THE SCEPTER

A MORTAL FATES NOVELLA

VOLUME 1

J BREE

The Scepter

A Mortal Fates Novella

Volume One

Copyright © 2023 J Bree

Cover Illustration and Layout by Beth Gilbert @bethgilbert_art

Interior Artwork by Raquel Contreras @rachel_art.fantasy

Interior Formatting by Laura Frazier

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction, Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents

are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author

acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referred

to in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/

use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the

trademark owners.

The Scepter/J Bree - Novella

ALSO BY J BREE

The Mounts Bay Saga

The Butcher of the Bay: Part I

The Butcher of the Bay: Part II

Just Drop Out: Hannaford Prep Year One

Make Your Move: Hannaford Prep Year Two

Play The Game: Hannaford Prep Year Three

To The End: Hannaford Prep Year Four

Make My Move: Alternate POV of Year Two

All Hail

The Ruthless

Queen Crow

Angel Unseen

The Bonds That Tie Series

Broken Bonds

Savage Bonds

Blood Bonds

Forced Bonds

Tragic Bonds

Unbroken Bonds

The Mortal Fates

Coming Soon

Novella Volume One: The Scepter

Novella Volume Two: The Sword

The Crown of Oaths and Curses

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Coming March 28th

*The Scepter is a Fantasy Novella in The Mortal Fates series with material that may be difficult for some readers. It's recommended for 18+ due to language and sexual situations.

PROLOGUE

My home is burning.

I can't believe I’m even thinking that, but as smoke curls up and distorts the clear blue sky ahead of us, it doesn't seem as though there's any other explanation. The forest my family has lived in for generations, that has protected us, the Favored Children, from everything that has ever wished us harm, is not stopping the smoke from climbing into the air.

Tears are falling down my face, but my legs don't stop moving. My breath sears out of my chest as I choke on not only the smoke, but the sobs bursting from my mouth.

I stumble, but my brother, Pemba, gets a hand under my elbow and holds me to his side as we both run frantically toward the flames.

This can't be happening. This can't be real.

As the smoke thickens around us, there's no denying that it is happening—it is real.

My mother and father will be coordinating getting the coven away from our home, evacuating the area, and moving as close to the river as possible. We're coming through the forest from the wrong direction—the river is on the other side of the village—but there's always the chance that someone could be missed in the chaos. If there's anything we can do to help get as many people out alive as we can, then we're going to do it.

My grandmother isn't very mobile. As the Crone of the coven, she's the oldest living family member at almost one thousand years. I'm sure my mother prioritized getting her out, but there are others with mobility issues. I have ten younger brothers and sisters, some of them only toddlers. The thought of my parents trying to keep track of them all during an evacuation is scary. And we have dozens of cousins and other coven members… I feel sick to my stomach.

Pemba and I had reached the river that cuts through the forest, a two-hour trek away from the village clearing, and stopped to refill our water flasks when we’d first seen the smoke.

We’d known right away that our family was in danger.

The trees finally thin out around us, the tops of them alight and the smoke thick in the air, though, strangely, the underbrush and forest floor are untouched, even with the direction that the wind is blowing. It’s not acting the way that flames should, instead spreading in patterns that are too planned out and methodical.

There’s magic to this fire.

For a moment, my heart sings with joy, sure that my mother has been able to protect the coven and our home to stop the fire from touching us, or maybe the forest itself has done this, caring for its Favored Children the way it always has.

But then we find the first body.

Pemba and I both slam to a halt, our feet simply forgetting how to work as we look down at our friend's dead body in horror. Ella was three years younger than me, on the cusp of adulthood, and a strong, wise woman in the making. She wasn't one of the vulnerable coven members I was worried about. She was one of my closest friends. And with her strong magic, there is no way the smoke could have killed her so easily.

The three arrows tipped with black feathers in her back have done the job.

Someone murdered her.

This fire… it's not an accident.

I stumble toward her, my hands reaching out as the urge to help her, to fix this, floods me. But as my hands get close to the arrows, I feel it.

Witcheswane.

The arrows have been tipped in the one herb that can instantly kill a witch no matter how strong they are. Someone came here knowing exactly how to immobilize and murder a coven full of strong and capable witches. It’s no secret that witcheswane is deadly to my kind, and there are many places in the Southern Lands where it grows plentifully.

Pemba takes my arm again, pulling me back to my feet and holding me close, as though he's shielding me from any more arrows that might be coming our way. I can’t blame him for being overprotective. Who's to say the murderers aren't still here? But our family is here too, and we cannot leave them behind.

I send a silent prayer to the Goddess for Ella's soul, hoping it has found its way to Elysium, and then we make our way toward our family's hut. Fear pumps through my body, flowing through my veins alongside my blood as I begin to shake.

Who has done this?

As the Mother of the coven, our mother lives centrally and so does the rest of our family, something that is terrifying now as we walk through the small village together, waiting for the attackers to jump out and kill us too.

Something compels us forward, and some small part of me knows I cannot run away, no matter how terrified I am.

At first, I try not to look at the bodies littering the ground, but then I remember that any one of them could be my parents or my siblings. My heart aches as though it’s my chest the arrows have pierced, my breathing slowly becoming ragged. Death surrounds me, the images consuming my mind so that, even when I shut my eyes, I still see the bodies strewn around. My magic bursts out of me unbidden like an invisible blanket as it covers the area, reaching out to them all as I try desperately to find some spark of life to grasp onto. The tiniest of sparks can bring someone back; I’ve done it before. But there’s nothing here.

Only the cold void of death.

I can feel a pounding in the back of my mind, the voice trying to break in and find out where this pain inside me is coming from, but my wards stay strong, something my mother trained me from birth to control. Even in the chaos and terror, they hold. He pounds again, the frantic sensation alerting me he’s desperate to hear from me, but the horror that surrounds me consumes me, keeping him out of my mind as my survival instincts kick in.

I can barely believe what I’m seeing, but part of me knows I’m in danger and can’t afford a distraction.

Spread around me are the dead bodies of my coven. My aunts, my uncles, my cousins, my family, my friends, everyone. Of course the bodies are known to me, of course I know them all. Every last one of the slain witches on the ground. Every one is family or friend, and they’re all dead, the black-tipped arrows protruding from their bodies.

Pemba curses under his breath, a broken sound, when he finds Mayra amongst the dead. He’s been infatuated with her for half his life, hoping someday that she would look at him and feel the same way.

I hear him swallow, but his hands tighten on my shoulders. I'm not sure if it’s shock that makes him able to continue forward after seeing her, or if the responsibility that my father put on him to protect me on our trip still has a hold over him, but he moves me on without a word.

When we get to our family’s hut, I don't want to go in, but Pemba reaches past me to shove open the door.

The scent of blood hits my nostrils, and I fall to my knees.

Whoever it is that came for us, for the Ravenswyrd Coven, they took everything from me.

Even the children.

CHAPTER ONE

The forest is too quiet.

The acrid burn of ash sticks to the back of my throat, choking me, though it’s been days since the fire. If I think about it too much, my hands begin to shake. I hold my mother’s scepter, the large emerald encased in the winding wood so heavy that I don’t want to simply leave it in the satchel for Pemba to carry. Every Mother of the Ravenswyrd Coven has been the caretaker of the scepter and, before we’d left home once more, my brother had insisted on finding it and bringing it with us. He found it in the Healing Hutt, where she always left it, untouched as though whoever had killed them all hadn’t known to look there for it.

Or they never wanted it in the first place.

It feels warm in my grip, as though the magic within it is embracing me, but the sensation has my stomach clenching. It’s one of the only relics of the coven and too valuable to leave behind, and my shaking hands make my distress far too obvious to my brother’s watchful eye. Guilt might just eat me alive.

The joyful man barely over the cusp of adolescence has been replaced with the wary protector.

As he looks out over the creeping mosses and dark bracken, his eyes narrow. “We can make it to the hollow, Rooke. We’ll be safe there for the night. We just need to keep going.”

Pemba is less than a year older than me, the two of us born the same year, thanks to my parents’ exuberant desire for a big family straight away, but he’s always been protective of me. More even than of our younger siblings. My parents never showed favoritism toward me over my siblings, but the entire coven knew the role I was destined to inherit. My brother was always there with me, like a shield, ready to deflect any attacks on me, no matter how trivial.

I’m grateful for it now, because I can’t imagine doing this alone.

We’re now two days’ walk from the small, isolated village where our coven lived for generations after our ancestors shifted away from the traditional traveling lifestyle of the witches. They built the small huts that we still lived in hundreds of years later. I’ve rarely left the forest, mostly staying home to learn and heal with my mother and the other elders of the coven, and Pemba has been good about stopping and letting me rest and stretch.

My mother grew up in the village as well and left for the first time as a teenager to learn her fate from the Seer, a tradition for all Maidens of the Ravenswyrd Coven. Her fate—my father—arrived in the forest a few short years later. They fell in love the moment their eyes met, and they married at the next new moon and immediately set off on their mission to have many children to fill their hut with laughter and joy.

We spent my whole lifetime so far doing just that.

They had many years together, but the Seer had left out one important detail—a detail my brother and I will never recover from. I choke on the smoke in the air once more as tears spring back into my eyes, and I blink frantically to clear them away.

I need to keep hold of my emotions, not only for myself, but for Pemba too.

I can't help but be worried about the lack of woodland noises around us. Our forest is deep in the heart of the Southern Lands, an area controlled by the high fae king and the many princes and princesses that rule these lands. We’re all technically subjects of the Unseelie Court, but the high fae never bother with the lower fae, all of us so far below them that they never step foot in the Ravenswyrd Forest.

It’s probably for the best that they stay away.

As the Favored Children of the forest, the Ravenswyrd witches were always safe here, but it hasn’t been that way for everyone. Most magical folk who cross into the thick line of trees quickly find themselves lost in the foliage, which doesn’t behave the way it should. The trees here speak. They speak their own language, and it’s clear to those of us who live amongst them that they have their own way of existing in the world, their own stories and fables, their own memories of what came before us.

They remember those who did them wrong.

The Ravenswyrd loved them, protected them, nurtured them, and took from them only what was freely offered. We pledged our lives to do no harm, and in return, the forest allowed safe passage only to those who came with no evil in their hearts.

For generations we only ever lived a peaceful life. Until now.

I have never walked through the forest terrified of every little scratch and peep before. Now, I can't help but be vigilant, aware that something out there is hunting us. I know that my brother senses it too, though he’s trying to hide his concerns from me. The attack that killed our coven could have been random, it could have been nothing more than a raid, but the taste of magic is still thick on the back of my tongue.

When we first left our family’s hut together a few short days ago, he was protective and watchful over me but not wary. He was excited to go on this trip with me and thrilled that our father had given him this responsibility, both of our parents deciding that we were ready to venture into the world together without them.

We're running late now, thanks to turning back at the first sign of the fire and finding the devastation that met us at home. The Seer had called for me to come to her, and my parents had agreed to send me without delay, but they hadn’t seen the attack coming. I stumble, tripping over my own feet, as numbness seeps into my limbs the moment I think about our village and what had happened there, of the grisly deaths our loved ones endured.

Of everything we’ve lost.

“It’s going to rain, Rooke. We’ll be lucky to make it to the Oakwood Inn by tomorrow.”

I look up, but Pemba is too busy squinting at the foliage around us to notice my scrutiny. It is looking like rain, but we’ve never been concerned by that before. The vines around us are swaying a little in the wind. As I watch them, I realize there’s too much movement for the strength of the breeze—the trees are talking to each other. They’re warning each other of the coming downpour, of the likelihood of the river overflowing and flooding the area as it has done countless times before. While I’ve been lost in my own head, Pemba has read our surroundings perfectly. If we get caught in the storm, we’ll be forced to make our own shelter, and neither of us have experience in such things.

My gaze catches on the heavy weight he’s carrying, and I chew on my bottom lip.

No matter how tired he gets, Pemba won’t let me carry the satchel. It’s large enough to carry the supplies for both of us and, though he lifted it with ease at first, the weight of it slowly took its toll as the day went on. I can see the strain in his body, the tense lines of muscle trembling as we travel through miles and miles of forest, but if I even suggest that I can tell he’s struggling, he only gets more stubborn.

He’s acting this way because I am the Maiden of our coven, and he’s always treated me with a sort of deference. Although, due to my mother’s death, I’m technically the Mother now. It’s rare for a Maiden to become a Mother without, you know, actually being one, but every coven must have one.

I’m the only female left of the Ravenswyrd witches.

It’s a heavy mantle to carry, one I would never have guessed was in store for me so soon. My mother was so powerful—the most powerful witch I’d ever met—and yet… she died with the rest of the coven.

Her body burned on the makeshift funeral pyre we’d built, just the same as those with far less power.

Tears fill my eyes, and my chest tightens. I try to focus on the forest around me instead of the devastating places my mind has wandered into.

The Ravenswyrd Forest is named after my coven and is one of the largest in the Southern Lands. I was always at ease playing here or traveling between the covens that live in the other, more docile forests nearby. As I grew up, the forest itself was just another set of eyes on me, looking after me. Another loving presence beyond that of my parents and extended family.

It doesn't feel that way anymore.

