Raven Heart Read online

  Emrysa shook her hands free from smoke, rubbed her soot-stained palms on her midnight sky dress and stepped through the gap in the barn wall. “This is our home. We go where we like, it is you sneaking around behind our backs.”

  “And you are?” the pale witch enquired coolly, eyeing Emrysa from head to toe and back again. For half a second, the pale witch’s eyes darted to Merlin’s glowing aura before returning her cool stare.

  “I,” Emrysa began, “am your biggest nightmare, you conniving, prissy little bitch. Now, are you going to tell us just how and why you plan to kill my brother, or am I—” she brought her hands together to hold a coalescing fire ball, “—going to have to kill you first?”

  A wicked smile crept on Emrysa’s lips. After all, Hell hath no fury like an overprotective older sister.

  5

  A Million Suns

  As quick as Emrysa formed her magic, so too did the pale witch; cool lilac light forming from each of her fingertips like purple flames.

  “Cease and desist.” Merlin scowled, stepping forward and separating them. The two black horses shied from his tone, one with a whicker, kicking up golden straw as it did. Merlin’s brow furrowed as he looked from one witch to the other, his eyes lingering longer on Emrysa than perhaps they should.

  Dermot managed to lift his jaw from the ground and stepped through the gap in the barn wall. He pulled his sister aside with a nervous half laugh. “You must excuse my cantankerous sister, she’s a little protective and a lot boar-headed, and well…” He forced a smile, though Emrysa could feel his hands tremble upon her shoulders. “It’s not as if you were having a polite conversation about me, and the thing is—”

  “Shut up, Dermot. You’re rambling,” Emrysa said under her breath.

  They all stared at one another. Four young witches caught in an ancient agreement made by the Alchive Council centuries before.

  It was the pale witch who spoke first. “So, you are this century’s dragon heart?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest.” Dermot laughed with rising nerves.

  Emrysa stepped forward. “Cut the riddles, prettiness. It’s answers we want, not questions.”

  The pale witch smiled in a way that was not pretty at all. “I doubt your disparaging tone was intended as a compliment. Firstly, my name is not prettiness, but Nimue. And secondly, the only riddle here is your brother, it would seem.”

  Emrysa felt a probing of her mind; the nosey bitch was rummaging around in her thoughts, her brother’s too, she expected. But Emrysa let her continue, after all, she had nothing to hide, and if this Nimue discovered exactly how much Emrysa despised her, how something about her pretty face repulsed her, then all the better.

  Nimue scrutinized Emrysa before raising a brow, she turned to Merlin briefly, then, as she read Dermot’s thoughts, a flush of red rose to her pale cheeks. She took a moment to compose herself, her steely expression returning once more. “It is true, you have not been forewarned and neither of you are learned in the matter, which is quite… unusual.”

  “Not as unusual as your face,” Emrysa retorted, amusing herself, and raising a smile on Merlin’s lips that transformed his serious face entirely. They shared a conspiratorial glance while her brother scoffed beside her.

  “You are petty and pathetic,” Nimue said with a resigned sigh.

  “Two of my finer traits,” Emrysa shot back. “And now that you’ve violated my mind for your answers, it’s time you gave us yours. What the hell is a dragon heart and why the hell do you plan to have my brother killed?”

  Dermot squeaked beside her while Merlin sucked a short, sharp breath between teeth.

  And Nimue smiled her pretty awful smile. “Because, you self-righteous halfway witch, dragons are vermin and must be killed before they kill us.”

  Dermot jolted and danced between the girls before they began sparring with more than words. He laughed. It wasn’t a real laugh. “Ladies, ladies. Let’s stop. Just...” he took an exaggerated slow breath. “Everyone just calm down.”

  “Calm down?!” Now Emrysa strode ahead of Dermot, standing between her brother and the witch Nimue. She held her arms wide as if to protect him. “We can’t just let them turn up here with these accusations.” She glared at the pale witch. “You can’t say these things, threaten these things, look at him for the Goddess’s sake!”

