by Tanya Milne
‘Do you really want to be locked up with me?’ I asked, using the last of my energy to send a small fireball in his direction. He ducked and stomped out the flames.
Then he returned to the door, placed his hand on the key.
‘Any day now, Eva – any day now,’ he said, letting himself out of the cell before turning to glare at me. ‘And then so help you God.’
The room started to slip from my view again, but my words found their way. ‘Even God can’t save your soul, Noah.’
Swearing, he stormed back down the hall, leaving me safe for another day. But his words returned to me again: any day now.
He was right – I didn’t know how much longer I could keep him away, stop him from torturing me to find out the whereabouts of his sister. Tears sprang to my eyes. I wiped them away and lay back down on my bed, no longer able to support myself. I pictured those I loved – my family, Anna, Jet. They would be on their way to a better life – a happier life. I heard a sob. Was it my own?
Any day now Noah would find his way to me, and then when I couldn’t stop the guards from grabbing hold of me, I would hang…like Violet. I could no longer control my tears as I remembered my friend who had protected me and then given her life for mine.
I was so lost in my thoughts that it took me a few moments to realise that Orpheus – who had not once been to see me – had entered my cell and was sitting on a single chair in the corner. I glanced around and stationed at the door were three police officers, their eyes lasered in on me.
‘If you try anything untoward, Eva, the officers will have no choice but to shoot you,’ said Orpheus.
I dragged myself to sit up and tried my hardest not to cry out at the pain that rattled through my body.
‘I mean, personally I don’t want you to die just yet. I’d much rather make a public spectacle of you. But I suppose we could hang you if you’re dead and let the crows peck your eyes out.’
A chill went down my spine as I pictured the scene his words created.
Orpheus stared down at me as though I were a bug he wished to squish between his fingers. ‘Now, I suppose you’re wondering, to what do you owe the pleasure?’
I focused on breathing, in and out.
‘It’s simple really – I want to know where your family and Jet are in hiding.’
I sneered at him before turning away.
‘If you don’t answer me, I will take that as an act of non-compliance.’ He withdrew the black crystal and held it towards me.
I cowered away, pressed myself into the wall. I remembered how I’d felt with my hands clutched around the crystal – as if all the power within the world belonged to me. Yet, held against me, the crystal stripped me bare, tormented my soul.
‘So, what’s it to be?’ he asked.
Inside, my dark beast broke free. I launched myself on him like a rabid dog and reached for the crystal that was just beyond my reach.
‘Guards!’ yelled Orpheus.
I launched myself at him again, my teeth bared. I nearly had my hand on the crystal when an officer grabbed me and threw me against the wall. I fell to the ground and pain ripped through my body before the darkness came and took me away. For a time I could not know, I was trapped in a place where death waited patiently nearby.
A searing pain brought me back into the light – where the real hell was waiting for me. Guards pinned me down while Orpheus held the crystal against my hand, burning me. I screamed and cried, but he pressed harder, filling my nostrils with the smell of burning skin. Eventually he stopped, but the guards held me firmly so that I couldn’t move.
‘So where are they?’ Orpheus asked again before pulling back my top, exposing the skin on my arm.
I held back the tears that threatened, but made myself look him in the eyes. ‘No matter what you do to me, I will never tell you.’
Orpheus’s eyes narrowed as he lowered the crystal to my skin and seared me so deeply that my skin blistered and blood seeped from my wounds. Over and over, he burned me, threatened to kill me, demanded to know where my family was. I stayed silent, retreating to a place so far inside of myself that there was no pain, no life.
I heard a scream. Was it my own? Someone shook me. Someone called my name. I came back into my body, which burned with horrendous pain I’d never known existed. I gazed down at my arms, which wore Orpheus’s torture marks. He’d branded me. But he would never beat me.
‘Who made you like this? What did they do to you?’ I asked.
Orpheus’s nostrils flared, but in the moment before his dictator mask returned, I saw the pain of a child etched into his face.
‘Who would hurt a child?’ I said, my voice softer.
Orpheus stood and turned his back to me. The guards, who had released me, stood next to Orpheus, their wide eyes staring only at my burns.
‘It wasn’t right, Orpheus. You didn’t deserve what they did to you. You were just a child.’
‘Shut up!’
‘Was it your parents? Did they torture you? Did they make you want to control everything and everyone? Did they close your heart to the world?’
Orpheus spun around to me, his face scarlet. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about – you evil, evil witch.’
I held his gaze. ‘I see you.’
‘You see nothing! And soon, you will never see anything ever again.’
I pressed my back against the wall to stop myself from falling over.
‘You don’t have to be this way. You can choose another path,’ I said.
Orpheus’s face scrunched up as he tried to hold onto the threads of control that were unravelling inside him.
‘How dare you talk to me like this!’
