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  Raven Heart

  Magic and Mage Series Episode 4

  Angharad Thompson Rees

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part I

  1. Three Moons

  2. Ice and Spite

  3. Crimson Red

  4. Lust and Fury

  5. A Million Suns

  6. Exposed

  7. Soul Bond

  8. A Rush of Blood

  9. Falling

  10. Smoke and Stars

  11. The Forest Black

  Part II

  12. Midnight Shadows

  13. The Stench of Evil

  14. Blame

  15. The Protectors of Magic

  16. The Prophecy

  17. A New Direction

  18. Sworn with Oath

  19. Midnight Stealth

  20. Clarity

  21. Fire and Flame

  22. The Faerie Roads

  23. Revelations

  24. Power and Magic

  25. Divided

  26. Laced with Death

  27. Choices

  28. Raven Heart

  Part III

  29. A New Perspective

  30. Reclaimed

  31. Split

  Epilogue

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  Also by Angharad Thompson Rees

  About the Author

  Prologue

  One second. One breath. One spell.

  Emrysa’s ruby lips snarled in a half smile, watching as the two Cheval sisters raised their magic-filled palms.

  Mocking laughter rose to her throat; as if they could harm me now. Now that she was returned. Now that she was... flesh. But the laugh did not erupt. Instead, it caught in Emrysa’s throat, and in that split second, everything changed.

  Camelot’s vast hall lost its echoing acoustics. The army behind the dragon heart, the handsome men at Emrysa’s side, Merlin and King Arthur, corrupted under her blackened spell, all of them—everything—blurred from her vision. She saw only the intent behind the sisters’ spell, and it made her half-heart pound.

  “Now!” yelled Amara and Fae in unison.

  They braced their palms forward, surging white light exploding from fingertips. Like lightning rods, the white crackled, tendrils joining, growing. Reaching.

  Emrysa had time only to stagger back two shuffling steps, bumping into King Arthur's throne in the process. Had she not been so concerned about the spell’s intent, she would have prepared a counter spell. But she froze. Fear—a paralyzing poison, trickling through her veins.

  The white light found its way to her, wrapping itself around Emrysa’s body, pulling her into itself. A blinding whiteness. Surging. Purging.

  Emrysa did not see the army of witches, the red-headed Hemeth, or the sisters shield their eyes from the exploding whiteness. But she felt it all. And with everything she had, she fought as the spell grappled at her mind, her thoughts, her soul.

  A scream erupted, internal, a high-pitched howl serenading a million memories and emotions lived and hid beneath the surface of Emrysa’s mind. Locked away. Moments too black to recall. Hopelessness too desperate to conceive. All of it came back, flooding through her veins. Emrysa writhed under the white hold—the truth spell—reliving the nightmares she had so painstakingly packed away into oblivion. And as if emotional pain alone could kill, the witch so feared for centuries, dropped to her knees and wept.

  “Stop!” Emrysa sobbed; a howl wrenched from the deepest pit of despair. “Stop, stop.”

  Her plea sounded like a prayer.

  Fae and Amara stared open-mouthed as the witch they so despised, their aunt—Morganne’s jailor—rocked upon her knees, gripping her head with strained fingers. Emrysa released a haunting wail as she swayed, sharp nails clawing into her own temples, drawing blood. She stopped, only to pound her fists at her forehead, fighting her thoughts away.

  But they did not stop the spell.

  The sisters stood, and they waited, while Emrysa screamed at the truth forced upon her. And from her mouth, it came. Like a mist at first, then taking shape and mass, painting the hall in a thick, glossy white. This whiteness spread to create walls around the witch and the two sisters until there was nothing and no-one—silence. Even the witch Emrysa’s screams subsided to quiet sobs.

  Weak, Emrysa struggled to her feet, gathering her breath and composure, though her eyes told the tale of her emotional disquiet.

  “So, nieces, you have brought me to The Void.” Emrysa’s lips puckered as she nodded. “I’m impressed. I would not have thought you to know about such a time and space.”

  Fae and Amara dared a glance at one another. They wanted the truth; the open, honest truth, but the emptiness of The Void was indeed a surprise, even to them. And somehow, with the cruel smirk spreading across Emrysa’s ruby lips like a bloody slash, she seemed to pick up on this. She turned, and walked away, though no matter how many paces she took from them, the distance never changed. It was as if the white walls were as far away as an impossible horizon and yet held them together in the tight space.

  Emrysa raised her arms overhead and Fae followed the line of her fingers as they reached for the sky. A sky that was white and empty, faraway and close. Fae stepped forward and the ground beneath her feet, though solid, rippled like water—each ripple reaching out as far as the eye could see into nothing.

  This was a desolate space.

  But Fae was not afraid, though she breathed into her dragon heart for extra courage. “We have brought you here for the truth, Emrysa.”

  “You don’t say?!” Emrysa replied to her willowy blond niece, wearing torn rags fit only for a scullery maid.

  Amara scowled, hating the way Emrysa moved, knowing Morganne was inside her somewhere, somehow, and, feeling responsible for the sister she had lost, the thought of war and darkness dissipated in the cold, white nothing. “Tell me, tell us, how do we get Morganne back? I demand you tell me the truth. Now.”