  And they did. All eyes on Dermot, youngest brother. Lithe and light-hearted. Nervous and void of any magical prowess.

  “The problem with you, Emrysa—one of your problems—is that you are too busy looking into the minds of people to notice the heart of the matter.”

  With that, Nimue flicked her fingers at Dermot, who gasped, staggering back several steps. He almost tripped as his feet tangled in the straw, causing the horses to spook and snort once more. He held his heart space, staring into the gleaming glow emanating through the cracks of his fingers. It lit his features, illuminating the worried contours of his face.

  “By the Goddess’s name, what are you doing?” Emrysa bawled.

  “Stop her!” Nimue ordered before Emrysa could bring the spell to her mind and fingertips. Strong hands pulled the crook of her elbows, yanking her body into the stronghold of Merlin’s embrace.

  “Get off me,” Emrysa yelled, watching as the glow at her brother’s chest became brighter, radiating from his heart, shimmering until his entire upper torso shone—until the entire barn shone.

  “Dermot!” Emrysa yelled, feeling a pull at her own magic, a magnetic force dragging it away from her body and mind. She writhed in Merlin’s hold, but it was relentless, overpowering and she could do nothing, nothing, to protect her brother from whatever the pale witch, Nimue, had planned. “What are you doing to him? Stop! Get off!”

  Merlin’s hold only intensified as she squirmed and fought. The magnetic pull amplified. Nimue ignored everything but Dermot, and she cocked her head, trying to read him—his heart space.

  “Drop your hands, Dermot,” Nimue ordered.

  And he did, amazed and dumbfounded and confused.

  “Stop this spell!” screamed Emrysa. “Stop it at once you...” she trailed off.

  The glow in Dermot’s chest faded, as did the look of resolve on Nimue’s face. Merlin dropped his hands, Emrysa’s magic returning to her body with such force, she fell forward to her knees.

  Nimue’s pale eyes twitched.

  “It wasn’t there,” Merlin said. “The dragon heart, it was not there... in his chest.”

  Beside him, Dermot patted his chest like he was trying to put out a fire, while Emrysa scrambled to her feet.

  When she rose, she screamed between clenched teeth and shunted Merlin in the chest, wild with anger and frustration both. She could have used magic, but she was too enraged. “Don’t you—” Another shunt sent him backwards, “—ever —” A bigger shunt, causing him to trip to the ground. Horses shied and nickered, “— ever do that spell on me again! Ever!”

  Emrysa spun and in two strides was at her brother’s side, her hand placed at his heart. And as if there was no-one there to witness the softening of her edges, her voice dropped, her eyes, deep and dark, filled with concern. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?” she asked. Dermot shook his head, avoiding her gaze. Shaken. It made Emrysa’s blood boil.

  “Perhaps it is a little early for the beast to stir,” Nimue said behind her.

  Rage flared in Emrysa, her skin and bones containing an emotion that needed only to escape. “Early? You magnificent half-wit.” Emrysa flung her arms outwards; glowing white orbs formed in her hands lighting the shadowed barn. She raised them higher, glowing like a goddess. “You’ve seen it for yourself, he hasn’t got this so-called dragon heart. Now you’ve checked. You are free to leave. Go on. Off you go! Back to your prissy little Council like the good little sheep you are.”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” Nimue said but Emrysa could not stop the rage cascading from her lips like lava.

  “What doesn’t work like what, you iconic
thickhead? Do you even know? Do you know anything for yourself, or do you just believe what you are told?” Emrysa flung her arms with theatrical flair, doing her best to imitate Nimue’s voice with an added childish lilt. “This is what they tell me. So this is what I do.” She broke character, her venom returning once more, a cold steely venom that was far harsher than any raised words could be. Emrysa enunciated each word with acute precision as she stalked toward the pale witch. “You are not welcome here.”

  She was but inches away from Nimue, their faces so close they shared breath. Nimue did not flinch. But she did smile, a cold cruel smile that crawled across her lips like spiders hatching from their eggs.

  “To threaten a member of the Council is to threaten the Council itself,” she said, a glint in her eye that looked like war.

