The Discovered

by Maggie Sunseri

  Nathaniel was dressed in a black uniform, and his energy was overbearing, desperate, and on high alert. It was imprinted heavily with Lucius’s putrid power. I shut it out of my field of perception before it brought me down to his level.

  Now I wondered if the core of Daelon’s aura—the only person’s I couldn’t read—felt the same. The thought made me sick. But then why were the parts he showed me so pure? So intent on protecting me? I couldn’t make sense of it, and it made me distrust my gifts, my intuition, my judgement, and myself.

  “Oh piss off,” Taryn said, loudly and confidently.

  Nathaniel looked me up and down like the others had, his eyes beginning to burn with hunger. His sandy blond hair was shorter than it was just a week ago, and his features were strong and sharp. “How are you still alive?” he asked. His tone was both mean and genuine at the same time.

  “Are you questioning our king’s decisions?” Taryn asked with faux surprise.

  A door slammed in the distance, and I could faintly make out laughter from around a corner. I wouldn’t be able to find my way back to my chambers if my life depended on it. It was like a labyrinth of passageways, forking off in new directions at each end.

  “You know I would never,” Nathaniel spat. “We both know that you, on the other hand, smell like a heretic.”

  I could feel Taryn’s energy shift into something violent. “Sounds like more questioning of our divine ruler’s judgement to me.”

  His lip curled like a rabid animal, glancing at me. “Lucius and Daelon are celebrating their reunion, I’ve heard. Probably with orgies.”

  Taryn grabbed my wrist, pulling me forward before I could react. She stared Nathaniel down as we passed. We quickly rounded a corner into a darker, simpler hallway. The walls were plain stone, lined with many small, flickering candles. They leapt higher as we passed.

  My stomach lurched and sank, and I struggled against the pull to lose control. I knew it was what Nathaniel wanted, so that Lucius would have the opportunity to retaliate against me. Nathaniel wanted me dead. Now I understood that Daelon and Nathaniel’s feud was really about which one could crawl further up Lucius’s ass.

  “Áine. Finally,” a familiar voice echoed from behind a tall door, delighted and genuine. It sounded like Amos, the old man I saw while astral projecting. The door swung open, and light spilled out.

  “I’m not big into this stuff, especially not when Nathaniel is breathing down my neck and all, but uh, you-know-who thought it would help,” Taryn stuttered, visibly uncomfortable.

  I didn’t understand what Nathaniel’s accusation meant—about being a heretic—or what it had to do with Amos, but I could tell her energy was crawling back into itself. It reminded me of the walls I sensed around Daelon’s aura.

  Amos appeared in the doorway; his eyes crinkled with laughter lines. His white beard was tied with jewelry that looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure why. The first time I saw him in the astrals, he was here in this room, and he seemed to be tapping into that same pool of energy I had at my fingertips. He knew who I was without being able to see my astral form with his eyes. The second time I had been pulled from my body by the whispers of who I thought were my mothers and my people. They led me to a barren forest, where a dark altar lay in a clearing, its energy revealing tragedy and destruction. Amos told me I couldn’t be there, but I knew that whatever that place was, it was key to unlocking my purpose.

  “Áine? Will you be alright if I leave you here for a while and come back?”

  I met Taryn’s eyes and nodded, forcing the slightest smile. I hated to admit it, but Daelon was right. Amos was the only person I wanted to talk to right now. His aura was the purest I had ever encountered. It reminded me of the home I’d never been.

  “Come in, come in,” he said, like this was the happiest moment of his existence. I had a feeling that his every moment was treated with the same excitement and reverence. “I’ve been waiting for you for so long.”

  Taryn gave us a skeptical look and then retreated back down the corridor, her purple dress rippling out behind her striking form.

  I followed Amos’s beckoning and took a seat with him on plush, purple floor cushions. It reminded me of my training sessions with Daelon. Was this where he learned all of those meditative tools? Was Amos the mystical friend he wanted me to meet, the only person from his past he seemed to regard positively?

  He smoothed out his magenta robes, his features still bright and warm. It was rare that someone’s aura ever matched their outward appearance. Most people spent a lot of time pretending and covering up what they actually felt inside.

  “Do you think anyone’s listening?” I had so much to ask, and I knew most of it would be dangerous for us both.