The rich, dark green foliage hasn't changed, nor has the earthy scent of life and decay in the air. Small creatures scratch around in the underbrush, and birds call out to one another overhead, singing their songs as beautifully as they always have. The rain never seems to stop falling here, no matter the season, but it's different now. Everything changed when someone entered our forest, intending us harm, and the forest did nothing to stop them. I don't understand how this could have ever happened.

“Stop thinking about it, little one,” Pemba mumbles under his breath, but he doesn't turn back to look at me.

The problem with him being not only my brother but also my best friend is that, even in the silence between us, with his back to me and a million other things on his mind, he can still read me like a book. The moment we set out on our journey once more, he closed up, the carefree boy he’d once been disappearing as he took the place of our father as the protector of our family.

“Do you think we did something wrong? Do you think that Mama or Papa did something wrong, and that's why the forest didn't warn them? I checked the skies every night, the same way we always have, but there was never any blood on the moon to warn us. Have we done something wrong?”

I have uttered these words to him a hundred times already, and there's no way that he hasn't been questioning and re-questioning everything over and over again in his mind as well, because none of it makes any sense. There are more questions to be asked, but my mind cannot get past how our protections failed us, and how they could fail us again.

“We just have to get to the Seer. She’s expecting us, and we cannot deny the Fates. The Seer will tell us everything we need to know.”

He stops for a moment and peers around again, a determined look on his face. “The forest will keep us safe until we see her. We have to trust in that.”

He’s sure of it too, that this was a single slip in the forest’s defenses and not a falling from grace for the Favored Children, but there’s an ache in my heart that can’t be so easily convinced.

I swallow and glance around at the never-ending expanse of trees. For anyone who doesn't know the forest like we do, it would be easy to wind up walking in circles, but I can read the path that we're on as easily as I can read the stars above us at night. These things were taught to me as a child, and they’re now so ingrained in my very soul that it would be impossible to forget.

I take a deep breath before I speak again, the words awkwardly tumbling out of me as they pain me. “What if the Seer doesn't want to meet with us now, Pemba? We’re late.”

Pemba glances over his shoulder at me before he stares ahead once more. “The Seer is expecting you, Rooke. Mama and Father put off your trip to see her for too long. We have to get you there.”

I swallow roughly. The sound of a snapping twig catches my attention, and I clutch Pemba’s arm. We both stop and glance around, but there’s nothing there. The very idea of someone following us is like a shot of ice through my veins. There hasn’t been a single sign of the murderers, or any other creatures that might be a threat, but I haven’t felt safe since we first saw the smoke in the sky.

My magic pushes out from me, untamed and wild now that my control has slipped. The jewel in my mother’s scepter glows a little as the power passes through it, my gut clenching at the sight of it, before it spreads out into our surroundings. When I don’t sense anything but the small creatures of the forest, we continue forward, our footsteps now halting.

I wonder if I’ll ever truly feel safe again.

I whisper, “How do you know they put it off? Mama said we were too busy to lose a set of hands, but she wouldn’t tell the Seer that.”

It sounds ridiculous even to me. The long line of Ravenswyrd Maidens before me have always visited the same Seer, the one on Augur Mountain, but to think that she might know of me and be willing to wait for me is beyond my comprehension. I’m a Ravenwyrd witch, but I’m not some important person, some high fae princess or priestess who is going to achieve great things for the kingdom.

I’m going to live in the forest and heal people. I’m going to deliver babies and marry my mate, continue my bloodline, lead, and teach our coven. It’s what I was born to do, and it’s exactly what I want to do, even if it will be painful to return home and rebuild.

Why should the Seer care about me?

“Some of the traders warned Father about unrest in the kingdom. That’s why Mama stopped you from going sooner.”

I scowl at his back. “Unrest? What does that mean?”

His shoulders tense, and I just know there’s a grimace on his face, regret that he brought it up. “There’s been a war waging for years, Rooke, and it’s getting worse out there. It’s why Father stopped traveling so much and the traders have been coming less. I know the Seer has been asking for you, sending out calls to Mama, but Father was worried about the journey. He decided at the last moment that we’d go. I wonder now if he saw something in the flames—if the Fates spared us for something.”

The relief that blooms in my gut sours into guilt as it spreads up the back of my throat and chokes me. Everyone I know and love is dead, bar Pemba, and it’s a betrayal to them to feel such a way.

We fall into silence once more and focus on our footsteps. Tears track down my face, but I wipe them away without a word, careful not to let my brother see my despair.

When I’ve wept the last of the tears inside me, I murmur to Pemba the fear that has been on my mind. “What if something has happened, and we're no longer the Favored Children?”

Pemba sighs as he looks around slowly, surveying the canopy of greenery around us before he shrugs and hitches the heavy pack up a little farther on his back. “Then we find a new plan, and we follow it through. There are at least three covens we could make our way to on foot today that will take us in without question.”

He doesn't sound happy about it, and I already know why.

They would take us in because we are the last of our name, and each of them would have a long list of eligible men they would hope to pair me with. My brother would never sell me off to secure our safety, so I’m not worried about that. The other covens would also happily take him into the fold and marry him off to mix our heritage into their bloodlines, but the fact of the matter is that I was the Maiden. My power was handed down to me through generations of Ravenswyrd witches, chosen at birth to someday take on the mantle of the Mother when my mother passed into the role of the Crone. I can already perform acts of magic out of reach of most witches without really trying, and if we are to find shelter with another coven, it could pose a problem.

No one is going to let that power go lightly.

It never occurred to me to want anything else for my life. I loved my family and my coven. My role as the Maiden was a great honor and something I felt nothing but pride in. My magic was something to celebrate. I spent years learning from my mother how to heal and strengthen, how to bring life into this world safely, and how to gently ease the passing of those ready to go into Elysium. I’d learned what it meant to be a witch, how to perform the rites that nurture the lands and creatures around us, how to follow the laws of magic to protect everything the Fates have given us.

I wanted nothing more for myself than the life laid out for me, now snatched away so cruelly.

I hear the chirping of sparrows overhead. Rays of sunlight filter through the canopy of leaves above, touching my skin as the earth beneath my feet calls to me and centers me, calming the violent whirlwind of my mind. With every breath I feel the magic of the earth taking in my pain and sharing the load with me, soothing my frayed edges and being patient with me when the pain just keeps coming. The numb shell I’ve erected around myself to protect my brother from the full brunt of the chaos inside me doesn’t stop the forest from feeling it all with me.

I can’t hide from it no matter how hard I try.

By the time the sun is descending in the sky, nightfall creeping up on us, I hear the sounds of running water as we make our way to the river. We're close to where we need to stop for the night, close enough that we’ll have time to sit and share food between us in the daylight instead of fumbling around in the dark like we did last night.

We might even get to bathe.

I'm relieved at the thought of soaking in the river, the cold water soothing the knots and tender spots in my muscles, an enticing plan if ever I’ve had one.

I’ve never been one to care much about my appearance, but at the moment I probably look like an ogre or an orphaned goblin child, twigs and leaves in my tangled hair and dirt splattered on my face. I’ve seen enough of them in my time to know it isn’t a good look, especially not for someone of my standing. It’s important that I represent my family well—I don’t want to let my mother down, not over something as stupid and simple to fix as my unruly hair and dirt-soiled clothing.

Everything Pemba and I owned was lost in the fires, and we’re stuck wearing the same clothes we departed in and the few items we packed for the journey. On the first day of travel, before the fire, I tore a hole in my trousers. Pemba gave me his spare set, the only spare between us. He's taller than I am, and I'd made some adjustments to the fabric, rendering them useless to him now.

I’d packed my ceremonial robes, but I dressed my mother in them before we laid out her body on the funeral pyre, the only tradition we were able to observe that day. The fire took everything else, and even when Pemba tried to persuade me to keep the robes, I couldn’t.

I needed her to have them on her way to Elysium.

Now I don't even have a brush for my hair.

I almost feel ashamed that I will be going before the Seer in such a state, but honoring my mother meant more to me than my appearance.

When I mention all this to Pemba, he shrugs and tugs on one of the errant curls, wearing the cheeky grin that had once melted the hearts of all the girls in our coven with its charm. “I doubt the Seer expects you to look like a high fae, Rooke. You’re a Witch of the Woods—you’re supposed to look wild and free.”

When we arrive at the hollow, I see that my brother has made a good choice for our camp for the night. There isn't much to see if you aren’t looking for it. It's close enough to the river that there’s moss all over the ground, covering the exposed roots and fallen logs on the forest floor. It smells damp and musty, but the type of musty that smells like life and maybe just a little bit of magic.

The tree that we're here for is rooted farther up the riverbank, far enough that the water rising with the steady patter of rain isn't going to flood the area. There’s an ethereal feel to the space, a seductive taste of magic in the air that runs through my veins, calling out to me. The wood of the scepter warms in my hands, responding to the power here and I desperately want to drop it.

Only my deep respect for my mother’s memory stops me.

Pemba is confident as he leads me to the hollowed-out tree. He’s been here before with my father on one of their treks, and it’s the perfect spot to stop for the night. Even if someone else were to venture off the path to refill their tankards in the river, they wouldn't be able to see us. For the first time today, I start to think that maybe we’ll be safe here for the night.

As safe as we can be.

Pemba takes my mother’s scepter from me and stashes it away in the pack before he tucks it amongst the roots of the hollowed-out tree where it will stay dry overnight. Stepping out again, he stretches out his shoulders, raising his arms above his head. I wince as I hear the loud pop of his bones shifting. If only we were home and I had access to the coven’s apothecary to mix him a tincture, I could ease his soreness with a simple list of herbs.

“I just need a good night's sleep, Rooke. Don't worry about it,” he calls over his shoulder as he works his way down to the water.

I sigh. Brothers and their ability to read me like a book.

Guilt roils in my stomach and rises up the back of my throat, threatening to overwhelm me. I swallow roughly, desperately, as I blink away the tears that prick at my already weary eyes.

I had more brothers and a whole tribe of sisters, all of them lost to me now. They’ll never grow up and journey into the world. They’ll never find love, never make friends, never live their lives and grow old here in the forest. I’ll always remember their tiny faces, blurred by the tears streaming from my eyes as Pemba and I placed them gently, lovingly, on the funeral pyres. But I’ll never see them again.

To think of them, their names and their faces, is to plunge a knife through my chest and straight into my heart. I want to curl into a ball on the forest floor and fall apart. To pound my fists into the dirt and scream out the agony I feel, to curse the Fates for doing such a thing to my family, to cry until there is nothing left inside me.

Tears stream down my cheeks once more as I pull off my boots and then my thick, hand-knit socks and tuck them next to the pack carefully so they’ll also stay dry. I curl my toes into the fresh dirt of the forest floor and let it soak in some of my pain, both the physical and the pain in my heart.

I've never worn shoes for so long in my life.

I've never worn a jacket for so long either, and it feels foreign to be so tightly laced up when the earth and the nature around us call so strongly to me. I don't know how anyone could possibly be a traveler and live like this permanently.

A fate worse than death, I should think.

I let my eyes fall shut as I take in several deep lungfuls of air. It's an old habit, something my parents trained their children to do. The best way to get a reading of your surroundings is to breathe them in and filter the information you get. The scents you smell, the taste of the air on your tongue, the sounds of life around you. You remove the sights, and suddenly, it’s so much easier to find what you need.

The forest provides everything.

From scent alone, I learn there are wild herbs growing all around the hollow tree. Enough that I should be able to loosen Pemba up a bit and aid him in falling asleep without too much hassle.

I pull off my jacket, rain be damned, and tuck it into the hollow as well before I begin to gather what I need. Luckily, I’m a resourceful Ravenswyrd witch, and I can also find the tools I need to process the herbs for use. There are tools all around us, if only you know where to look.

By the time Pemba comes back, stripped down to just his trousers and his hair still dripping wet because he enjoys the feel of it, I have fashioned a mortar and pestle out of rocks. On the log beside me, there’s a steadily growing mound of crushed herbs in one of the small wooden bowls we’d brought along, and I’ve unpacked the small, hand-carved cutlery we packed the first time we left the coven.

Pemba starts a fire, and I try not to look at the small iron pot in my hands as I walk down to the river's edge to collect water.

My father made me this pot.

He was one of the few ironsmiths in the coven, always working with his hands, and he crafted it for Pemba and me the moment he knew we would be traveling together to meet with the Seer. It's simple, but no one in our coven ever cared about the way things were decorated, only about the beauty of their uses.

It was the last gift my father ever gave me.

If only I'd known, when he handed it over to me, I might have thanked him a little more thoughtfully. I suppose this is going to be a part of my life now, thinking about all the things I could have done better, the things I should have said, and sending out silent prayers that my parents and loved ones all went to their deaths knowing how much I loved them.

I can’t look at the pot for too long without tears overwhelming me again. I can’t think about any of my family without a lump forming in my throat and my gut churning, my entire body threatening to give up even as I’m forced to continue onward.

Once I get the herbs brewing over the open fire, I head down to the river to wash off.

I strip off the makeshift trousers and the long shirt I was wearing tucked into them, folding them haphazardly and leaving them on the riverbank. I hesitate before I remove my underclothes as well and wade into the water as naked as the day I was born.

