by Linsey Hall
Kitty meeped and Sofia nodded her agreement, then sipped her mulled wine and looked toward the fire.
Malcolm’s library was decorated for Christmas with every strand of garland and ornament that she could find. Red and gold, silver and green—it really was a bit gaudy, but she loved it. It was their first Christmas together—and the first Christmas she was able to spend outside of the jungle—and she wanted to enjoy it.
They’d debated spending the holiday in Bruxa’s Eye—which was now entirely rebuilt after a solid month of reconstruction—but had decided it would be nicer to spend it in the cold. This way, all the Christmas songs about snow didn’t make her long for it, because she could go right out into the stuff and roll around.
Which she wouldn’t be doing tonight, because they had guests. Everyone from the university who’d helped them in Bruxa’s Eye had been invited over for a thank-you dinner. They all sat around the fire now—Felix and Aurora, Andrasta and Camulos, Diana and Cadan, Warren and Esha, and Vivienne. Inara and Aleia were pouring themselves wine from the table and gossiping, as they’d gotten into the habit of doing.
Mouse and Chairman Meow, the two other familiars, lounged in front of the fire. If she wasn’t mistaken, Mouse was sitting a bit closer to the Chairman now. He looked pleased. And festive, in his green bowtie.
Everyone was laughing at something Vivienne had said. Snow fell outside the window and holiday music drifted out of discretely placed speakers. The smell of the turkey was making her mouth water.
In short, everything was perfect. She almost couldn’t believe her luck. But life had been so good lately that she was starting to accept it.
She glanced at the door. Malcolm should be here by now. He’d gone to his aether room in the basement to make a last minute gift for Inara—who they’d thought wouldn’t be here.
He appeared in the doorway.
“Finally,” she said as she went to him and kissed him. His mouth tasted of wine and spices. Divine. “What took you so long?”
“A letter arrived. Shot right out of the aether when I opened a portal.”
“From Corrier?” Nerves danced in Sofia’s stomach. For an unknown reason. Malcolm’s warlock powers, and his ability to access the aether, hadn’t disappeared with his death. With the curse gone, they’d assumed his powers would go too. When they’d first realized it, she’d been worried that the curse was still upon him. Though Mnemosyne had said it wasn’t, they’d gone to Corrier to confirm.
But he hadn’t been there. They’d left a message with his apprentice. Hopefully this was the answer.
“It was,” Malcolm said.
“And?”
“It’s fine. Death broke the curse, but I’d already learned the skills required to be a warlock. Hence, I keep the power. He said that some warlocks believe you’re more powerful after death. It’s a transition. A magnifying glass.”
Her brows rose. “Wow. That makes sense though. You have to refuel your power so much less often, even when I siphon some off you for my own use.”
He pressed a quick kiss to her mouth. “Which you’re welcome to do anytime you like.”
She grinned and pressed another kiss to his mouth, squeezing the shoulder that bore her tattoo.
She couldn’t get enough of kissing him now that he was back with her. The last month and a half had been divine. They’d settled into their routine—which wasn’t very routine at all—and it was like slipping into a comfortable chair.
A sexy, comfortable chair.
“Have you brought the gift for Inara?” she asked.
He nodded and held up the bag. “Good. We’ll put it with the others. And the turkey should be done soon?”
“Twenty more minutes.” He’d started cooking from scratch lately instead of using his magic, and she couldn’t wait to see how the turkey came out.
“Perfect.” Her grin was so big that it hurt her face. Fates, she loved this life. It was more than she’d ever hoped for.
“You know you’re everything to me, right?” he asked. His golden gaze was intense, devouring. It made her shiver.
She was damned grateful for what fate had finally given her.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and met his gaze. “I love you—”
“More than life.” He finished her sentence for her. It’d become their thing, and though it was a bit morbid, it suited them. Because she did love him more than life, as he did her. And that’s what had saved them.