  Emrysa barked a mirthless sound before returning to her mockingly sweet mask of concern. Yet, the slight tremble to her fingers, the slight watering of her midnight black eyes, exposed a gentle vulnerability. She lifted her right hand and wagged her finger.

  “No, no, no, my dear, senseless little witches. The truth spell is not some childish game, you cannot demand I tell you one truth or another and I simply obey. That is not how The Void works—”

  “Then tell us,” Amara barked.

  “This is my truth, you stupid girl,” Emrysa roared, glaring at Amara, hating the way the young witch resembled her own appearance. “I have to relive my story, my truth. Everything.” She turned away as if making her way to leave, yet again, no matter how far she paced, no further could she go in The Void’s expanse. “To know the truth, you must see everything that lead us to this place. Truth has edges, sides, hidden layers and secret pathways. Truths have riddles and lies and deceits—a multitude of sins have been created in the name of truth, though very few discover the reality of it.

  “So you see, I cannot tell you the truth. You have to live it, live in my memories, my life. Hence The Void. No time. No space. Just you, here, to relive my story. To understand my truth.”

  A fox’s grin spread across Emrysa’s face, and she bowed with the practiced grace of a theatrical performer. “Welcome,” she said, “to my life.”

  And The Void dissolved into nothing but thoughts and memories and a story that started a long, long time ago…

  Part I

  “Stories never really begin. They are an endless continuation of love and lies and choices. They extend—reaching both forward and back immeasurably. This is their charm. One can begin a story, yes, but you begin only at a start of a part. The rest, as they say, is history.” />
  —Emrysa Cheval

  1

  Three Moons

  Emrysa Cheval galloped along the corridor, raven hair streaming, her skirts bustling about her bare ankles. She giggled, the sound of summer cheer bouncing from the walls, and cast a backward glance over her shoulder.

  Dermot gave chase, making ground with his long legs, his face wearing a strange hue of blue.

  “I’ll get you, sister! You’ll pay for this, you iconic muttonhead!” he called, though the edges of his threat frayed with humor and, perhaps, a little admiration.

  Emrysa kept running, grabbing fistfuls of her skirt’s folds as she did. “You’ve never caught me yet!” She squealed and quickened her pace. Her younger brother—well, younger by about an hour—was getting faster, stronger too, but his magic was still no match for hers. No match for anybody’s. Everyone said so, and although Dermot sometimes believed his sister to be teasing and taunting him with her magical practical jokes, but they both knew what she was doing. Emrysa was trying to help, trying to encourage him to play. To feel magic as something fun and light, and not the heaviness their parents had pressed upon his shoulders.

  It was simple.

  All witches and wizards had an amount of magical ability—to cast, to manipulate the world around them. But there were other forms of magic, Emrysa knew. It wasn’t that her brother was bad at magic, he was just yet to discover what magic would be his forte. He was yet to discover his True Ability. He preferred science. And perhaps, in and of itself, that was a form of magic.

  Emrysa rounded the corner, gripping the wall as she did to keep her balance. She wouldn’t run far. She never did. And her brother’s pursuit would always end with the pair of them in breathless fits of laughter.

  Emrysa always reversed her spells.

  The blue hue to his face would dispel but, she hoped, the lesson would remain.

  She burst through the double doors at the end of the corridor, where the low winter sun shimmered on frost-touched grass, sparkling at its touch. Barefooted, she picked up her pace in the open freedom, squealing at the coldness of her toes and checking over her shoulder to see Dermot close. Too close. Emrysa laughed with delight as he launched at her—the pair falling to the hard winter ground and tumbling down the hill toward the river, stopping only after a splash and an ice-cold watery embrace.

  Dermot gasped as he burst to the surface, hair and goofy smile plastered to his face. “Emrysa!”

  She laughed, wiping the cold water from her eyes and scrambling up the riverbank.

  “Why didn’t you use your magic to stop us from falling in?” Dermot almost shrieked whilst laughing through his chattering teeth. Even in the midst of summer, the Welsh water was barely a few degrees higher than freezing one’s nether regions off, so with winter well and truly underway, the chill was almost unbearable.

  Emrysa proffered a hand, helping her brother from the beautifully clear but frigid water. “Where is the fun in that? I like magic...” a wicked smile crept upon her face, “...but I love mischief!” And with that, she pushed Dermot back into the water, where he commenced his best water statue impression, complete with a rather impressive fountain streaming from his puckered lips. And without fail, his relentless good humor warmed Emrysa’s bones under her sodden clothes.

  For a moment, the pair almost forgot the truth of things.

  This time, when Dermot scrambled up the riverbank to join Emrysa sitting against the old oak, she whispered a few words under her breath and dried their clothes in an instant. They stared out over the expansive view of wild countryside and ragged cliffs shaped by the turbulent coastline.

  A mass of cloud hid the sun and the tips of the craggy mountains in the distance, just as a forced smile hid Emrysa’s concerns.