The river is as refreshing as I dreamed it would be, and I hold my breath under the water for a moment and let it wash away the tears on my cheeks. Once I’ve scrubbed my skin raw with nothing but my hands and the quiet desperation inside me, I lie back and look up at the moody sky as it peeks through the leaves. I float on my back, paddling with my hands against the gentle current as I lose myself in my thoughts, letting the cool embrace of the water distract me. I know my hair is going to be a nightmare when I get out, so I just enjoy the feel of the water for as long as I can.

There’s a push at the back of my mind, a gentle prodding that I’ve become accustomed to. The voice, trying again to make contact. Once the initial shock of suddenly hearing a male voice in my head wore off, there were some slow weeks of getting to know each other through our connection, and I made it difficult for him in the beginning, but he fought to win my trust. With that trust came the feelings that still swirl around in my gut the moment I feel him there, the way my body reacts to his simple presence and the cravings I feel for him. Mornings have become a playful time between us, but I ignore his call for now.

I’m too raw and exposed to play games with him, too caught up in my grief to entertain him.

A water sprite, barely more than a few drops of water strung together, plays in the dappling water next to me. It’s joyful and childlike, though the creature is far older than I am, maybe older than the forest itself. I don’t react or make a fuss about it, even when it splashes water in my face, because Pemba will kick a cauldron about it if he finds out, and I’m perfectly safe. I can tell it’s been a long time since it has seen a witch, and it’s just getting a good look at me.

I wish I could feel the same joy as the sprite.

When I'm finally out, dried off and back in my traveling clothes, I find Pemba pouring the tincture into two small wooden cups, a small satchel of dried berries and nuts in his hand that he offers to me first. I'm sick of eating them, but I would never say that to him.

“Eat up, Rooke. We'll be back on the road before dawn tomorrow, so we should rest while we can.” Pemba blows on his tincture and tries not to smell it as he gulps it down in one go.

He always was a baby about taking his herbs. I'm not worried about the flavor as I sip mine, letting the warmth of the healing properties soak into my bones and dull the aches and pains. I am flooded with comfort as I munch on a handful of the nuts.

Pemba groans and stretches out his legs. “If we could bottle that stuff, we could find a village to sell it at and make enough to replenish our supplies,” he mumbles, and I shrug with a sad smile.

It's not our way to charge money for healing tinctures. It’s not the Ravenswyrd way.

He nods, knowing what I’m thinking without a word said between us, and ducks his head, a single dark curl falling over his brow.

“It's not our way to leave the forest either, but I think we're on the path to a new way, little one.”

My father's nickname for me falls from his lips again, and my throat closes at the sound of it. I can't help but be grateful for the comfort it brings, even as the wound inside me opens up once more. I don’t think it will ever heal fully.

He clears his throat again and gestures at the tree. “Go on now. Get some sleep. I'll tend to the fire before I come to bed too.”

I know he's going to spend half the night awake, looking out into the forest as he guards me, but the weariness that has taken over my body begs me to keep my mouth shut and do as my brother says.

I lie down in the hollow tree with my back wedged against the pack where I can feel the hard line of the scepter stashed in there, and as my eyes slip shut, I ponder the same question once more. What did we do? What did we do to lose our place as the Favored Children?

***

Good morning, croí.

The voice startles me awake, but the tone soothes me as though a warm breeze has drifted over my soul. I keep my eyes shut tight against the assault of the frigid morning air as I answer the voice in my mind.

Good morning, Donn.

I know that’s not his name.

When the voice first spoke in my mind, about six months that now feel like a lifetime ago, he’d refused to give me his real name. So when I held out on telling him my name, he’d chosen something instead.

I get butterflies thinking about his choice.

He always speaks to me in the early hours of the morning, as though I’m the first thing on his mind, which feels like a secret indulgence.

Plain ol’ Rooke, the first thing on this mysterious man’s mind.

It’s shocking how quickly I’ve grown accustomed to the morning greetings from the smooth voice that knows exactly what to say to me to set my blood on fire. The sultry and seductive tones never fail to awaken the woman within me, no matter who else is around me. I shift slowly, carefully, so I don’t wake Pemba and embarrass myself, because my cheeks are flushed already and Donn has barely even spoken a word to me.

There was a part of me, when it first started, that was scared, because surely hearing a man's voice in your mind—a man who whispers secrets to you in the dead of the night and wakes you with a silky caress across your consciousness—can't be a normal thing.

When I had very cautiously and cryptically approached my mother about such things, she had reassured me without truly knowing why I was asking.

“Someday, Rooke, if the Fates decide that you have a mate out there, you might hear him in your mind. It's a very old sort of magic, very powerful, but you are the Maiden of the Ravenswyrd witches. Someday, when I become the Crone and you take on the mantle of the Mother, you will channel a lot of power. I won't be surprised if the Fates grant you a mate and not just a life partner.”

A mate. Someone who would be given to me by the Fates themselves as the perfect partner and lover to walk our life-paths together. My heart clenches at the memory of my mother's words, the melodic timbre of her voice still so clear in my mind. It’s soothing, the way it’s always been.

The smile she gave me was knowing. I wonder now if she’d guessed that I was hearing Donn, but I was an adult in her eyes then, old enough to decide if I wanted to tell my mother about the man whispering soft promises and gently coaxing me toward him. I didn’t have words to describe it then.

I still don’t have words.

Are you safe, croí? the voice asks, and my brows furrow.

I hold myself still, because Pemba is only a few inches away from me, the steady sound of his breathing echoing in the hollowed-out shell of the tree. I don't want him thinking I'm having nightmares. It's hard enough getting my brother to relax and get some sleep; if he becomes more concerned about me, he’ll forgo it altogether.

Does Donn know about the attack?

He knew the moment we found our coven burning. My grief was all-consuming and there was no way I could stop it from bleeding through the connection we share. It was the first time he'd reached out to me during the day, his voice panicked as he’d demanded to know where I was and what was happening.

I couldn't tell him.

I couldn't articulate what had happened, or the devastation of losing the entire coven in one fell swoop, only that I’d lost my family. The aftermath of keeping the exact, horrifying details of the attack to myself have led to his ongoing concern about my safety, and it’s the first question he’s asked each morning.

I'm safe… are you?

I try to make it sound casual and inviting because, if this man is my mate, I feel as though we should be learning more about each other, but I don't have any experience with this sort of thing. The only men I’ve been around were those in the coven. When you grow up with the same group of boys, it makes flirting or teasing impossible. They'd all known me since I was born, and there was no way to be coy with such people.

They also only ever seemed like boys to me, and the voice in my head is most assuredly a man.

As safe as I've ever been. I've already told you not to worry about me, croí.

I wonder which coven he belongs to. There are hundreds of them spread around the Southern Lands, many of them large enough to aid Pemba and I in restoring our home, and a small seed of hope plants itself in my mind. If he’s a Briarwood witch, or even a Wyndlore witch, then our home may be saved. I get a sense of power from him, and not just from the commanding way he speaks to me. He’s self-assured and demanding, sure, but there’s a strength in him that radiates into my mind.

I’ve been relying on that a lot these past few days.

I have every intention of finding this man once I’ve been to the Seer and been told my fate. To be perfectly honest, I'm hoping that the Seer will point me in his direction. Then I won't have to continue playing these games with him. Just this once, I’d like to have an easy path to follow.

You're tired. What has been keeping you up?

He’s poking at me again, a gentle push for information, as though he’s trying to gather clues. It’s endearing, and maybe just a little humbling too. I don't know how he can feel my exhaustion, and I start to wonder whether I'm going to be able to keep him out of my mind when I want to, especially if he can feel it at such a distance.

This could be dangerous.

He’s beginning to sense more through the connection—my emotions seem easier for him to read when I let down my barriers to speak with him. I need to lay some groundwork, tell him some details to bridge the gap between us without giving too much away.

My brother and I are traveling together. It’s a long walk, and I'm not used to covering such distances.

He doesn't like that answer, and I can feel his reaction to my discomfort very strongly.

Where are you? It's dangerous to be on the open roads at the moment.

Wherever he is, he’s not as sheltered as I’ve been.

He must know of the war Pemba was talking about, and the unrest in the Southern Lands. He could be a traveler or high up within his coven—he sounds confident and assertive, so I’d guess he’s in a position of power. The way that he draws information out of me is far too skilled for him to be a villager or a farmer. Those life-paths aren’t bad, but I’d guess he’s something more.

I want to tell him where we are, to find his coven and get my brother to safety and away from all the responsibility he's carrying for us both, but something stops me.

Something always stops me.

I already told you I'm safe. If you don't want to tell me your name or where you are, then I'm not going to tell you where I am either.

He's frustrated at that answer, and I sigh deeply enough that it wakes Pemba. He lets out a small groan as he stretches as far as the natural enclosure will let him. I keep my eyes shut a moment longer, just a little extra time to enjoy the voice’s presence before the hard journey of the day begins.

It's better for both of us if you don't know until I get there. Safer for us both, croí. Tell me where you are, and I will come and get you.

I won’t.

We both know it.

I open my eyes…just in time to see inky black fingers wrap around Pemba’s ankle and tug violently as a wraith pulls him out of the tree hollow with an ear-splitting screech.

CHAPTER TWO

Pemba lets out a shocked yelp as he’s dragged across the riverbank, straight down to the frigid water’s edge.

I scramble up and stumble after the skeletal being, desperate and only thinking of my brother. It doesn't attempt to harm Pemba, but wraiths never do to begin with. It's taking him back to its nest, and only once he’s there will it devour him whole.

I'm not going to let that happen.

When it opens its mouth to let out a screech, it shows off rows of blackened teeth, a gnarled tongue that lolls about too much, and green-tinted strings of saliva. Its eyes, misted over with a white film that makes me sure it can’t actually see us, roll around in its head as its nostrils flare coltishly.

There shouldn’t be a wraith in the forest, not this close to where our coven stood strong just a handful of days ago. And yet, as my mind races to catch up, I find myself gaping at one.

They’re rare, formed by the magic used in the twilight hour of a witch’s death, and the sort of magic that Ravenswyrd witches condemned a long time ago. This one is old and haggard-looking, but wraiths are drawn to magic like moths to a flame, and the attack on our village must have drawn it into the forest. This might be my first time seeing a wraith up close, but I know enough about them to have a chance at getting us out of this.

As it drags Pemba through the water and onto the far bank, he kicks out his feet viciously, trying to dislodge its firm grip on him. He’s no match for it physically, no man is, and I know I have no choice but to call on my magic to free him.

I throw one of my hands out in front of me and conjure my power, feeling it fill my limbs and flood my body. As my hair begins to stand up at the back of my neck as though I am electrified with it, Pemba's eyes snap to mine. I lift my palm up, taking a deep breath to prepare to push it out, and my brother opens his mouth. I'm sure to try to stop me, but it’s too late for that.

I've lost too much.

I refuse to lose him too.

My power bursts out of me, the air ripping from my lungs in one fell swoop. There are none of the carefully refined maneuvers that my parents spent my entire life teaching me, gently at first, and then drumming them into me until it would be impossible for me to forget.

I don't have control of myself at the moment, which means I don't have control of my magic either.

It hits the wraith square in its chest, a force that cannot be seen but that shoves the creature violently, and again, it lets out a screeching noise so loud that my eardrums ache inside my head and I have to stop myself from clutching at my temples. I've never heard something so loud before, something so unnatural and wrong.

Its grip on Pemba’s ankle slackens, and he takes the opportunity to twist and kick at it again. This time, it drops him. I attempt to catch my breath as I watch it closely, preparing to hit it with my magic again if I can do it safely.

It’s even uglier and more terrifying than my father’s stories had warned me.

Its skin is gray and sallow-looking, with a sheen to it that makes me sure it would be slimy to the touch, and there are random strands of hair protruding from its head. I’m not sure if the misshapen skull is from the witch’s death and transformation into the wraith or some recent injury, but either way, my stomach turns at the sight of it.

I can’t tell if it was once a man or a woman. All identifying features have been whittled away by the passing of time.

It opens its ghoulish mouth once more, the blackened teeth dripping with that acid-like saliva as it screeches again.

This time, I can't stop myself from clutching my head.

I can't imagine how loud it is for Pemba, but he holds up his own palm. The white light of his power glows across his skin as he uses his magic to hit out at the wraith himself this time. The small burst of magic strikes it, and the wraith must realize we won’t be going down so easily. It scurries away, the edges of the rags it’s dressed in catching on branches as it flees.

Pemba waits until it has disappeared into the thickest part of the forest before he wades back through the river to me. As soon as his feet touch the riverbank, he flicks a hand down the front of his shirt and trousers, drying himself with one gesture. I almost feel jealous of the control that he has. The mindless sort of ability to do the simple things, something that I have always been so envious of.

More power isn't necessarily a good thing.

“Are you all right, Rooke? Did it touch you before it got me? Where's the pack? Why didn't you grab Mama's scepter?” he says, his worry coming out as a litany of concerns and accusations.

I don't blame him. I can't imagine how terrifying that must have been for him, but my own worries have words tumbling from my mouth without the sense to check them first.

“I couldn't grab the scepter—I can barely control myself now! How am I supposed to do it while carrying that?” I snap, but Pemba just shakes his head at me.

