Spirit of the Spell

by Lucia Ashta

  Spirit of the Spell

  Lucía Ashta

  Awaken to Peace Press

  Copyright 2017 Lucía Ashta

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  All rights reserved.

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  This is a work of fiction.

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  Cover design by Lou Harper of Harper by Design

  Awaken to Peace Press

  Sedona, Arizona

  www.awakentopeace.com

  I strive to produce error-free books. If you discover a mistake, please contact me at luciamashta@gmail.com so I may correct it. Thank you!

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  For my mamá,

  who loves me no matter what I do

  There is great power in thoughts, words, and actions. Wield that power wisely.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Magic Awakens

  Magic Awakens Preview

  Thank you

  Acknowledgments

  Titles by Lucía Ashta

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  “Brother, the runes… they predict death.” Mordecai bent over, hands on knees, out of breath in the threshold to Albacus’ study.

  Albacus looked up from his scroll and scoffed. “You and your runes. I hope you didn’t run all the way across the castle just to tell me some fanciful story.”

  “The runes are not fanciful. They’ve been used for ages to predict the future.”

  Albacus put his quill down and pushed his chair back. “By whom exactly? Some druids you’ve never met?”

  “You of all people should know better than to dismiss druids. Their magic might be different from ours, but it’s no less powerful.”

  “And you know this because of all the time you’ve spent in the company of druids?”

  “I understand how to use the runes to predict the future from scrolls and books, much as you’ve learned how to cast spells from the same sources.”

  “Oh, but the sources aren’t the same. Druids didn’t write down their wisdom. We have far fewer reliable books on druid magic than we do on our own. And there are hardly any druids left that still live.”

  “That we’re aware of.”

  “What? You think there are whole bands of druids out there somewhere, hiding from the magical world?”

  “Perhaps. If I were a druid I’d certainly hide from close-minded sorcerers like you.” Mordecai threw his hands up. “You’re infuriating, do you know that! You act like you’re all high and mighty and know everything.” He turned to leave.

  “Wait! Don’t leave without telling me what the runes said about death.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to know.”

  “I don’t, but since you came all this way, you might as well tell me, anyway.” Albacus crossed his arms across his robes and waited.

  Mordecai leaned against the threshold, the fight suddenly gone. He sighed long and hard, but that wouldn’t change the future the runes cast. “The runes foretold the death of our sister.”

  Several long breaths passed before Albacus responded. When he did, his voice was little more than a whisper. “Oliana?”

  Mordecai nodded, the beads in his shoulder-length hair sounding as sad as he was. “Yes, Oliana.”

  “Then let’s go find her.” Albacus was already on his feet.

  “I thought you didn’t believe in the runes’ predictions.”

  “I don’t.”

  “So why are we going to find her?”

  “Because I’m not taking any chances with Oliana. She’s my favorite sibling, after all.” Albacus’ lips moved inaudibly to cast a spell while he placed his hand next to the candle on his desk. The flame hopped from the wick to his open palm, and then he swept past Mordecai into the dark hallway.

  Mordecai wished he’d thought to bring a flame too. He was tired of walking in his brother’s shadow, but he hurried to keep up.

  He was still learning how to cast with runes, and it was more of an art than a science. Each configuration of the stones and symbols had several possible interpretations. To discern which was the correct one, the magician had to learn to feel the runes.

  And though Mordecai was still a student, the runes already spoke to him with remarkable clarity. If he was right, their little sister wouldn’t survive the day.

  Never had he wished so hard he might be wrong. And never had wishing accomplished so little.

  “I’ll never understand why father and mother allow the castle to behave like a petulant child,” Albacus said as they dodged the last of the swinging monkeys that dropped from the otherwise solid-looking ceiling. “It’s more dangerous to walk through the halls of our home than to head off to war, I swear. With how much father insists we not fight, you’d think he’d force the castle into line. One of those monkeys yanked my hair and tore a chunk from my scalp.” He rubbed at it. “It’s lucky it didn’t try to gouge out my eyes or something.”

  Yet Albacus had managed to keep the flame steady in his palm. At the age of twenty-eight, he was already a promising sorcerer. Had he been a part of the ordinary world, he’d already be considered a master. But in the magical world, the stakes were higher and far more deadly, and apprenticeships lasted as long as the teachers deemed them necessary—and their parents had impossibly high standards.

  Mordecai rubbed at his elbow. “I nearly fell when a crack opened up in the floor, and I knocked my elbow hard trying to gain my balance.”

  “Well, it’s all quite ridiculous.”

  “I sometimes wonder if father and mother set it up this way on purpose, if they’re the ones who enchanted the castle.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Perhaps it’s another one of their teaching lessons. Keep their pupils on edge all the time. You know what they’re like.”

  “I do. ‘You need to keep your magic strong and always alert. You never know where the threat will come from.’”

  “Right.”

  “Well, once the castle is ours, it’ll be the first thing we set right.”

