The Witch Read online

  There had been a few lifetimes where she had been the one to pass early.

  Most, she had loved. But she’d known that she would lose them, eventually. That they would just be memories of loved ones she’d lost. That she would grieve for. Hundreds of years later, and she still grieved some of those mothers.

  It was just the way her particular curse worked.

  Death would find her, everywhere. But she would remember…

  That was what the Dark Sorcerer had vowed as he’d killed her.

  Sometimes she wished she’d had the foresight to sling mud at his mouth or something before he’d attacked and cursed her.

  Other times she knew that the events of all those years ago had happened for a reason.

  And a destiny.

  If she believed in such a thing.

  Which she always had.

  “So…?” Her mother’s question was pointed, and Loren realized her attention had wandered inward again.

  “I’m sorry, Mama.” She smiled at her mother. “I just…”

  “Heavy thoughts, I know. So…”

  So.

  They were there. And there wasn’t much of anything left to look at.

  The once glorious hotel where two of her best friends had gotten married was mostly destroyed. Barely a brick remained of the once marvelous portico. In fact, the entire west wing of the building was nothing but rubble.

  The town behind it wasn’t as destroyed. It looked like a few buildings still stood.

  One look at it and she knew that was where she was supposed to go. “This way.”

  Chapter Four

  Jushua picked is way through the rubble of the Gaian City, finding it no more intriguing than any other ruined city he’d had explored. Why had the healer Barlaam sought this place out again? Just for the lost souls to be reborned?

  Where once it might have been a decent place—although nothing like some of the places seen in Evalanedea even five thousand years ago—now it was just…trash.

  Most of the houses, wooden boxes of no special design, were burned and destroyed. Most of the other buildings, as well.

  One in particular actually piqued his interest and he headed up the stone steps. It at least looked like something he may have seen before. It had the curved columns that reminded him of his ancient home and it was inviting and beautiful.

  From the inscription on the front in letters as tall as he, he knew it was a temple. To his twin.

  Hard to believe that she was worshiped by her people, but she was. He used to tease her when they were children, used to call her and Nelci the great pampered princesses.

  In a way, that was exactly what they had become, wasn’t it?

  Most of the temple was still intact, though it had sustained some damage in the attack the healer Barlaam had told him about.

  Nalik and a few others had been targeted by a Gaian Dardaptoan who had sought out the powerful relics that his sister had ordered contained within the city. Nalik had been poisoned by some seriously strong Druidic magic. Had he not been a Laquazzeana of some serious strength, Nalik would still be paralyzed by that poison.

  He and those with him has survived the attack, but the city had not.

  The attacker had possessed a small bit of the Dark Sorcerer’s fire. That had been what had truly drawn Jushua to this world this day. Curiosity and a thirst for the knowledge to one day quench that flame.

  How had the Dardaptoan scum found such a thing? In all of Jushua’s knowledge no one but the Dark Sorcerer had ever been able to command the fires of the Three Hells.

  That a weak Gaian Dardaptoan had managed it with the help of an unknown Druid concerned him.

  Greatly.

  **

  Loren knew exactly where she was going the minute she stepped into the center of what had once been the town. “There. The temple.”

  “This is where your friends ended up, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Becca and Jade married Dardaptoans.”

  “And just what exactly are Dardaptoans? You’ve never told me.”

  “Because it was safer if you didn’t know. At least, it used to be safer. The world has changed recently.”

  “Why?”

  “That answer I don’t have. And Mom…Dardaptoans are vampires, I guess you’d call them. They won’t kill you. But they do drink human blood. On occasion.”

  Her mother’s eyes widened and her face paled, making her dark hair even more of a contrast. “Vampires are real?”

  “So are werewolves. And Druids. Dad was a Druid, I think.” How much did her mother know, anyway? “Did he ever say anything?”

  Her mother was quiet while they walked toward the temple at least a quarter mile in the distance. It sat upon a small hill, making it visible for a long distance. It drew her, that building, though she could not explain why. “I knew there was something different about your father. But I didn’t care. I loved him so much. And he loved us. When he was killed, I…just fell apart.”

  “No, you didn’t. I always thought you held it together for me.”

  “Of course I did. When you could see me. But at night…I missed him so much. I still do. That same difference he had in him, I see it in you. But it is more in you, too. And that terrifies me. And now you tell me werewolves and vampires are real. Talk about turning my world on its side.”

  “I’m sorry. If there was a way to protect you from all of this somehow, I would. You know that, right?”

  “Do me a favor, sweetheart. Don’t protect me. Because if you even try I’m going to freak out more. It’s kind of what mothers do. Especially when their children disappear for three weeks, with only a cryptic note. Dear Mom, have some things to do in another world. I’ll be back as fast as I can. PS, feed the goldfish. Just doesn’t cut it. At least not with this mom.”

  “I was trying to keep you safe, and I wasn’t given much warning. Technically, I’m still supposed to be there. I just came back because I knew you were alone. And no matter what, I love you most of all. Remember that forever, will you?”

  “Someday you’ll find a man you’ll love even more than you do me, you know.”