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If you liked Witch’s Fate, there are six more books in the series. If you’d like to read an excerpt of Braving Fate, book 1, turn the page. If you’d like to know more about the mythological and historical inspiration for Witch’s Fate, there is an Author’s Note after the excerpt. You can read the excerpt, or click here to get to the Author’s Note.
BRAVING FATE EXCERPT
PROLOGUE
Central England, AD 60, eve of the Roman conquest of Britain
The woman he loved lay dying in his arms. Blood spilled over her breast, trickling from the dagger she’d sunk into her chest. Drops of blood hitting the dirt floor of the stone roundhouse echoed hollowly in his ears, amplified by the dawning knowledge of what he’d done. What she’d done. What they’d done.
“Why, Boudica?” His heart and voice were breaking. “Why do this?”
She shuddered in his arms, her broken body cold and fragile with looming death, but no less fierce than when she’d fought on the field of battle the previous dawn. She was their warrior queen, the force that had drawn thousands of British Celts together to revolt against Roman occupation, and he her top general.
She was his love. The one bright spot in the miserable spectacle of blood and death his life had become.
Boudica drew a harsh breath that rattled in her wounded chest and glared at him, her eyes alight with hatred.
“Why?” It was clear she would have screamed it if she could. Another faltering breath. “After your betrayal, you ask me why?”
“Betrayal? I did it for you.”
Her bitter laugh died on a cough. “I thought you knew me. I was wrong. You only know what you think me to be. I’m a warrior, the leader and symbol of our beaten land. I led my people in battle for our lives, our homes, our freedom.” She paused to catch her breath. “But we’ve lost. Irreparably.”
His jaw clenched, his chest aching with the weight of their past and his future. For she would die this night, her future forever erased. Because of him. Because he hadn’t been able to protect her. As he hadn’t protected his village and family before he’d joined her.
“The Roman dogs are at our door.” She coughed. “My daughters dead at their hands. Our lands stolen. Why would I live when capture is inevitable and my very life will be used as leverage? My head will be on a pike in Rome before summer’s end. More likely, they’ll use me against our people.” She raked him with a scathing glance and coughed again. Blood marred her colorless lips. “What would you do, O great warrior?”
“The same.” His throat burned. Capture was inevitable. And unbearable. Now, with the final battle lost and thousands of their families and allies dying in the fields around them, the fate that awaited her at the hands of the Romans would be worse than death, not only for her, but very likely for her people as well.
He’d tried to save her from this, but she hadn’t let him. He would have committed any deed, no matter how terrible, to save the woman who’d changed his life when he’d met her a year ago. But Boudica was a warrior first, his woman second. And she would die believing he had betrayed her
.
She coughed, her pallor more pronounced. “And yet you would deny me my honorable death?”
“I love you. I’d do anything to save you.”
“And I thought I loved you,” she whispered. And as her eyes closed, the enormous life force that had propelled Boudica, Celtic Queen of the Iceni, evaporated.
The crushing weight of grief squeezed the breath out of his lungs. Collapsing over her, the black night swallowed his roar of pain. He would have vengeance.
CHAPTER ONE
Cadan Trinovante jerked awake, the sheets tangled in his fists. He ignored the vibrating phone that had awakened him from the nightmare and stared at the wide wooden rafters supporting the ceiling above him, struggling to catch his breath. Of all the memories that had faded in his two thousand years of life, the memory of Boudica’s death was the one that never had.
Guilt tugged at him and he reached for the phone.
“Cadan,” he said as he glanced at the clock on the bedside table. The gleam of Edinburgh’s streetlights shone on hands pointing toward one a.m. The yells of revelers stumbling from pub to pub filtered in through the open window.
“Cadan, it’s Warren.”
Cadan merely grunted in response and walked to the window. He listened with half an ear as he stared out at the gothic spires of Edinburgh’s churches and the soot-blackened stone of the surrounding buildings. They rose tall and narrow, pressed cheek by jowl on either side of the sloping cobblestones of the city’s oldest street. Cadan shut out the cool night air and the sound of fading revelry.