  Mordecai stopped walking for a second, but then he ran past Albacus, setting his flame to flickering.

  “What is it?” Albacus started running too. “Mordecai?”

  “Don’t you hear that?” he called over his shoulder. “It’s Oliana, and she’s crying.”

  They batted the specters of shadowy fingers that emerged from the walls until they skidded to a stop in front of a closed door.

  Mordecai raised his hand to knock, but Albacus flung the door open on their sobbing sister.

  “My God, Oliana, what’s wrong?” Albacus slid to the floor next to the crumpled form of their sister and rested a hand on her shaking shoulder. She was curled in on herself on a rug in the middle of the room, which occupied the entire floor of the tower. “Are you hurt? Show us where.”

  Mordecai lowered himself to the floor next to her and pulled her into his chest, wrapping his arms around her. She dissolved into a series of wails, sobs, and the worst of it: the agonized silences in between the two.

  He whispered across the crown of her head, “You’re scaring us. What is it?”

  She only cried harder, her tears already soaking through Mordecai’s robe. He exchanged a look with Albacus. The arrogant older brother was gone, leaving a frightened and shaken man in his place. Oliana had never cried like this before. When her dog, her constant companion died, sh
e’d cried and mourned for days, but even then, it’d been nothing like this. She’d been six, and ten years had passed since.

  Albacus moved to the other side, from where he could see her face, and moved closer. He ran a hand along her long, braided hair and spoke with the gentleness a much older brother reserved for a sister he remembered as an infant. “Oliana, it’s us. Whatever it is, we’ll do everything we can to help you. But let us help you.”

  Oliana released another wave of tears that would awaken empathy in the most frigid of hearts.

  “We won’t judge you for whatever you’ve done,” Mordecai whispered. “We promise. You know us, we’ve done plenty of foolish things ourselves.”

  Albacus raised his eyebrows at him, but didn’t complain. “Oliana, please, talk to us.”

  Her cries subsided into hiccups and sniffles. When Albacus fished a handkerchief from the folds of his robes and passed it to her, she finally pulled her head away from the comfort Mordecai offered. She blew her nose in unladylike fashion, then clasped his hand.

  She raised swollen red eyes to her brothers. “Damien is dead.” Her chest caved in despite her bodice at the weight of the words, and she swooned.

  “Whoa, come here.” Mordecai pulled her back into him, but her eyes remained open. “It’ll be all right. We’re right here with you.”

  “No, it won’t be all right. Nothing will ever be all right again.” Her voice was thick and filled with a regret beyond her years.

  The moment she closed her eyes again, Albacus mouthed, “Who’s Damien?”

  Mordecai shrugged subtly.

  Albacus rubbed her back and spoke in words meant to be soothing. “Who’s Damien?” But they were anything but.

  Oliana cried, “The man I love!”

  Albacus flicked another confused look at his brother. “You mean Lord Willard?”

  “No I don’t mean that old goat father and mother want to marry me off to. I mean the man I love. The one that’s now dead.” Her voice trailed off, as dead sounding as her pronouncement.

  “We haven’t met Damien, have we?”

  “No. Father and mother would never allow me to bring him here. They forbade me from seeing him.”

  “They knew about him?” Mordecai asked.

  “Only enough to forbid me from seeing him and moving up the date for my marriage to Lord Willard.” She paused to blow her nose again. “They said he wasn’t good enough for me, that I needed to marry a man of my station. You know what they’re like.”

  Albacus sat back. “We certainly do.” They’d been trying to pair him with a suitable match for years. He kept managing to convince them to hold off for another year, but his luck wouldn’t hold forever.

  “So what happened?” Mordecai asked, squeezing her hand, hoping to lend her some courage.

  “I was supposed to meet him at the bottom of the mountain, next to that little waterfall, you know, the one I like so much? But he never showed.”

  “Wait,” Albacus said. “Father and mother were letting you meet with him?”

  “Of course not. I was going to sneak out again.”

  “Again?”

  “Well of course. How else do you think I’d manage to fall in love with a man our parents didn’t approve of? I’ve been sneaking out all year. One of the stable hands gets a horse ready for me and I go quietly. They’ve never noticed.”

  Even Mordecai was taken aback. “What?

  “You don’t need to look so shocked. I told mother I wanted some time to pursue silent contemplation of my studies next to my favorite waterfall.”

  “And she believed you?” Mordecai said.

  “Why wouldn’t she? You know what she’s like. She was all excited that I wanted time to meditate on the advance of my studies of magic.”

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Albacus said.

  “Just because you like to follow all the rules, doesn’t mean I do.”

  “I don’t like to follow them. I have to.”

  “It doesn’t matter. None of it does. Damien is dead now. Nothing matters anymore. Nothing ever will again.”

  “How do you know he’s dead? Did you see his body?”

  “What are you implying?”

  “Nothing at all. I’m just asking questions so we can understand what’s going on.”

