“He forgot to apologize,” Ariana said, turning to her father.
He ran his hand through his short beard. “Child, what did you do?”
Now that that power had fled her, she felt tired and hungry. “He would have done terrible things to me, and you wouldn’t protect me. He would have found someone else and done terrible things to her, and no one would protect her. I think I fixed that. I can’t be sure, though.”
She sat down at the table and finished off her soup, grabbing a roll from the bread bowl in the center of the table. She was famished. She soaked up the rest of the soup from her bowl with the roll, while her father stood for a long moment before taking the chair to her right.
He lifted his head and called. “Ruth, bring Ariana and I the main course. I am aware you’ve been listening at the door.”
Ruth stumbled out of the kitchen with a tray laden with whole Cornish game hens, beans in fish sauce, and salmon cooked over leaks. She looked to Ariana with wonder, her face a barely contained mask of awe.
She set the tray down in front of Ariana, then lifted the girl’s hands to examine them. “Lass, are ya harmed? Did the power hurt ya?”
Ariana shook her head. “Not really. I was slightly burned on my leg, where he put his hand, but it’s nothing, really. My dress has been badly scorched, though.”
“Ruth, leave us and fetch Annabeth. It is time for that which we discussed to take place. Join Lady Grey and I in five minutes time.” Her father’s voice was stronger, but also heavy with an emotion she couldn’t place.
“Yes, my Lord,” Ruth answered, barely suppressed anger in her reply.
Ruth left the room. Ariana served herself and started eating as though she’d not had food for weeks. She was famished! She had a helping of the beans, salmon, and chicken. She ate while her father stared at her in quiet confusion.
Finally, he spoke again. “Ariana, I am sorry. I did what I thought I should do by you, but I was wrong. I thought I could...stifle it. If we ignored it, or pushed it away, it would not be an issue. I thought I could raise you as a normal lady, hoped you would have a normal life with me. But I cannot lie to myself anymore. You are a danger to others and to yourself and I’m not capable of dealing with it. Count Repugnian will talk. The constable will be at our door. You will not be allowed to go on living with me, or to go on living period. People are afraid of things they cannot understand, of power they do not have. You cannot stay here any longer.”
Lord Grey’s eyes were surprisingly soft, his face tired. “I did not want to be your father, but I did the best I could by you. When your mother left, I kept you in my home and raised you despite your strangeness. I promised your mother I would. You don’t break a promise to a being like that. But you are grown now, and you are past my ability to shelter you from the world’s judgements. Annabeth will pack your bags. Ruth will pack your food.”
Ariana stopped shoveling Ruth’s delicious food into her mouth to stare, bewildered, at her father. “You would just abandon me?”
Lord Grey shook his head. “Not abandon. It is time you found your way, and it is time I gave you the gift your mother left me all those years ago.”
“My mother left me something? What do you mean? Why haven’t you ever told me?” Fear, hope, and betrayal warred inside her.
“I can’t explain fully. There isn’t time. Men like Repugnian don’t wait for revenge.” Her father stood and turned briskly from her, heading for his study. She was too stunned to follow. She held her spoon in mid-air, her head spinning, fear growing in her breast.
She had a mother who left her something. What had he said about her? “You don’t break a promise to a being like that?” What did that even mean? Why had he called her a being, not a woman?
Before she could even run the past hour’s events through her head, Lord Grey was back with a rolled-up piece of parchment in his hand. “Your mother said that when you were of greatest need, a tool would present itself to you, and that your tool and this,” he thrust the parchment at her. She dropped her spoon with a clang and took the parchment with trembling hands. “...will show you where you ought to go. She also said you must use your power to guide you, or the tool and this parchment will not work in harmony.”
Ariana unfolded the stiff, yellowing parchment. It felt waxy under her fingertips. Inside was...nothing. Blankness. She held the parchment up. “How is a spare bit of waxy parchment with nothing written on it supposed to help me, father?” Her voice trembled.
