Hidden Magic

by Melinda Kucsera

  “But she doesn’t know anything!” It was a woman’s voice. Carol assumed it was the woman who had looked at her through the amethyst ring.

  “Aye! And still she’s won, at that!” Ian exclaimed. “She’ll be fine, I tell ye. She’s a feisty one, Carlie is.”

  Carol felt a moment of pride at his confidence in her. She would not disappoint him. She would talk to Fortuna Giannopoulos again. And she would talk to Julia. Julia could help her fortify herself, both mentally and physically. She was a nurse, and one of Carol’s closest friends and confidants.

  Carol thought there was more coming her way… she could feel it, like ozone in the air before a lightning strike. She would be ready. She would learn as much as she could. She would not let herself be taken unaware again like she had been today. And yet, Freddie Archegon had not seemed so terrible, had in fact been quite pleasant. She knew there was more to this story, but she was just too tired to do much beyond make herself some leftover soup and crawl into bed with a good mystery novel. The spirits seemed too busy communing amongst themselves. Maybe they were arguing again; Carol didn’t know and didn’t care at that moment.

  She was just getting ready to turn off the light, when the telephone next to the bed rang, shrill in the silence. Carol wondered who it could be at this late hour. She picked it up.

  “Hello?” she said.

  The voice on the other side was smooth and cultured…, and familiar. It was not a voice she had expected to ever hear again. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

  “Is this Carol Conley? This is Freddie, Freddie Archegon. I think you may have something that belongs to me.”

  Carol has the ring, but how will she keep such a powerful moonstone out of Freddie Archegon’s grasp when he knows she has it? And what, exactly, would he do with it anyway? Find out in Wayward Magic.

  About the Author

  Born in Philadelphia, Leah W. Van Dinther never wanted to fit into the mold of “normal.” She spent her childhood around old buildings, art, society, and horses, and usually had her nose buried in a book. She accumulated knowledge like a hoard of treasure and, at some point in her younger years, realized that her greatest wish (outside of horses) was to have a library like the one in Alexandria. Lo-and-behold, the Internet was invented, and her wish came true!

  Leah has been a poet, a writer, a waitress, a cook, a dessert-chef, a Montessori teacher, an artist, a rock-star, and a horse trainer. She still accumulates knowledge like it’s going out of style and in a dizzying array of topics. No really, it would make your head spin.

  She married a wonderful artist/musician/author/chef who challenges her, supports her, helps her, and loves her unconditionally to this day. His smile also makes her weak in the knees.

  After spending twenty-two years in Western Montana, Leah now lives in California with her family, and her horses, Badger and Zeina. She is very glad to be up in the mountains, but thankful that there is not so much snow.

  For more information about the author, please visit: http://www.ghost-stalkers.com, and don’t forget to 1-click Wayward Magic for more magic and mayhem!

  The Mark of the Red God

  Majanka Verstraete

  All mages of the Seven Kingdoms have been branded with a rune that makes it impossible for them to access their magic. Despite the mark, Saleyna Loxley, a sixteen-year-old girl from a small town, still has access to some of her powers. As an Empath, she can connect with other people and sense their emotions. Sometimes, she can even influence other people’s emotions. However, as the Red Priests are keen to destroy any magic-wielder, Saleyna must hide her magic at all costs.

  Majanka Verstraete

  Saleyna Loxley was branded with the mark of the Red Priests, like all mages in the Seven Kingdoms. These marks should make it impossible for them to access their magic, but Saleyna’s powers refuse to be bound by the mark burned into her skin. As an Empath witch, she can sense other people’s emotions and intentions, and influence them, for good or for bad.

  When the Brotherhood of Whispers, a top-secret underground organization of mages, enlists Saleyna’s help, she’s reluctant to get involved. Overthrowing the Red Priests means committing treason against the High King since he was the one who decreed all magic should be banned. Plus, infiltrating into the Red Priests’ stronghold means entering the lion’s den, because as soon as one of them finds out Saleyna still has her magic, her life is forfeit.

  When Saleyna uncovers things are far less straightforward than she thought, and not everything is what it seems, her magic might be the only thing keeping her alive…

  Chapter One

  My mother pulled my arms behind me, restraining me with all her strength. I kicked at her, jerking my arms in every direction in a feeble attempt to get free.

  I bit her hand as hard as I could, drawing blood.

  She cursed and let go of me for a brief second, but that was enough. I sprinted forward, trying to get away from my mother and the madness going on around us.

  Most of all, I wanted to get away from the woman who loomed in front of me, clad in her long, red robes, with a matching hood covering her hair. She reached for me just as I tried to get past her, and with surprising strength, lifted me up.

  “Stay still, child.” Her voice was firm, the voice of someone whose orders usually got obeyed.

  I screamed as loud as I could, until my lungs burned, and my throat turned raw.

  The woman in red didn’t flinch.

  “Hold her,” she ordered my mother.

  My mother followed the command, restraining me again. “This is for your own good,” she said through gritted teeth.