“You have to learn to control it, Rooke. The scepter is yours now, and you can't just leave it behind. You could have killed that wraith with a fraction of the power you just used simply by channeling it through the scepter. You shouldn’t tire yourself needlessly—we have a long journey ahead.”

I nod and attempt to look rueful as I turn back to the hollow tree to get my shoes, but it’s a lie.

I had every intention of leaving the scepter behind.

I’m not ready to wield it. I’m not as strong as my mother was, and—not that I’ll say it to my brother—I’m not sure I ever will be. I needed more time with my mother, a chance to grow up a little more and learn to control my magic, because even with twenty summers under my belt, my power is still a wild and unpredictable beast inside of me.

I hesitate for a moment before I retrieve the scepter from the pack, gripping it tightly in my hand as though I could crush it away to dust if only I squeeze hard enough. Pemba quickly shoves his own feet into his boots, slings his jacket over his clothes and then, with a little more effort, lifts the pack onto his back. He doesn’t notice how quiet I am, or if he does, he’s kind enough not to mention it.

As we start back out on the well-worn path, I realize that my hands have a fine tremble in them, the beginnings of a full-blown case of the shakes at just how close I came to losing my brother.

The last of my blood.

My heart breaks open in my chest as I swipe more tears from my cheeks, my lips clamping shut as I hold in any sounds that might alert my brother to my distress.

The forest didn’t warn us of the wraith at all.

***

By midday, the small sprinkle of rain has turned into a steady fall of fat raindrops on our heads.

It quickly soaks through my jacket, shirt, and even my boots until my carefully hand-knit socks are sopping and gross. I do my best not to let just how uncomfortable I am show on my face, but I’m sure I’m failing because, sweet goddess, I’m miserable.

Pemba can use his magic to keep himself dry, but extending it to keep the rain off me as well quickly burned out his reserves, leaving me to fend for myself. I had told him not to bother, but the stern glare he’d sent my way had swiftly shut my mouth.

Now I wish I’d been a little more forceful about it.

It's not that I'm afraid of him, or worried about any sort of repercussions from upsetting him, but the moment his reserves burned out and the rain began to soak through my clothes, I could feel his frustration at his limitations. Personal magic is easier than breathing for him, and he would be able to keep the rain off himself for the next six months without feeling it, but extending that magic to me… that is something else entirely. Being able to manipulate other people is advanced magic, and the limitation that he’s now feeling keenly breaks my heart. I feel like the worst sister, not only for not being able to manage that sort of protection for myself, but also for making him feel as though he’s failing me.

“We’ll have to stop at the inn for the night,” he says with a sigh and, ever the dutiful sister, I ignore the knots in my stomach at the thought of spending time with other lower fae.

I force a smile and shrug. “It’s no big deal. We were supposed to stop there originally anyway, what does it matter now?”

He scowls up at the dark skies as though they were sent just to torment him. “Father paid for a single night a few days ago, not for tonight. We might have to speak to the innkeeper, and they could refuse us altogether.”

A small part of me hopes that they do and that we'll make camp somewhere on the trail instead, but Pemba looks miserable, so I stick to my cheerful facade. “I’m sure they won’t… unless it's too busy. If it is too busy, I don't think we should be staying there anyway. Papa always said to stay out of busy areas. Too many people, too many egos—”

“Too much danger,” Pemba finishes with a wry smile.

Our father was a cautious man. Something about his power of divination manifesting in the flames of his ironworking gave him endless visions of the evils that exist in the world. Women with the same ability are often called to become Seers, but looking into the vast expanse of the Fates and divining their meaning…it’s not the work of men. He’d never pursued the ability the way he would have if he were a woman; it became a small gift he accepted but mostly ignored.

I'd once asked my father about it, and he’d smirked at me and shrugged. “Men can't see past their own desires. It’s the hardest work for the purest of heart, but I'm glad it was not the path for me. I would have missed out on your mother, and I can't think of a more terrible fate.”

Their love for each other still burns as an ache in my chest. I used to think I'd never find something so perfect, but the voice in my head sends butterflies cascading like a riot into my stomach.

Maybe I will.

Maybe he's the one for me.

Pemba stumbles on the path ahead of me, cursing under his breath and then shooting me an apologetic look. I'm not sure why he's so concerned about cursing in my presence. He never cared before, but he seems to be taking my promotion to Mother of the coven far more seriously than I am.

“Do you think we'll ever go back?” I say quietly, as though, if the words come out of me too loudly, it will make them real.

“Yes, absolutely.” Pemba shifts the pack on his shoulders and then shrugs, carefully schooling his features to look as though I haven't just cut him to the core with the simple question. “We'll have to go back someday. You're the Mother of the Ravenswyrd now, Rooke. You can't hold that title and live somewhere else—the Ravenswyrd are the caretakers of the forest. We always have been.”

I’d give the title away in a second if I could, though I would never say it to Pemba. There’s a part of me that never wants to go back there, conflicting with the yearning inside of me. The forest was home to me, but that home was destroyed in the fire. No amount of rebuilding will ever bring it back, because home isn't about the huts and the structures that were built by our ancestors. Home is the gentle hand of my mother as she directed me in my spell casting. Home is watching my father teach my younger siblings how to read the stars overhead. Home is sitting in my grandmother's lap and learning how to weave and create with our hands, the ancient art of making and weaving our magic into every item of the coven as a form of protection.

My home is gone.

Why are you sad, croí?

A blush creeps into my cheeks, and I duck my head so Pemba doesn’t notice and get suspicious. I want to keep Donn a secret for as long as I can, a selfish little comfort of my own. I haven’t told Donn exactly what had happened to my coven, only that I suffered a great loss, so it makes explaining my feelings difficult.

Just a memory. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe, but I’m safe.

He floods me with comfort, the warmth of it flowing down my limbs until it spreads right into the tips of my fingers and toes. The blush deepens, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.

Pemba notices my hunched form, the way I’m turning in on myself as though to hide from him. “Don't think about it, little one. We have a long path ahead of us, longer than just this trip to the Seer. I can feel it. It'll be a long time until we need to go home, and when we do, we'll do it together.”

I nod and sigh, trying to ignore the ever-present ache in my legs as we continue down the path. The forest is thinning out a little now that we're out of the deep heart of it, and we’ll be on the other side soon.

Then there will be a long trek up the side of Augur Mountain to contend with, and I try not to wince at the very thought of how steep that mountain might be. There's no use feeling apprehensive about it. It's what we have to do.

We stop for lunch at another point where the river runs alongside the trail, filling our flasks once more as we share the last of the nuts and dried berries between us. I can feel the responsibility of finding something for us both to eat later weighing Pemba down. So while he stretches his legs out in front of him, shoes off and toes scrunched up in the fresh dirt, I search around us for extra supplies, even though my own legs are screaming at me to stop and rest.

On a fallen log I find a thick coating of oaken moss, which I carefully collect and stash away in a small satchel. I also find a few handfuls of fae flowers and feel as though I have won a great prize. They’re rare and highly sought-after, as beautiful as the name suggests, and the tinctures I will be able to brew with them will be incredibly valuable to Pemba and me.

I know I should hurry back to my brother, but I have a feeling deep in my gut that I'm missing something here, so instead, after glancing around to make sure there isn't a wraith sneaking up on me or something equally horrifying, I shut my eyes and take in some deep lungfuls of air. A sweetness hits my tongue, the bursting tart taste of fresh berries close by.

Jackpot.

Sure enough, within a few minutes, I find a wild bramble tree full of berries. I call Pemba over to help me, and the grin that splits his face fills my chest with joy. He's quick to strip out of his jacket to climb up the branches himself, reaching the sweetest fruit at the top with ease, thanks to his long limbs. From our pack I pull out the second bag that we brought along, just in case, and we fill it to the brim with berries, but only after we've had our fill.

“You always were better at finding things than me,” Pemba says, his eyes glowing happily. “We might be able to use these with the innkeeper, swap them for a hot meal tonight.”

His face is handsome with a wry grin across it, just like our father’s, and his bright eyes, so alike to mine, sparkle with joy now that he once again has some hope for our night ahead.

I'm proud of myself for giving that to him.

***

The Oakwood Inn is very typical of a lower fae inn, so much so that it’s almost comical. I stayed in one similar with my father years ago, when we’d traveled together with healing supplies to help a local coven that was having trouble with a nasty strain of an elvish pox outbreak. My mother was pregnant at the time with my youngest sibling, Simmeon, and unable to travel or tend to people who were so ill.

I remember how proud I felt when she decided to send me in her stead but how scared I was to leave the forest. We spent a week with the Terrawyrd Coven, and it had been the hardest work of my life to get them through the worst of the infections. Unfortunately, many of their children and elderly had already died before we arrived.

I still remember their faces, their eyes sightless in death as we helped stack the funeral pyres.

The inn doesn't look like anything from the outside, merely a tree wide enough to fit ten fully grown men within the trunk. I can feel magic radiating out from the large wooden door, the spells familiar to me. There’s enough magic and spells woven into the door itself that those wishing harm upon the occupants would not be able to enter, their hands simply never quite connecting with the door handle, but as Pemba takes a deep breath and reaches out to it, he is easily able to pull it open.

The cavernous space in front of us has a simple wooden staircase going down into the depths of the roots, the hard-packed earthen walls smelling of that same sweet decay as the rest of the forest.

The smell of home, the smell of all I’ve lost.

After carefully hiding the scepter in the pack, Pemba squares his shoulders as he takes the lead, holding out an arm for me to grab as we descend the uneven steps. A few torches, lit and hammered into the walls around us, burn with an unnatural light as magic keeps them glowing. Our coven used the same sorts of spells, and though I’ve never been here before, it makes the inn familiar to me. Muddy sets of footprints far larger than my own lead down the stairs, some easily four times the size of my boots, and at the sight of them, I have to take a moment to center myself with a deep breath.

Many magic folk frequent these inns—many who might not want to spend time in the presence of a witch, even a Ravenswyrd.

“Just breathe, Rooke. Everything is going to be okay,” Pemba mutters under his breath, and I clear my throat as if I can clear the demons from my head at the same time.

No one is going to care about two little Ravenswyrd witches this far away from our coven land. We've traveled a great distance in such a short amount of time, they won't yet know that we're orphans. Everything is going to be okay.

When we reach the bottom of the stairs, the room opens into a large tavern filled with many drinking patrons. I wasn't expecting it to be quite this busy—it's early afternoon, after all—and I gulp a little at the wide variety of lower fae here.

Goblins, elves, a few who must have at least a little high fae blood in them with their fair looks…dozens of folk who could kill us both without much effort.

Pemba rolls his shoulders back one last time before he walks confidently toward the bar. I do my best to emulate him as I follow close behind, tucking the hood of my jacket around the dark nest of curls that have escaped my braids.

Most of the patrons here are men, and though I was sheltered in my coven, I'm not so naive in the ways of the world as to not understand that a woman traveler isn't particularly safe. These men could do just about anything to me, and I wouldn’t know how to protect myself beyond blasting them with my magic, which would only cause us more problems. Magic should never be used to harm, and there are dire consequences for those who choose to do so.

Using magic against others without explicit consent is seen as the same as pulling a knife on them, the intent to cause harm assumed. In the eyes of the law—the high fae who rule over the lands—I would be automatically at fault. Guilty without a trial.

Magic should always be reserved for live-or-die situations.

“My father paid for a night here for us both under the name Sawyer. We're running a little late, though,” Pemba says to the innkeeper. Sawyer was the fake name our father used as a cover when he traveled, one that always served him well.

The innkeeper is an older woman, taller even than Pemba, and her skin has an emerald hue to it that denotes a goblin ancestry. She’s blonde though, her eyes deep blue, and I couldn’t hazard a guess at what the goblin is mixed with.

She doesn’t look impressed by either of us as she takes us both in, a glass and a rag in her hands as she cleans it.

“I don't keep rooms open just in case, especially if I’m risking my life and business for witches. If you fail to come when you've booked in, then the fee is forfeited,” she says with a stern look.

I don’t understand why her life would be at risk. We mean her no harm.

Pemba doesn’t seem as shocked at this information as I am.

“My sister has had some trouble keeping up. The forest isn't so forgiving these days. Is there nothing we can do to stay here?” he asks, turning on his charm as he winks at her, and I watch as the woman, who is at least twice his age in appearance alone, melts under his attention.

It always was his best gift.

“Well, you're lucky we have one room left for the night. I suppose I can give it to you—your father has always been a good patron. Don’t let it happen again,” she says, reaching under the bar to fish out a key.

The large keychain it hangs from has a number nine on it, and I try not to exhale too obviously. Nine is my lucky number, given to me by my father on the day of my birth. I look out for it wherever I can, and seeing it here now is all I need to know about our safety.

Pemba looks at it and then glances over his shoulder at me, the grin still on his face as he sees the omen as well. He hands the key to me, and I slip it into my pocket, ready to head to the room and lie down on a real bed for the first time in far too many days.

Pemba thanks the barkeep one last time and then walks me through the common area, intent on getting me away from all the strange folk we're surrounded with as quickly as possible. Our coven has helped and healed many different folk over the years—I’ve interacted with many of them—but that was always within the safety of our home.

This feels different, dangerous, and I want to lock myself away as quickly as possible.