‘Your wife, your son, they love you. You are not alone. You could choose to love them, love life, love yourself.’
Orpheus rubbed his face violently. ‘How dare you talk about my family, my family who wanted you as part of ours. When I think about it, how you tricked us, manipulated us, of how close you came – a WITCH – it sickens me to the core.’
‘I might be a witch, but I never meant any harm and I never tricked any of you. What Ezra and I felt, that was real. We…loved each other.’
Orpheus’s face looked as if it were sitting in a pot of boiling water.
‘YOU. ARE. A. WITCH,’ he screamed, his voice rebounding around the small cell. ‘You were born an evil witch and you will die an evil witch. You will go to the devil – where you belong.’
‘I might die a witch, Orpheus,’ I said quietly, keeping eye contact. ‘But like you, I will make a choice about whether I die with love or hate in my heart – and no matter what you do to me, I will choose to love.’
Orpheus raised his hand to strike me.
‘Not long ago, I was a child, like you once were. And even after what you do to me, however you torture me, however much you hate me, I will choose to love.’
His lips parted, and for the smallest moment he saw past the image of me he had created, to the person I really was; and he saw the truth of who he was and what he was doing to me.
He dropped his hand, his body shaking.
‘You can change your mind at any time,’ I said. ‘You can choose love.’
‘Or I could kill you,’ he said, his face set again. ‘Exterminate one more witch from the world.’
And then he turned and strode from my cell, his heavy, solid footsteps echoing through the long underground tunnel.
One of the officers cleared his throat. ‘I’ll see if I can find something…for that.’
I glanced down at my arms, a fresh wave of pain rushing over me.
‘And if you promise not to tell,’ said another quietly, ‘I’ll bring you some food.’
I glanced up at the officers who had been attending me for days. The faceless men who were not so faceless after all.
‘Yes, thank you,’ I said, tears prickling my eyes. I sank down into my bed, pulled my knees to my chest and gave in to the tears that could no longer be d
enied.
Chapter Seventeen
When I woke, I kept my eyes closed. I was not alone. I knew what sat beside me, what was above me, what filled the cells. My time had come. The dark creatures no longer had to attack me. They knew that I had nothing left to fight them. It was simply their time to come for me, to take me away with them.
I felt their icy bodies pressing against me. For a few moments, I craved to be taken from my pain, from my bruised and battered body into another world where I would be powerful and strong once again, where I would command an army to do my bidding, where they would kill Orpheus, Max, Noah – at my command – and I would want them to. My inner goodness – my light in the world – would be extinguished like a match that had been blown out.
I could feel them now, on my skin, drawing me to them, claiming me. I tried to find something, anything from the depths of my soul, but I had nothing left. I’d been drained, left to rot; I craved death.
My life flashed before my eyes. My brother was running beside me as we raced along the stream near our old home. My parents laughed as they chased us. Then we were older. Elijah opened the door to our home to let me in. A simple act. But the feeling I’d had only moments before, of being all alone, was replaced by love. My mum, sitting at the end of my bed, talking to me about how much I meant to her. My dad taking me in his arms on the day we decided to move, telling me that everything would work out okay, just wait and see. Ezra, there he was, holding me in his arms while feelings I’d never experienced before exploded inside me. Violet, sitting beside me in her snug lounge room, bringing me untold comfort. And then there was Jet, crouched in front of me, tending my wounds, unspoken love in his every movement.
As the creatures came closer, I heard them – the wings of a bird. The wind of the bird as it fluttered past me. The air filled with birdsong, sweet and soulful. The final gift, given to me by life, before I would be taken away. I opened my eyes. Sitting there on my chest was a blue wren, something tangled on its foot.
Its vibrant blue feathers fluffed up as it shook its foot, dropping a little package onto me. It cocked its head, repeating its soulful song. The dark creatures, who had moved into the shadows, came forward once again as the little bird took to the air.
The dark creatures finally came for me, but I placed my hand against my chest, over what I had been given. The power of what lay there surged through me. From my body emerged a bright light that the creatures screamed and thrashed away from before evaporating.
Finally I was alone. I opened my hand and there was the bracelet Jet had given me for my debutante ball. It was his most precious belonging; passed from mother to daughter for countless generations, infused with magical powers and properties; his gift that had just saved my life. I kissed the bracelet, the stones sparkling their brilliance around the empty cell.
‘Thank you, Jet,’ I whispered, remembering how I’d felt when Jet had placed the bracelet on my wrist for the first time and how I’d felt when Ezra told me I must put it away so I would forget all about Jet, so that we could create a future together.
And then I remembered Violet’s parting words to the world, ‘Never stop believing in love.’
I cried out, my pain echoing from the cell and out into the tunnels that spread like tumours under the earth.
