Cast In Stone: A Cré-Witch Chronicles Prequel (The Cré-Witch Chronicles Book 0)
Page 13
Their group had stopped and were all staring at something.
A woman with raven colored hair walked toward them across the green. In a silver gown that outlined all her curves, she was breathtaking, and shrouded in blood magic so deep it made Maeve gag.
“Well done.” She clapped and chuckled. “You’re the witches who survived.” She cocked her head, her dark eyes amiable and warm. “Regrettably, I can’t allow that to continue.”
“Rhiannon,” Maeve whispered. She’d never seen her, but she knew down to her marrow.
Rhiannon’s gaze fastened on her. “Very clever, my little spirit walker. You have caused me some difficulty recently.”
Maeve wasn’t sorry, not with Roderick’s strength waning. “I’d have made it more if I could.”
“Indeed.” Rhiannon looked regretful. “But I need to cut that short as well.”
“What’s this all about?” Colleen’s voice shook, but she straightened her shoulders and stepped to the front of the group. “You can’t win.”
Rhiannon grimaced and giggled. “I’m afraid that I can, and I am. Even now the last of the witches still in Baile are being captured or killed. If they are not for me, then I’ll have to send them beyond.” She leaned closer and whispered, “You see, your goddess is only as powerful as her witches. When I eliminate you, I render her as weak as a newborn kitten.”
“Only one can live.” The voices of the first three whispered in Maeve’s head. Her breath misted in the suddenly freezing air.
Her coven sisters looked around in amazement.
Vapor streamed from the passage and coalesced into three witches on the green between them and Rhiannon.
“Who are they?” Colleen’s eyes rounded as she stared. “Are they…”
“The first.” Maeve wondered how they could be amongst the living.
“You.” Rhiannon’s beautiful features twisted. “You can do nothing here. You’re too late. Again.”
“Spirit Walker.” Tahra looked at her. “Yours is to bear the burden.”
“What?” Maeve looked about her at the others.
They were all staring at her.
“Only one can survive,” Tahra said.
“So mote it be.” Pale but determined, Colleen nodded. She held her hands out to the two witches beside her. “We must form a circle.”
“What are you doing?” Maeve stared in horror as her sisters gathered around her. “All of us will survive. We must fight together.”
“This is the only way,” Tahra said. “We have only strength enough to send one into the fade.”
A wave of blood magic rippled through the air. As it hit, witches dropped to their knees, bent over, two even collapsed. Still they formed their circle.
Magic billowed from Rhiannon like a deadly, oily, black cloak.
“She uses the dead witches to draw her power,” Tahra said. “We must do the same or the cré-witches are lost forever.”
Colleen straightened suddenly and looked at Maeve. “It has to be you.”
The other witches wore the same expression Colleen did. Resigned.
“No.” Everything in Maeve rejected what she saw.
“The ancients know what must be done and they’re drawing on Baile to reach us.” Colleen smiled at Maeve. “They’ve told us what must be done.”
“That’s impossible.” Maeve wanted to be sick. “They only speak to me.”
“They give their all to do this,” Colleen said. “We accept our fate.”
Maeve spun to look at Lavina. “You can’t support this. There has to be another way. Thomas fights—”
“Thomas fights no more.” Heartbreak etched lines in Lavina’s face as she gripped the hands of the witches either side of her. “You’re the only one who can walk amongst the dead witches. All their knowledge is your knowledge.”
“Our blood will seal this magic. Our lives will give it power.” Colleen reached for her birth element.
Maeve couldn’t contemplate what they were doing. “We are forbidden blood magic.”
“We have no choice.” Colleen closed her eyes.
“Come, Maeve.” Hester gave her a wan smile. “All of us must do all we can.”
“What are you doing?” Rhiannon screamed, but she hit an invisible barrier and bounced back. “You don’t dare.”
“We don’t have much time.” Fresh tears streaked Lavina’s face. “The first can’t hold her for long.”
“Our power wanes,” Tahra whispered. “Bear the burden you were chosen for. Do it for all the cré-witches to come.”
The first spoke as one. “This is the way.”
“This is the way.” The living witches echoed them.
“There has to be another way.” Maeve couldn’t move her feet.
Colleen nodded to the other witches. They all nodded back. “It must be done.”
“What? What must be done?” The looks on her coven sisters’ faces terrified her, even more than the massive tempest of magic snarling and shrieking around Rhiannon.
Somewhere Roderick was still fighting. Their bond was still holding, which meant he was alive. “Roderick will come for us.”
“I have come too far to fail now.” Rhiannon battered her magic against the wall holding her back. She grabbed a young man and slit his throat, sinking her hands into the blood as it poured from his neck. Her power grew twice the size of the village, blocking out the night sky.
