thrones and stared up that them. All around, the gorgeous glass room flickered with a pale orange light.
“You did well, Caera of the Court of Flame.” The queen’s eyes blazed with an unfamiliar dark light as she complimented me. “Our people are well again, once more in control of their magic.”
Connor reached for my hand and squeezed it. All around, courtiers watched, their gazes rapt on us. I shifted uncomfortably under the attention.
The king leaned forward. “You will be honored for this.”
His eyes also burned with a strange dark light.
What the hell?
That dark light was familiar. Just like the darkness that still snaked through me, sick and evil.
Oh fates.
Somehow, the king and queen had become polluted with the same darkness that had attached itself to me. I’d stopped it temporarily, but the curse was still spreading through the land—through me and the king and queen.
Were they willing or unwilling hosts?
What was I?
Part of me screamed unwilling, but it was growing fainter with every hour. I’d managed to keep it a secret these last twelve hours, determined to fight this darkness within me. But could I do it alone?
~~~
The adventure isn’t over yet! Book 3 will be here in mid-February, 2020.
THANK YOU FOR READING!
I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. Reviews are so helpful to authors. I really appreciate all reviews, both positive and negative. If you want to leave one, you can do so at Amazon or GoodReads.
Acknowledgments
Thank you, Ben, for everything. There would be no books without you.
Thank you to Jena O’Connor and Robin Marcus for your excellent editing. The book is immensely better because of you! And thank you to Maximilian Vialon for your keen eye for errors.
Thank you to Orina
Kafe for the beautiful cover art.
Author’s Note
Hey there! I hope you enjoyed Fate of Fire.
First, I must give credit to the endlessly clever Annabel Chase for coming up with the phrases “not the sharpest fang on the vampire” and “wrinkled Rambo”. She writes excellent urban fantasy and hilarious paranormal cozy mysteries that you should check out.
Most of the places in Fate of Fire are inspired by Dartmoor. The small, gnarled trees that mark the entrance to the Court of Flames are based on Whistman’s Wood, an ancient oak forest that is likely a holdover from before the deforestation of Dartmoor around 5000 BC (what I call the Great Burning in the book but was actually a more controlled deforestation by ancient people). The ground there is so rocky that it was possibly never cleared, and many of the current stunted, twisted oaks are hundreds of years old.
The name for the Daughters of Danu was borrowed from an Irish mythological figure named Danu, who was a theoretical mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann, which translates as The Peoples of the Goddess Danu. Some myths place her as the mother of all gods and goddesses in Ireland. When Victorians became interested in mythology, some of their sources began to connected her with the land, which I why I made that association in Fate of Fire.
Though Danu is originally Irish, I made the Daughters of Danu’s home Restormel Castle, which is actually located in Cornwall (though I put it on Dartmoor in Devon). Built in the 12th century AD, it is one of the four primary Norman castles in Cornwall. Restormel is unique because it is a perfect circular castle. It is built of stone and situated on a small man made hill. At the rear of the castle there is a chapel with a fountain built into the wall, which was the inspiration for the one in this book.
The sea monsters in the book were named Kelpesias as a nod to Kelpies, the Celtic water spirit from Scotland. The Kelpie can appear as a horse or a person, and nearly every large body of water in Scotland is associated with one. Puka is named for a shape shifter from Celtic myth that can bring both good and bad fortune. They are mentioned all over the British Isles by various names—púca in Irish, pwca in Welsh, and Bucca in Cornish (though this creature is quite a bit different from the Puka that I describe).
Lastly, the Wayfinder is inspired by the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient Greek astronomical device composed of 37 gear wheels. In 1901, the mechanism was recovered from a shipwreck off of the Greek island of Antikythera. It is theorized that the device can predict astronomical positions and eclipses, and I think it’s probably the most interesting archaeological artifact ever found.
Thank you again for coming along on Claire and Iain’s adventure, and I hope you’ll join them for the next phase. Happy reading!
About Linsey
Before becoming a writer, Linsey Hall was a nautical archaeologist who studied shipwrecks from Hawaii and the Yukon to the UK and the Mediterranean. She credits fantasy and historical romances with her love of history and her career as an archaeologist. After a decade of tromping around the globe in search of old bits of stuff that people left lying about, she settled down and started penning her own romance novels. Her Dragon’s Gift series draws upon her love of history and the paranormal elements that she can't help but include.
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All reference to events, persons, and locale are used fictitiously, except where documented in historical record. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright 2020 by Linsey Hall
Published by Bonnie Doon Press LLC
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form, except in instances of quotation used in critical articles or book review. Where such permission is sufficient, the author grants the right to strip any DRM which may be applied to this work.
ISBN 978-1-942085-95-9
[email protected]
www.LinseyHall.com
https://www.facebook.com/LinseyHallAuthor