  As the woman in red brought the mark closer to my forehead, I struggled with all the strength I possessed. An irrational fear took hold of me. I had seen my cousin Fiona pass out when the brand touched her forehead, her flesh sizzling as it burned. I had seen my brother weep like a little child, although he was by far the toughest person I knew.

  I stared at the branding iron, shaped like a cross, with complicated symbols on the bottom right and top left. I was only six years old, but I had never been this terrified of anything before in my life.

  Then, the iron torched my skin, and there was nothing but scorching red pain and a seemingly endless scream.

  It only lasted a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. As if that one moment would forever define me: there would be a me-from-before and a me-from-after, but I would be forever divided in two halves. The girl from before and the girl from after, and those two halves would never be whole again.

  The woman in red removed the branding iron from my skin and put it down on the floor. A calm smile crossed her features. She didn’t seem in the least upset at the horror she had put me and my family through.

  “From now on, you’re cured.” She clapped her hands. “Cured from that rotten magic coursing through your veins, poisoning you from the inside out. You will no longer die like some of your ancestors have, so infested with magic that it turned their veins black.”

  No more magic. Even though I was just a child, I had heard about the women in red, priestesses to the Blood God, who traveled all across the realms to purify those tainted by magic, or ‘cure’ them, as this woman called it. A brand marking your forehead was the least these horrible creatures did; for those already spoiled by magic, they served as judges and executioners at the same time.

  No more magic.

  It seemed too terrible to be true.

  Chapter Two

  Ten Years Later

  The Red Priests flanked the woman on the stage, two of them holding her arms on each side. The leader of their pack, a towering woman with long, grey hair escaping from underneath her red hood, stood in front of the woman being held back by her companions.

  The grey-haired woman also wore a red robe, the trademark outfit of the Priests of the Red God, the Blood God, but her robes were adorned with markings and runes in a language older than our kingdom.

  “Witchcraft
,” she said, her words cutting through the silence that had fallen over the crowd. The market square of our town, Bellhaven, had never been so busy before, not even during the yearly farmer’s market in the height of summer that drew out people from far beyond our town.

  The Red Priests ordered everyone to be present. They knocked on doors, dragging people from their beds, forcing parents to bring along their children, even their babies, as we all stood on the market square, huddling together like cattle.

  Which was exactly what we were: cattle, ready for the slaughter.

  The moment the Red Robes stormed into town, bringing with them mayhem and vengeance, I felt something bad was about to happen, felt it in my bones. The last time they had come here, when I was barely six years old, was forever burned into my skin and soul.

  My brother poked me in the ribs, and I realized I brought my hand up to the mark on my forehead without realizing it. I quickly brought my hand down. The mark, forever etched into my skin, was a permanent reminder of the horrors the Red Priests were capable of.

  “Per decree of the High-King,” the woman on the stage continued, “witchcraft is outlawed in all of the Seven Kingdoms and has been for the last decade. Witches must be branded through the markings provided to us by the grace of the Red God, so that their magic is caged. This has been the law for ten years.”

  Her eyes spit fire as she glanced down at us, at the crowd of heretics, which she, no doubt, believed we were. “Yet, imagine our surprise when we, disciples of the Red God, were warned that you were hiding witches in your midst.”

  The Red Priestess splayed open her arms, gesturing at the kneeling woman behind her, who was being held by several of the Red God’s acolytes. The woman’s hair was drenched from sweat, her face streaked with dirt, and tears pooled from her eyes. Aife. I had known her my entire life.

  She stared into the crowd, her eyes flickering back and forth, panic setting in.

  Look at me, I reached out for her. Look at me.

  Despite the brand on my skin, locking up my magic, I could still feel the remnants of it: a small, almost insignificant part of my magic that had survived, that had been strong enough to withstand the horrible strength of the rune.

  Look at me, I said again in my mind, urging my magic to find a way to Aife’s.

  Aife still looked around frantically—for someone to save her? For someone to step in and end this execution before it was too late?

  No one would step in.

  One month ago, when the Red Priests descended upon the town of Greymere, twice the size of ours and barely half a day’s walk away, no one complained while the Priests butchered an entire family—parents and children. When two weeks before that, the Priests raided Hammell, the biggest town in our province, and lined up five families for the slaughter, no one dared to utter a word of protest.

  No one would do anything to save Aife. Not even me, stupid coward that I was.

  Look at me, I repeated, sending a stronger surge of power her way.

  Finally, her gaze met mine. Her blue eyes, the color of a freshwater lake, focused on me. I remembered how kind she had been when I hurt my knee while falling on the cobblestones, now many years ago. How she had patched me up by bandaging my wounded knee. And years later, when my mother was dying, when she was being devoured from the inside-out by a magic that now it could no longer be let out, had slowly turned against her, it was Aife who had sat next to my mother’s bed, holding her hand. Aife’s third eye, square in the middle of her forehead, had gazed into my mother’s disease-ridden body and had figured out what was wrong with her.

  For healers, the marks the Red Priests used were even worse. The Priests burned them right on top of their third eye, basically robbing them from one of their senses completely.

  Of course, Aife, even with her third eye, couldn’t fix my mother’s illness. No one could. The magic had slowly torn my mother apart, piece by piece, until all that was left was a festering husk.