“You’ve a new assignment,” Warren said. “Can you be here in an hour?”
Finally. He needed something to keep his mind off the past. The damn dreams had been hounding him more often lately and he was ready to forget, to slip back into work.
“Aye, I’ll see you by two,” he said.
Damn it. He could still hear the revelers below. Living for so long was wearying, but listening to others take such joy in life was just salt in the wound.
In less than an hour, he strode through the great iron-sheathed wooden doors of a building on the campus of the Immortal University. The eyes of the eerie stone gargoyles who guarded the entrance followed him as he entered the cool halls of the Praesidium, named over a thousand years ago when Latin was still the language of education.
Fucking Latin. Fucking Romans.
He dragged a hand through his hair. The short drive to the outskirts of Edinburgh where the university was located hadn’t fully banished his dreams.
His footsteps were soundless on the marble floor of the wide, familiar hallway. It was a habit he’d never broken, though there was no need for stealth here. Terrible, unforgivable things happened when you let your guard down. But this was the safest place for a Mythean in Edinburgh since it was hidden from the prying eyes of mortals, who shouldn’t know of the existence of the supernatural beings who walked among them.
He pushed open the old oak door at the end of the hall and entered his friend’s office, a book-filled room lit by a small fire that smelled of autumn. Warren looked up from his cluttered desk and leaned back in his chair.
“Cadan, thanks for coming in so early.”
“No’ a problem,” Cadan said. He sank into an old leather chair across from Warren’s desk. “Who’s it this time?”
As one of the few Mythean Guardians in the world, it had been Cadan’s responsibility for nearly two millennia to protect those mortal or supernatural beings deemed important to the fate of humanity.
Warren glanced down at a rumpled piece of paper. “Looks like a Celtic warrior.”
Interesting—a man who’d been alive for as long as he. “Why’s the bloke need protecting if he’s made it this long? Destiny just revealed to him?”
And why haven’t I met him before? Though he didn’t get out much, Cadan knew, or knew of, nearly all the Mytheans in Great Britain. The ones who hadn’t gone rogue, at least.
“Well, that’s where it gets a little strange. The warrior hasn’t been alive. The soul has just been reborn.”
“A reincarnate? They’re damn rare. Doona think I’ve ever actually met one.”
“It doesn’t happen very often,” Warren said, picking up the Slinky on his desk and fiddling with it.
Why wouldn’t Warren meet his eyes? The claws of nerves crawled up Cadan’s back, little pinpricks sinking into his skin that wouldn’t shake loose. It took him off guard; he hadn’t felt that in centuries.
“I’ve spoken briefly to Aerten about it.” Warren finally glanced at him, but looked away almost immediately.
Shite.
“What does the goddess of fate have to say about it?” He hadn’t seen her in ages. Hell, he’d only seen her a few times since she’d offered him a spot in the Praesidium. Whether he should thank her or curse her was something he hadn’t figured out yet.
“That only select souls are reborn. Those who were so strong in life that their souls never left this plane.” Warren set the Slinky down. “Their souls wait in stasis until humanity needs them. At that point, they’re brought back to perform a task that only they can accomplish.”
“So, I’m going to be protecting a child who will save the world?” A cold sweat broke out on his skin. Killing and guarding adults—no’ a problem. But dealing with children was something he was entirely unqualified for after being alone for two thousand years. Fuck, what a mess.
“No’ exactly,” Warren hedged. “Apparently with Druidic reincarnation, the soul is reborn in another person, but the person doesn’t become conscious of their previous life until they reach the approximate age at which they died originally.”
“Shite, they develop split personalities?”
“Ah, no’ exactly.” He paused, seemingly unaware that he’d grabbed the Slinky again and was juggling it faster and faster. “They doona survive that long. Once they remember who they are and complete their fated task, they die.”
“Die? That’s some shite luck.”
