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  The Sun Witch

  The Fyne Witches, Book One

  Linda Winstead Jones

  Contents

  The Fyne Curse

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  The Moon Witch

  About the Author

  Also by Linda Winstead Jones

  Copyright © 2004, 2016 by Linda Winstead Jones

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  * * *

  Cover Design by Elizabeth Wallace

  designwithin.carbonmade.com

  Created with Vellum

  The Fyne Curse

  The country of Columbyana, which stretches from the Cardean Ocean on the Eastern Shore to the border of Tryfyn to the west, and from the mountains of the Anwyn to the north to the fertile plains of the Southern Province, which extends to the Gulf of Beldene, survived a great twelve-year war that ultimately left authority in the hands of the Beckyt House. The Beckyts made Arthes, a city in the Western Province, the seat of their government. There they built a great palace, a tower with tapering sides that rose ten levels high. They surrounded themselves with priests and warriors and with those blessed with sorcery.

  In the fine palace, emperors came and went, sons succeeding fathers. Some ruled with fairness and compassion, while others did not. Even those who abused their power were safe in their tower, because the House’s strength had grown to a point where no one would dare to challenge them. Those few who dared to rebel did not live long. Either the priests or the sorcerers or the sentinels who served the emperor put a quick stop to any insurrection.

  All the drama of Columbyana did not take place in Arthes.

  In the third year of the reign of Emperor Larys, the fifty-seventh year of the reign of the Beckyts, a wizard who’d been spurned by a widowed Fyne witch responded to his heartbreak by inflicting this curse:

  No witch cursed with the blood of the Fyne House shall know a true and lasting love.

  For a hundred years, two hundred years, three hundred years...the Fyne women lived on the side of a mountain that came to bear their name. Some of them married, many did not. An unusual number of the men who dared to marry or consort with the Fyne women died before their thirtieth birthdays. Others simply disappeared.

  Many of the Fyne witches tried to break the wizard’s curse over the years. All of them failed.

  Prologue

  The 365th Year of the Reign of the Beckyts

  * * *

  All night the narrow path had been dark, the moonlight and starlight dimmed by the thick foliage growing overhead. But for the occasional break in the intertwining limbs that offered a glimpse of the night sky, the men who marched silently along the trail might as well have been traveling through a long, dark tunnel. They had to be careful to stick to the dirt footpath, as the left side of the forest was thick with ancient trees that rustled with the wind. Animals growled and screeched in the darkness, but they did not bother the travelers. To the right, the terrain dropped sharply. The deep ravine was so overgrown it was impossible to see until you were upon it.

  The springtime chill penetrated their cloaks and trousers, even seeped through their boots. It was best to keep moving, to stay warm by marching ever onward. On occasion a rebel took a misstep and a sword rattled, too loud in the stillness of night.

  Sunrise was approaching, and Kane could begin to see a short distance into the thick forest to the north. Fallen limbs were evidence of a storm that had passed a while earlier. The animals that had made noise all night were now quiet, as if they had retired to sleep away the day. As it was no longer completely dark, he could see the shapes of all the men who walked before him, not simply the back of Tresty’s balding head. The battered rebels—one short of a dozen—moved silently along the trail that would take them to their leader, Arik, and the reinforcements. They had been defeated in battle and were weary, but they were not broken.

  The emperor’s soldiers had taken more than half their number in the last battle, four days gone. Kane Varden was one of eleven tired, hungry men. They had been beaten, and they had been wounded, but they were not ready to surrender. Not now, not ever. Not while the Emperor Sebestyen sat on the throne, hidden away high in his lavish palace while many of his people starved. It wasn’t right for one man to have so much, while others had so little. It wasn’t right for one man to take what he wanted at the expense of the common man of Columbyana, and like his father before him, that’s exactly what Sebestyen had always done. Taken.

  Kane’s brother Duran, who had the best night vision of them all, led the way. Stopping only for short naps taken in shifts and what food they could catch or pick or steal, their journey would take another six days. Perhaps seven. They would join Arik in the northernmost reaches of the Eastern Province, heal, add to their numbers, and then be off to harass the imperial soldiers once again. Duran was young; barely twenty-two years. But like Kane, his heart belonged to this cause.

  One day they would have the numbers to march into the palace itself, and Arik—the late Emperor Nechtyn’s bastard son and Sebestyen’s half-brother—would take the throne. Kane wanted to be there when that happened. He wanted that more than anything else in this life.

  Duran stopped suddenly and raised a stilling hand. The rest of the crew halted as well. Kane placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, as did the men in front of and behind him.

  When all was still, Kane heard what had alerted Duran. There was movement in the forest. Movement unlike the whisper of animals they’d heard throughout the night. The crisp rustle of leaves being displaced and the muted snick of metal on metal disturbed the quiet dawn.