  “His family was more accepting of me than ours of him. His sister was aware of our plans to marry in secret. Damien told her, and she supported us. She was happy for us. But today…” Oliana started crying again, a steady stream of tears trailed her cheeks, leaving damp spots on the silk of her dress. “Today Damien didn’t show up, but Henrietta did. She said he was in a hurry to get his work done this morning so he could sneak away to meet me, but there was an accident.”

  She drew breath with her mouth open, like a fish out of water, eyes wide and sorrowful. “The horses… He was kicked in the head by a horse.”

  “The horses?” Albacus said. “What horses? Explain yourself.”

  “Damien’s the son of a blacksmith, so he worked in his father’s shop, apprenticing. They shoe horses. It’s one of their main jobs. I don’t know how it happened.” More tears, more nose blowing. “But Henrietta says he’s dead.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Mordecai said.

  “I don’t understand how it could’ve happened. Damien was excellent at what he did. He knew his trade better almost than his father. He’d been handling the tools and the horses since before our parents would even let us do any fire magic. He wouldn’t have been this careless.”

  “Accidents happen, no matter how careful a person is. Sometimes death just comes for us before we realize it’s time.”

  “Well it wasn’t Damien’s time! He and I were going to marry next month. We were going to slip away during the harvest celebration.”

  Albacus said, “There’s no way our parents would’ve let you do that. You would’ve never married Damien.”

  Oliana stopped crying only long enough to glare at Albacus. “It’s not like I was going to ask for permission.”

  “So you were willing to become the wife of a blacksmith? Lose your title and dowry and who knows what else? Because you know our parents wouldn’t take kindly to your actions.”

  “I don’t care, Albacus. My happiness is worth more than a title and wealth.”

  “You wouldn’t have all these fine dresses you like to wear, or your jewelry.”

  Her quivering jaw slid forward in defiance. “I don’t care, Albacus.”

  Mordecai glared at Albacus behind her back, bent in defeat. In soothing tones meant for her, he said, “He must’ve meant a lot to you if you were willing to give all that up for him. And your magic.”

  She looked taken aback. “I wouldn’t have had to give up my magic.”

  Albacus said, “Well our parents certainly wouldn’t make the journey down the mountain and into town every day to teach you, that’s for certain. You’d be on your own, with so much still to learn about magic.”

  “I know enough.”

  “Just enough to be dangerous to yourself.”

  “That’s not true—”

  “It is. I thought the same thing when I was your age, that I’d learned all our parents could teach us. But it’s the refinements that take the longest to learn, and those are the ones that separate a good magician from a formidable one.”

  Oliana looked at Albacus, opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She turned to look out the window, her gaze vacant. “None of it matters now. If he’s dead, my life’s over.”

  Mordecai reached for her, but she scooted away. “That’s not true. You’re so young. Your heart might feel broken now, but it’ll mend—with time, lots and lots of time. You’ll learn to love again, eventually. Maybe even Lord Willard.”

  She scowled.

  “No, really. I realize not all arranged marriages are happy ones, but some are. Lord Willard could be a nice man.”

  “I don’t even know him!”

  “Exactly.
He might turn out to be nicer than you think.”

  “I’ll never love Lord Willard. I’ll never love again. My heart belongs to Damien. Now that he’s dead, my heart’s dead too.”

  Mordecai smiled a broken smile, for Oliana’s sake. “Remember Waggy?”

  “Of course I remember Waggy. He was my dog.”

  “You were broken-hearted when Waggy died. It took time, but eventually you healed and were able to move on, right?”

  She brought her hands to wipe tears from her face, the crumpled handkerchief in her palm, and then let them plop into her lap. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but it’s not working. Waggy was a dog. Damien is the man I thought I’d love forever. I don’t care how old I am, what awaits me is a lifetime without love, because the man I love is dead.”

  “Oliana—”

  She cut Mordecai off. “Please. Just leave me alone now. There’s nothing you can say or do to help. My life’s over.”

  “Maybe we should go see him—his body,” Albacus said while Mordecai shook his head fervently at him. “Mordecai’s a skilled healer. Perhaps there’s something he can still do.”

  “I can’t bring back the dead.”

  “Obviously not. But you know how things are, sometimes people are presumed dead when they aren’t all the way.”

  “No, Albacus. I don’t know that, not at all. It’s very rare for that to happen.”

  “But it could.” The tone in Oliana’s voice was dangerous, far worse than the grief from before. It was hope.

  “You shouldn’t have said that, Albacus.” Mordecai’s words were clipped, angry. “You’ll just get her hopes up and then it’ll hurt all the more when I confirm him dead.”

  “But you’ll go to him, right?” Suddenly Oliana was next to Mordecai, her eyes bright and shiny, the leftover tears accentuating the desperate prospect she clung to like a lifeline. “You’ll go, right? For me?”

  Mordecai flicked stormy eyes to Albacus, then back to her. “Of course I will. But promise me you won’t get your hopes up, all right? There’s likely nothing I can do to help him now.”