This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Lyn C. Johanson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Lina Smirnovaite
Prologue
When the day was night and the night was day, a witch was born in a raging thunder storm.
The earth trembled and shook, welcoming its destined fate … hundreds of witches sang—salvation finally in their grasp.
The prophecy once foretold was alive in a form of true beauty, with only death on her mind.
The witch was supposed to be feared and worshipped, all living creatures to tremble at the sight of her—all men to fall on their knees by the will of her…
* * *
“She’s the sweetest little thing in the world,” Deron admitted to himself as he watched his nine-year-old daughter run through the garden calling, “Mummy … Mummy.”
Despite the darkness of her curls, they radiated light as they bounced up and down. Sunshine played on her face and her lips curved into a glowing smile. Mischief sparkled in her deep light-blue eyes, giving a glimpse of his daughter’s true nature. Her expression turned even brighter as she stretched out her hands and proudly revealed an exotic purple flower.
“Amira, sweetie, where did you get that?” His wife examined the blossom in the child’s small palm and narrowed her eyes.
Instantly Deron knew the answer—she hadn’t found it. Once again their daughter was playing with magic, doing tricks even his beloved Eliana couldn’t—a witch strong and talented, who had practiced her art for many years.
Amira’s smile widened, but not a sound of explanation flew out. They both knew the look only too well. The little tinker was up to something.
“It doesn’t belong here. Why don’t you take it back?” Eliana suggested.
Surprisingly, the little one obeyed.
“I am scared, Deron,” his wife confessed, the fear for their daughter’s safety etched in the lines of her delicate face. Worry and concern casting a shadow over her beautiful eyes.
He took her into his arms, trying to stay strong for her, to comfort her as best as he could. The truth was, he knew those fears all too well.
A few years ago, the Order of Venlordia had renewed their witch hunts. No longer were the friars satisfied with sermons, it seemed. No longer were they leading people to salvation with the help of prayers and faith. They had raised a sword in the name of a sacred cause—to eradicate the evil.
It was a ludicrous lie the Venlordians spread to justify their actions. Every few hundred years or so, they raised impious war against witches, be they good or evil. They didn’t differentiate. Worse still, thousands of innocents suffered at their hands. And now the bloodshed was commencing all over again.
“You are safe here, you both are,” Deron tried to reassure his wife. If he was certain of anything, it was this place; and the people of Trinton, who would protect their daughter no matter what. He relied on them, just as they relied on him and his family.
They all contributed. All did their share in keeping the town clean and free of marauding witch-hunters and the self-imposed law of the Venlordians. Something he wished he could relieve his whole country of.
Unfortunately their organization ran deep, deeper than any of them thought. Even his brother-in-law, the king himself, began to squirm uneasily in his throne. No wonder Eliana was afraid.
“Mummy, mummy.” Amira’s tearful voice shook Deron.
“What is it, sweetie?” her parents asked, almost in unison.
“Please, help her,” she begged, “help her…”
Eliana immediately scanned the area looking for the “her” her daughter was so worried about—only there was no one around. Still, Amira kept crying. Pearls of pain were rushing down her pale cheeks. Her lips trembled. Hands shook.
Eliana cupped her daughter’s jaw, searching for an answer—pain was all she could sense, but she couldn’t fathom the origin of it. There was no wound to be seen, only cries of agony no child should suffer.
The shaking came next. Amira’s small, limp body quivered in her father’s arms and fresh sobs broke from within her, consuming her with the ferocity of a flood, with each wave taking her even deeper. For a second there, it seemed as if their daughter was about to choke, but then a line around her mouth thinned and a sound, strangled and foreign, escaped her parted lips.
Amira screamed.
The sound shook Eliana so deeply, she gasped, trying to take a breath into her frozen lungs. Tears filled her eyes. She heard grief and she heard terror coming out of her daughter’s throat—in someone else’s voice.
“What’s happening?” Deron demanded, carrying their girl inside, straight to her soft little bed.
“I don’t know.” Eliana blinked the fog from her eyes, only to see Amira convulsing with pain. “I don’t know.” A feeling of uselessness overwhelmed her. She was supposed to know these things, be able to make them go away, but the fact was she knew nothing about what was happening, and even less about what she should do.
A potion! She needed to make a potion, Eliana murmured under her breath, prepared to rush back to her room for the herbs. She wiped her tears with trembling fingers, pivoted, and almost smashed into Giles.
The elderly man gently righted her, and without so much as a word put something in her hands. Eliana looked at his offering for a moment, not comprehending what she was holding. Then she exhaled.
“Thank you,” she hugged the butler fiercely, grateful beyond words. If only she knew what to use—Eliana’s next thought made her hands tremble even more fiercely.
She didn’t see Giles’s concerned expression anymore, or any of the pale faces standing behind the man. Eliana focused her attention on Amira—a thrashing and moaning girl, whose hands fought an invisible foe.
