The Castle of Earth and Embers (Briarwood Reverse Harem Book 1)

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Why didn’t you tell us before?”

  “For god's sake, Corbin, because I thought it was just a dream. This is supposed to be my interrogation. You guys, start talking, now.”

  Corbin sighed, rubbing the side of his head. His usual controlling demeanor gone, he looked like someone had just slapped him across the face. A flash of guilt hit me before I remembered that he lied to me, and I pushed it down.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “It was going to come out sooner or later. We just wanted to protect you for as long as possible. But this dream thing confirms it.”

  “Protect me from what?”

  “From yourself,” Corwin’s face strained. “Maeve, you’re a witch. And not just any witch. You’re a spirit user. You’re the most powerful witch in England, and the only one capable of holding off the threat of the fae.”

  26

  MAEVE

  What the hell?”

  Of all the things I thought Corbin might say, that was not one of them.

  I’m not a witch. This is absurd.

  Corbin sighed. ‘We didn’t want to tell you like this. I knew you wouldn’t believe it, and after everything you’ve gone through – with the Crawfords’ murders – the last thing we wanted to do was to upset you more.”

  “Well, I’m pretty damn upset, okay!” I yelled. “And what do you mean, murders? It was just a fluke accident.”

  Corbin shook his head. “That fae, Kalen, who was at the fair that night, came to Arizona to find you. To kill you. That’s why I was there – I had to make sure he didn’t succeed. I’ve been protecting you ever since you were sixteen, since my parents handed the duty over to me.”

  I slumped down on the end of the couch, my head spinning. What Corbin was saying… it didn’t make any sense. “Protecting me?”

  “Yeah, we all have. That’s why you remember Flynn, the exchange student. That was his shift watching you. The year before that, Arthur was a janitor at your school. I’ve been a student at your community college for the last four semesters, but I didn’t pass your first year physics paper, so I had to switch to history.” Corbin dared a small smile. “You’re way too clever for me to keep up with.”

  I didn’t even register the compliment. The implication of Corbin’s words sank in, turning my blood to ice. “You’ve all been… stalking me?”

  “We prefer to think of it as being bodyguards from a distance,” Arthur said, his voice shaky.

  I thought of the tower bedroom they’d decorated, how they seemed to perfectly judge my taste. Because they’ve been watching you through windows and spying on your private moments. The thought turned my stomach, but not as much as what they were saying about me being a witch.

  “We didn’t want to interfere with your life, to give you this burden before your time,” Corbin said. “So we stayed in the background, just keeping watch for the fae, as my parents did before me. We never saw any fae activity around you – it would take an enormous amount of power for them to appear in America – until the night your parents were killed.”

  I remembered how that fae – Kalen – tried to drag Kelly and I toward the Ferris wheel. A flash of the fire seared against my eyeballs. The screaming of the crowd, the groan and crack of the wheel as it collapsed, the acrid smoke burning my throat as I tried to run inside to save my parents. I remembered Kalen waving at me from across the field, his expression smug, and how the smoke had obscured him as he shapeshifted into the dog. He must’ve rigged that explosion, with the idea it would take out my whole family. Cold settled all over my body.

  I hate the fae. I hate them more than anything.

  “I am so, so sorry, Maeve,” Corbin’s voice changed. Gone was his ‘history professor’ tone as he recited the facts. Tightness clawed at his words, as though he struggled for breath. I dared a glance at him, knowing it would melt a tiny bit of the ice, and was surprised by the depth of the pain in his eyes. “When I saw Kalen walk up to you and your sister, I thought that was his move – that he was trying to lure you away. I never could have predicted he’d bring down the wheel. I never—”

  He choked on his words, whipping his head away so I could no longer see his face. Flynn stood up. I expected him to say something cutting to Corbin, but instead, he went across and tapped his friend on the shoulder.

  “You okay, mate?”