  Loren smiled. “Probably not. Guys are just too much trouble.” Especially with what she was afraid she was about to do. How would she even explain it? Dear hot guy, I need to go to another realm, so I can’t join you at the football game? Yeah, so not going to happen. And those that she had met in the other realm, Levia, had not exactly impressed her. They were mostly Lupoiux werewolves and a few Dardaptoans, and all were as different from her as any Kind could be. She was Druid Witch, and they were most content with their own Kind. Isolated, loners, quiet and appreciative of the natural world around them. That’s who she was, who the people she came from was.

  It was just the way of things. Besides, Lupoiux and Dardaptoan were fated bond types. The Four Fates had picked out each mate for every Lupoiux and Dardaptoan ever born.

  And she knew she was not to be the mate of one of those.

  No, as far as she knew, she did not have a mate in this lifetime. She had far too much at stake to be distracted by a man. Even a destined one.

  **

  The temple was beautiful. They didn’t enter the front, but headed toward the back of the building. Loren didn’t know how she knew, but she was able to easily lead the way to the hidden back entrance.

  Once inside she knew her mother felt the same awe that Loren did. The temple was relatively untouched by whatever fire had ravaged the town. It was one huge cavern, with ceilings at least fifty feet high. Curved columns decorated with carved leaves of some type of palm she didn’t recognize held up the ceiling. There was an odd map painted in gold—probably real gold—and black on that ceiling. The map was familiar to her, and she studied it for a moment, knowing it was important. And that she had seen it many times before.

  She just could not recall where. Loren’s neck crimped from looking straight up but she didn’t care. That map was important, and she needed to memorize it.<
br />
  Her mother broke her out of her trance when she pulled her cell phone free and started snapping pictures of the ceiling.

  Loren looked at her mother.

  “What? The way you were staring I figured this might be something you want to remember.”

  Duh. “Thanks Mom. Let’s keep looking. Take lots of pictures. I think we’ll need them.”

  “Ok. Well, at least this temple is pretty straightforward. One room. Thrones over there. And…wow…look at that.” Her mother’s awe made sense. The relief she was pointing toward was one of the most magnificent Loren had ever seen in person.

  She’d majored in history, so she’d seen quite a few photos, and she’d taken a trip her sophomore year to Europe. She and Jade had had a grand adventure—watched over by Jade’s cousin Marsh—throughout the ancient places of Rome and Greece and Portugal. There had been some seriously beautiful artwork and architecture on that trip.

  But this…this was glorious.

  It was a domestic scene, as far as she could tell. And the people captured in stone by one of the most talented artists Loren had ever seen were at least thirty feet tall. She counted people quickly. There were ten. Two or three were children, one girl looked like she was either a young woman or an older girl so it was hard to tell. Another woman carried a child of about three and clutched the older girl—younger woman?’s--hand.

  They were fleeing something.

  Loren’s heart stuttered. Had she seen the image before? Was that why she felt so drawn to the piece? She stepped closer, needing to see better.

  Her mother slipped her hand in Loren’s. The quiet and unfailing support her mother offered her touched Loren. Reminded her that her mother would always be there if Loren truly needed her.

  But Loren did not look at her. She couldn’t peel her eyes away from the woman carrying the little girl.

  She’d known her before, hadn’t she?

  And she’d known the others. The older girl was sixteen. And she was the girl Nelanora. The girl Loren had been.

  Someone had carved her last moments just as they were seared into Loren’s soul.

  How? Who? Hadn’t everyone who’d been there that day perished in the flames?

  She moved past the woman and two children, to those that watched over them from afar.

  Three or four of them she did not know. And they were dressed far differently than any Dardaptoan or Nellanic Druid she had ever known. And they had their hands out, clasped by one another. Their eyes were all-knowing.

  It took her a moment to realize they were the Four Fates.

  Three warriors of old followed the woman and girls, their swords drawn. Loren did not know if they were protecting or pursuing. It was hard to tell from the angle the males were. She took a few steps back. Until she could see more of their faces.

  And that’s when she realized they were three of the woman’s sons. She’d known their names, once. But it took her a moment to put the names with the faces. The woman’s sons had all favored one another strongly, with only hair coloring and height separating some of them. The lavender stone they were carved out of did not hint in anyway what coloring the males possessed.

  She stepped back again, wanting to see everything of the image she could.

  There were clouds of smoke over the top of the image. And a lightning bolt dissected the sky, coming to rest on the flames that erupted around the bottom of the image. They even extended out to the floor about three feet in front of the relief.

  Beautiful, very intricate work.

  Terrifying, even.

  In the smoke were two faces, identical to each other.

  Her soul froze when she recognized the image of the Dark Sorcerer.

  Except that he was in the relief twice.

  What had the artist been thinking?

  She deliberately looked away. She wasn’t ready to think about the monster who had killed young Nelanora—and the woman and child in the relief.

  He was a horrible and monstrous being.

  And he was the one who haunted her nightmares, in every lifetime she’d ever had.

  That an unknown sculptor had seen enough to be able to capture what had happened that day in such intricate detail thousands of years later rocked her to her very soul.