We head up a second set of stairs and find the small room we've been allocated easily enough. There are two small beds, and Pemba lets me pick the one I want and then stashes the pack under his own. There's a faint smell of animals, as though the last occupant was a farmer whose scent still clings to the space, but the sheets are clean enough and the downy, feathered mattress underneath me is all I need to feel to know that this night is a great gift to me, one I won't be able to forget once we go back to sleeping out in nature.

I strip out of my boots and jacket and step into the small connecting bathroom only to find a large bathtub full of hot, steaming water waiting for me there. There's magic to it, I already know, but the mechanics of it mean nothing to me because it’s quite literally been months since my last proper hot bath. They were a luxury back home, one we didn't partake in very often, and the squeal of joy that rips out of my lips has Pemba cackling like a fool behind me.

“Go on, enjoy your bath. I'll take the berries downstairs to see if I can make a trade for dinner, and I'll have a bath when I get back,” he says with a grin, and I duck forward to give him a quick squeeze.

I shouldn't keep reminding him, but I find I can't help myself. “If there is one good thing that we still have after losing everything, Pemba, it's each other. I don't know how I would do this without you.”

The moment Pemba leaves the room, I strip and climb into the tub. The water is just shy of scalding, the perfect hot temperature for a soak. The groan that escapes my lips is almost obscene, so much so that I'm thankful my brother isn't around to hear it.

Every ache and pain in my muscles melts away as I tip my head back and submerge myself fully under the water. There’s a small shelf of vials next to the tub, and I pull the lid off each of them, one by one, to take a sniff. They’re bath oils, simple enough in their makeup, and all of them are cheaply made, but I appreciate having access to them to scrub myself clean.

I select the one that smells simply of rose and use it to scrub down, going over myself twice to be sure I’m clean. Only once my skin is pristine do I let down my braids and give my hair a scrub as well. I was so worried about visiting the Seer looking unkempt, and now, as long as I'm careful, I should make it to her looking respectable.

I can honor my mother’s last wishes in such a way.

Where are you, croí?

The voice startles me so much that I drop the vial into the tub, cursing under my breath as I fumble to pick it back up. There wasn't much left in it anyway, but it still feels like a waste as I place the empty bottle back on the shelf.

We’ve made it to our lodgings for the night. I'm enjoying a soak, I send back, blushing furiously at the idea of this man knowing that I'm naked right now. I’m still a virgin, but I’ve shared intimacies with Donn before, small and illicit moments in the dead of the night when he’d felt my restlessness through our connection. Does that count as sexual experience? He was with me, feeling what I was feeling and flooding my mind with his own desires, but the idea of him seeing me naked still sends fire racing through my blood.

It doesn’t quite feel real yet, like a secret fantasy I’m exploring privately instead of foreplay with the man who inhabits my mind from time to time.

There's a pause before he answers me, my heart pounding in my chest at the silence.

All it takes is a soak to make you this happy? Where do you come from, little croí?

I swallow roughly. Has my joy really reached him, or is he closer now than he's ever been before? Part of me hopes he's hunting for me and that I will find safety in his arms, but there's another part of me that knows this is dangerous.

I need to learn my fate before I lose myself in a man.

I'm a simple woman, you should know that by now.

I don't know how, but he sends a deep, inviting chuckle to me, something that seems inconceivably difficult for me to do in return, but shivers course down my spine at the sound of it.

Dark and tempting.

There are a lot of things I would give you, croí, if only you would tell me where you are.

I don't know if it's because I'm so relaxed in the tub or if it's because it's the first time I have truly been alone with his voice in my head, but I find myself being bold, or maybe brave, or even just reckless.

I send back to him, What things? Tell me. What would you do with me, Donn?

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the list of sensual acts he sends back to me has my toes curling against the edge of the tub, my hand slipping down my belly until I reach my core, my fingers pressing into my clit as his voice fills my mind. It feels indulgent to have the whole room to myself, no chance of being interrupted, and instead of the rushed act of pleasuring myself when everyone else in my house was asleep or if I found myself alone in a quiet place in the forest, under the stars, I can just enjoy the quiet sensuality of the bathtub brimming with hot water.

Donn realizes quickly what I’m doing, and then his words change into demands, clearly detailed instructions on how he wants me to touch myself, how many fingers he wants me to plunge into my wet pussy, and the pace he wants me to take. He takes over completely, allowing me to empty my mind and think of nothing but doing what he says, following his every command with eagerness. Sex isn’t something that witches shy away from, but this feels a thousand times more intimate than the stories I heard back at our village. The awkward fumbling first times of my friends never sounded as sensual and pleasurable as this, and when I finally come, it’s at Donn’s command, and his praise has the blush on my cheeks spreading down my chest.

Good girl. Now tell me where you are, and I’ll finish what you’ve started.

My location is at the tip of my tongue, but then I hear the key at the door and remember what I’m traveling for in the first place. It feels wrong to just leave him, though, so I send one last message back to him.

One week. I’ll find my path, and then I’ll tell you where to find me, Donn.

CHAPTER THREE

You’re traveling to the Seer to find out your fate.

My eyes snap open before I have the chance to fully process Donn’s words as they swirl ominously inside my mind. A small thrill of excitement bubbles inside me, but the sensible part of my brain knows what’s at risk here.

My family is dead. I don’t know enough about this man to meet up with him on top of a mountain with only my brother as protection. He could arrive with an entire coven of trained witches or highly skilled mercenaries.

My gut clenches at the thought.

I'm lying on my side on the bed facing Pemba across the room. He's on his back, snoring, without any sign that he’s felt my concern, even though I feel as though my tension is filling the room and slowly suffocating me. In one fell swoop, my night of good sleep has just been ruined.

Why would you say that? I send back, trying to seem calm, but I know even before he chuckles at me that I'm failing miserably.

You said you were looking for the path you needed to be on. You’re on your way to the Seer, and I will meet you there.

My heart thumps in my chest and climbs up the back of my throat until it lodges itself there as an impossible mass to swallow around. I have to be careful with my answer here, just in case.

The smell of my coven burning still clings to my soul.

There's no reason for me to trust you. Just because we share some sort of bond doesn't mean I can just tell you anything. That’s a lot to ask of me, Donn, without you offering me anything in return.

He doesn't answer straight away, and I get the feeling that he's also choosing his words with caution. A sign that he really cares? Maybe…or maybe he just really wants to catch me. The new and unprotected Mother of the Ravenswyrd Coven.

The last of my kind.

It feels wrong to even think that with Pemba snoring gently across the room, but it’s true. He’s a Ravenswyrd, full-blooded and my kin, but he’ll never hold the titles I do. As a man, he can’t.

When Donn does finally answer me, it’s slow and well-considered.

What do I need to do to gain your trust? What can I do to prove myself to you, because I mean you no harm, croí. I only want to be with you now, as we are fated to be.

There isn't a simple answer to that, but it's also the most honesty he has ever given me, so I take the chance to pry a little further into what he’s saying.

You already know your fate then, I say, and he answers with the absolute confidence of a man who is single-mindedly determined to get what he wants.

You. My fate is you.

My heart flutters in my chest. Plain old Rooke is not only the first thing this man thinks of every morning but his fate as well.

The forest might have decided to turn its back on me, but perhaps the Fates are a little more kind.

If we're fated to be together, then the Seer will tell me the same thing, I'm sure. We’re not too far away from meeting with her. If he can just wait the week like I asked, I’ll be able to go with him happily.

What if I get there, and he’s wrong? What if my fate is someone else, and I have to look him in the face and say no to him? I don’t feel strong enough to do that. Not at all.

I will tell you where I am and where we can meet when I'm ready.

It takes every ounce of my strength to say that to him, and I can feel his frustration again like an itch down my spine as it bleeds through our connection and into my body.

I can't wait around for you, croí. I have to find you and bring you home as soon as I can. I swear to you on the Fates themselves that I mean you no harm. I only want to take you home and provide for you. You will never have to walk for miles and miles on end. You will never go to bed hungry. You'll never be scared or worried about anything. I will never let you feel that sadness that touches your heart again. I just want to take care of you as the Fates have asked of me.

It's the closest I have been yet to telling him where I am, the closest I've gotten to giving in and giving myself over to this man. After what happened to our coven, I desperately want to let him take control of my life and leave all the indecision I have found myself in behind. I want some quiet space to grieve properly and process the life-changing events I’ve been thrown into, until I feel like myself again. To have him take care of me and my brother, to keep us both safe… it’s so damned tempting.

But as I watch Pemba’s chest steadily rise and fall, I know it's not that simple. My brother would never hand me over to this man, not without the Fates telling him to.

Before I have the chance to answer Donn, a loud banging on our door wakes Pemba up, his entire body shooting from the bed with a yelp as he stumbles toward me out of habit, two beacons in the darkness of our lives that eternally find home in each other.

I jump out of my own bed already dressed and ready for the day, just needing to pull my boots on, because I’m aware of how much of an early riser my brother usually is. It’s a sign of how tired he really is that I’ve woken before him two days in a row.

That Donn woke me up before him.

He braces his shoulder against the door and calls out, “Yes? Who is it?”

“It's the innkeeper, and you two need to get out of here right now if you intend to see another dawn.”

He glances at me in shock, but I’m already tugging my second boot on, my jacket in my arms as I prepare to throw myself out the door without another word. Pemba’s eyes bounce over to where the pack is still safely tucked under the bed, the scepter out of sight. My heart is racing, and my hands shake as I finish getting myself together.

“We paid for a night! The sun isn't even up yet,” Pemba says as he opens the door, but the look the innkeeper gives us both isn't one to argue with.

“I’m doing this for your own protection. Fae soldiers arrived just a moment ago. The Savage Prince’s soldiers. They're looking for a lost fae princess, and if they find two witches here instead… you need to leave before I end up filled with iron-tipped blades for harboring the enemy.”

Not a lot of that makes sense to me—especially why this woman thinks we’re anyone’s enemy. Pemba doesn’t seem as shocked though, cursing under his breath as he runs a hand through his hair and tugs on it a little. He glances at me, and I swallow roughly at the mess we’ve found ourselves in.

A lost fae princess.

Royal fae family feuds are far beyond my grasp. That could be one of over a hundred different women, thanks to the immortal lifespan of the fae and the incredibly complicated family trees that exist within the royal lines, but without any extra details, I’d guess that one of the princesses has run off from her husband or maybe her father.

I give her a grateful nod and a small smile. “Thank you. We’ll get out of your hair right now.”

She pulls a face and nods at me, holding out a small bag that smells like fresh bread. “The high fae don't like witches around here. You need to be back on the road and out of plain sight fast. If they find out I let you both stay here, they won't stop long enough to hear your last name or your family creed before they kill the two of you and me as well. I have a couple of goblins who were cast out by the Goblin King himself waiting downstairs to help direct you out of their path. Go now. You won't be welcome back here until this business with the witches and fae is over… however long that takes.”

The need to finish this journey and make it back to the forest wells up inside me, a thrill of panic running through my blood. I'm not sure what the high fae have against witches, but what matters is that we’re getting out of the inn with a chance of survival.

I hope it's a good one.

Pemba shoves his shoes on and grabs the pack before slinging a protective arm around my shoulders and directing me down the stairs. I pull the hood of my jacket over my face as we find the goblins. They're clearly waiting for us, and one of them gives Pemba a firm nod before he turns and stalks out of a small side door off the staircase. He waves a hand to signal for us to stay put until they can check that the area is clear for us. When we finally move forward, we do so as quietly as we can, our feet soft on the moss of the forest floor.

I risk a glance back and see the crowd of high fae soldiers waiting at the front of the inn door. They all look the same, impossibly tall and with beautiful blond hair shining down their backs, polished armor, and midnight-blue cloaks pinned to their shoulders as they wear the color of the Savage Prince. The rightful heir to the throne of the Southern Lands.

Each of them has a sword buckled at their side.

I gulp at the sight of them. They look like something out of a dream, like staring at them for too long could be the same as staring at the sun, bright and shining and burning you to the core.

I must hesitate for too long, because Pemba’s arm tightens around my shoulders and he tugs me along, pressing his mouth to my ear to whisper, “We need to get as far away from them as we can, as quickly as we can, if they’re hunting witches.”

The goblin in the lead takes us around to where the trees grow thicker for coverage only to stop once, more cursing under his breath. I crane my head around Pemba to see what has him upset, and my breath catches in my chest.

More high fae soldiers.

There have to be at least fifty men here at the inn, all of them armed to the teeth, so whichever of the fae princesses is hiding out, she's important.

I send out a small prayer to the Fates that she’s okay, that they’re not here to harm her or to take her back somewhere to be hurt.

The goblins make hand signals at each other, but I don't understand what they're saying. The innkeeper said they were on the run themselves, and a trickle of unease filters into my gut. I wonder what they've done to get on the radar of the high fae. Everybody knows you do your best to stay away from them. Their cold, cruel, wicked games are not the sort of thing that the lower fae should be involved in, not if we can help it.

We stand there, glued to the spot as we watch the soldiers talking amongst themselves. It seems to be an argument of some sort, frustration that the innkeeper hasn't simply handed over this woman, and I start to worry for the older woman. She might not have been the friendliest, but she let us stay the night, and when Pemba had returned from the kitchens, he'd done so with two large bowls of stew and a tankard of cold beer. The hot bath alone was enough for me to appreciate the woman, but the food was delicious and the icing on the cake.