  Emrysa raised a thin eyebrow in counterattack. “I promise you, it is no threat. So you can go and tell the Council to piss off.”

  “Emrysa!” Dermot yelled, her stupidity shaking himself out of his own. He laughed, that tinny hollow sound of fear, while attempting to pull her away at the shoulder. “She doesn’t mean it, of course. Ha! What fun!”

  It was so typical of Dermot to try to make light, to try to joke and humor his way out of trouble. But he wasn’t fooling anybody. Least of all Emrysa. She sent a soothing spell to him, despite her anger and malice. All she wanted was to keep her younger brother safe. Safe and happy.

  Safe and happy—and alive.

  “It is possible,” Merlin began. A life-raft. He cleared his throat when Nimue shot him a death-glare. “It is possible that his heart will not turn.”

  If he wanted attention, he got it. Even the horses stopped chomping on hay.

  “It’s something I read once, somewhere...” Merlin almost looked as nervous and out of place as Dermot. “An ancient text that seemed to indicate a dragon heart could miss a generation if the witch in particular was weak of magic—”

  “Merlin,” Nimue warned, “we’ve talked about this. Stop.”

  “I’m only repeating what I have read—”

  “It goes against Council’s laws, Merlin, please.”

  At this Emrysa noticed Nimue pulsing out her aura to Merlin’s once more. She watched, wondering if Nimue was soothing or... manipulating him. Merlin’s features hardened once more, his silence returning with the purple aura melding to his own.

  Dermot took the silence to take the stage. “My magic is not weak,” he protested, and Emrysa groaned, wishing he would just shut up while they had the upper hand. “You lot might throw your magic around all willy-nilly but my magic,” he grew in stature and in that moment Emrysa saw the strong man he would grow into... if only she could save him from his lingering fate. “But my magic has a science behind it.”

  Nimue scoffed, Dermot continued, “It is a thing of beauty, a thing of science and purposeful equations—truth, not manipulation...”

  Dermot continued, so nobody noticed the wry smile upon Nimue’s face, the lilac light forming at her fingertips. She took one sly sideways glance to Emrysa, then cast.

  And the light from Emrysa’s chest exploded like a million suns.

  6

  Exposed

  The spell sliced across her skin, exposing her heart, glowing like lightning captured in a jar. She didn’t feel the pain, not at first, just as blood can seep from a wound inflicted by the sharpest of knives before the mind can process the slash. But instead of blood flowing, it was light and power and magic.

  And something else.

  Emrysa gasped, her fingers covering the gaping wound that exposed her heart. The light reflected from the faces that stared back at her in awe. The horses shied away with panicked shrieks, their black coats trembling under the strange light as they quivered in the far corner of the barn.

  Nimue’s face lit up with something other than light. Something akin to spite and malice and a self-gratifying smile of triumph.

  Emrysa looked down at her shining torso, both horrified and mesmerized. Her temples pulsed, beads of cold sweat formed and trailed her cheeks.

  Between her ribcages, beneath her skin, a dragon coiled and writhed in the place of Emrysa’s heart. Her hands shot to cover her heart-space—a dismal attempt to conceal the beast in a protective embrace. Eyes wide, she found Merlin’s gaze, and a vulnerability she had never before experienced tore through her veins—her heart, her body, her soul.

  Exposed for all to see.

  Then she found her brother and despite the turbulence held within the vessel of her mind, she smiled.

  He was safe.

  Even if she wasn’t, her brother was safe.

  The knowledge gave her power, strength, and she found her senses once more. With fingers curled like claws, she cast, drawing her skin back over her exposed heart-space, sealing the wound. Sealing her fate.

  Emrysa lifted her chin, and an eyebrow, and cast a steely glare to the smirking Nimue.

  “Three moons, Emrysa.” Nimue smiled her beautiful and terrible smile. “Three moons.”

  She turned, pushing her aura toward Merlin, whose dumbfounded face turned soft once more with the touch of her lilac light defusing his own. Whatever words he intended went unsaid as he followed the pale witch from the hole in the barn wall and walked out into the night where the darkness devoured them completely.