  She turned toward the part of the relief that hurt the least. The three males in the bottom left corner—Estacles was the first, the second was definitely Dekimos, and she thought the big one was Jushua. It was hard to tell. Jushua had favored so many of his brothers and she—Nelanora—hadn’t known the others much at all. It could be Kilan, but he’d had a scar on one cheek. This man did not. So…Jushua or one of the other brothers that had looked like him.

  How? Why had the artist chosen these things to put together in one piece?

  “Loren? Something doesn’t feel right here. I think someone, something may be watching us.”

  Loren agreed. She pulled the weapons she’d carried since the day she’d realized who she was from the special pockets in her coat where she kept them hidden.

  “What are those?”

  “They’re called shillelagh. The Irish used to use them.”

  “Can you use them?” Her mother frowned. “I’m not sure I like the idea of you having a weapon.”

  “Would you rather I not protect myself? I’m hanging out with werewolves and vampires, remember? And it’s not like I use a gun. Guns don’t really work all that well on Lupoiux and Dardaptoans, anyway.”

  “Yeah, how could I forget?” Her mother turned back toward the door. “I’m ready to get out of here. It’s starting to turn a little bit creepy in here.”

  “I think this is what we were meant to see. But there’s still something I’m supposed to find in this city. I just don’t know where I am supposed to look.”

  “Perhaps I can help you find what you seek?”

  An accented male voice from the relief had her mother screaming.

  Loren went straight into defensive mode.

  Especially when a large male stepped from the flames.

  A male with the traditional garb of an Evalanedean Dardaptoan and a sword.

  A Dardaptoan she knew was long, long dead.

  Was he ghost or demon?

  She wasn’t waiting to find out.

  Not with her mother right there within his reach. He was bigger than her by at least a foot and a half, and he outweighed her by probably one hundred to one fifty pounds.

  Surprise would be the only advantage she had.

  Loren attacked.

  Chapter Five

  Jushua took a hard knock across his neck from the girl’s little club. It almost felled him. Almost.

  The girl—woman, he hadn’t gotten a good look at her yet—was a damned skilled fighter. But he was older and stronger. She’d had the element of surprise, but no longer.

  “You wish to play like that? One should not enter a battle, unless one is determined to see it through to the end.” Oh, what fun. He could smell her, could tell she wasn’t of full human blood. Intriguing.

  “I do not fear battle. Nor do I fear death.” She looked at him with eyes that reminded him of someone.

  They were blue. Blue with just a hint…of purple. And the shape was Druidic.

  A little plantling or witchie, then. You could always tell by the eyes. Not always in color, but most definitely in shape.

  Most of the Druids of old had been victim to the Dark Sorcerer. A few stray lines had reborn, thanks mostly to those mixed bloods who had hidden amongst other surviving Kinds. He had encountered maybe two hundred of them in the last five thousand years. Once they had numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

  Most female. Most tall and slim. Most were timid and passive. And most with bluish eyes shaped just like the original daughter of the Kind. Nevva. She had been a good woman, and friend to his mother.

  Before she’d had fallen with three of her daughters beside her. Two of her sons had fallen with his brother Kilan.

  Her daughter
Nelanora had fallen beside his youngest sister Pin, her sword still gripped in her hand.

  Nelanora’s blood had soaked into the ground of his family home.

  Had stained his soul, nearly as much as his youngest sister’s.

  Jushua should have been there earlier than he had. If he had not been playing, celebrating his upcoming wedding, he would have been there in time to protect his mother. And to save the two young girls who had died beside her.

  But that was a long time ago.

  The threat—if he could call a plantling or witchie that—was in the here and now. It intrigued him to see a Druid with a weapon, non-violent little creatures that they normally were. Had he ever seen one with a weapon, even a male? He did not think so.

  Kilan’s wife had been a druid daughter. As was Nalik’s Rajni now. Cassandra, once a human, possessed the reborn soul of one of Nevva’s daughters.

  And there was always his former betrothed.

  He had not known Nelciana lived, along with his sister Kennera, until recently. But Nelci had. She was widely considered to be the mother of all Nellanic Druids.

  But in truth, it was her mother responsible for the Druidic gifts.

  The Druid girl before him clubbed him upside the head with the short shillelagh in her left hand, and held her right at the ready. “Mom! Run!”

  After the stars cleared from his head he understood the desperation of her actions. Why else would a woman barely past six stone in weight stand and fight a warrior such as himself?

  To protect a loved one.

  He held up a hand and blocked her next attack. She was very skilled with those tiny clubs of hers, attesting to some serious training for one so young.

  And she was young. That was evident when he got his first real look at her face. “I mean neither you nor your mother harm.”

  “You should be dead. Long time ago.” She attacked again.

  Dammit, he was getting seriously irritated by those little sticks.

  It wasn’t admirable of him, but sometimes when there was a battle one did not wish to fight, expediency had to be the way. He waved one of his hands between them and encircled the plantling-or-witchie in a swirl of his own power. He did not possess much of the magical arts, but he had some. She stopped moving completely.