  Corbin shook his head. I wondered what was going on with him – his face had paled. His hands balled into fists at his side. Was it something more than just guilt over letting my parents die?

  Good. I folded my arms. Let him feel guilty. It’s his fault the fae were drawn to me.

  Flynn glanced at me, and gave me a smile that contained none of his usual mirth. “Allow me to continue the saga. Where were we? Yes… we had to watch over you, because you’re the daughter of Aline Moore, who was the fecking best witch of her time.”

  I glared at Flynn. “You said my mother was a witch before.”

  He nodded. “It’s true. She was the High Priestess of the Briarwood coven, which is why she wears those jewels in the portrait upstairs. All of us—” he swung his arm around the room, indicating the other guys “—are the children of one or both parents who were also part of that same coven.”

  Flynn started to say more, but Corbin cut him off. He wouldn’t look at me but he still wanted to be the one to talk about the history. “There was an attempt by the fae twenty-one years ago to break open the gateway and enter our realm. The Briarwood coven – our parents’ coven – fought them off and sent them back, but at tremendous cost. My parents lived, and Arthur’s, but Flynn lost his father and Rowan both his parents. We don’t know who your father was, but since he would have been a member of the coven, we presume he died also. Your mother was pregnant with you during the attack. Leading the coven through the powerful spell took too much from her, and she went into premature labor. My parents helped to bring you into the world just as Aline passed away, but not before she gave them specific instructions.”

  “And what were these instructions?” My voice dripped with sarcasm. “To polish the cauldron? To feed the black cat? To de-bristle the flying broomstick?”

  Corbin cringed. “They were about you, Maeve, and the power she passed down to you.”

  “This is absolutely ridiculous! You’ve all been reading those Harry Potter books too many times. My mother was not a witch and I don’t have any powers.”

  “Then how come you’re pulling us all into your dreams?” Arthur shot back.

  I rubbed my bare shoulders with my hands, keeping my arms folded across my chest, as if their presence would keep in all the anger and confusion from pouring out of the wound they’d opened up.

  “If you truly have been spying on my for my entire life,” I growled, “then you must know by now that I need empirical evidence if I’m going to believe anything as fantastical as this. If you can’t give me that, then I’m getting straight on the next plane back to Arizona.”

  Corbin shot Rowan a look that was pure ‘I-told-you-so.’

  “And if we can make you believe this?” Flynn asked, his voice hopeful. “Will you complete our coven?”

  I just glared at him, until his buoyant expression withered away.

  “The library,” Corbin choked out. He stood, still not looking at me, and trudged out of the hall. I glared at his back, but followed after him, the other guys clattering along behind me. We passed rows of gilded portraits, and I half-expected the grim faces of the castle’s former owners to start moving and talking.

  In the library, Corbin walked across to his enormous desk, opened the top drawer, and drew out a small envelope, sealed with wax similar to the one Emily used. He came back and handed the envelope to me.

  “This is from your mother,” he said, still refusing to meet my eyes. “She wrote it on her deathbed. She gave my parents strict instructions to ensure her daughter read it once she turned twenty-one.”

  I turned the letter over in my hands, my fingers brushing the yellowed edge
s, the dust gathered around the seal. MAEVE was written across the front in a florid, ostentatious script.

  “We haven’t read this letter,” Corbin said. “It’s for your eyes only, Maeve. If you want to tell us what it says afterward, then we’re happy to listen. But it’s yours to do with as you wish.”

  I clutched the letter to my chest. Aline, my birth mother. I held in my hand something she’d touched, the first piece of evidence that she even knew I existed. My heart pounding, I slid my finger under the seal and cracked it, pulling out a single sheet of faded paper, filled with tiny lines of that same cursive script. My knees wobbled, and I tumbled onto the couch, no longer certain I could hold up my own body weight.