“Now!” Colleen sank to her knees. She pulled a dagger from her belt and cut her wrists.
“No!” Maeve screamed.
Colleen passed the dagger to the witch beside her. One by one, they slit their wrists, knelt and pressed their flowing wounds into the earth.
Chapter 18
Maeve’s limbs were caught in a binding spell.
“Bide, Spirit Walker.” Tahra’s voice was an insubstantial breeze as she fought to keep Rhiannon at bay. “It is time to take up your burden.”
Rhiannon’s power built like a thunderstorm, whipping their hair and tugging their clothing.
The ancients held her back, but they were growing more and more insubstantial.
“Mother forgive us,” Colleen chanted, and the other witches took up her refrain. “Goddess forgive us.”
She was stuck. The breath seeped out of Maeve’s lungs. Every passing second, her sisters crept closer to death, and she could do nothing. She opened her mouth and screamed her denial, but no sound escaped her.
Bearing a man across his shoulders, a coimhdeacht stumbled out of the passage. Blood streamed down his face and mingled with sweat and dirt. His chemise was torn in places and stuck to his skin with dried blood. “It is done,” he gasped. “Baile is overrun. We’re lost.”
Roderick. Where was he? But she couldn’t speak.
Colleen raised her hands. Blood streamed down her arms, and she swayed. “From the north, I call earth.” Green light crackled between her hands. The fetid miasma of blood magic fouled it. “I love you, Sister. Guard our knowledge well.”
Colleen sagged.
Maeve’s scream stuck in her throat.
Lavina raised her hands. “From the east, I call air.” Yellow light swirled about her and then into the green in a dizzying, billowing spiral. The blood magic consumed it hungrily.
A third witch called south. Crumpled forms littered the circle as they gave their lives and their magic into this one, last desperate working.
From the tunnel a tall form burst. He jumped the circled witches and grabbed her hands.
He was here, fierce and strong, and the only steady point in the nightmare.
Wrapping her in his arms, Roderick tucked her into his body to shield her. The calluses on Roderick’s battle-hardened hand pressed into her nape.
Muffled by his hold on her, the call to west still reached Maeve. “From
the west, I call water.”
“Goddess, hear your blessed,” the remaining witches chanted, but their voices were soft and pained, fading. “We cast in four for this your spell.” The words lost meaning for Maeve.
Lavina’s voice rose. “Goddess hold still the march of time. Take into your living death this blessed and her coimhdeacht to protect her.”
Already darkness was creeping around the edges of Maeve’s vision, pulling at her, tugging at her to come and join it.
“Guard well this sister and her coimhdeacht until it be mote time moves again.” Colleen’s sweet voice spoke on.
“Wherever you go,” Roderick whispered. “I’ll be there to protect you. By your side in all.”
Magic surged through Maeve like an ice blade, running through her veins, fusing her muscles, dragging searing blackness with it.
She lost the sound of her sisters’ voices, the chill of the night, the shush of the sea and the distant sound of Rhiannon shouting. Only Roderick’s steady arms, and the darkness rising, ever rising...
Epilogue
Present day
Alexander watched the small knot of tourists gather around the statue dominating the swathe of velvety grass of the village green.
“They call them The Lovers.” The tour guide gestured to the statue behind her. She gave her group a simpering smile. “For obvious reasons.”
Cameras and cell phones aimed and took pictures of the statue of a large man, his arms tenderly clasping a woman. You couldn’t see the woman’s face because it was tucked into his chest. The asinine name had sprung up about two hundred years back and stuck. The only good thing about it was how much it would have gotten up Roderick’s arse.
A doe-eyed thirty-something American stared up at the statue. “Who are they?”
Alexander recognized the type. A mail-in-ancestry-kit addict here to trace her roots, and not the one he was looking for. The one he sought rubbed like steel wool against his senses, her magic sweet and tart. He breathed deep. Honey and sage might just become his favorite combination.
“We’re not quite sure who they are.” The tour guide plastered her candy-floss grin on again. She winked and leaned closer. “Rumor has it he’s the original owner of Baile Castle, Sir Roderick.”
Rumor got it right in this instance.
Alexander dismissed the Asian couple as not the source. It had been so long since he’d felt that unique pull, it had taken him a few minutes to put a name to it. He’d tracked the trickle of magic to the village green, and finally to the small group surrounding the statue.
There! He zeroed in on the diminutive redhead behind a tall German woman wearing a Man U sweatshirt.
No more than five two, she was still a tasty little armful with her shapely curves and big green eyes.
