by Ciara Graves
“Good, at least you’re awake.”
I blinked hard, rubbing a hand down my face as I gave myself a minute to let my mind catch up. I’d been shot. No. Not just me. All of us. The attack. “Brogan? You alright?’
He shrugged from the bed across from mine. “Could be better.”
“And Rori?” I wondered why I had the strangest sensation that there was something I was forgetting about what happened out in the woods.
“Beside you. She hadn’t woken up yet.”
I glanced to my right to find her lying in a bed, clothes bloodied. Like ours were. She appeared to be sleeping peacefully. I frowned, willing myself to remember every last detail of what occurred during the fight
I looked at her left hand. “Necromancer,” I whispered. “That was real?”
“It was. She’s both, it seems.”
“No wonder her powers were flickering in and out.” I threw back the sheet and swung my legs around to get out of bed.
My side flared with pain, and I lifted my shirt to find bandages. I wasn’t sure how many times I’d been shot. There’d been so many explosions and the electric shock. Then the three of us using our powers together.
And Rori tapping into her necromancer.
I was about to get up and go to her, but the door to the infirmary opened, and Agnes and Moran entered. “
What do you think you’re doing?” he said angrily. “Get your ass back in bed this instance. You are not well enough to get up and walk around.”
I reluctantly pulled myself back into bed.
Agnes bustled around to Rori’s bedside. She rested her hand to her forehead.
“Will she wake up soon?” Brogan asked.
“I’m not sure. The power she used, she wasn’t ready for yet. And being shot didn’t help matters,” Agnes added with a sigh. “She needs time to heal. You all do.”
Moran paced through the infirmary, not meeting my gaze at all.
“The outpost, what happened to it?” I asked him. “Moran?”
“The same time they attacked the barricade, another force assaulted the front gates,” he said quietly. “But they had help causing a diversion.”
“Help? From who?”
“Graham. He’d been corrupted, broke out of quarantine, and set off the first explosion that killed five of our soldiers.”
“No,” I whispered. “He wouldn’t.”
“He did. He attacked everyone he came across, killed three more before he was taken down. I had to put a knife through his head to stop him.” He hung his head, wiping at his hands as if they were still covered in Graham’s blood.
“Where was the Elite Guard?” I asked.
“They were at the front gate trying to hold off the attack, but they were taken captive. They were overwhelmed, and I couldn’t get to them in time.” He faced us once again as he grunted, “They were captured. Then the attacking force retreated.”
I shook my head, not ready to believe it. “And the other team?”
“Taken, too,” he said solemnly. “Which means you three are the only team we have right now. I do not want to put this burden on your shoulders, but I’m afraid we are at war. Our outpost was not the only one attacked last night. Many more lives have been lost.”
Brogan and I looked at each other intensely, the reality of our situation too serious to comprehend right then. I glanced at Rori, glad she was still unconscious.
“Our team is still one short,” Brogan pointed out. “How are we supposed to function?”
“Rori is the answer to that question,” Moran replied.
“She’s a hybrid, though. She’ll have to pick one path or the other. Else her magic will continually fight itself,” I countered. “Won’t it?”
Moran and Agnes shook their heads together.
“Her father was both mage and necromancer.” Agnes ran her fingers lightly down the white locks of Rori’s hair. “His hair turned white, too, though he dyed it so his wife would never notice.”
“How was he both? That’s too much strain on the soul,” I argued.
“For most, it would be, but he made it work. For the four of you to succeed, she will have to do the same.”
“And a priest?” Brogan shrugged. “If her father was both, then their team had five. Technically.”
“That will be your next task. Plus, continuing your training. If there is a priest you are compatible with, I will stop at nothing to find him or her. Until such time, you three will work together and train. For war.”
I sank back against the pillows.
War.
The Cleansers had declared war on the entire magical population, taken out our Elite Guard, and left us weakened, vulnerable. They were using weapons we’d never seen before that dampened our powers or stripped them from us completely. These were the people who killed my parents, took Rori’s dad and Brogan’s uncle. And now it was down to us to stop them. A shaman, a druid, and a mage with necromancer powers. I wanted to shut my eyes and imagine us making it out of this victorious, but my heart sank as I looked at Rori’s sleeping form.
Whatever came next, we were not going to get out of this unscathed.
“It’s time for payback,” I mumbled mostly to myself.
Brogan nodded.
Moran and Agnes looked far from pleased. They were worried, but that was an emotion I could not entertain.
Now was a time for strength and courage.
Now was a time to make my parents proud and not get myself killed in the process.
Keep reading for an excerpt from the next book in the series!
Excerpt: Conjuring
Magic & Alchemy Book Two
Necromancers. Druids. Shamans. Priests. Familiars. Experiments. Attackers of magic. Magic and Alchemy will suck you in.
Rori’s dream to bake in her mother’s shop went up in smoke when she was pulled into a supernatural school for magic types.
On her first day there, she meets two guys. Chas and Brogan. One’s mysterious and brooding. The other one’s sweet and hunky.