  Reverently, I smoothed it out on my knee, and started to read:

  My dearest Maeve,

  My dear friend John has just presented you into my arms, and you are the most perfect creature I have ever laid eyes on. I have passed many hours of my life by the pond at the bottom of Briar Wood, watching the swans float across the glassy surface, their necks held up in graceful arcs. I thought no other creature of such beauty existed, but you have proved me wrong.

  There are so many things I wish to tell you, but there is so little time. I will die tonight, of that I am certain. I saw my own death many years ago. The power of premonition is an ugly gift, and I pray that you will not inherit this curse from me. Your own powers will take some time to manifest (for unlike the other elemental powers, spirit develops from puberty and won’t fully manifest until you turn twenty-one) and it’s possible you may not yet even be aware of them by the time you read this letter.

  I imagine you have many questions for me – about your powers and your heritage. Your father was a traveler – he sought out our coven and stayed at the castle for some time to help us keep the fae hordes at bay. He went missing shortly after you were conceived. I came out into the garden one night to find his shoes empty by the gate at the edge of the field. We never saw nor heard another trace of him. I fear the fae got him, destroying his body to claim his great power for themselves.

  Because of the things our coven has done, the authorities will not allow my dear friends, Bree and Andrew Harris, to adopt you. They will fight for you, but they will lose – this I have already seen. You will be placed into an orphanage, and your adoptive parents will take you far away from Briarwood and your heritage, your curse. This too I have seen.

  Without your power, the coven will never be strong enough to fight back the Slaugh. The fae know this, and so they will eventually come for you, even as safe as you are with your new family. Bree and Andrew will keep vigil over you, to protect you from their attacks until you receive your own powers.

  I have done all I can to keep you safe, my beautiful daughter. I wish you to have a wonderful life, the life I never had – twenty-one years to be carefree, to be normal, before you are tied to this terrible duty.

  You have my heart.

  Aline, your mother.

  I set down the letter, my head spinning. I could practically hear her speaking inside my head, her voice wispy and melodious. She spoke of future events as if she knew they were coming, but even if this so-called spirit element existed, precognition was impossible.

  My mind whirred. Theoretical processes and ideas buzzing around in my head… unless we are talking about retrocausality, where causality is reversed to allow an effect to occur before its cause. But that’s really just a philosophical thought experiment laced with pseudoscience…

  “I need evidence,” I whispered.

  “The letter is evidence,” Corbin said.

  “How do I know this letter is actually written by my mother, and that it was written the date she said it was? It could be forged. Anyone could handwrite a note and stain the paper with tea.” I sniffed the paper. “Okay, so this doesn’t smell like tea, but there are other ways to make paper look old. Before I can take any of this—” I gestured to the four of them and the note in front of me “—seriously, I need to know unequivocally that this is real.”

  “Tell me you didn’t just use the word unequivocally in a sentence,” Flynn moaned. “I’m going to need to carry around a dictionary just to talk to you.”

  Corbin rummaged around in his desk. “Hold on a sec,” he muttered as he sorted through a stack of documents. “It’s here somewhere…”

  “Maybe if you learned the proper Queen’s English instead of your bastardized Irish gaff, you wouldn’t need so much help with the big words,” Arthur said to Flynn.

  “Suck me bollix,” Flynn shot back, waving his middle finger at Arthur.

  “Ah, here it is!” Corbin held up a paper. Flynn snatched it from his hand and slapped it triumphantly in my lap.

  “Read it and weep, Einstein,” he grinned at me. “There’s your unequivocal proof.”

  I stared down at the document. It was a deed for Briarwood Castle and grounds, stating that the property was to be held in trust for me until I came of age at twenty-one, and that the descendants of the other coven members were welcome to use it as a residence or for business purposes without paying rent, as long as they also “protected me from harm.” The document was signed by my mother and witnessed by a ‘Bree Harris’ and a lawyer from Emily’s firm. I checked my mother’s handwriting against the letter. They were identical.

  “I can show you Aline’s death certificate, and the papers from the orphanage, authenticated and all,” Corbin said. “But I think you know what this means.”