She glanced up and caught him looking.
Alexander smiled at her.
She blushed and went back to listening to the tour guide.
The German woman pointed at the statue. “What happened to Sir Roderick?”
“Another mystery.” The tour guide grimaced.
Alexander could have told her exactly what happened to the whoreson.
“Some say it was magic.” The tour guide widened her eyes and giggled. “That he just disappeared one night, never to be seen again.”
The group gave an obliging chuckle. All except the little honey and sage sweetheart.
Alexander kept his focus on her.
She frowned and chewed on her lip. Then she rubbed her arms and shivered. She felt it all right, the power emanating from the statue.
“Other legends talk of a mass suicide, and another one links his death to the witch hunts of the sixteen-hundreds.” The tour guide loved this bit. The village tourist council insisted she drag the groups through the village and try to get them to spend some money in local businesses while they were there. You could take a seat at the Copper Cauldron and pay too much for a tired cheese and ham sandwich or force down that green piss they called Love Potion #9 at the pub, colorfully named The Hag’s Head. Other than the statue, however, Greater Littleton was as interesting as day-old bread. The tourists came for the crown in the jewel, Baile Castle.
“Are we going to see the castle soon?” The American thirty-something’s burly husband stepped forward. “I came to see the castle.”
The rest of the group nodded.
Alexander’s prey looked up at the castle perched on the hill above the town and paled. He’d bet she’d seen it before, haunting her dreams, calling to her.
The tour guide checked her watch, lips pursed in irritation. Someone always wanted to cut her tour short. “I’m afraid we’ll have to wait another half an hour before we have access to the castle.” She gave the American a minatory stare. “The castle is still privately owned, and the owner is most specific about the times they will allow tours.”
“Privately owned? Jesus.” The American grunted and stared up at the castle. “I wouldn’t want to pay the heating bill on that.”
Alexander let his gaze stray from his prey to Baile. Gray stone turrets rising against the sky, she was the most intact and beautiful castle in all of England. The only people more surprised to see the little cré-witch than him would be the bitches rattling around in that castle.
The Cré-Witch Chronicles
The women in Bronwyn Crane’s family are cursed; they die young and suddenly. Alone in the world following her sister’s death, Bronwyn is desperate for answers. Her search leads her to a castle in the south of England, and so much more than she bargained for.
A beautiful mysterious stranger sweeps her off her feet. A castle inhabited by four eccentric women matches one she’s seen for years in her dreams, and strange things—perhaps even magical things—happen all around her.
As Bronwyn delves further into the mystery of her ancestry, the danger escalates and it becomes harder to know who to trust with her heart…and her life.
Coming soon
Sarah Hegger
Born British and raised in South Africa, Sarah Hegger suffers from an incurable case of wanderlust. Her match? A hot Canadian engineer, whose marriage proposal she accepted six short weeks after they first met. Together they’ve made homes in seven different cities across three different continents (and back again once or twice). If only it made her multilingual, but the best she can manage is idiosyncratic English, fluent Afrikaans, conversant Russian, pigeon Portuguese, even worse Zulu and enough French to get herself into trouble.
Mimicking her globe trotting adventures, Sarah’s career path began as a gainfully employed actress, drifted into public relations, settled a moment in advertising, and eventually took root in the fertile soil of her first love, writing. She also moonlights as a wife and mother.
She currently lives in Ottawa, Canada, filling her empty nest with fur babies. Part footloose buccaneer, part quixotic observer of life, Sarah’s restless heart is most content when reading or writing books.
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Books by Sarah Hegger
Urban Fantasy
The Cré-Witch Chronicles
Prequel: Cast In Stone
Vol l: Born In Water
Vol ll: Cradled In Earth
Vol lll: Raised In Air
Vol lV: Purged in Fire
Click here to learn about this series!
Ottawa Titans Series
Roughing
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Contemporary Romance
Passing Through Series
Drove All Night
Ticket To Ride
Walk On By
Running On Empty
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Ghost Falls Series
Positively Pippa
Becoming Bella
Blatantly Blythe
Loving Laura
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Willow Park Romances
Nobody’s Angel
Nobody’s Fool
Nobody’s Princess
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Medieval Romance
Sir Arthur’s Legacy Series
Sweet Bea
My Lady Faye
Conquering William
Roger’s Bride
Releasing Henry
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Love & War Series
The Marriage Parley
The Betrothal Melee
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Western Historical Romance
The Soiled Dove Series
Sugar Ellie
Miz Peaches
Kansas City Kate
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Standalone
The Bride Gift
Bad Wolfe On The Rise
Wild Honey
Click here to learn about my stand alone books!