And Rori’s in the middle of a rock and a hard place when she can’t figure out what type of supernatural she is and what path she should follow.
And what does her missing father have to do with any of this?
Warning: Unputdownable action-packed fantasy, with necromancers, druids, shamans, and priests.
Chapter 1
Rori
Everywhere I looked was a violet haze. Nothing was in it, no figures, no landmarks, just a haze I was slowly walking through. I should’ve wanted to leave, but it was comforting, though strange. It felt like it wanted me to stay.
Voices murmured around me. Chas and Brogan, a few others I recognized.
“You have to go back, you know.”
I whirled around, unsure of how long I’d been lost in this comforting fog, to find a shadowy figure, about my height, shaped like me, but with glowing violet eyes.
“Who are you?”
“Another part of you,” she replied. “And you can’t stay here forever.”
“Why not?”
The fog began to recede and the events of the battle, my first battle, trickled through my mind. The Cleansers attacked the barricade, broke through. The explosions, gunfire cracking around us as we ran. I flinched as it erupted again, ducking as if I would be shot. My hand flew to my side, which was suddenly throbbing in pain, but there was no wound.
“I can’t do this. I’m not a damned soldier.”
“Yes, you can, you don’t have a choice,” the shadow said. “Go back, Rori.”
“No… You… What did I do out there?” I whispered. “I was me, but I wasn’t. That power was not the power of a mage.”
“Not just the power of a mage,” the shadow corrected. “You are so much more, and it’s time you understand that. Go back to the others. We will speak again.”
“But who are you?” I demanded, my body slipping away from the fog as the scenes of the fight unfolded all around me. The tidal
wave I’d created with Chas and Brogan crashed around me, leaving behind dead in its wake. The dead animals I pulled up from the ground, they’d attacked those soldiers, killed a few more. I’d killed people, and hadn’t even batted an eye. “What did we do?”
“We did what was necessary, and it won’t be the last time.”
“No, I’m not a killer.”
“You are when it matters most.” The shadow was suddenly directly in front of me, resting a hand on my shoulder. “You will do what you must, in order to survive, Rori. I will not let you fall.”
“You’re not me. You can’t be. I’m not that cold-hearted.”
“Part of you is. Part of you must embrace who you truly are.” The figure reached for my hand.
There on the back was a scythe and a skull.
I flinched at the sight of the marking that had not been there earlier.
“There is more to you than you first thought. Before long, you will have to make a choice, one that will either save those around you or let them all fall.”
The shadow shoved me.
I was falling through the fog as it parted around me. More gunshots sounded loudly in my ears, and I cringed, curling in on myself, willing it all to stop. But then I jerked, and my eyes opened as I sat up in a bed.
“Rori? She’s awake.”
Hands grabbed my shoulders.
I flinched as a face came into focus.
“Hey, you’re alright. You’re safe. Rori?”
I blinked furiously, and Brogan’s face finally came into view.
I relaxed in his grip and hugged him hard. “Are you okay? Chas, where is he. What happened?” I glanced behind him.
Chas was hurrying toward me.
I studied his face. “You good?”
“We’re alive. That counts as good.” He rested his hand on my arm with a small smile. “How do you feel?”
“Like shit,” I admitted with a quiet laugh. “I had the weirdest dream… couldn’t have been real, right?” I mumbled.
They exchanged a funny look.
I pulled back to assess how bad the aftermath of that fight had been. The last fragments of my dream slipped away, and I told myself that’s all it was. There’d been no shadow figure, no fog, whatever power I’d used had been all frost mage, right? I raised my hand to smooth back my messed-up hair when I saw it.
The marking there.
“No… no, this… it was a dream…”
“Rori,” Chas said slowly.
I shoved them both away, needing to get out of there.
“It was real, what I did. What we did. We killed people,” I whispered. My stomach turned in a sickening way. “I killed those soldiers.” I sucked in a deep breath, but that only made it worse as the room spun around me.
“You need to calm down,” Brogan said gently, trying to get me to lay back down. “Rori, stop, you’re going to tear open your wound.”
“I don’t care,” I shouted. A violet burst shot out from my hands, throwing them away from me. I froze, not sure what the hell I just tapped into, but I wasn’t willing to hurt them. Whatever control I had over my mage abilities vanished, as the necromancer side I never knew I had exploded in a rush of violet and shadow at my hands.
I slipped out of bed, stumbling and staggering my way to the door.
“Rori,” Brogan yelled.
I picked up the pace, pushing through the pain to get away from them. Glimpses of the battle came back to me. I heard a loud crash nearby and jumped, ducking low, thinking there was around me again.
Another loud sound had me dropping low. My limbs stiffened, muscles cramping as they remembered the electric shock that had come from those grenades. The shock that left me defenseless, without my power.
Using the wall, my hands leaving a trail of shadow behind me that slowly ate away at the stone, I made it outside and fell to my knees. The sky was overcast, and the air was heavy. I looked around and marveled at the destruction.