Her father’s eyes were defeated. “I do not know, child. Did a tool not present itself to you?”
Ariana folded the parchment roughly. “I have no idea about any tools, father. And I have rarely left the house. How am I supposed to make it out there, on my own, when you’ve never even let me walk to town? Or go to a public boarding school? How could you abandon me to this without preparing me?”
She stood, slamming her hands down on the table. She felt her power surge as she did so, and, suddenly, her hands felt like heavy balls of iron. Her fists slammed through table, splintering it down the center.
The table groaned under the pressure. The crack widened and the table began to fold in on itself. The platters of food slid towards the center of the table. The table split and crashed to the ground in a shatter of wood and china and a splatter of food.
She stared down at the mess in fear and dismay, cowering before meeting her father’s eyes. But they were not furious, as she assumed they would be. They were, her heart broke to see it, frightened.
His voice came out a harsh, trembling whisper. “I was afraid. I am afraid. Your mother was beautiful, kind, enchanting, but near the end of us she was terrifying. I would not fight for us. I would not marry a woman with nothing to her name, though she was pregnant. I have never been brave. I was afraid of her, then. And now you! You look so like her...and the powers. I had to be firm. I had to be hard on you.” His voice sounded far away, as though he was speaking to someone from the past.
“Ya dinna have to be.” The harsh, clipped voice was not her own, though the words rang true to her. “Ya coulda been lovin’ and kind. Perhaps if ya had, ya woulda had no reason to feel her powers would backfire on ya.” Ruth placed a lunch basket near Ariana’s calves.
“I, on the other hand, am not scared. I shall go with the lass as far as the edge of the glade, and take her to the Black Forest. No one will dare enter after her. No one with sense, anyways.”
Ariana turned to Ruth, tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to go, Ruthie.” The Black Forest was haunted, some said, bespelled others said. How could she go into the forest? Why would Ruthie assume that’s where she needed to go?
Ruth’s eyes filled, too. “Buck up, lass. Remember what we said. Yer a powerful one, more’n capable of fendin’ fer yerself. But I’ll walk with ya as far as I can.”
Ariana turned to her father, who was staring at the broken table on the floor, his eyes glazed over. Annabeth walked in only a minute later, heaving a flowery carpet bag, full to bursting from the looks of it.
“What in the world ya put in that bag, girl?” Ruthie admonished the maid.
“Everything she will need. Clothes for various occasions, a blanket, brush, mirror, kerchiefs, and some other things I thought might come in handy. It’s heavy, though, my lady. I’ll come with you and Ruthie. I’m used to carrying heavy things, and I...well, I want to see you off.” Her eyes were misty and her voice was heavy with tears unshed.
“I’d like that, Annabeth,” Ariana said. She realized that neither of the women had asked her father whether or not they were allowed to go. They could be let go for being so brazenly unconcerned about their master’s wishes, but they stood behind her anyway.
“Let’s go then, ladies.” Ariana lifted her chin, refusing to look as afraid as she felt. “Goodbye, father.”
She swooped past him. He said nothing, only buried his face in his hands. She thought she saw his shoulder’s shaking, but she spared him not another glance. He would have
let Count Repugnian have her if she hadn’t saved herself. Now, he was throwing her out. Her heart felt split in two as she turned her back on the coward she couldn’t help but love.
Ariana’s journey continues in “Ariana’s Gift,” the second novella in the Ariana Grey Chronicles. In “Ariana’s Gift,” Ariana learns more about her elusive past and about her often-unpredictable powers. Read more in her exciting tale of self-discovery here: www.amazon.com/dp/B08274LSJK.
About the Author
Washington state author H. M. Jones is an N.I.E.A finalist and B.R.A.G medallion honoree for her debut novel, Monochrome. She writes poetry, new adult, young adult, fantasy, sci-fi, and speculative fiction. In her spare time, she loves to cosplay with her two favorite geeklets, sing to her chickens, and dance haphazardly around the house while talking to characters she hasn’t written yet. Her dog worries for her.