Her daughter’s face was twisted with pain, her eyes red from crying. She kept pleading for help for someone, but whoever it was lived in Amira’s dreams alone. Or nightmares, Eliana thought, picking a catnip plant from the vast collection of herbs she kept. She hesitated to choose a second herb, glanced at her husband’s expectant gaze, and swallowed a new lump of trepidation. What if she chose the wrong one? What if she harmed her little angel? Eliana had never felt so lost before. Utterly unable to identify the cause of such terrible pain.
“You can do it,” Deron whispered, his belief in her giving her strength to make a selection.
Eliana nodded, mixed the herbs and began the chant. She forced her daughter to consume the potion, all the while desperately praying for a miracle. A prayer that was joined by a dozen more people as the entire mansion kept vigil on their little lady’s sleep.
All the servants gathered in the hall, waiting. Some of them sat quietly. Some paced with their heads bowed, hands clenched in fists. Others simply watched the closed doors. But all of them hoped to hear those doors opening. Hoped to see black curls bouncing, and that sweet face laughing.
Sadly, none of that happened.
When Amira finally came out of her room she was just a shadow of the sweet girl they all knew and loved.
Chapter 1
“You are to be captured,” a soft, feminine voice drifted from somewhere behind Amira. She didn’t turn around. Instea
d, she leaned on the windowsill and closed her eyes, for one fleeting moment trying to imagine herself alone, free. Failed. Some things were just not meant to be. Ignoring the owner of the melodious, though Arctic-cold, voice, was one such thing.
It would cost her—every second she refused to acknowledge her constant tormentor would be taken from her. In the form of blood, most likely. But no matter how many times she told herself to get on with the program, or how many times she found herself in a similar situation, everything inside her screamed that she was not ready to die.
She hadn’t even tasted life yet. She’d been robbed of joy many years ago—her heart had been ripped out of her chest that fateful day. And in return, she’d been given memories one at a time of the lives she’d once lived. She’d been given more nightmares.
Why she even wanted normal life, drenched with feelings and sensations, she had no idea. Being numb to the world made it so much easier to go through what she was forced to endure. And yet she craved everything others took for granted.
“I will not repeat myself.” A searing sensation meant to emphasize the words shot through Amira’s back so suddenly, she barely managed to stifle a moan.
White-hot pain traveled down her body in waves of scalding slashes. Her breaths became labored and beads of perspiration formed on her temples, her whole body straining like an over-taut violin string. Her fingers dug into a wooden plank, preventing her from collapsing on the floor as she felt every scar, every wound she’d obtained throughout her existence being ripped open by way of a slow, cruel punishment.
Despite the excruciating agony, Amira knew her scars were perfectly healed—not a drop of blood was staining her expensive gown. Nope, she was not bleeding; Hope was simply using her ability to make Amira suffer by reliving past injuries and pains—and the goddess had plenty to choose from.
In return, Amira’s own power seethed, desperate to be freed. Desperate to taste fear, pain and misery. To gorge on it.
“One day…” she muttered, everything inside her trembling with a craving to reciprocate. The urge was so strong, she barely managed to quash it. She would lose, no doubt about it, but that didn’t mean she would remain impotent for much longer. With every reincarnation, she came back stronger, more powerful. Amira yearned for the day she would be able to mete out some justice.
“Say that again.” Hope’s emotionless tone washed over her like iced water. The chill spread through her flesh, but the cold didn’t bring the desired reprieve.
Amira shivered, despising her reaction. It was a weakness she couldn’t afford. Standing up to them might have proven to be hazardous to her health, but bowing down seemed to be even more painful to her soul.
“I live to serve,” Amira spoke through gritted teeth, every word dripping with sarcasm. She waited another minute for the pain to subside till it was only an uncomfortable, but manageable, throbbing in the back of her mind; then, gathering all her strength, she turned around.
Her body felt stiff and sore, her movements constrained. In an effort to disguise it, she lingered, playing with her hair and checking her nails as if she had nothing better to do. For the damned life of hers, Amira wouldn’t have been able to explain what drove her to antagonize divine powers at every step. But antagonize them, she did. When you had little to lose, she mused, fear ceased to be the driving force.
On the contrary, she cherished and welcomed death’s cold embrace. He was her own knight in shining armor, who brought peace in the midst of agony. Temporary as it was.
Traynan, her personal angel of death, had once asked her how she managed to stay sane. Amira had just shrugged, having no real answer to give. But now, looking back, she realized maybe she hadn’t. For sane women her age didn’t wake at the break of dawn gasping for air and clutching sheets, unable to separate nightmares from reality—only to realize that the nightmares were their reality. They surely didn’t use others for their own personal gain without any qualms of conscience; and they definitely didn’t contemplate murdering a god. Let alone all of them.
But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t prevent dark thoughts from creeping in, just like she couldn’t stop ominous visions. Sometimes, Amira could swear it felt like insects crawling under her skin, devouring both her body and soul, until neither belonged to her.