One of the fae at the edge of the group curses loudly enough that we hear it clearly. He's not speaking in the common tongue, but when I was a child, my father taught me all the languages spoken in the Southern Lands. When I proved adept at such learnings, he went as far as teaching me the language of the high fae of the Northern Lands as well. We had just started a fifth language.

The fae soldier rips off his helmet, and I catch sight of the darker color of his skin. When he turns, I see the pointed tips of his ears, the tight black curls shaved close to his scalp, and the golden hue of his eyes. His face has the same heart-wrenchingly stunning perfection of the high fae. Everything about his appearance is a marker of the Seelie fae of the Northern Lands, so whoever this fae princess is, she’s wanted by more than just the Savage Prince.

The second thing that strikes me is the sword at his side. The diamond in the hilt is huge, larger than both of my fists together. Clearly he isn't just a soldier but someone of royal blood himself.

“She's not in there!” he snaps, and one of the soldiers at his side pulls his helmet off as well, a tumble of white-blond hair falling from underneath it.

He looks so typically Unseelie fae that staring at his heartbreaking beauty for too long almost hurts, like looking directly into the sun itself. “What exactly do you want me to do about it? We were told she'd be here. It's the only inn within a hundred miles!”

“I can't smell any fae in there. You said you wanted me here because of my senses, and now you're not listening to me when I use them.”

The Seelie fae steps back, but none of them seem too worried about his temper. I would be—he's at least twice the width of half of the others, the type of man who didn’t just become a soldier but was born to be one.

“Soren sent me here because he trusted me to bring her back. We are wasting time, because the inn only stinks of lower fae. There is no high fae in there.”

Soren.

A chill runs down my spine at the sound of his name. I think my prayer to the Fates will be ignored, because the Savage Prince is not someone you run away from and survive.

Both of his parents were murdered in their beds, some assassin making their way through the castle on the edge of a cliff, surrounded by waterfalls, which was rumored to be impenetrable, and yet the king and the queen were both killed, leaving the young prince orphaned and the throne of the Southern Lands in the hands of his uncle until the prince came of age.

Rumors of the Savage Prince’s brutality have reached even the isolated depths of the Ravenswyrd Forest.

Witches are considered adults the moment we turn eighteen, with a long life ahead of us, but fae are different thanks to their longer lifespans, and even though the assassinations happened over a hundred years ago, the prince is considered too young and hasn’t taken his throne. I don’t know enough about high fae royal lines to suppose a reason for that, but my breath catches in my throat once more as the fae soldiers finally begin to move off. They travel in the same direction that we need to go, and Pemba's mouth turns downward at the sight of their retreating backs.

There's nothing we can do but wait.

***

The moment that the fae soldiers have left our sight, one of the goblins disappears, melting into the line of trees as he makes his escape. It isn't going to be that simple for us. Pemba shifts his body so that he’s covering me fully, protecting me from the curious eyes of the remaining goblin as they discuss how exactly they're planning on getting past the fae now that we’re all heading in the same direction.

“I have a horse and cart just farther up the way there. I sheltered her under the canopy of the trees for the night when I stopped at the inn. I can take you both up the mountain, if that's where you’re heading.”

Pemba scowls at him distrustfully, and I don't blame him. The goblin hasn’t asked for anything in return, but I'm sure the ride isn’t free.

“Just like that, huh?” Pemba says, and the goblin shrugs his shoulders.

“I’m already heading that way. On the other side of the mountain is the Great Harbor. I’m going to find a boat sailing to the Northern Lands. There's a war happening, you know?”

The trouble in the Northern Lands, now called the Fate Wars, began when the king there refused his fate and opened up a chasm that is now destroying his kingdom. There are dozens of rumors of dark creatures spilling forth and wiping out entire cities in one fell swoop, rumors terrifying enough that they made their way into the forest and our little coven.

Pemba scowls and runs his gaze over the goblin, assessing him and finding him wanting. He’s not much to look at, not a big guy or an obvious soldier type. His story makes no sense. “Why would you be running off to war? That's even more crazy than offering two witches a ride for free.”

The goblin chuckles and turns away from us, forcing us to follow him as he makes his way to a sheltered area where we find the horse and cart. The small brown mare whinnies at the sight of him, huffing happily when he reaches out to stroke her soft nose.

“I was cast out of Goblin City by the Goblin King himself. There's no place in the Southern Lands where I'm safe. The King of the Northern Lands has already decreed that anyone willing to fight in the Fate Wars is welcome in his land, no questions asked. It might be my only chance to build a new life for myself… a second chance.”

A new life.

I can't question him on that, because isn't that exactly what Pemba and I are facing ourselves? Reluctantly, Pemba agrees. I don't let it show on my face, but I take a relieved breath when I climb into the back of the cart. There is absolutely no way that my feet are going to get me up the mountain in one go, and it is a huge help to have a day of sitting on my butt instead.

The goblin takes a different path than the fae did, and when Pemba questions him, he merely shrugs. “We’ll have to go the long way so that we don't run into any more of those soldiers. Just because they looked intent on finding that fae girl doesn't mean they won't stop us if they see us.”

I wait until the steady clip-clop of the horse’s hooves against the path and the rushing river beside us can mask my words before I lean over to Pemba. “Why are the high fae persecuting witches? Did Father tell you anything about that?”

Pemba cringes and rubs a hand across the back of his neck, glancing around as though he's afraid someone will overhear this conversation. I didn't realize it was such a controversial topic.

“There's been talk of the witches feuding with the high fae for longer than we've been alive. Far longer. Mama and Father weren't ever worried about it, because the Ravenswyrd Coven has always been neutral,” he says hesitantly.

I raise my eyebrows at him and motion with my hand for him to go on, because that clearly isn't the end of the story. None of that information warrants such hesitation.

He glances back at the forest we’re leaving behind and reaches into his pocket. When he pulls out the end of an arrow, my heart stops in my chest. The feathers are the same ones that littered the ground of our coven’s village.

Whoever killed our family shot those arrows.

“This was lodged in the thatching of our hut. Look at the fletching, Rooke. This is a witch arrow, crafted by one of our own. The Ravenswyrd have never been in conflict before. The only folk who have ever wished us ill are the high fae, simply for being witches, but whoever came for our family and burned our coven to the ground—it was witches.”

Terror as cold as ice runs through my veins.

Why would witches come after our coven? Everyone knows the Ravenswyrd are neutral. Everyone.

To think it was one of our own, someone who knew the Ravenswyrd way and how defenseless we truly were…the level of cruelty that would require is inconceivable to me. I’d imagined some monster, some band of rogue travelers but the image of the arrow runs through my mind. We won’t be able to send out for help. We can’t trust anyone to help us rebuild, because it could have been any of the hundreds of covens, and we don’t know where to even start guessing.

Donn could’ve been a part of the attack.

Did he go there looking for me?

I feel the color leave my cheeks as my skin turns to ice. Pemba nods and tucks the arrow back into his pocket before slinging an arm over my shoulder and tucking me into his side, his body like a protective blanket.

“Once we find out your fate, we'll figure out who the witches are and what their motives were. Whoever it is, we'll deal with it. Together.” His voice is as hard as steel, and for the first time, it occurs to me that while violence is not the Ravenswyrd way… it might be my brother’s.

CHAPTER FOUR

The path we have to take up the mountain isn't just a bit longer, it curls around the base of the mountain and spirals up the side of it so that we’re forced to cover twice as much distance as we would have if the fae hadn't shown up.

It means the trip will take us a day and a half, with a stop overnight once it’s too dark to safely travel. By the time the goblin, Url, pulls the horse to a halt, the sky is already dark around us. I had been steadily nodding off despite the aches and pains riddling my body, thanks to being forced to sit rigidly for so long. Pemba curses under his breath as he tries to remove his arm from my shoulders, his bones cracking thanks to him having held me up for so long.

While we traveled, we’d shared one loaf of bread that the innkeeper had given us, but there’s another left in there. After Url makes camp, we share it with him, as well as our remaining handful of berries. I can see that Pemba isn't too happy about doing so, especially when the goblin eats twice as much as we do put together, but he’s given us this ride for free, so it’s the least we can do.

As soon as he’s had his fill, Url sets up a tent and climbs into it with nothing more than a nod in Pemba’s direction. We don't have a tent or any sort of covering, so I leave my boots on to keep my feet warm and pull my jacket off to ball it up and rest my head on it.

The area where we've stopped has a small, lush groundcover of grass and mosses, and though I cringe at what the state of my clothing will be once I wake, I’m comfortable enough sleeping here.

Pemba lies down beside me, but I have no doubt that he’s planning on staying awake for as long as he can, not trusting the goblin or the potential for other travelers to find us here. The same guilt that’s been with me since we left our village creeps into my bones once more, but there’s no use trying to argue with him.

I'm his younger sister, and if he refuses to sleep to guard me, there’s nothing I can do to stop him.

***

When I wake, the first thing I notice is there's no voice in my head.

It's the first time since my family was murdered that Donn hasn't woken up with me and checked that I’m okay. Nervous butterflies flash through my stomach, the thought that he could have been involved in the attack still making me feel sick. My heart aches at his absence though, not at all convinced that he means me any harm. It’s stupid and childish; I need to be smarter than that.

I come from a long line of matriarchs, a society that was built on following three women at all times. I can't be the Mother of the Ravenswyrd Coven if I’m going to be losing my head over a man.

I don't think my mother ever worried about the opinions of a man, not even my father, though I'm sure it helps that he hung on her every word as though they were falling from the lips of the Goddess herself.

I’m awake earlier than Url, but Pemba is already pacing around the clearing, searching through the long grasses fastidiously, and without having to ask a single question, I know that he’s searching for herbs and flowers that might be helpful to us both. There are at least a dozen different tinctures I could brew for us with the right ingredients that would help to ease the aches and pains and bolster energy for the rest of the journey.

The problem is that most of them require herbs that are rare or, at the very least, seasonal. Back home, we’d take camping trips to collect them, carefully preserving our bounty and storing them away in my mother's apothecary.

At best, Pemba might find enough chamomile flowers that we can enjoy a cup of tea before we get back on the road, and maybe he’s stumbled upon some frogsmist moss that’ll keep us from catching a cold once we reach the snowy peak, but we're not going to find much more of use here.

Pemba notices my eyes are open and comes over to join me, motioning with his hands in a reassuring manner that I already know is his way of asking if I slept okay and if my body is still feeling sore from the hard ground. I give him a small smile and a shrug back, trying to appear calm and at peace, but it’s a lie.

When I sit up from my makeshift bed on the grass, my back pops in three different places, loudly enough that Pemba winces in my direction, shooting me an apologetic look. I’m not too bothered by it, and I shake out my coat before pulling it back on to fight the frigid morning air.

It's much colder up here than it was in the forest, even without the damp river running alongside us, and I desperately wish that we could have lit a fire so that my hands weren't aching and numb. Url was quick to point out to us that the fae soldiers would spot the smoke and potentially come looking for whoever had lit it in case we had information about the lost princess they’re hunting.

I wonder if she made it through the night.

I also wonder if the fae know anything about camping. I can't imagine them living anywhere other than their huge, beautiful castles, often built on the sides of cliffs or hanging over lakes as though they were nothing more than a cloud.

I’ve never been to one, of course, but my father once traveled past one while delivering supplies. When he came back, he spoke about the castle for weeks in hushed and awed tones. Something as commonplace to the high fae as the castles the reigning royals lived in was an act of magic to him. We are simple creatures, not used to the finery of the high fae, and when he’d described the shining white marble walls and lush gardens, I’d felt as though maybe he was exaggerating, because it sounded so different from the humble little huts we lived in.

We were happy in them.

Once Url is awake and has packed away his own tent and sleeping bag, we get back on the road once more. Pemba pulls out the small satchel of dried nuts again. Only this time, there isn't really enough to share, and he forces me to eat the last of them.

I move as though I’m planning on holding them out to share with the goblin like we’d done with the bread, but Pemba shoots me a glare, halting me straightaway.

It feels wrong not to share them, against the way I’ve been raised and trained in selflessness.

After an hour of nothing to be heard but the sounds of the birds calling overhead, I feel a trickle of unease down my spine. At first, I roll my shoulders back and sit up a little straighter, sure that it’s just my own discomfort at being stuck in the cart, but when Pemba shoots me a look, I realize he feels it too. There's something here.

Watching us.

***

Pemba slowly slides his hand away from my shoulder, moving casually as though he hasn't noticed the extra set of eyes on us, and he leans into my side to murmur, “Are you hungry? Let me get you something to eat.”

We ran out of food when I ate the last of the nuts. He’s signaling to me that he's getting something out of the pack, and in case whatever is watching us has keen hearing, it’ll assume that he’s rooting around in there for food.

Instead, he pulls out my mother's scepter.

I feel sick just looking at it. The dark oak wood of the base curls up and around the raw emerald gemstone that was the magnifier of my mother's power. She used it only in moments of desperation, usually when she was trying to save someone's life. The dark green of the gemstone is the same color as my eyes, reflecting and refracting sunlight onto my skin.

