The Mythean Arcana Box Set

by Linsey Hall

  He gripped the tankard in his hand and focused on the amber liquid within, having to forcibly repress the desire to stand up and smash it over the heads of the bastards behind him. Their prejudice cost good lives. Had cost the life of his grandmother, a batty old woman, but not a witch. It hadn’t stopped them from putting her on the pyre, though.

  “You’ll want to loosen your grip there, lad, before you lose your drink.” The deep voice knocked him out of his foul memories and he looked up to see Bruce.

  “About time you got here,” he said, and loosened his grip. He couldn’t do anything to the bastards behind him. Like cockroaches, there were too many of them. Kill those and a dozen more with the same deadly, moronic beliefs would replace them. And he’d be hanged for murder, unable to do what good he could. Because even if he hated the type of bastard sitting behind him, he loved his clan and wouldn’t watch their women burned.

  “I’ve got a pregnant woman who needs to make it to the port,” Bruce said under his breath. “Tomorrow night.”

  Warren’s lips tightened. A pregnant woman. Bloody hell. Would the horrors never cease?

  “From our village?” He didn’t know of any pregnant women being targeted as witches. As part of a covert band of individuals who helped smuggle women to safety once they’d been labeled witches, he should know of her if she were from here.

  “Nay. From the other side of the mountain. She’s got kin in America. Now that she’s only a trial away from going up on the pyre, she’s decided to join them.”

  Warren couldn’t laugh at the dark joke. It hit too close to home. The trial would find her guilty. If his comrades smuggled her to him, he’d get her through the forest and to the port. Safely, if they could stay out of sight of his fellow citizens.

  The next night arrived moonless and rainy. A terrible night to try to get through the woods. Worse, the pregnant woman, called Avera, looked to be about a day away from giving birth. Wrapped in a dark cloak, she was slender but for the great belly that slowed her walk to a waddle.

  “Are you sure you can do this? We have miles to go through the forest,” he asked her as the rain pounded down upon them. They stood on the side of the road where his colleagues had delivered her to him.

  “I’ve no other choice.”

  A rustle from the farm cart behind them drew his attention and another cloaked figure climbed out, apparently done talking to the driver.

  “Mother, let me go with you,” the figure said as she approached. Warren caught sight of golden eyes and a strong face. The woman looked too old to be the daughter of the pregnant woman.

  “Nay.” Avera’s voice was hard. “You won’t survive in the New World. There’s no’ enough power there.”

  Warren frowned at the odd turn of phrase.

  “How will you survive?” There were tears in the younger woman’s voice.

  “I’ve no choice, you know that. You canna protect me. You’ll die trying, and I won’t have that. In a few years, if more of our kind go to the New World and you can survive there, I’ll send for you. But for now, you must look out for yourself without me to burden you.”

  The woman reached out to grasp her mother’s arm. “But—”

  “No! You’re at risk as it is. This man will protect me. Go home. I’ll send for you.” Her voice brooked no argument.

  Still, the younger woman tried. Finally, she huffed and turned to him. In a flash, her face hardened. In a dark voice, she said, “Protect her. Or I will come for you, and you will regret it with every fiber of your being.”

  A shiver ran through Warren as the girl turned from him and hugged her mother before climbing back into the farm cart. Lantern light glinted off her face. Her eyes flashed, changing color to pitch black. He didn’t believe in magic, but as he watched the cart rumble down the dark road, the chill wouldn’t leave his bones.

  He shook it away and looked at the woman who stood cloaked before him. She was his responsibility, a role he took seriously enough without the daughter’s eerie threats.

  “Come,” he said. “We must make it through the forest by dawn. Are you meeting someone at the port?”

  “Nay. I’ll meet the father of my child in the New World.”

  “Excellent. I will get you there.”

  She nodded and they set off toward the port. It was the worst journey he’d made by far, the dark and the wet making the travel rough and miserable. They had to avoid the road, however, or risk facing the witch hunters who had figured out that someone was smuggling suspected witches to the port. They hiked for hours, though it felt like days.