  Imperial infantrymen burst from the forest with a chilling cry, swords raised as they attacked from three sides. Clad in dark green uniforms that had allowed them to blend into the forest, and as road-weary as the rebels, they broke from the shelter of the trees and surrounded Kane and what was left of his unit. The only direction that was clear of soldiers was the south, where the ravine dropped so sharply. In moments the rebels had their backs to that ravine as they faced superior numbers.

  The strength of the imperial forces was daunting. How many soldiers poured from the forest? Thirty, at least, with more behind them. The odds weren’t good, but it wasn’t the first time they’d been outnumbered.

  An imperial soldier raised his sword and swung out with a cry as chilling as that of any animal. Kane met the attack, stopping the arc of the sword with his own blade and then dipping down as he struck back with a skilled and fatal blow. When that soldier was down, Kane engaged another. Then another. For a poor farmer’s son, he was a damn good swordsman. As was Duran. As were they all. Arik had seen to their training, knowing that there would be moments like this. They did not brandish their swords in a manner that would impress; they practiced killing blows, simple and deadly.

  But they were not sorcerers; they had no magic to protect them. They were men. Imperial soldiers fell, but so did the rebels. And the emperor’s men kept coming. One fell, an
d two more took his place. It was as if an endless stream of soldiers poured from the trees.

  One cry in the midst of many caught Kane’s attention, even though it was no louder or more insistent than the others. It was simply more familiar. He turned his head to see Duran go down. A tall, thin soldier wearing a traditional emerald green uniform stood over Kane’s little brother and struck once again. It was a death blow; Kane had seen enough of them to know.

  “No!” He ran, frantically taking on one opponent and then another as he worked his way to Duran and the soldier who had already turned away to fight another rebel. It seemed that every imperial soldier was determined to stop Kane from reaching his brother. His skill with a sword was forgotten in favor of strength and brutality. He slashed and hacked his way through the fight, intent not only on surviving, but on reaching his brother’s killer. The clang of steel on steel faded, the faces of other soldiers blurred. The point of a clumsily wielded sword caught him across the back, and he spun to plunge his blade into the offending soldier’s chest before continuing on.

  As he drew closer to his goal, Kane focused on the murderous soldier’s face. It was gaunt and tanned, the eyes dark and slanted like those of a cat.

  All the while, more imperial soldiers came. The rebels were going to lose this battle, and with enemy combatants on three sides and a sharp drop to the other, retreat was impossible. He could surrender and be taken prisoner, or he could die. It was no choice at all.

  Kane swung his sword toward the soldier’s neck, but the man who’d killed Duran saw the move coming and he jumped back. Not far enough or quickly enough. The tip of Kane’s sword caught his cheek. Enraged to be cut, the man turned all his attention to Kane. He commanded his sword with skill, and they fought as the men around them fought. After a moment there was nothing else. No one but the two of them; no sound but their own harsh breathing and the clash of metal on metal. Everything else, the rest of the battle and the grief of Duran’s death, faded from Kane’s mind.

  Kane held his own against the soldier. They fought like men who had been here before. Without conscious thought, without planning each and every move. Each blow was the result of instinct and innate skill and too many years of practice. They were well matched, until their swords met in midair and the blade of Kane’s weapon snapped in two. He had a good weapon and such a thing should not have happened, but it did.

  He dropped down and rolled to his right to reach for Duran’s weapon. His hand shot out, he grasped the hilt and lifted the sword from the ground and stood, all in one smooth motion. But the delay, no matter how short, had given the green-clad soldier an edge. His furious blow caught Kane in the chest; the next one cut his arm. Deep.

  Kane realized that he and the soldier who had killed Duran were the only ones who still fought. The once quiet road was littered with the wounded and the dead. A greater number of imperial soldiers than rebels lay dead, but that was little comfort. The battle, such as it was, was over. Kane Varden was to be the last man down.

  “Fecking hick insurgent,” the soldier said, his voice crisp with the accent of one who had spent his entire life in the capital city of Arthes. With a flick of his sword, he ripped the weapon from Kane’s hand. When Kane had been disarmed and the tip of the soldier’s sword was pointed at his heart, the soldier paused to touch the wound on his cheek. “You marked me, you insolent malcontent. I should mark you ten times before I kill you.”

  “You killed my brother, you son of a bitch.” Kane didn’t back away from the tip of the sword. His family was gone; his home had been taken. He had nothing left.

  The soldier glanced down at Duran, who lay perfectly still on the ground in a puddle of his own blood. His throat had been cut; the soldier’s slash had ripped his shirt and the flesh beneath.

  “This one? He didn’t even fight very well. Still, I’ll happily put his pretty head on a stick and post it on the wall at Arthes until there’s nothing left but a skull. Since you say you are his brother, I’ll be sure to display your pathetic head close by.”

  He poked nonchalantly at Duran’s body with the tip of his sword, and Kane lunged. He knocked the sword from the soldier’s hand, and they grappled for control of the short knife the soldier drew from a sheath at his waist.

  The other imperial soldiers found the hand-to-hand combat amusing. Winded and wounded, they gathered around to watch and cheer and close off any avenue of escape.