  My temples throbbed. This can’t be true. But there it was, the empirical evidence right in front of my eyes. My mother wrote that letter, and she wrote it before she could have possibly known the Crawfords would adopt me and take me to America.

  My mother was a witch. I was a witch.

  “I’m the fifth,” I whispered, trying to hold my trembling hands in my lap. “I’m the fifth you’ve been looking for.”

  “You are more than that, Maeve,” Arthur said, his kind eyes boring into mine. “You are our High Priestess.”

  27

  CORBIN

  Maeve took the letter and went to her room, slamming the door behind her. I cringed as the sound echoed around the castle.

  One by one, the guys all disappeared off to their various activities – Arthur to practice his sword fighting, Flynn to bang around in his workshop, and Rowan to pick herbs in the garden. I stayed hunched over the desk, the Briarwood coven’s grimoire open on the desk in front of me. But every time I tried to focus on the scrawled words and vivid drawings, the ink blurred in front of my eyes. My thoughts wouldn’t focus on anything but the horrible, twisted expression on Maeve’s face when she found out her adoptive parents had been murdered.

  Murdered… and I hadn’t been able to save them. I’d been so distracted by seeing Maeve on her twenty-first birthday and knowing that soon she’d be coming into her power. I thought we’d made it – twenty-one years without the fae finding her and trying to kill her. When Kalen grabbed hold of her, I didn’t take the time to think, to assess the situation. I acted on impulse, and my impulse got Maeve’s parents killed.

  More innocent lives I couldn’t protect.

  I buried my face in my hands. Across the room, the grandfather clock ticked down the seconds. If I didn’t figure out what spell the fae were trying to pull off, I’d soon be adding a lot more innocent lives to my already impressive tally.

  “Corbin.”

  I jerked my head up. Maeve stood in the doorway, her hip jutting out in a confident stance. She wore a simple black sundress covered in a pattern of cherry blossoms, the swoop of the skirt drawing my eye to her shapely legs and those incredible hips. She crossed her arms and stared at me with an expression that was half rage, half curiosity.

  I gulped, rubbing my eyes. Had I been asleep? I’d barely managed a couple of hours the last few nights. This was a particularly bad bout of insomnia. I’d been so distracted with the books, I hadn’t even noticed before how tired I felt, how my head throbbed under the strain of th
e dim lamp that lit my desk. The light from the windows had faded, and I had to squint to make out Maeve’s features from across the room.

  Books always did that to me, and languages. Time stood still while I patiently caressed them into giving up their secrets.

  “You didn’t come down for dinner,” Maeve said. She held up a plate. “Flynn was showing off his face. It’s nearly healed, which is pretty amazing. For not-doctors, you guys sure have the magic touch.”

  “We do our best.” I rubbed the spot on my shoulder where the fae’s claws and blade cut me. Even though the wounds had healed, the skin still itched a little. Maeve waited for me to elaborate, but I didn’t. I really didn’t think Maeve was in a place yet where she could deal with the idea of healing spells, especially not since I’d used them on her.

  “I called and called for you,” she said. “You didn’t answer, so I brought you up some leftovers. It’s this weird pie that’s filled with meat, which makes no sense to me but it was delicious, so what do I know?”

  “I… I didn’t hear you.” I glanced at the clock – it was half eight. How is it half eight already? I only sat down a few moments ago.

  “I know. I’ve been watching you for ages.” Maeve sashayed across the room, placing the plate on the corner of the desk. “You look exhausted. What are you doing?”

  I’m still trying to figure out what spell the fae are trying to perform,” I explained, pointing to the pictures in the book. “It’s hard because their magic is very different from ours. I’m hunting for references to spells they performed in the past. This is our coven’s grimoire. Or rather, one of them – we’ve filled up a few volumes over the centuries. The fae have made magical assaults on our realm before. I figure if they’ve tried anything like this in the past, our ancestors would’ve explained how to defeat it.”