  “Fucking rain—we’ll never find them.” The voice carried through the forest, so quiet that Warren wasn’t sure of the words.

  “Shite. Avera, you need to hide. Quick, near these rocks.” A chill ran over his skin as he doused their lantern and tried to hide Avera among the rocks. How many were there? Were they looking for this woman?

  When she was crouched against the rocks, nearly invisible in the dark, Warren withdrew his sword and hid himself behind a large oak a dozen feet in front of her. He wouldn’t draw their attention, but he’d be ready if they found him.

  A light appeared in the forest, small but growing larger as the men approached. Five of them. Bloody hell. His breath grew short in his throat, and he had to force himself not to gasp raggedly.

  “Oy, I think I hear something,” a man said, and Warren stiffened at the proximity of his voice.

  A sword was pointed at Warren’s throat a moment later. No more hiding. He raised his own blade and the clash of steel echoed through the forest. The battle was fast and hard, and when the lantern dropped from the hand of the smallest man, near dark crashed around them. He couldn’t make out a single face as he felled two opponents, but he felt the slice of their blades and the keen edge of victory when their bodies hit the ground.

  He was on his knees in the mud when a sharp scream broke out over the clash of swords. Sick fear for Avera welled in him, crushing the dark joy he felt in slaying his enemies. He had to get to her.

  On a spurt of blind luck, he sank his blade into the gut of the man looming above him. He staggered to his feet, tripped over the body of one of the other soldiers he’d slain, and immediately collided with a fourth.

  He gripped his sword more tightly, ignoring the blood that dripped down his arm, and slashed it across the middle of the man in front of him. The hooded figure, more apparition than reality, stumbled but didn’t go down. Damn bastard was tough, but it had been a good night for Warren. Three kills, but he’d make it a fourth and get Avera back and to the port.

  Warren parried, blocking the other man’s strikes, before sinking his blade into his opponent’s neck. The harsh gurgle of breath was music to his ears as he jerked his blade free. He’d always liked killing these idiots. He was doing the human race a favor.

  He’d just spun on his heel to race to Avera when pain exploded in his head. The last thing he remembered was falling like a great tree in the forest, filled with fear that he had failed Avera.

  When he finally opened his eyes, pale golden sunlight filtered through the trees above and turned the raindrops to glittering diamonds. He groaned and pressed a hand to his head. A lump crusted with dried blood twinged when he touched it.

  The memories of the pregnant woman that he’d failed pierced his brain, and he jerked upright, too distraught to curse at the pain in his head. He glanced around frantically, but saw nothing except the bodies of the four men he’d felled last night.

  There must have been a fifth, or more, who’d taken Avera. He staggered to his feet, intent on tracking them and tearing the heads from their bodies. The sight of one of the fallen men caught his eye and he turned, his breath caught in his throat like a boulder.

  The cloak was pulled back from the face, now illuminated by the morning sun. The sight hit Warren like lightning, knocking the foundation of his life out from beneath his feet. He stumbled backward

  Alan. He’d killed his own cousin.


  Warren raised his hand, stared at the blood that coated it. He swallowed hard, stumbled, and looked for the next body. His feet carried him to it, though he wasn’t even sure if his brain consciously gave the command.

  When he stared down at the face that had been hidden by the night’s pitch black, a buzzing started up between his ears that drowned out his sense of self.

  Donal. Alan’s brother. Something hot trailed down Warren’s face as he stared at the face of his cousin, the boy who’d been like a brother to him.

  Dread wedged into every corner of his body as he looked at the other two bodies. They lay close, their crumpled forms near enough to make out their features.

  Warren’s knees gave out and the ground rose up to meet him.

  Eoin and Gus. Four brothers. His cousins. He’d killed them. When had they become involved with the witch hunters? His own efforts to save the falsely accused were a secret, but witch hunters were usually not so secretive in their dealings.