  I shivered, refusing to think about those days. My mother was now nothing but a skeleton withering away in a shallow grave outside of town, one of many, her soul forever departed to a world that I prayed was better than our current one.

  Stay calm, I urged Aife now she had her eyes on me. It won’t hurt. I promise. As long as you focus on me.

  “Show us your witchcraft,” the Red Priest barked at Aife suddenly, grabbing her hair and pulling her head.

  I gritted my teeth. Don’t be afraid, I sent to Aife. Be strong.

  My hands balled into fists. If my magic hadn’t been locked up, if it had been free, I would’ve used it to completely and utterly destroy that woman in red, that she-devil, that demoness sent by the Red God.

  I would tear her apart limb by limb until her world existed only out of pain.

  “Open,” she snarled at Aife, and I knew what she meant instantly. The third eye.

  Tears rolling out of her eyes, Aife shook her head. “Please,” she sobbed in a broken voice. “Please.”

  I started shivering. My brother closed his hand over one of my fists, a gesture of support, but also a gesture reminding me that I had to stay calm. It wasn’t him up there, or me.

  My heart slammed against my ribcage. If only I could unleash this magic within me, then none of those Red maniacs would stand a chance

  To fight a Red Priest is to fight a God, my mother used to say. You could not go to arms against one of theirs without offending the Blood God himself. And no one dared to fight a God.

  Still, while my hands trembled and my heart hammered in my chest, I felt not only my own anger and fears. I felt Aife’s; the myriad wounds inflicted upon her by the Red Robes throbbing all over her body, the immense pain in her chest as she realized her own end was near, her unmeasurable sorrow at not being able to see her own grandchildren grow up—her daughter, mercifully, had moved away from town years ago, and did not have an ounce of magic within her.

  I felt Aife’s pain as if it was my own.

  Like I had for that family in Greymere. Watching their execution and trying to make them forget about their pain and fear had kept me bedridden for an entire week. Or like in Hammell, where I had vomited and fainted when the Red Robes had slaughtered the fifth and last family because it had been too much for me to take.

  The magic of an Empath. I could feel other’s emotions, their pains, their fears, and take it from them to carry it myself, or to pass it on to someone else. In this case, I wanted nothing more than to pass on all those horrors to that red-robed monster standing in front of Aife, but I knew better. Even at the slightest whiff of magic directed toward them, the Red maniacs would turn our town upside down looking for the source of the magic—and if they couldn’t find it, they would find a scapegoat to take the fall.

  So, I kept my rage in check, even when the monster probed against Aife’s skin until the third eye popped open.

  It was larger than a regular eye and not oval but perfectly round. Sapphire-colored, it had startled me the first time I had seen it, but there was such goodness, such wisdom, emanating from that eye, that my initial fear didn’t last long.

  “Blasphemy!” The Red Priestess shouted while she pointed at Aife. “Magic is a blasphemy against our High King, against our God, against the Seven Kingdoms!”

  Steel flickered in the sunlight.

  No pain, I told Aife, even though I knew it was a lie. You will feel no pain.

  Aife didn’t shout or scream, not even when the dagger stabbed her through her third eye, blinding her forever. She gasped, though, a gust of air escaping her lungs. For a second, her two remaining eyes stared at the Red Priestess, right before the executioner behind her, leaned forward and slit her throat.

  Aife slumped forward, a dull ‘thump’ resonating through the town’s square as her head connected with the wooden boards of the stage those Red monsters had ordered built, precisely for this occasion.

  The energy hit me straight in the chest, and I stumbled. If not for my brother’s iron hold on
my arm, I would’ve tumbled backward, but he tightened his grip. We couldn’t draw attention to ourselves, lest those Red idiots decide they hadn’t seen enough bloodshed for one day.

  The town square was silent. Not even a bird flew past. The sound of that ‘thump’ would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. A deadly, unnatural silence, and then that ‘thump’.

  “Let this be a reminder,” the leader of the Red hoods said as she turned back to the crowd, stepping over Aife’s corpse. “Let this be a reminder for all remaining magic-wielders out there.” She kicked against Aife’s unmoving form. “Turn yourself in, and we will mark you, lock up the magic that threatens to destroy our world. Hide… And you will meet the Goddess of Death.”

  Sebastian practically crushed my hand in his grip. I felt his anger as strongly as my own. I wished I could unlock it, remove that mark on my forehead and rain death upon all of them.

  Instead, I stayed unmoving, a nameless figure in the crowd. My bones felt as old as time itself, and an unnatural cold wrapped itself around my spine, anger settling into my core.

  The Goddess of Death would only receive one sacrifice today, but as I stared at Aife’s body, I swore that one day I would make the Goddess’ temples flow over with the blood of those damned Red Priests.

  Chapter Three

  Sebastian lowered his hood and shook his shoulders, droplets of rain dancing all around while he took his coat off.

  Shortly after Aife’s execution, it started raining, as if the Gods themselves were upset at what transpired in our little town. For three days, it had rained non-stop, soaking the streets. The Red Priests packed their belongings and moved on to another town to hunt down, torture and execute witches, leaving horror in their wake.