“Aye. The tragedy that took the soul too early the first time follows it. History is destined to repeat itself, after all. You need to protect the reincarnate until the fated task is complete, longer if you can.”
That would be a challenge, but then, he liked a challenge. “Do we know what this guy’s task will be, once he regains his memory? And where is he, anyway?”
“Doona know the task, but Aerten has prophesied that a catalyzing event will spur the memory of the reincarnate and lead them to Arthur’s Seat, likely today or tomorrow. That’s where you’ll meet.” Warren hesitated before continuing, finally meeting Cadan’s eyes. “And the warrior isn’t a man.”
Cadan’s breath stuck in his throat and a chill broke out on his skin. Nay, it couldn’t be. “Who is it, Warren?”
“It’s Boudica.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Hey, there! I hope you enjoyed Witch’s Fate as much as I enjoyed writing it. As with all of the books in the Mythean Arcana series, I drew from history and mythology to enhance this story.
For one, I didn’t make up wulvers. They’re actually a type of werewolf from Scottish folklore who live in the Shetland Islands and are generally peaceful, though the ones in my world are not. The wulvers of Scottish folklore are men with the heads of wolves; they are not shapeshifters. However, in the world of the Mythean Arcana, they are the more traditional sort of shapeshifting wolf (though I loved the thought of wulvers, I quickly discarded the idea of having a hero with a wolf’s head).
When I thought about Sofia having to save Malcolm from an afterworld, the first myth that came to mind was that of Orpheus and Eurydice. I always thought it was one of the saddest myths, but reading Plato’s take on it had me rethinking. It’s still a sad story, but Plato’s version (written about in his text Symposium) has Orpheus painted as a coward who was unwilling to die to be with Eurydice. Because he was unwilling to die for his love, it was not true love. So the gods punished him by presenting him with an apparition of Eurydic
e (she was never really behind him holding his hand). This version of the myth is somehow less heartbreaking (to me, at least) and I thought it suited Witch’s Fate best.
The inspiration for the stone circle outside of Bruxa’s Eye came from another stone circle that has been found in Northern Brazil. The circle is located in the Amapa state and consist of 127 pieces of granite, some of which are four meters tall. As with other stone circles, the exact purpose is unknown, but it is believed that it may have been used for ceremonial or astronomical purposes.
Of the names of Sofia’s ancestors, only Oriva was invented by me. The other names—Laís, Karajá, Nauquá, Panenoá, and Aparai—are actually the names of indigenous groups in Brazil. When I thought about who Sofia’s ancestors might be, I realized that none of the Protectors would be Portuguese because the Portuguese did not arrive in Brazil until 1500 AD. Sofia, who was born in 1586, was the only Protector with a Portuguese parent—her father. Her mother and the rest of her ancestors would have been the indigenous people of Brazil. Because I couldn’t find the first names of some of the indigenous people of Brazil from the period 0 AD - 1500 AD (I doubt they were recorded, particularly women’s names, and it would take far too long to delve into the literature), I gave the Protectors names of the indigenous groups. I can’t guarantee these groups were around when Bruxa’s Eye was created, but they might have been.
In the first draft, Sofia almost cursed in Portuguese, but after careful thought, I also realized that she likely wouldn’t do this. If anything, she’d curse in the native language of her ancestors—but I have no way of knowing how indigenous Brazilians cursed. So, unfortunately, she still curses in English, a language in which she is fluent because modern day Bruxa’s Eye is home to so many species and nationalities. Her species of witch—the Bruxa—is actually a Portuguese name. Had I been able to find a name for witches in one of the indigenous Brazilian languages, I would have used it.
For this book, I went to Salem to learn a bit more about witches and to also learn about the history of the town. The history of witchcraft in Salem is very sad—it’s primarily a story of greed and patriarchy. Because of this, the witches in this book have nothing to do with the women who were accused of witchcraft between 1692 and 1693. But I highly recommend you visit if you have a chance—it’s a really fun (and educational) place.