  There was a long, lingering silence, before Dermot and Emrysa turned to each other, dumbfounded.

  “Well...” Dermot began.

  “Well...” Emrysa repeated with a loaded pause. “Well... shit!”

  And though neither could say why, smiles crept across their lips, they shook their heads, and erupted into fits of astonished laughter that trailed out into the cold night-time shadows.

  7

  Soul Bond

  Emrysa’s fist stopped just inches from her parents’ door. She held it there, mid-knock, as muffled conversation from inside their chamber roused her curiosity and awakened her stealth mode. She placed the finger to her lips, silencing her brother beside her.

  “We send her away. First light,” Father said, a grave emotionless tone.

  “But won’t they suspect?” Mother asked, jittery.

  “Why should they? The Council believe Dermot to be the last born, they’ll never think the dragon heart belongs to her.”

  Emrysa leant her ear closer to the door, afraid to cast a hearing spell in case she alerted her parents to her presence. Dermot, taller, listened above her, cupping his hand between door and ear. Emrysa strained to listen harder, pressing her entire face against the thick wood as if that would help her cause. There was a long pause in the room. Emrysa pressed harder. The door suddenly swung open and both Emrysa and Dermot tumbled through, all but falling at Father’s feet. Dermot coughed and regained his composure quickly while Emrysa tried to hide her amusement. She straightened, smoothing her dress as a way of distraction, and avoided eye contact at all cost. She could hear Dermot’s suppressed laugh in the raggedness of his breath, and blurted out a short, sharp laugh of her own.

  “Damn you, child. Why must you always be where you are not supposed to?” Father growled.

  Emrysa shrugged.

  “Sorry, Father,” Dermot said.

  But it was Emrysa’s apology Lord Cheval wanted. And she refused. After all, it was her parents who owed her the apology. “You’re wrong,” Emrysa said, when her anger and frustration muted her humor of the door fail. “About them not knowing. They know. We know. I know.”

  A heavy silence lingered, and Emrysa waited, daring her father to chastise her insolence. He didn’t, he just stared, his ice blue eyes welling with a brewing storm. Mother did not move, she sat, frozen, staring at Emrysa as if she were a precious or terrifying gift.

  “They exposed my dragon heart and they’ve given me three moons,” Emrysa said coolly.

  Father rushed to her, taking her hands in his and squeezing them with so much force, Emrysa winced. “We won’t let them take you,” he promised. “We will send you away, l
ike we planned. First light.”

  “But the Council know. They won’t just let me go. They’ll hunt me down.” Emrysa wished her father would stop squeezing her hands so, but she was too defiant to let him know it hurt. “I need to rid myself of the beast inside—”

  “No!” Father yelled. He almost threw her hands away. “No, your beast is part of your soul. Lose that, you may as well let them kill you now.”

  Mother whimpered. Dermot cast a pained stare.

  Emrysa squared her shoulders. “It’s your fault, you know. Hiding this from us.” Emrysa paced after her father. “All this time we could have made a plan—”

  “We had a plan! We lied in the register, we allowed the Council to believe you were the first born, not the last. They were supposed to suspect Dermot and then leave when he didn’t turn.”

  “They were planning on slaughtering him before he turned.”

  “How was I to know?” Father yelled, his face red with rage and fear—spittle forming at the corners of his mouth. “I could only go on what they did to my brother, and my aunt.”

  Emrysa stepped back, nausea forming in the pit of her stomach. “This knowledge belonged to me. You should have told me what this family line meant. Not wait and spring it on me unprepared when it happens.”

  Father shook his head. “You’ve been prepared for your turn your entire life. Just like my youngest brother. You know who you are. I’ve never known anyone with so much self-assurance. So much truth to their bones.”

  “And I’ve never known someone with so much deception in theirs.” The words seemed to punch her father in the solar plexus. “You lied to me my entire life.”

  “Darling.” Mother rose from her chair. “We were trying to protect you.”

  “And how do you propose to protect me now? By making me flee forever?”

  “That’s not fair, darling.”