For more information about the author, please visit: www.hmjones.net. Don't forget to grab your copy of next anthology, Wayward Magic.
The Runes of Valonde
Toasha Jiordano
“In Runes of Valonde,” James must hide his true identity from the inhabitants of this realm called Earth. In doing so, he must also hide the powers he and his family possess, along with the magical items that harness those powers. When he is forced to make the decision between saving an innocent man and keeping his abilities hidden, the two worlds collide. Someone he loves will not come out of it unharmed.
Toasha Jiordano
Dragons * Swords * Magic *
Torn between his two loves, wife and country, James must decide whether to betray one to rescue the other. When he uses his magic in the real world to save an innocent man, the choice is made for him. It will mean the end of someone dear to him.
Chapter One
The ancient rune buzzed in James’s pocket. He slapped a hand over it to cover the noise, nearly burning his leg, and squirmed in the tiny uncomfortable chair. Mrs. Chadwick, his son's new teacher, stared at him with laser focus. Could she see the glow radiating from his pocket or hear its siren's call?
His wife, Margaret, sure did. Her glare had been boring a hole through him since the conference began. She spent the entire morning getting the family ready for this day—perfect hair, perfect beard, and no dirt on little Jim’s face at all - and he was ruining it.
The rune vibrated and the voices grew louder. He needed to get out of there, fast. The elders weren’t known for their patience.
James couldn't believe he took the day off work for this in the first place. He was the only father in the entire school right now. And who went to visit a teacher before classes even started? Where he came from, admittedly far from here, children who went to an actual school building went on their own. Parents never stepped foot on school property; there was too much hard work to be done.
As a Valondian royal, James had grown up with tutors who lived in the palace with him. Still, his parents—if they were around, Odin bless them—couldn't pick nary a one out of a crowd. James believed it should be this way for his lad, his heir, but not the way his dear Margaret said it would be.
Margaret had been raised closer to this realm, where children who were fortunate to have a school to go to, were driven there by a parent or now an awful yellow monstrosity called a bus. Buses were a new trend and at least he and Margaret agreed on one thing, their son would never ride in one.
They may agree on the point, but certainly not the principal. James had to draw the line somewhere. He had moved to this wretched small town in the heart of nowhere and took on a failing farm to make her happy. But he'd be damned if his son would travel with the likes of the common folk.
Margaret, on the other hand, wanted to drive Jim to the blasted school as another means of coddling, not letting the lad out of her sight until the last second. James envisioned many tears come next Monday, and none from Jim, who made it clear long before he learned to talk, that he refused to answer to “Jimmy.”
His wife’s fears were founded, of course. Untold dangers awaited the lad as he aged. And with his mark, the local children would be undoubtedly cruel to him, now that the time had come for the lad to enter public school. The family birthmark, while revered and celebrated in Valonde, would be a curse for Jim in this land. One he and Margaret knowingly thrust upon the lad when they married.
Large round birthmarks in the shape of Valondian continents adorned the cheeks of the Sweyn royal family, of which James, and one day Jim, ruled. These dark brown splotches of skin usually rested beneath the left eye or lower down on the cheek of the male bloodline.
Margaret and her womanly kin, the equally venerable Ennis royal family, brandished similar marks on opposite cheeks. Prophets foretold the union of their great and powerful lines for centuries. Their hasty departure from Valonde and all their royal duties... was not.
The rune's buzz grew louder, drowning out the incessant babbling of the new kindergarten teacher. James cursed himself for bringing the rune out into public, but what choice did he have? Last night he'd come home late from the corn fields only to find his precious Jim entranced at their bedside table, swaying and chanting. The rune would take any Craig man it could, regardless of the cost.