When we’d arrived to find the coven in flames, it was the first thing Pemba looked for once he knew there were no survivors. It feels dangerous for me to even hold it as a conductor for my magic, but when Pemba thrusts it at me, I have no choice but to take it. The wood warms under my hand, recognizing the power in my blood that’s building up inside me and pushing out toward the scepter instinctively.

It’s terrifying.

Url glances back at us, and his gaze catches on the emerald at the end of the scepter. His eyes flare a little as though it's unexpected to see two young witches out in the world with something like it.

It is a very unusual sight.

When he looks back at the road in front of him, he curses under his breath and pulls the cart to an abrupt stop. I lurch towards Pemba, one of his hands steadying me as he studies the underbrush around us.

He’s expecting an ambush.

“What are you doing? You're about to get run over!”

I crane my neck around Url to see who he’s speaking to, and I find a dark elf standing in the center of the path, blocking it with his feet planted wide. His features are pinched and look almost animalistic as his beady eyes take us in.

He's tall, though not as tall as a high fae. His ears are pointed the same as theirs, but the sallow skin around his eyes is so thin that I can see veins standing out under them. His nose is just a little too pointed, and his mouth a little too small for his face. There's none of the heartbreaking beauty of the high fae in him at all.

He's dressed in rags.

Instantly, I feel uncomfortable. I might be an orphan, out in the world with nothing but the few belongings in the satchel my brother is carrying, but at least I have clothing. It doesn't seem fair, but the goblin doesn’t seem to agree with my assessment.

“You need to move,” he says again.

The elf just cocks his head, his gaze moving over the horse in a way that turns my gut.

Url is speaking in the common tongue, but I call out in Elvish, “We’re traveling to the Seer. If you need a ride, you're welcome to hop into the cart with us.”

I’m thankful Pemba doesn’t speak Elvish, having never shown an interest in learning languages, because I'm sure he would have a lot to say about my offer. I'll have a hell of a time convincing them both to let the elf come with us if he takes me up on my invitation.

The elf zeroes in on me, and Pemba curses under his breath. “Just kill it,” he says, and I want to vomit at the thought of it.

I can't just kill it. I've never killed anything in my life, and I'm sure it’ll stay that way.

Except then the screaming starts.

Bone-chilling, mind-numbing, nails hammering into the backs of my eyeballs screaming. I had thought the wraith was bad but this is indescribable torture. The screams make me feel sick to my stomach, the type that sounds as though a woman is being murdered somewhere in the underbrush, or perhaps she's watching one of her children being harmed, but I already know the instincts I'm feeling are false.

It’s the banshee way.

Their power is in the way that their screaming immobilizes you, but if you're one of the handful of people who can function through it, like myself, the screaming often instead lulls you into a trap.

Unless, of course, you’re familiar with banshees.

Pemba doubles over, hands clapping over his ears as he groans in agony, and Url falls from his seat on the cart as he lets out a shout himself. The moment he does, the elf darts forward and gets one hand on the reins of the horse, and I jump to my feet.

With the scepter held out in front of me, I try one last time to reason with it, the Elvish falling from my tongue as though it were my first language and not my third. “I can help you! You don't have to do this. I can help you get wherever you're going.”

It smiles at me, ghoulish and gross, but its hand reaches behind its back and pulls out a dagger, the blade of which is rusted and dirty. It lifts the dagger to slash the horse’s throat, and as panic flares in my chest, my magic runs through my arm and bursts out of the scepter…and hits the elf.

The warmth of its blood hits my face, and I squeeze my eyes shut in absolute horror so I don’t have to see what I’ve done.

Pemba makes a gasping noise from where he is curled up in a ball at my feet, still incapacitated by the screaming of the banshee, and I force my eyes open again and step down from the cart.

“Rooke,” he gasps, but I ignore his attempt to stop me.

If the banshee doesn't stop screaming, before too long, my brother's brain will liquefy in his skull. I've already killed the elf, what's one more?

I think maybe part of me has died with it.

It doesn’t take long to find the banshee. It looks like a young girl huddled behind one of the bushes with another elf holding her wrist. It might be here willingly, or maybe it’s a prisoner. Either way, it doesn’t stop screaming.

I have no choice, not where Pemba is concerned.

I raise the scepter once more, and this time, my magic flows out of me at a steady pace instead of a violent burst. Maybe I'm getting the hang of it, or maybe the numbness that has taken over my body has controlled the flow for me. The screaming stops the moment the banshee's heart does.

This is probably the first time in the history of the Ravenswyrd Coven that the Mother has taken a life.

Three lives.

I’ve stumble two steps away from the bodies before I vomit. I don't stop until my stomach is cramping and I'm bringing up nothing but bile. Pemba comes over to me, blood flowing out of his nose from the damage the banshee has done, and I focus on that. I couldn't let it kill him.

I'm not in the forest anymore.

I'm not a safe little girl with parents who love her and a centuries-long covenant of neutrality protecting me from the evils of the world.

Kill or be killed.

“It’s okay, Rooke, take a deep breath. You did what you had to do,” Pemba says as he pulls me into his arms. It's only when I feel the racing of his heart underneath my ear that I can actually take a breath.

This has shaken him up as much as it's shaken me.

“Search the bodies. If they have anything of use, there's no sense in leaving it behind,” the goblin calls out to us both as he picks up the headless corpse of the first elf and drags it off the path.

Headless.

The blood on my face is probably more than just blood.

My stomach cramps again, and I have to lean away from my brother to avoid vomiting on his boots. Pemba hesitates before he does as the goblin says. He's not any more comfortable pickpocketing the corpses than he was sitting by and watching me dispose of them, but the goblin’s simple practicality can’t be argued with. I know that my brother is cursing his lack of power right now more than he ever has before.

As we get back onto the cart, I stash the scepter away once more, sending out a silent prayer to the Goddess that I never have to touch the damn thing again.

CHAPTER FIVE

When we reach a small creek running through a fissure in the mountainside, the goblin pulls the cart over and tells us to refill our flasks while he lets the horse rest and have a drink as well.

Pemba’s still clutching at his head, his eyes more sunken into his skull than they were this morning, but when I ask him how he's feeling, he brushes me off.

I don't like that answer at all.

Once I have drunk my fill and helped Pemba refill our flasks, I wander a little farther down the creek, shutting my eyes and taking deep breaths to see if there is anything nearby that might help him. The earth has always provided what I need, and I trust it to do so now as well.

The terrain is different up here, and so are the herbs. Surprisingly, there are quite a few useful ones, and when I get a lungful of rubymint, I almost cry in relief. I fill my pockets to the brim, handfuls stuffed in there, because it’s not a fussy herb to pick.

Once I’ve scoured the area and collected everything else I can find, I tuck the other herbs into my handkerchief to separate them, ensuring, as I have been taught a thousand times before, I don’t contaminate anything.

The rubymint is the most important thing though, and when I get back to Pemba, I hold out a leaf to him with a small, triumphant smile.

A corner of his mouth quirks up. “Is there anything you can't find, little one?” he says, but he takes the leaf and chews it without question.

I see his relief instantly, the headache he was no doubt sporting melting away under the medicinal properties of my bounty. I have enough in my pocket that once we have seen the Seer, we can brew up a tea to go to bed with… well, to stretch out under the stars and fall asleep with, I guess.

I don’t know how long it will be until I sleep in a bed again.

I think about offering a leaf to Url, but he eyes us both like we're crazy as we chew on the leaves together.

I try to make light of it, to break some of the tension in the air. “It’ll help with the effects of the banshee, if you're brave enough to try.”

He shrugs at me. “I just saw you blow the head off an elf with nothing more than a stick, so I think I will keep to my own magic, thank you, little witch.”

He’s not wrong, and I can't blame him for mentioning it, though my stomach does turn at the reminder of the mess I made of the elf.

I did what I had to do, and though it still pains my heart when I think about it, I also know that I wouldn't change a thing. Not with my brother's life in the balance.

I’ve lost too many people.

We get back on the road again, and Pemba maps out the path of the sun, counting under his breath to figure out how much longer we'll be on the road. I already know we have a few more hours, and I've let myself slip back into a tranquil sleep when I feel the burning ghost of a pain in my side.

For a second, I think that maybe I’ve collected the wrong herb and poisoned Pemba and I. Panic flares in my body as my heart rate rises, but then I realize the pain is not my own.

Donn is hurt.

What's happened? I call out frantically. It’s the first time I’ve ever reached out to him first, but he doesn't answer.

My hands begin to shake, and I curse myself for not just telling him where we're heading. I almost do now, because though my head might not trust this man yet, my heart does. The prospect of losing him terrifies me… just as much as the thought of losing my brother.

Pemba notices me shaking, and he slips his hand into mine and gives it a squeeze of reassurance even as he continues his calculations.

There are a lot of dangerous folk out at the moment; you shouldn't be traveling alone.

I take a deep breath and sigh, thankful to hear Donn’s voice. He's obviously not injured too badly if he's still able to berate me for venturing into the world without more protection.

I'm not alone. I'm perfectly safe.

Liar, he whispers into my mind, and a shiver runs down my spine at the sensual tone of it. How can this man read me so easily already without us having met in person yet? How can he know what my half-truths sound like, when even Pemba struggles to pick them up?

I fall even deeper into his web, no longer sure if it’s such a bad idea. We’re hours away from finding out my fate. If ever there was a moment to give in to this man, it’s now.

I'm not alone, and I'm as safe as I can be, considering.

He still doesn't sound happy about that, and then I feel the cool relief of his injury being healed. Whoever he is, he has access to somebody with magic. Strong magic, if they're able to knit a wound together so quickly and effectively.

I'm sorry you had to feel that. I was taken unaware and couldn’t block it from you in time. I wouldn't ever hurt you, and the thought of you feeling such things is unconscionable to me. It will never happen again.

The words ring true. Whether that’s because my heart is hoping for such a thing or some innate part of me knows it, I’m not sure, but I have to duck my head to hide my grin from Pemba. The distraction of Donn's voice in my head is enough for me to feel giddy with excitement, and I’m less careful than I should be.

I'm not afraid of some pain. There's nothing to apologize for.

Tell me where you are, croí, he says one more time, but I ignore him, close enough to the Seer to know that it’s a matter of hours until I can tell him where I am and where we should meet.

I roll my shoulders as I look around the mountainside, categorizing everything we pass in case I can find something useful to us once more. The handfuls of herbs shoved into my pocket won’t last.

“We’ve got at least another three hours before we reach the top,” Url calls over his shoulder to us both and Pemba sighs as he settles back into his seat, tucking me in closer to his side.

***

Url stops at the base of the steps that lead to the Seer’s chambers, rooms carved out of the stone of the mountaintop itself by magic for the holiest of beings in all the Southern Lands.

There are six mountaintops like this with chambers for a Seer to live in, but there are only three Seers alive today. Years ago, I asked my mother and father what happened to the others, but they didn't have an answer for me.

I wonder now if they knew and were trying to protect me from something.

All witches come to this Seer, the oldest and most sought-after. She's not the sort of woman you come to without being prepared to humble yourself, and I’ve been training myself for this moment for more than half of my life. The fae once favored her as well, but when she insulted the Savage Prince with his own fate, she fell out of their good graces. They travel to one of the others now instead.

No one knows what his fate held, only that it enraged him.

I can't imagine being so pompous and self-absorbed as to spurn a Seer, especially this one.

Pemba helps me out of the cart and pulls the pack onto his shoulders with a small grunt. He glances around the area, but there's no sign of the fae soldiers.

It makes me nervous.

The goblin chuckles and points towards the thick tree line on the far side of the clearing. “There's a fae door through there. They would’ve traveled up here to step through it.”

A fae door.

The mysterious structures of an open doorway in the middle of nowhere that allow the fae to travel large distances with a mere step. I’d never seen one in person, but again, my father told me about finding them on his travels.

The very idea of doing so fills my stomach with roiling dread. There's no way I would step through a magic door and be transported thousands of miles as though it were nothing.

I ruffle my jacket, trying to brush off any extra dirt that might be there, as the nerves over what I'm about to do finally hit me. I’m going to learn my fate, my one purpose on this earth that the Fates themselves decide. The Seer will divine it and then hand it to me, and I must follow the instructions without question.

The very thought of turning my back on my fate is inexcusable. I could never do such a thing. I was always an obedient daughter to my mother and father. A good daughter, a good sister. A good Ravenswyrd witch, ready to take up the mantle as a healer and a neutral party in the world, never to harm and only to help.

I might have strayed from that path already, but I am still the same girl I was in the forest. I'm still ready to do the right thing.

Every fiber of my being prays that my fate is the man who whispers in my mind, the one who can't bear the thought of me being hurt or feeling his pain, the one who told me his fate is me. One simple thing, after so much pain… it can’t possibly be too much to ask for.

“Thank you for the ride. We appreciate the help,” Pemba says to the goblin, his shoulders straight and a serious look on his face as he reaches out a hand to offer him a handshake.

I don't know if he’s trying to emulate our father or if it's just coming naturally to him, but I know my father will be looking down on us both from Elysium with pride.

I just hope he missed me using my mother's scepter to take three lives.

“No problem at all,” the goblin says as he clasps Pemba’s hand.

I feel the warning in my gut before he moves, a shout leaving my lips as the hand clasped around Pemba’s jerks, yanking my brother forward while the other hand clamps around his throat.