The outpost gate was nothing but a mangled heap of metal now. The two watchtowers were rubble. A quick glance showed several other buildings had been destroyed. When I looked in the distance at Four Point, several buildings there were heavily damaged, too. It looked like a damned war zone.
I fell to my knees, my hands striking the ground. Shadows swirled around me, reaching into the ground, seeking what had died to bring it back to life. My necromancy was at work.
“Rori. You have to calm down,” Chas said firmly.
I looked at him over my shoulder.
I saw him, and Brogan, Blade, and a few others I didn’t recognize.
I wanted to stop it, but just as it had when we were attacked, I was too overwhelmed to remain in full control. My power grabbed hold of anything it could, grass, vegetation, varmints, and began to bring them all back to life.
Green grass sprouted around me, breaking through the gravel and concrete as I called for it to return.
All I could see was the men I killed, the explosions around us, the shocks that hit all of us…
Brogan took a few steps closer, but I yelled at him to stay back, twisting around so fast, my wound seared in pain.
I toppled forward.
I blinked, trying to see through the pain and the burning tears filling my eyes.
Then Agnes was there. Her hand pressed to my forehead, and I passed out.
The violet haze wasn’t there this time, but I was fine with the darkness. Too bad the pain came with it. Something kept tugging on my side, and I winced. Whatever it was that caused me pain continued for a long while it seemed. When it was over, something warm was placed over it.
A voice sighed heavily. I think it was my own.
“You should have told her she was exactly like her father. That she had both paths within her.” Agnes, that was Agnes.
“What good would that have done?” a man’s voice grunted. Moran? It had to be him.
“She could have prepared for it, known what was coming, but now the powers are fighting against each other inside her.”
“That is not because I didn’t tell her a damned thing.”
“You’re right. It’s from her and the others being thrown into a battle they weren’t prepared for. You and your damned training. You always think it should be enough for someone to take a life, to have to fight to survive, but it never is. You are a damned fool, always a fool.”
“You can never prepare someone for that moment.”
“You can try harder,” she shot back. “They were not born soldiers no matter who their parents or uncles were. And Rori is exactly like her father. Kind and good. Killing is not her first instinct, and it’s going to tear her apart.”
“She doesn’t have a choice. None of us do anymore,” Moran muttered. “We’re at war, whether we want to be or not. Rori, Chas, and Brogan are the only Elite Guard team we have now. I need them all to find a way to push through and keep fighting. Keep being a team.”
“If you’re not careful, you’ll push them too hard, and they’ll break,” she warned. “She needs rest and training, but none of us can offer her that.”
“Her team can. She’ll have to trust in them and herself.”
“You’re putting too much pressure on her, just like you did Trevor.”
There was a long pause.
I nearly opened my eyes. I realized nothing was stopping me from waking up. But the second they knew I was awake, they’d cease their conversation, and I wanted to hear more.
“You can say it,” Moran murmured.
“Say what?”
“You blame me for Trevor and the others’ deaths. You’ve held it in all these years, but I know you do.”
“That’s not what we’re talking about now,” Agnes argued.
“No, but it’s what you’re thinking. You think I’m going to get the three of them killed, too.”
Keeping my breathing even was growing harder by the second, but I managed, not wanting to give myself away.
“You are a determined man,
Moran, you always have been. And sometimes, that determination to find and crush your enemies gets in the way. Don’t let it this time, that’s all I ask. They’re so young. They’ve barely lived. Don’t throw their lives away so easily.”
“I don’t plan to.” Moran’s voice was heavy. “When she wakes, I want her to work on gaining control. And let the others know we’re moving out in a few days.”
“To where?”
“Somewhere safer than here. Somewhere to give the three of them a chance before Cleansers come for them again.”
One set of steps walked away, but Agnes laid her hand on my forehead, whispering words I didn’t catch, and then she was gone, too.
I waited, counting the seconds in my head, then opened my eyes . I was alone. A glance at my side told me I had ripped open my wound and Agnes stitched it back up for me. I hadn’t meant to freak out, but there was too much going on inside my head to deal with. And having Brogan and Chas there, seeing them hurt from the attack, something in me snapped.
I propped myself up on the pillows and looked at my hands. There was no power swirling around them now. Necromancer. I was a necromancer and a frost mage. Just like Dad. Why hadn’t they told me? Did Moran know what would happen if he kept it quiet? That the first time I used that power, it would be that violent and uncontrollable? Or did he just want to find out what I was really capable of? If I was as good as Trevor Griffith. Or not. Agnes blamed him for my dad’s death, and part of me wondered if I should do the same. No matter what he promised as far as taking care of us.
From their conversation, I realized that battle was going to be the first of many against a crazed enemy. More fighting. More deaths. More killing. Was I ready for that?
“Rori?” Brogan stood in the doorway, looking unsure if she should come in or not.
“Hey,” I managed to get out and held out my hand for his. “Sorry, about freaking out earlier. Everyone’s alright, right?”
“Yeah. The courtyard is covered in grass and flowers now, but everyone’s fine.”
