Page 1 of Their Blood Rite

Chapter 1

Skulls decorate the towering arch over the stone bridge.

Death. Brutal and absolute.

It’s a promise to the humans that unauthorised magic will be met with brutality and severity.

And a blood-soaked warning to magic folk that they better behave if they dare step foot inside this village.

I stand, staring up at them all, piled atop one another, and shudder at the amount of them. There must be two hundred at least. All sun-bleached and weathered. Hints of the violence that ended their lives linger still. Sprawling cracks and deep dents. Some have long slices where their face met the blade of a warrior. Others are still stained red from deep bleeds from within. Some are black and charred from the fires that destroyed their flesh.

My kin. My family. My friends.

Slaughtered.

Bone archways mark the entrance of any sizeable human settlement and serve as a constant reminder to each and every soul of what happens when we don’t behave.

I survey them with a mixture of dread and anger. Not every witch whose bones rest before me deserves to be there. The war was brutal. Or so I’m told. I was a baby when it ended, so all I have are the stories.

Stories and bones.

But the consequences live on. The skull in the far right was Lucile Frey. She taught me to swim in the lakes back home when I was seven.

All she did was try to leave our coven. Rumour was that she had fallen in love with a human.

She ran.

Humans caught her.

She died screaming.

Now, her empty eye sockets stare into nothing, and they will until she becomes dust.

Something hard hits the side of my head and knocks me to my knees. A stone rolls to a stop, coated in a faint sheen of my blood. Sure enough, when I touch the point of impact, I feel a familiar sticky wetness and blood trickles down my cheek.

Three human boys from the village laugh, pointing and pulling faces at me. The biggest boy, a fat little fuck who must be fifteen at most, has another stone which he playfully catches over and over in his palm. That sadistic glint of joy he gets in his eye says he will throw this one even harder. That he wants to see me bleed even more.

He pulls his arm back and lets it fly. The look on his face is priceless when I catch it and toss it back before he even manages to blink. It lands right between his eyes, and he falls flat on his arse, landing in the mud with a high-pitched yelp. The two other lads step back, watching between their friend and me.

As I laugh, relishing in watching him try to get to his feet but slither around like an uncoordinated drunkard, I get a sharpthump to the back of my head. Fingers knot in my hair and yank my head back.

My father looks down at me with a disgusted sneer. His dull blue eyes narrow, and he snarls in a low warning.

‘If you cannot behave yourself, I will leave you tethered up with the horses at the village border. You hear me, Ashe?’

‘Yes, Father. Sorry, Father,’ I reply, peering up at him with wide eyes. His temper is not something I enjoy finding myself on the wrong side of. He pulls harder on my hair.

‘You will be sorry. We haven’t even stepped foot inside the village, and you attack a human boy?’

‘He threw the first stone,’ I argue, trying to take my weight from the slack of my hair.

‘Did I drop you on your fucking head as a baby? All it takes is one wrong step, andyourhead will be the next one to be mounted on the village threshold. Is that what you want?’ Another yank. ‘Is it, Ashe?! To die? For everything in your life to serve no purpose at all, except to end up their trophy?’

‘No, Father. I'm sorry!’

He looks up at the three boys. They’ve managed to get the stone-throwing shithead back on his feet, and all three watch us with uncertainty. A few other men start making their way towards them, their hateful eyes on us as they crack their knuckles.

‘Apologies, gentlemen,’ my father calls over with his well-rehearsed charm-filled smile. ‘It was an accident. I assure you it won’t happen again.’

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