Love. Once its sweet, magical essence had filled me, shone from me like a beacon of light. Once Ezra had loved me. He’d been my first love. I remembered back to our first night on the boat when he’d told me, ‘Don’t forget, if you are ever lost, follow the Northern Star – it will help you find your way home.’
I stared at the bracelet, searching for the promised star, but there were no stars, nothing to lead me home. I was all alone. Pain rippled through my body.
From the depths came another memory – the morning I had danced with Jet after my debutante ball, when he’d given me his mother’s bracelet. The bracelet that I’d hidden away at home, beside my own necklace – the pentagram; hiding my powers – my birthright.
I closed my eyes and heard the sea roar below where we had danced. The sky turned pink and the sun broke over the horizon, blessing us with a new day. Jet had pulled me close and spoken to me, his words altering our relationship forever.
‘I don’t know what our futures will bring, but you need to remember that I love you. I will always love you. And I will be here for you, waiting for you, hoping that one day you will choose me. Because I know that I could make you happy.’
For a few blessed moments, I was filled with a love; not my first, but a love that was deeper and stronger – found in the depths of the seas. It was the memory that I’d called upon to get rid of the dark spirits. And now, in the dark night of my soul, it brought me untold comfort.
I opened my eyes. In that moment I knew that I had no magical powers left to call on. My fire had died. I was all alone. Max would return. Noah would return. I would no longer be able to keep them away. Tears streamed down my face. Soon my life would be stamped out. I would never see my family again. I would never meet my baby niece or nephew. I would never see Jet.
I clutched my heart as the bitter truth revealed itself to me. I didn’t just care for Jet – I loved him. Not like a friend. Or a lover. Both lover and friend. Someone I wanted to be with forever. His words returned to me then, as though he’d spoken them.
‘Remember that I love you. I will always love you.’
And in that moment I knew three things all at once.
Firstly, Jet had sent me the bracelet to protect me, to fill me with energy that was not my own, energy that belonged to the women who’d created him, the women who had loved him.
I also knew that Noah would return, Max would return and the dark forces would return, and that they would fight my powers with everything they had, until I died.
Lastly, I knew I would do anything to keep the promise I had made to myself – that no matter what happened to me, no matter how bad my life got, I would choose to believe in love. Always.
* * *
THE END
Note from the Author
Thank you for reading The Witch Born to Smoulder, the fourth book in the Inferno series.
If you enjoyed reading this, I’d be very grateful if you could recommend this book to others and leave an honest review on Amazon, BookBub and/or Goodreads.
Recommendations help give books the chance to succeed, enabling writers to keep writing.
I’m excited to let you know that the fifth and final book in the Inferno series, The Witch Born to Scorch, is available to pre-order and will be published in June 2020.
To pre-order, go to:
http://mybook.to/WitchBorntoScorch
Or search:
The Witch Born to Scorch on Amazon.
Here’s a little teaser.
Get Ready to Scorch
A power laced with darkness and light. A tyrant who won’t stop until she burns. To put an end to the evil, she’ll have to decide what kind of witch she wants to be.
Eva’s no longer hiding her true identity, but she’s fighting for her life. Inside her rages a battle of two forces, one that thirsts for revenge and another that seeks freedom.
When she’s condemned as a witch, Eva must dig deeper than ever before to find the strength to save herself.
With the return of the dark days of witch persecution and an evil mayor hunting her, she must decide what’s important to her and whom her heart truly belongs to.
Will Eva fight for her freedom, or will she choose revenge and become the Fire Queen - the leader of the dark forces, as the prophecy predicted?
Can Eva protect those she loves without sacrificing her life?
The Witch Born to Scorch is the fifth and final book in the spellbinding Inferno YA witch fantasy series. If you like forbidden magic, simmering chemistry, and page-turning paranormals, then you'll love Tanya Milne's compelling supernatural tale.
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About the Author
Tanya has an undergraduate arts degree (history, economics and politics), a postgraduate business communication diploma and a successful career in internal communication.
She’s been writing creatively since she was a small child. For the last fifteen years, she’s been learning the craft of novel writing and is focussed on building a career as a novelist. Tanya enjoys writing books for women and children. The Inferno series are her debut novels.
Tanya’s writing highlights include, completing a writing mentorship with Nike Sulway (nee Bourke) and attending numerous courses, including the selective Writing Children’s and YA with Curtis Brown Creative UK. She enjoyed completing a year-long Writing for Children with Nicolas Brasch. One of her unpublished middle grade novels was short listed in the 2019 Affirm Press Mentorship Award.
Tanya is a member of Writers Victoria, The Duck Pond, The Women’s Fiction Writers Association and The Scribbles Academy.
At their core, Tanya’s stories help inspire her readers to use their courage and strength to overcome adversity. Her books have been described as lyrical, gripping with a strong pinch of love and a touch of magic. Or they are about cake, or chocolate – or sometimes both.