  He let out a full-bodied laugh, like I’d told a joke. If things were different, I might’ve given in to his infectious humor and laughed with him.

  “I’m not someone often listened to, my dear. Not anymore. Not here.”

  “I—I don’t understand what here is. I don’t understand anything really,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. I looked away at the tall, overflowing bookshelves that lined the right wall. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I’m still a bit shaken up by it all.” That was an understatement.

  I was shocked at immediately opening up to someone who was supposed to feel like a stranger. He just didn’t. He felt like someone I’d known for a very long time. Even still, my ability to trust my magickal inclinations was in question.

  “You’ll get it back.”

  I jerked my head back to meet his eyes. “Get what back?”

  “Your trust. In yourself, and in others.” He was staring at me, but also staring through me. “Don’t worry. I can’t read your every thought. It was more of an intuition, you see.”

  I nodded, feeling relieved, but still suspicious. I wasn’t used to having the tables turned back around on me.

  “You’re on the outskirts of the King’s City, the Kingdom of Aradia’s capital. It’s loosely located on top of North America, in Earth terms, but it’s not an exact science as I’m sure you’ve gathered. Time and space do not function the same way in the higher dimensions. They simply don’t have to.”

  I frowned. Not really what I asked, mysterious guru.

  “What do you need to know, specifically? I will be as helpful as I can, but some things can’t to be said aloud, under this regime. I hope you understand.”

  “I don’t know where to begin,” I started, my voice soft and unsure. “Where does all this power come from? Why did it tell me so many lies and lead me astray? Everyone has told me I’m supposed to bring hope, or salvation, or whatever else. From this place, from him. But how? What if it was all just wishful thinking?”

  Amos closed his eyes, a faint smile still etched into his features. He reminded me of those gurus in India that Steph, my friend from the human realm, was so obsessed with. They were always so inexplicably happy, even when surrounded by poverty and suffering.

  “What if the path you imagined was just different from the path laid out for you?”

  I tried not to grow frustrated as my heart rate picked up. I couldn’t even put into words the disappointment and shame of feeling the entire universe at my fingertips and still being betrayed, defeated, and humiliated. When I found a way to show Daelon what my power felt like, he said its magick felt like the Divine. He couldn’t look at me the same way after. When it overtook me in battle or in my meditations it felt like I became Magick itself—something universal and sacred, intertwined with all the natural forces in the world. So how then did I end up here?

  I shook my head indignantly. “I asked if I could trust Daelon—in my ocean of magick—and I saw him as a child, running through burning streets. I know in my gut the people who killed his parents are the same who killed mine, and those witches are connected to Lucius. He said we had common enemies. But he lied to me over and over again, and I believed him because my power led me to. We had the same past, and he still betr
ayed me. He was betraying me all along, every step of the way.”

  Amos was quiet for too long, so I continued. The floodgates burst forth, and the candles around the room grew and waved wildly.

  “Now I’m trapped here and outnumbered. I was so close to—” killing Lucius. Before Daelon tackled me and snatched the dagger I’d manifested out of thin air. But I couldn’t say that, not to anyone. I knew it wasn’t safe to tell a single soul, no matter how pure. I knew Lucius’s over-inflated ego would never allow me to live if I did, even if Daelon was convinced I couldn’t have actually killed him.

  I took a deep breath, my mind too scattered still. “This power led me to believe I was finally going to fulfill a grand purpose. It was telling me a story piece by piece, and I thought that eventually it would all come together. Now I just feel foolish. I know nothing about this realm or my magick, which has been made abundantly clear to me.” By Lucius. By Daelon.

  “Hmm,” Amos said, opening his eyes. “Why trust me now?”

  I faltered. Maybe this was a huge mistake, too. An illusion or a trick. An image of those cosmic waves overwhelmed my mind’s eye, whispering still, despite my reluctance to listen. They crested, and I heard my mothers’ voices loud and clear, telling me to trust my intuition as they usually did.

  I shook my head. “Because you were there, in the place my power comes from. In all places, all at once. You felt it. Either you’re completely sociopathic and can feel all of that—whatever it is—and still be evil, or you’re like me, somehow,” I blurted. “Why? Why were you there?”