  But he’d killed them, and the dark was no excuse. Pain and regret surged within him, a tidal wave that swamped rational thought and tore a roar from his throat.

  When he returned to himself, minutes or hours later, he remembered that Avera was still missing. Pregnant and very likely within the grasp of witch hunters.

  He could barely feel his body as he stood. His cousins deserved a proper burial, no matter that they’d been involved in evil at the time of their death. He deserved just punishment for their murders, no matter what the light had been like when he’d killed them.

  But first, he had to find Avera. Before it was too late.

  It took two days. Two miserable days of combing the three nearby towns—nearby meaning something different in the Highlands than it did elsewhere—to stumble upon a scene more grisly than the one he’d left behind in the forest.

  The crowd screamed and cheered, a riotous mob of mindless hate swarming a pyre in the middle of the square. His stomach pitched, but far worse was the sight of the woman on the pyre.

  Avera. Bound by harsh rope to the post behind her, her black hair whipped in a wind he couldn’t feel. He pushed his way through the crowd, desperate to free her, when her voice rang out over the screams of the mob.

  “Release me! Release my daughter! Or you shall all die!” Her shriek was unholy, terrifying in its intensity and volume.

  Warren was close enough to see her eyes turn black and her hair whip ever faster around her head. He realized then that there was no wind. Whatever force surrounded Avera, it was not natural. The man holding the flaming torch ignored her warning and tossed the brand onto the kindling at the base of her pyre. Three more did the same.

  He pushed forward through the crowd, determined to free her and her unborn child. She shrieked as the flames grew, and as he neared, he saw that her belly was far smaller than it had been. The wail of a baby drew his attention. To the left of Avera stood a woman cradling an infant.

  “Your devil’s spawn shall go after you,” cried the man who’d thrown the first torch.

  Avera’s head whipped toward him then, her eyes pitch-black holes in her skull. “Die!” she shrieked, and the man fell to his knees, clutching his neck. Her head whipped toward another man who had thrown the torch, and she screamed her bloodthirsty call again. He too fell to his knees, clutching his neck.

  By now, the flames had reached halfway up her body, and Warren was still too far away. She was shrieking, but she’d channeled her pain into cries of “Die!” that she directed at members of the jeering audience until more than a dozen of them were on their knees or fallen altogether.

  A true witch. Conflict rose in Warren’s heart, but he pushed on all the same, knowing even now that he was too late. She was consumed by the flames, her screams silenced.

  He reached the pyre finally, a minute from saving her. It had happened so fast. He had no idea if she was good or evil, but she was dead and it didn’t matter.

  But her child was not.

  He charged around the pyre, intent on reaching the babe clutched under the arm of a terrified woman who bent over a fallen man. It was the work of a moment to pull the babe free. One look at the amber eyes of the squalling infant told him it belonged to the witch. The eyes were no normal infant’s blue.

  Confirmed that the baby was Avera’s, he clutched it to his chest and sprinted across the back side of the square, away from the villagers who screamed and cried over the bodies of their loved ones. They’d stop him if they caught him stealing the witch’s child. He had only one chance to get it to safety.

  When he reached the quiet of the forest that surrounded the village, he stopped, the breath heaving in and out of his lungs as the infant cried.

  What the hell was he to do now? He had a day-old infant. Nay, maybe hours old. It would die if he didn’t find a wet nurse. It would die if anyone knew the identity of its mother.

  Should it die? Had Avera been evil? Was this child?

  He looked down into the face of the newborn. He had no idea. But he couldn’t hand it over to its death without knowing. So he took it to the port, a place large enough that he found a poor woman to nurse the baby.

  After arranging payment, he left the woman’s humble home and set out onto the street of the port. He would find the sister and turn over the babe. He stopped in his tracks. Could he trust the sister, or was she a witch too? She had been fierce when he’d met her, her eyes flashing black like Avera’s. And, witch or no, how the hell would he even find her? He had no idea where she lived.

