Page 1 of Mistress of Hours

Prologue

The stone wallsof the catacombs bled their biting cold into the air. Bastille waited, his torch struggling to breathe in the closeness of the passage. The darkness was a leech, pulling every bit of light and warmth into its bottomless depths.

He had been to Sgùrdruid before but never to the catacombs. The place felt so ancient; it was a marvel that anyone was able to build this labyrinth of tunnels into the side of a mountain. The city sat far above, its inhabitants entirely unaware of what was to come.

Guilt weighed heavily on Bastille’s soul, but he knew what he had to do. People across Ichorna suffered more and more each day because of their isolation. He had to do something to entice the rest of the world into trade with them. They were a small nation and not equipped with the resources to be self-sufficient. He was out of options; if he did not follow through with this, he would watch his people sink into ruin.

After seemingly endless moments, he heard near-silent footsteps approaching. They were so quiet he thought he may be hallucinating.

The outline of a man appeared on the edge of the torch’s glow, an apparition stepping out of the blackness.

The man was youthful, with a long, angular face and stern nose. His eyes appeared fully black in the dimness. When he spoke, goosebumps prickled Bastille’s arms despite his thick cloak.

“I see you decided to follow through,”the other man said in a voice that was eerily gentle.

“I must do what I can for my people, and I see no other options before me,” Bastille answered with a sigh. His heart ached with the truth of what they were about to do.

“I still don’t understand why you’ve offered this—it doesn’t make sense,” Bastille added.

“It is not for you to understand. You must only know the consequences for yourself and Ichorna. Do you want to do this or not?” the man answered, his tone growing harsher. “There is no room for indecision.”

“Let’s begin, then.”

Chapter One

Evienne closed hereyes as the cold damp of the autumn morning settled deep into her bones. The air, laden with fog, hung suspended in her lungs; in this very moment, she felt the kiss of mist on her lips, the numbing bite of cold in her toes. She exhaled, her eyelids lifting slowly as time resumed its ever-forward march.

As the seconds drifted by, she felt her heart beating a steady rhythm. She surveyed her surroundings as her horse shifted beneath her. An inhuman snarl cleaved the silence, forcing her into intuitive motion.

The vicious point of her silver-bladed ring pricked her palm as she turned atop her horse, calling to the magic that coursed through her veins. Her blood was the spark, but her will fanned the flames of her power.

She faced down the massive beast then, with its spindly canine legs and grotesque, sallow face. Its smattering of black fur matched the depthless shade of its massive, empty eyes. Its teeth were bared, thin lips pulled back in a snarl.

Evienne didn’t hesitate; her Regne du Sang, the most ancient and revered of the blood magics, was music to her. Without remorse, her power took hold of every drop of blood in the creature’s body. With nothing more than a delicate twist of her wrist, she contracted the blood, and every bone in the beast’s limbs snapped.

She pushed it down then, and when it lay prone on the ground, she gave one final tug on her magic to collapse the creature’s skull.

Sounds of other mages locked in combat with these creatures, the Gevaud, surrounded her suddenly in an unwelcome din. It was not that they were unexpectedly loud—this was a battle—only they did not match the silence of her mind.

A pack of Gevaud had swarmed into the small town square. Evienne’s fellow Sangviere now worked their blood magic to eliminate the threat, taking on the beasts one by one.

A scream pierced the air as a cluster of the creatures targeted a formation of mages on the opposite side of the square. Evienne watched, helpless from this distance, as they overpowered one of the Sangviere, taking him to the ground and ripping through his flesh with feral growls.

The other mages in his formation tried to defend themselves, one throwing up a glowing red shield of magic in an attempt to save her companions. They were not on horseback, though. Most Sangviere were not experienced enough to wield from a mount. Evienne knew they wouldn’t last long. She urged her horse into motion across the square; this is why she was here, after all.

As she neared the group, now surrounded on all sides by the Gevaud, Evienne sliced a longer cut in her palm with her ring, blood welling as the dainty silver blade cut through her skin.

Her magic came to her in a rush now, and the lifeblood of the nearby creatures called to her. She felt their life force as if it were a siren’s song. Her power hummed, and she closed her eyes to revel in the feeling of rightness. She seized the creatures’ blood with her magic, taking hold of every drop that rushed through their veins, and pulled with all her might.

All at once, the six Gevaud that had surrounded the mages burst in a shower of red mist.

Evienne reigned in her horse, nodding in reassurance to the wide-eyed Sangviere who now stood before her in shock. Her breathing was heavy. Such a feat of Regne du Sang was not for the uninitiated—magic took a physical toll—but Evienne was thegreatest Sangviere Ichorna had seen in hundreds of years. Her abilities were unmatched by any living mage.

Lou, the commanding officer of this unit of Sangviere, pulled up their horse next to Evienne’s. They were out of breath as well; this was the largest recorded horde of the horrible beasts to attack since the so-called Gevaud Crisis began nearly ten years ago. The first Gevaud had been spotted in Ichorna about a hundred years ago, but they had started terrorizing people more recently. What had started as a nuisance had become more serious, with the Gevaud stalking and killing townsfolk if left unchecked. Sometimes, like today, packs of them would ransack a town in broad daylight. Lou waved to a medic, who rushed over from the edge of the square to tend to the fallen mage.

“I’m glad you were here today. What you just did certainly wasn’t something we should leave to the novices,” Lou said, still trying to catch their breath.

“I am glad I could help; the attacks seem to be getting worse every month. This is the most I’ve seen in one place,” Evienne answered, surveying the chaotic aftermath of the battle. She was still out of breath, and her muscles had started to ache. The cut on her hand was already beginning to close though, the sharp pain turning to a dull throb.The healing spells she wove into all of her castings kept her palm from forming too much scar tissue.

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