  “You pulled me there. Your mothers pulled me there. The energy itself pulled me there. I can feel it, but I cannot use it. Not like you can.”

  His words resonated, even as I still fought against their truth. You lied to me, I sent out to my power, and I felt it protest. “You knew my mothers?”

  Amos nodded. “You are not alone, Áine. You have friends here, but he can never know that. We had to do what we needed to survive, just as you will. All of us.”

  He looked at me pointedly, and I knew exactly who he was referencing. I just didn’t want to accept it. If Daelon was just doing what he needed to survive, then he could’ve told me. We could have done it together. Instead, he destroyed me knowingly and without a moment’s pause.

  “What happened to this place? To this realm? Why is its energy marred by so much pain and tragedy?”

  Amos raised a finger to his lips. “The Kingdom of Aradia is all there is, all that has been, and all that will be for all of eternity. King Lucius is ordained by the high, unknown realms, and as such has been bestowed with the greatest power this world has ever seen.”

  I raised a brow, but soon realized this was Amos’s way of warning me that the history of this strange, medieval labyrinth was not only dangerous to discuss, but also clearly key to my understanding of my entire confusing existence. Like any evil dictator, Lucius had some kind of dominion over the true history of his reign. I was determined to uncover it all.

  Because there was one thing I knew for certain: Lucius’s power had not been bestowed upon him. He stole it. It was unnatural—the complete antithesis to my own—and he was very defensive of that fact. He nearly struck Daelon down for even hinting the universe was imbalanced, like it countered a carefully constructed alternate history he used to explain his power and his rule.

  So then what was the real history? I knew it was the same as the story I’d been receiving in bits and pieces, the one that was to reveal my role in righting Lucius’s wrongs and restoring some kind of balance. I needed to connect it all together.

  My stomach sank and churned. How could I do any of that with so little faith in myself? In my supposed fate? Lucius was right. I knew absolutely nothing. I was trapped here, a prisoner, with absolutely no one who was willing or even able to help, save maybe Amos. Something so innately sinister had happened to this realm. It was not the place of wonder and magick my mothers described to me in my bedtime stories. It was like a bad dream I couldn’t escape.

  “You better go. I sense that the King is getting curious about your whereabouts, and I’m not sure he’d like the two of us speaking. He doesn’t tend to do well with things he doesn’t understand.”

  I nodded, rising from my floor cushion. “It was nice to meet you—in person,” I managed, and my heart began to clench up once more.

  “See me again soon. There are still things we can discuss that will help you. Things that the King will never see as a threat.” He winked at me. “And that is his weakness,” he said quieter.

  I mulled over his words. “Okay. Thank you.” I still had so much more to ask. Like about that mysterious altar we were both called to.

  He waved his hand. “Oh, and do think about what I said about your friend. You’re letting your emotions get in the way of seeing the truth. Which is understandable. We all like feeling we are in control.” He smiled at me.

  I clenched my jaw, reaching for the door.

  “Goodbye, Áine.”

  After three days of despair in this dark castle, I knew I was already crawling back to myself. A door creaked open ever so slightly in my heart, like a compromise with the Universe to at least hear it out—give it a second chance.

  I couldn’t let a sociopathic, power-drunk king have the last say in who I was or what I was capable of. I couldn’t let myself crumble just because I made the mistake of falling in love with a domineering liar.

  There was work to be done.

  Chapter 2

  Panic set in as I realized I had no idea where I was or how to get back to the safety of my chambers. I sure as hell didn’t want Lucius or any of his henchmen to find me wandering around like a lost puppy. Where was Taryn when I actually needed babysitting?

  “Lost?”

  And just like that, I’d already failed. My power encircled me like a wall of flames at the sound of Daelon’s voice. He stepped around the corner, and we met face to face. I took a step back as he stepped forward.

  A flicker of sadness flashed through his dark eyes. Only a week ago a look like that would be sending me into his chest, desperate to ease his pain. Desperate for him to let me in.

  “No,” I lied.

  He smirked, but his eyes remained soft. “You look… enticing.”

  I hope you enjoyed a look inside the exciting second book of The Lost Witches of Aradia series. CLICK HERE to keep reading The Coveted, The Lost Witches of Aradia Book 2, releasing February 2022.