  Kane fought hard, but he was losing blood and his strength faded fast. The soldier broke away, but the knife they’d fought for was in Kane’s hand. If he could only kill the soldier before the others killed him, he could die in peace.

  The soldier moved too quickly, spinning around and then lifting one leg and kicking. His imperial boot found Kane’s wounded chest, and Kane flew backward. He tried to catch himself, knowing that if he ended up lying on the ground he was finished, knife or no knife. He’d almost managed to do just that, to catch himself...and then his foot found air where ground should have been. Momentum took him back another step, and then he was falling...tumbling. The air was forced from his lungs when he landed hard on the edge of a boulder. He rebounded, rolled back, and continued to fall. All he could see was a blur of brush and dirt, and then, when he landed on his back with a jarring thud, a brief glimpse of sunrise before everything went black.

  It seemed to Sophie that everyone owned a part of the day. A precious few hours when they were more alive. More complete. She and her sisters were no different.

  Isadora was a creature of the night. When she sought time alone, it was by the light of the moon or in complete darkness. Juliet was at peace when sunset came. She was usually most energetic in the afternoon, and on many a day she could be found sitting on the side of the hill facing the west, smiling contentedly as she watched the sun set.

  Sophie, the youngest of the Fyne sisters, loved the morning. She adored the wakening of the day, the soft light of the rising sun, the vibrant sensations of the world coming alive. Both her sisters were asleep as she made her way to the pond near their mountaintop home. It was not yet fully light, but summer was upon them and the air was mild. The water would be cool, and she’d immerse herself in the pond to watch and feel the day come to life.

  Sophie loved her sisters, but some days she felt that they didn’t understand her at all. They treated her like a child, even though she was nearing the age of twenty-three. They did not seem to understand that she wasn’t like them, that she didn’t agree with them on every issue, and she most especially was not in agreement with them where men were concerned.

  Since their mother had never dared to love, and their grandmother had enjoyed a marriage of nearly thirty years, it had been easy for the sisters to dismiss the Fyne curse as myth. Perhaps in the past a few of the Fyne women had experienced bad luck when it came to love, but that did not mean that a wizard’s curse had survived more than three hundred years.

  So Isadora had dared to marry. She had even dared to love. For a while everything had been good and right, but of course good and right were not meant to last. Not for them.

  Isadora’s husband had died too young and left his wife, the eldest of the Fyne sisters, bitter and heartbroken. Willym had been gone four years, and still Isadora mourned him. She wore black. She rarely smiled. She warned her younger sisters that love was not for them. Not for any of them. They were not meant to have anything so ordinary and beautiful as a husband or a family. Disaster would follow. All they needed was one another; it would have to be enough.

  After Willym’s death, Isadora had searched the cabin for answers. She’d found a box hidden beneath a loose floorboard, and in that box they found proof of the Fyne curse. Letters, notes from their ancestors who had dared to love and then lost, filled the plain box. Healthy young men died before reaching the age of thirty. Older men simply looked at their wives one day and ran, frightened by what they saw. After reading the stories, many of them written on paper stained with tears, Juliet—who had the gift of sight—an
nounced that their grandmother had very specifically married a man she knew she would never love, and in return she had lived a life of misery.

  So Isadora insisted that there would be no men allowed in the Fyne house. Juliet was not so adamant as Isadora, but she did steer clear of males in general and swore that she would never marry. When Sophie had suggested that her sister take a lover instead, proper Juliet had been horrified. It was her intention that no man would ever touch her. Sophie suspected her sister’s vow had little to do with the curse. Juliet could be very skittish where men were concerned.

  Unlike her sisters, Sophie adored men. Short, tall, young, old...there was something absolutely magnificent about them. They had extraordinary strength, and hairy faces, and interesting large bodies. They were wondrously strange, utterly fascinating, and she loved to hear them laugh when she went to town with Juliet on a rare occasion. They even laughed with strength!

  From all accounts, Columbyana was filled with many men of different sorts. There were farmers and ranchers in each of the four provinces, brave soldiers—imperial forces and rebels—spread across the empire. If a woman was not afraid of magic, there were shape-shifters, good and bad, and wizards, also good and bad. Sophie had even heard tale of a group of mountain dwellers in the Northern Province who claimed the ancient blood of the Anwyn. They kept to themselves, but every so often they raided the villages at the foot of the mountain and even beyond in search of a mate. Stories of the Anwyn had been used for hundreds of years to frighten young girls into being home by sunset, so Sophie wasn’t sure if the tales were factual or fantasy. Still, it was intriguing to imagine that such a primitive man might exist.

  To Sophie, the farmers were almost as elusive as the Anwyn. The Fyne sisters saw no men at their home, not since Willym’s death. Women visited on occasion to ask for herbal remedies or magical assistance, but the males of the community stayed well clear of the Fyne witches. It was Isadora’s fault, Sophie decided. She scared them all away with a sharp glance or an indecipherable word or a wave of her hand. Some of the men in town even blamed her for Willym’s death, thinking that she’d murdered him in some magical way.