By the rough nudge in his side, James knew he'd drifted off again. Keeping both his lives separate had become impossible. If he didn't find a way out, he'd lose everything. Another, sharper jab caught him under his ribs, making him gasp in pain. James turned to mouth a harsh 'what' to Margaret when he felt it.
A grubby, chocolate covered hand reached for the bright buzzing light in his pocket. James jumped, knocking over the child sized chair and rushed out of the classroom.
Chapter Two
James slammed the truck door and slouched low in the driver's seat. The rune's golden glow lit up the cab like a beacon, even through his pants pocket and both hands. The buzz of a thousand screaming voices reverberated in his ears until he could nearly make out their words. Valonde needed him. That much was certain. And he could do nothing about it.
It called to him again, beckoning. James knew better than to touch the warm round medallion. It would only spell disaster for both worlds, Valonde and Earth alike. Yet, he also knew in his bones what a comfort it would be for the one brief moment before the worlds came crashing down.
Oh, to be home again. The want of it crawled up his spine. If he closed his eyes, maybe reached ever so slightly toward the rune, he could see King Ase on the battlefield, fighting at his side as young men. Fafnir's cold scales slithered against James’s leg in their familiar riding stance as it had during so many glorious battles. His leather helmet, thick with sweat and blood, clung to his cheek. The sweet smells of Rowanberries and lush trees—blue, not the putrid shade of green from this world - and all the things he missed about home came flooding back.
No! This realm was his home now. James opened his eyes and rubbed them, realizing how close his hand had inched to the intoxicating glow. He promised Margaret he'd never leave her, and now the lad. He couldn't let himself get sucked in by primal urges.
But... in his soul, James sensed it was more than base needs and yearning. Valonde would not be calling if it weren't dire. Important decisions loomed on his horizon. Which oath would he betray?
Chapter Three
"How could ye do this to us?" Margaret cried as she wrung out the laundry and hung it on wires strewn across the bathroom. "Ye promised."
"I hae made many a promise in my life, dear one." James placed a pleading hand on his wife's shoulder. Her bright green eyes shined with fury and unfallen tears.
Margaret shrank away from his touch. "Do not call me that. Not now. Do ye not remember why we left, James? There’s nothing for us in that blasted place." She wiped her nose with the sleeve of her one good dress, having come home straight away and begun her nervous tasks, never removing the faded garment.
"Aye, I remember well enough. I did it to keep ye safe, with the wee bairn in yer belly. But now.” James paced the ti
ny bathroom. “Ye ken I would never leave ye and my lad by choice. I hae a duty to uphold." James raised his hand to try again but the fierce look in Margaret’s eyes stopped him. His arm fell limp to his side, a mirror of the helplessness roiling in his chest.
Margaret dropped the threadbare towel back in the tub, where it soaked up the muddy water again. She removed her soiled dress and flung it into the muck as well. Turning to face him, her entire body flushed with rage, and her voice trembling, she whispered, "Spare me the dramatics, James. It would hae been duty six years ago, but now ye hae a family to consider. This is a choice. One ye've already made. I see it in yer eyes, Master Sweyn.” Margaret spit the formal title like poison. “But don't expect us to be here when ye get back."
James stood, mute, as Margaret stormed out of the bathroom.
As if on cue, the rune in his pocket changed vibration patterns, beating a new rhythm against his burning leg. A new message had arrived, this one more urgent than the last. He tried to ignore the deep chanting voice rising over the din of the rest. King Ase called to James as he had in the earlier vision. Valonde was at war and James did nothing.
Remorse ripped through the black ball of indecision in James’s chest. Guilt for leaving his home and his men at the hands of some unknown threat. And guilt at the thought of leaving his new home and his family. Neither decision held honor.
James picked up the soggy dress he'd bought Margaret just before their wedding and began wringing out the soiled water. The stench of the brown water ran down his arms and soaked his white button-down shirt. He shivered with disgust as it permeated his skin, marking him as unclean. He did not deserve to wipe it away.
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