  He spun on his heel in the middle of the crowded little street, miserable and lost. The babe had a father in the New World, he remembered. It was the only thing that would work.

  He ran to the docks and was relieved to find that Avera’s ship had not yet sailed. A quick conversation revealed that it would sail the next morning. This was safest. The sister couldn’t be trusted. He would find a wet nurse to travel with the babe and get it out of Scotland. It wasn’t safe here, and though life in the New World was uncertain, it was better than a place where the babe with strange amber eyes would be hunted.

  It took the full night to find a nurse to go with the babe, and nearly the entirety of his wealth, little as it was. He watched the ship until it was but a pinprick in the distance, then set off along the forest road to his village.

  He was nearly home when he came upon the woman in the forest. His steps stuttered, then stopped. She stood twenty feet away, golden and light, her shining blonde hair and amber eyes bright in the dimming light.

  “Warren.” Her voice belied the lightness of her being. It was dark and heavy and her eyes changed to match. “You are called Warren, I have learned. I am Aurora.”

  He said nothing and reached for his sword.

  She laughed, a crazed sound, and her eyes blackened to coal. “That won’t help you.”

  “I tried to save her.” She had some kind of inexplicable power. Powers she’d spoken of with her mother in the forest when he’d met her.

  “You let her die.” Pain twisted her face as tears spilled down her cheeks. “It was your job to protect her when she couldn’t protect herself. The baby sapped her power, and she relied on you! We trusted you!”

  He flinched at the volume of her scream, and the pain in it. Her golden hair whipped around her head, borne on that unnatural wind that had surrounded Avera when she’d worked her magic. Two great oaks that stood behind Aurora cracked down the middle and toppled over. The ground trembled beneath his feet.

  “This isn’t possible,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Oh, but it is. My mother forbade me to collect the power of souls for fear it would draw the attention of bloodthirsty mortals. But she is dead, and I have no need of her rules!” She flung her arm out and more trees toppled. “I’ve killed those who burned her, and I shall kill you too. You turned my mother over to those beasts!”

  Rage welled dark within him. “Turned her over? I killed my kin to protect her!”

  “Lies!
” she screamed. Her eyes were black and crazed. She trembled, from grief or from the power raging through her, he couldn’t tell. “Perhaps I should burn what you love!”

  “No!” Warren gripped his sword and stepped forward, but she’d already thrown out an arm and a jet of fire shot from her fingertips. It licked at the damp underbrush, igniting so quickly that it was clearly propelled by evil.

  He lunged back as the fire roared high and hot, devouring the land and charging in the direction of his village.

  Nay. He’d already killed his family. Not his village. Not because of him.

  “Doona do this!” he yelled, now separated from Aurora by a wall of fire. He could see her through the flames, tears streaking down her face and her eyes black with madness and rage.

  “Anything! I’ll give you anything!” he yelled.

  “You have nothing I want!” she screamed, and waved her arm again. The fire shot hotter and higher, and he fell to his knees.

  “Anything!” The smoke was choking his lungs and burning his eyes. Had it reached the village yet?

  It felt like an eon, trapped in the heat with visions of his village burning, but eventually her voice carried, dark and powerful, across the flames. “Your soul. You’ll give me your soul.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Warren jerked out of the trance into which he’d fallen, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs. The taste of smoke lingered, now only a memory but too real for his sanity. He scrubbed his hands over his eyes and looked around the room.

  He was still seated on the floor of his office in the quiet corner by the window. He used it for meditating when the memories of the past became too much, and although it normally cleared his mind and helped him find a bit of quiet, in this case it had sucked him back into his nightmares.

  He heaved out a breath and stood. Perhaps he’d drifted off. It was still early and he hadn’t slept well after the encounter with Esha, but he’d never before fallen asleep sitting up. Hell, he might be losing his mind as Aurora had. More likely, Aurora’s near release was just dredging up the things he’d tried to pack away.