Not once had she thwarted such visions. Not once had she succeeded in coming out of it alive. All because she consistently failed to fulfill a prophecy written eons ago. A prophecy that defined her very existence, and yet, she knew nothing about. Few, if any, of those privy to the secret were talking, leaving her stuck in a vicious, never-ending cycle.
Needless to say, Amira was desperate to get out of it. But it was like searching for a needle in a haystack full of needles on the freaking planet made of needles, while being blind for good measure.
How apropos!, she almost muttered, as she was forced to squint and shield herself from a blinding flare of light that exploded all around.
Amira stood still, indifferent to such high-blown, dramatic performances intended to land her on her knees in awe of the powers she faced. Maybe once. But that ship had sailed hundreds of years ago. Now all she wanted to do was yawn in the face of it. She quelled the urge by concentrating on her nails again.
A few moments later, the goddess got it through her thick skull that such theatrics were lost on her, and instead of a glowing apparition, a tall, beautiful redhead appeared. Garbed in a white, long one-shoulder gown, with porcelain skin and ruby-red hair pulled up in an intricate twist, she looked almost demure and innocent. Fragile—to an untrained eye. Yet Amira saw behind the fake façade, right into the merciless soul of hers.
“You live to defy us,” Hope accused her, emerald eyes flashing.
Not true! She’d done the obedient dog routine a couple of times. The memories were painful enough to even consider bringing it up. Instead, she tried to concentrate on her present. But did it really matter whether she was stoned to death, drowned, decapitated or stabbed? The outcome would be the same as always.
“Who’s it to be this time?” she asked, knowing the answer would not change anything. She wasn’t even curious. It was either a Venlordian with a righteous smirk on his face, or some sweaty fat witch-hunter fancying himself doing a favor for this world. The thought would have made her shudder, except for the fact she no longer felt fear. Maybe she should be grateful for the hollowness inside her after all, she mused.
Hope moved around her bedchamber—which resembled a greenhouse—with an ethereal grace Amira could have admired if she hadn’t hated the goddess so much. Plucking off a purple exotic blossom, Hope looked at it with such intensity, the emeralds in her eyes turned to silver, and one by one the petals fell to the wooden floor, forming a small pile of blackened charcoal.
“You know,” she said “You might find a way if you opened up once in a while.”
Rii-iight—Amira would have laughed if she knew how. She’d tried that already. People either didn’t believe her, thought her crazy, or ran scared. None of these actually helped, only created a shitload of problems.
“You’re one to talk.” She lifted her hand, palm up, and waited till every last piece of the flower landed on her skin. Such a useless death, Amira sighed, and brushed her other hand over the ashes. Slowly, a new life was born. Large and purple, it bloomed right there in Amira’s hands, filling her palm with beautiful, feather-soft petals.
She looked at her creation—an exact copy of the flower so carelessly destroyed, right down to the three yellow spots. And yet, it was not the same. Amira didn’t have the ability to raise the dead. The first was lost forever, and this one…
“You should know better.” Hope moved closer, and the little thing withered, becoming nothing more than dust.
The goddesses never liked being disobeyed. Even in the smallest of ways. And to Hell with innocent life. Collateral damage—never their concern.
You’re one to talk—Amira threw the same phrase back at herself. She b
lew out a breath, sending the dust flying—the irony of all of it not lost on her. How many lives was she responsible for destroying in her attempts to survive? She should be guilt-ridden; and yet, the heart she possessed was as cold as the one Hope carried inside her divine ribcage.
There was no love lost between Amira and humans. Too many memories of painful deaths had rubbed off on her, but this flower … It was ridiculous. Just a small plant. And yet, it didn’t sit well with her.
Maybe because she saw her own existence in it.
“You are not to reveal your true identity, or the extent of your powers,” Hope began naming conditions she would be required to follow, or else … meaning whoever was to capture her didn’t have the power to do so. Not that anyone had—unless she was stripped of her magic, of course.
“Should I lift my skirt when he tries to force me?” she almost yelled. Amira may have been prepared to do a lot of what she was ordered to, but she also had limits.
“Don’t care,” the goddess waved her hand elegantly, dismissing her outburst. Amira didn’t expect anything else. Her wellbeing was of the lowest priority to them, after all.
“You are to be a simple witch, nothing more,” Hope continued, and again, Amira found herself on the verge of unleashing her pent-up powers. It was ridiculous, not to mention an inescapable death sentence. Playing with potions and blood sacrifices had never been her thing, not to mention the fact that she could not suppress her true self for any length of time.
She was not a practitioner like Eliana, or any other witch on the face of the earth. Magic was in her veins, and it demanded constant release.
This sure didn’t look good.
“Ride to the woods and you’ll meet both your hope and your doom. Be sure to make the right decision,” the goddess added, already vanishing in mid-air, as if her ludicrous wishes should be obeyed without a question. “Oh, and take Natalie with you,” the request reached her, just moments after the last vibration of air caused by Hope’s disappearance abated.
Till Death And Beyond (Witch World) Page 1