  “Out with it,” Dermot said, looking not at the view now, but at his sister.

  “Out with what?”

  Dermot raised a brow, dragging his hand through his reddish hair the spell had dried but not tamed. “That pensive little look on those haughty features of yours.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulder. He said these things, these mean things, but they both knew he never meant them. He loved playing the part of jester but Emrysa feared with their parents’ hands weighing heavier on them more than ever, their days of fun and frivolity would soon be over.

  It did not bode well in Emrysa’s bones.

  “It’s all going to change, brother. I can feel it. Something. Something... I don’t know. Just...” She trailed off, then turned away.

  “You’re worried because we’re to come of age soon?”

  “Only three moons,” Emrysa said, resting her head on her brother’s shoulders.

  “And I suppose you’re worried about getting that pretty face of yours all wrinkled and old and—ow!”

  Dermot rubbed his smarting ribs and Emrysa gave him another dig for extra measure. “You’re such an idiot at times, brother. No, I take it back. You’re always an idiot.”

  “Just because you don’t understand my alchemical equations, doesn’t make them gibberish. Besides, it’s better for others to think me a fool. At least that way, they don’t expect much from me.”

  “Like they do me, you mean?”

  Dermot shrugged. “Our parents expect so much from you because you keep showing them how capable you are.”

  “I’m not that capable,” Emrysa said. “You know Mother has a blocking spell on her mind. Father has a... I don’t know, like a prickly something around his thoughts and aura, I can’t get close, I can’t tell what’s going on anymore. They’re hiding something. Something big. And I feel like it all has to do with our eighteenth birthday.”

  “Oh! Come on, Miss Worrisome. They’re probably just sick and tired of you probing their minds for secrets. You might be a powerful young witch, but you are also an incessantly nosy, mind-trespassing little wench.”

  Emrysa laughed. Perhaps. Perhaps he was right, but her bones were not often wrong, and they rang out now like a chorus of worried birds warning of a brewing storm to come.

  “Come,” Dermot said, pulling his sister to her feet. “Let’s get back to the laboratory, and I can show you that wormhole I’ve been trying to create. It really is something. And perhaps, on the way, you could undo this spell from my blue face?”

  Emrysa smiled, somehow forgetting about the blue hue on his features under the heavy cloud of concern for their unknown future. With a click of her fingers, she reversed her spell, and everything went back to normal.

  But for how long? she wondered, looking up at the pale winter sky. Three moons. Three moons until everything would change.

  Beside her, Dermot gasped. “The Council?”

  Emrysa frowned, straining her eyes to better see in the distance.

  For a while she remained silent, waiting, watching, as the caravan of midnight black horses meandered along the rolling hillside. And even though they were hours away by the dots they made on the far horizon, Emrysa could still make out the purple and gold tapestries—the Council’s standard—fluttering from poles carried by leading riders. Casting a seeing spell, Emrysa caught sight of the somber stares and bleak auras around the Council members. A darkened cloud blotted the sun, concealing the land in shadows, and every bone in Emrysa’s body screamed one word.

  Run.

  2

  Ice and Spite

  Emrysa raced along the corridors to the main hall.

  “Mistress Cheval, is something afoot?” a guard called after her, but she ignored him, ignored all her father’s men of arms as she galloped to the double doors and burst through, heart heaving.

  Both Lord and Lady Cheval jumped at her entrance, her father rising to his feet in an instant.

  “Dear child, whatever has happened?” he demanded, no concern in his voice, only fury, as always.

  She tried to gather her thoughts, tried to calm her breath as she paced the large hall embellished with tapestries and winter decorations; ivy, holly, mistletoe. Father’s impatience rose as Emr
ysa spluttered words unformed. He charged toward her, seizing her arms and shook her for answers.

  “Whatever is it, child?” he roared.

  “The Council,” she said, breathless. “The Alchive Council are on their way.”

  Mother’s chair clattered behind her as she as she shot to her feet. She cursed, muffling the words behind a quivering hand clasped to her mouth.

  Father’s jaw hung, his grip loosened, and though he continued to hold Emrysa, the pallor in his cheeks faded.

  “The Council?” he repeated in a faraway whisper. His ice blue eyes stared through hers, into thoughts, into memories, and whatever surfaced suddenly brought him back to life. He dropped her arms, face stern once more. “Where? Where are they?”

  “A few hours away, no more,” Emrysa said, pointing to the window. Father stormed toward it, looking out across the rugged land shaped by coastal winds and storms. And there they were, dots on the horizon. They looked so small, so insignificant, but they were anything but.

  “Where’s Dermot?” Mother pressed, her voice hesitant, like the small unsure steps she took toward her daughter. Any concerns Emrysa had, multiplied. What are they hiding? Why are they so afraid?

  Dermot finally caught up, standing beside his sister.

  Father pointed a finger at each of them in turn. “You must not be seen by the Council, do you hear me?” There was so much venom in his voice, so much anger. Emrysa found her own anger prickling. After all, it’s not like they had done anything wrong. No illegal spells or dangerous curses. The Alchive were known to judge by a heavy hand, but only when deserved, surely?