It's so fast and violent that neither of us has time to react until it's too late. Our time growing up in the forest has made us easy targets, wary but with no clue what to do when bad things happen to us, and dammit, they just keep happening.

I trip over my feet as I stumble forward, but the goblin pulls out a sharp knife, the same one the elf attempted to use on the horse just yesterday, and he presses the sharp blade against Pemba’s throat.

I stop where I am, fear creeping up my spine as I hold out my hands in the universal sign of surrender.

“Now now, girlie, stay right there,” he drawls with the confidence of a killer, and I nod my head obediently.

“I want the magic stick. That's the price for the trip.”

Pemba’s face blanches, but I nod my head. “Anything for Pemba’s life. Take it,” I say. “It's in his pack. Just take it!”

The goblin’s eyes narrow at me distrustfully. “You’re happy to give up your magic just like that? I’m not an idiot. I won’t be tricked, girl.”

I shake my head quickly, my eyes burning with tears that I don't have to fake. All I have to think about is the knife pressing against Pemba’s throat and the lack of supplies I have to heal him, if the goblin decides to kill him, to trigger a full-blown meltdown.

“Nothing is more important to me than my brother, and I don't like the scepter anyway. Just take it, and leave him be! You won't hear another peep out of either of us.”

Pemba grits his teeth, sensing the truth in my words, and he snaps at me. “Rooke!”

But I shake my head, pleading with Url and hoping he can hear my sincerity. “Nothing is more important to me than my brother's life.”

He uses his free hand to open up Pemba’s satchel. He pulls out my mother's scepter as his eyes once again light up at the sight of the large emerald, the sunlight hitting it and casting a green glow over everything around it.

The goblin sees a large gemstone that can be traded away.

All I see is something that does not belong to me, something that always feels foreign in my hands. Something that should not have been mine, not yet, not for hundreds more years until my mother became the Crone and I was ready to become the Mother. But the world doesn't work that way.

The scepter does not like the goblin.

The scepter does not want to be touched by anything that isn't a Ravenswyrd witch.

The scepter wants me.

I swallow roughly as this knowledge filters into my brain. The scepter is speaking to me, reaching out to me, wanting me, and as though a switch has been flipped in my mind, I know that the shift has happened. It’s mine now, and I cannot let the goblin have it.

My fingers flick, and the scepter wrenches out of the goblin’s hand, more powerful and forceful than he can contain. As easy as breathing, it's back in my hand, glowing as I raise it in his direction.

A delighted grin spreads across Pemba’s face, pride lighting up his eyes as he takes me in even as the knife bites into the vulnerable flesh of his throat, and I'm not sure what I've done to deserve him looking at me like that, but I already know that I’ll do anything to keep him alive.

My voice is calm and sure as I speak to the goblin. “If you like your head where it is, you're going to let my brother go.”

The goblin pulls Pemba farther in front of himself like a shield of pure witch, but he obviously knows nothing of our kind, of the power we wield. The scepter isn't like an arrow, moving from one point straight across to another.

I raise it above my head and let it funnel my power straight into the goblin, confident that I gave him a warning, and it was more than enough to keep my conscience clean.

The Rooke of a few days ago, the one who was terrified to walk across the barroom at the inn, is gone. I might not know who this new Rooke is, but she's different, and the scepter belongs to her. The only power we have left in this world is our magic and, until we’re home safe, I’ll embrace it. Whatever new life we build, some things will be different.

We have to be different.

Pemba jerks forward, and Url’s hand drops away from his throat as his body tumbles to the ground. Thankfully, this death is a lot less blood-soaked than the last. It just looks as though the goblin decided to stop breathing, though his once soft-green skin turns an ashy-gray faster than I would have thought possible.

“I knew he was too good to be true,” Pemba says as he stumbles to me and wraps his arms around my shoulders.

I shrug and look down at Url’s body, feeling oddly hollow as I stare at it. “Killing shouldn't be this easy, Pemba.”

My brother shrugs. “This one should be. You keep warning them, and they keep doubting you. The world we grew up in, the one we were safe in? It never really existed, Rooke. It was a fantasy that Mama and Papa wove around us. In the real world, we need to be stronger than they were.”

CHAPTER SIX

Halfway up the long set of stone stairs carved into the mountainside, my legs begin to scream in pain. Apparently, two days sitting in the back of the cart did not help much with resting my aching limbs, and already I want to lie down and give up.

Pemba scoffs at me, still in a good mood after his near-death experience at the hands of the goblin, and I restrain myself from the urge to shove him down the side of the mountain. Clearly, I’m an amazing sister. Instead, I focus on the footprints on the steps in front of me, hundreds and thousands of people having already made this pilgrimage and walked up these stairs to find out their own fates. Their steps slowly chipped away at the stone until their mark was left here forever.

It's humbling.

Plain old Rooke, walking in the footsteps of those far more prestigious than I will ever be.

I'm silly enough to say this out loud, and Pemba shrugs at me with a chuckle. “You're selling yourself short again, little one. I didn't have enough magic in me to do a thing when that dirty goblin grabbed me without him slitting my throat. There's also nothing plain about you.”

It's the closest to a compliment my brother has ever given me about such things, and I scoff at him, slipping back into my role as his little sister for just a moment. It’s a nice break from the seriousness of what we’re here to do. I don’t think it’s really sunk in that I’ve used my magic to end life, defensive as it was. The same giddiness that Pemba is experiencing takes hold of me as well.

I find myself stripping out of my jacket, thanks to the sun, already hot overhead in the sky and beating down on us viciously.

“What are we going to do when we get our fates?” I ask, and Pemba shakes his head at me.

“I’m not getting one. Mama and Papa only got permission from the Seer for you to have your fate, not me.”

I scoff at him. “We’ve come all this way, we might as well see if she'll do yours too. What’s the harm in asking?”

He looks ahead of us at the dozens of stairs we still have to climb, wincing a little. “I’ve never really thought about it before. I never thought I would have the chance to meet with the Seer. Father was never supposed to get his fate either, you know?”

I didn’t.

I shoot him a look. Huffing and puffing as I am, I can't find the words to encourage him to continue, but he's my brother and he knows that I'm curious, thankfully.

We never had to share stories about our parents like this before, we could simply ask them ourselves, but I guess this is our life now, reminiscing over memories to keep our family alive.

I can't think of my siblings without wanting to cry. So I push their names and their faces to the back of my mind where I can leave them until the wound is a little less tender inside me.

They were nothing more than children, babies, and they were murdered just the same as the adults.

“He was delivering supplies for another coven. You know he didn't have a proper family of his own? It's why Grammy didn't like him. Well, not at first, but he won her over with his charm. So, while he was delivering supplies, he crossed paths with the Seer on one of her pilgrimages, and he swapped her a little of his magic for some dinner. He had his own, of course, but any excuse to talk about Mama some more. No one had ever asked the Seer for something in return, but Father had no idea who she was when he ran into her, and I think she was charmed by him.”

I huff again, a little bit because of how exhausted I am but also at my brother's words. My father was just as charming as Pemba is, both of them able to get their own way with nothing much more than a few honeyed words and a grin. My mother had always said that half of her purpose was keeping Papa out of trouble, a job she took seriously.

“And his fate was Mama,” he murmurs, glancing over his shoulder down the steep incline to where we've left the horse and cart tied to a tree.

I’d used my magic and the scepter to bury the goblin as an offering to the earth, saying a small prayer to the Goddess and hoping that the mountain wouldn't be too angry at us for burying him there. The Ravenswyrd witch inside me is always worried about these sorts of things.

“Their fate was to be happy with one another,” I mumble to him under my breath, and Pemba shrugs.

“They were. The Fates never said how long they'd have together.”

I huff again. “It still seems cruel to me.”

Pemba swipes the back of his hand over his forehead as we reach the top, the entrance of the Seer’s cavernous dwelling opening up before us. Simple enough in its construction, nothing more than rock, but with thousands of protective sigils carved into every surface.

The power of this space beats onto my skin like a living thing, stealing what little air is left in my lungs as I stare at it.

“No one ever said that the Fates had to be kind,” Pemba mumbles under his breath, but I'm too busy staring at the stones to answer him or think about his words.

The power of this space is breathtaking.

I can feel it like a physical thing pressing against my skin. Every inch of my being wants to bow to it, to cower before the fearsome nature of such a thing, and my own magic pools in my gut as though called out to play. Even if I studied magic for a thousand more years, I wouldn't be able to memorize all the markings that surround me. Some of them have likely been here far longer than the Seer herself, protection for the Seer that came before her. Some of them look brand new, all of them etched into stone by those who came here to see her.

Flutters burst into my stomach. I’m finally here. I want to reach out to Donn and tell him that I made it, that I’m so close to being able to tell him where I am and figure out where to meet. I’m close to having some direction and clarity in my life once more.

“Do you still have the spell Mama gave you?” Pemba questions as he lets his hand hover over some of the newer markings. I nod my head, fishing around in my jacket until I find the small cloth my mother wove.

She sat with me for weeks as we embroidered the spell into the fabric together. The Ravenswyrd didn't believe in paper and ink. Those things were too fragile and short-lived for us and our work. Instead, our books were made up of fabrics, spells woven into them and flowers pressed into the threads to leave behind their own marks.

I always thought it was such a beautiful thing.

When I unfold the small piece of fabric, Pemba’s breath catches in his throat at the sight of the protection sigil.

“That's a lot of power,” he mutters, and I nod my head.

”Mama wanted our offering to be the best we could provide.”

I'm sure she had been preparing for this day my entire life. I have to swallow around the lump in my throat before I can get to work.

From the pack, I take out a small ceremonial dagger, digging through the clothes to reach it at the very bottom. The hand-carved hilt is warm to the touch as I lift it up and murmur the spell my mother had written.

Then I carve the sigil into the rock of the dwelling of the Seer, guided by my mother and adding my own magic, watching in awe as the stone accepts the magic and adds it to its cache. The side of the mountain starts glowing around us as my magic sings out to the other thousands of markings spanning hundreds of thousands of years, all lighting up until the walls around us illuminate with power.

The fae might not love this Seer anymore, but the witches do, and our love story to her and her gift is written on these walls.

A sight to behold.

“Rookesbane Eveningstar. I’ve been waiting for you.”

At the sound of my full name, I startle away from the glowing rock walls, my head snapping toward the voice that has echoed to me, and find an ancient-looking woman standing amongst the sigils. Her hair is white and her skin is paper-thin, covered entirely with white witch markings that show her high rank within the kingdom. Her eyes are silver, but there’s a white glow to them as the Fates speak through her, the magic lighting them up.

Pemba drops his head, tucking his chin into his chest in absolute respect, but I’m too shocked at the sight of her to remember my manners.

“Never mind about that, child. Come, let us talk about your fate. It has been keeping me awake for a lifetime. I’ll be relieved to pass it on to you finally.”

With a gulp, I follow her.

***

I wait for Pemba, sitting on the steps outside of the Seer’s dwelling.

I look out over the mountains and at the forest that grows on one side of them, the forest I grew up in and love. The sun is getting low in the sky, casting a glow over the trees and making an ethereal and perfect scene.

It’s the last time I will look over this forest.

I’m glad I’m seeing it in all its glory like this.

There’s a blackened spot where our village once stood, a small mar in an otherwise perfect green blanket. I’m no longer terrified by that sight, the indecision gone now that I know where I’m going next.

I hear my brother’s footsteps behind me, slow and steady as he makes his way to me. When I don’t immediately scramble to my feet to meet him, Pemba drops down and sits beside me on the step.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” I murmur, and he nods, then waits for me to speak. I sense his uncertainty about why I’m staring out like this.

“What was your fate, Rooke?”

I will never tell my brother my fate.

“I’m leaving the Southern Lands. I’m going down to the docklands and getting on a ship, sailing over to join the Northern king’s army in the Fate Wars,” I say, as though it’s so easy and not at all terrifying.

Pemba’s eyebrows rise but when he sees the calm surety in my eyes he nods, a frown falling over his brow, I’m sure at how dangerous that will be for me. He was prepared for my fate, more prepared than I was for sure, and it’s not until he speaks again that I realize how much of a relief that truly is to me.

“Then that’s what we’re doing. We’ll take the horse and cart down there and… figure out a way onto one of the boats.”

I shake my head, tears springing into my eyes. “You can’t, Pemba. You can’t leave the forest behind just for me.”

He chuckles and slings an arm over my shoulders, pulling me into a half-hug. “My fate is to follow you, to walk with you on your path and keep you company while you achieve greatness. There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

My heart cracks into two.

I don’t want him to follow me, to find out what I’m really doing. I can’t stand the thought of what he would say if he found out what my fate really is, but the Fates have made that decision for me.

I don’t want him to find out that I’m running from the man I’m fated to love and a future so terrifying that I’d rather die in a foreign land in a war that isn’t my own. I’ve already shut my mind off to Donn, determined to never hear his honeyed words ever again. The web of comfort and security he promised is a lie he wove to snare me.

Rookesbane Eveningstar, the untried Mother of the Ravenswyrd Coven, is dead. Someone else is here in her stead, and I won’t be afraid anymore.

COMING MARCH 28TH

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Also by J Bree

Contents

Dedication

Full Page Image

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Coming March 28th