The Rising Fire (The Witch in the Woman Book One)

by Stacey Criswell

We get to the big stone door in the front, and Aldric had to put his hand in a scanner to get out. As we are walking through the people every head turns to a sound coming from the clearing. Aldric stops me at the opening of the tent, and turns to look too. "They're here." He announces. There is a girl at the front of what looks like hundreds of people. Her resemblance to Katrina is unmistakable. Her long, blonde hair looks soft and silky, just like Katrina's. She is skinny, tall, and very pretty. I see no resemblance of myself in Katrina or Allison, but there is no doubt Allison is Katrina's sister.

  They stop in front of us, and Allison turns around to the people with her, "Find some way to make yourself useful. Help train someone, help with weapons, anything." The people behind her scatter, doing exactly what Allison told them to do. Allison turns to us, "Is this our girl?" She asks looking at me.

  Aldric nods, "This is her. How was your journey, Allison?"

  "It was fine, thank you. So, what's your name?" She asks focused on me.

  "My name is Ren?e." I reply skeptically.

  Allison looks pleased, "I love it. So, what do you want us to do?" She asks Aldric.

  "We should just talk right now. I'm sure you both have a ton of questions." He notes and ducks under the tent followed by me then Allison. We all sit down at the table and Aldric hands everyone a plate.

  "I'm not really hungry, but thank you." I say.

  Allison nods, "Me neither, thank you."

  Aldric sits down, "Okay, we won't be eating then. So, who wants to go first?"

  "I do." Allison states. "You keep telling us we are the only ones who can stop Skylark. How exactly do we do that?"

  Aldric sighs, "How about I just start from the beginning of what I know and go from there?" After both of us nod he begins, "Your parents names were John and Lea Sparks. Your mother and father both had powers. Your father was a sorcerer, which means as long as he had his book of spells, he could do any spell in it. Your mother had the power of illusion, among many others. She could make you see whatever she wanted you to see. If I had that power, I could have just killed one of you, and the other would have only seen the way we are sitting now. Do understand what I mean?"

  We both nod. "Good, John and Lea had three children, but it was in the time of Shaun, he was a dictator worse than Skylark. In those times you were not allowed to have more than one child, because few people had the means to raise more than one. There was still money in those times. So, they had to get rid of two of you. What I heard is they gave two of the children to close relatives, and kept the oldest child. The other two were paternal twins, which means same age, same birthday. But, they don't look the same. The oldest was two years older than the twins. At the time no one but the people who got the other kids and the parents knew their gender. We did know they kept a girl. You will each have powers of your own. Sometimes, in cases like this, one child will have tremendous power. Which means you can do unthinkable things, and by yourself. Anyway, it turned out the child they kept was the one who was going to kill Shaun, and the one to take his place as ruler. It was Katrina. How she killed him no one knows, because your powers will not work without at least one of your other siblings there with you. No one was there to see how she took him down, it still remains a mystery. Then as we all know Skylark killed Katrina. It was a surprise to everyone. He was one of the most trusted men in the army, so Katrina thought nothing of it when he came into her throne room and?beheaded her. But, don't start to think that you are invincible, because you're not. You can still be wounded or sick, you just will be in pain for all eternity, you just won't die of it, unless something is left in you. Like a silver blade that is never pulled out, that can kill you. Any questions so far?"

  We shake our heads. "Okay, anyway once we learned that powers were past down to all their children, we knew we had to find you. The hard part was we didn't know where you were, what gender you were, or even the age. Okay, now about your ages. You two are paternal twins. Currently you are both seventeen, when you turn eighteen in four days now, you will stop aging." He explains.

  Allison sits up a little straighter. "What do you mean stop aging?" She asks. Aldric has already told me about this.

  He takes a deep breath and explains, "Your skin, your mind, your body, does not age. You personally will know how old you are. But, no one else will unless you tell them."

  "That's interesting." Allison utters.

  Aldric goes on, "When you do turn eighteen you will be given a choice. I'm not sure how it works, but somehow you will be presented with the choice to either keep your powers, or they get taken from you."

  I shake my head confused, "Wait, I can just sort of opt out of all this when I turn eighteen?"

  He nods, "Something like that. You may think it's an easy choice now, but it may be harder when the time comes." I sink back down in my chair, as he looks at us, "Anymore questions?"

  I nod, "How is me being here, and helping you, going to affect the people I care about? It hasn't been a good thing so far."

  He sighs, "I've learned over my life time that?the people you may lose?may be worth it in the end."

  "I don't know if I think of it that way." I put plainly.

  "You will change your way of thinking by the time everything is done. I thought that way too until?" He pauses a moment. "I thought of it that way too until Skylark killed my wife and two children. Then I realized once we finally kill this murderer, and save millions more lives, my little family won't matter."

  "I'm sorry, and they will matter. Maybe not to everyone else, but to you they will." I point out.

  He nods, "Okay, any more questions?" He asks changing the subject. Allison shakes her head.

  "When do we start?" I ask.

  "Well, we can start on your hand-to-hand combat today. But, the rest has to wait until you both turn eighteen. It's only four more days." He explains. We all stand up, and he pulls back the tent to let us through.

  "So, we start now." He adds.