Page 55 of Destiny of the Witch

‘Tell her not to and I’ll willingly bond with your damned crystal,’ I promised. I was lying, but I hoped he didn’t know that.

‘I told you,’ he said, looking sympathetic, ‘you can’t have two bonds.’

So that was why he’d wanted Bastion here.

Shaun had already known that Bastion was my familiar; he’d watched Bastion sit on the runes of truth and lie to the council thathehad killed Hilary andconnected the dots faster than I had. From that moment, he’d known that Bastion had to die in order for me to bond with the harkan.

But it turned out my father didn’t know everything there was to know about bonds. Youcanhave more than one at once; I already had two. ‘And that’s where you’re wrong,’ I said quietly. Then I shouted, ‘Now, Fehu!’

The raven plunged down from his hiding place at the top of the bookshelf, claws outstretched as he attacked Shaun.

Mum leapt up from her chair, her arm dripping with blood. She’d surreptitiously been using her own blood to paintezroon the runes that were binding her and Oscar. Oscar reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter, grew the flames and sent them careening towards my father.

As Shaun sent Fehu flying into a wall with a burst of black power, his eyes turned black and a vampyr phased out of the shadows to absorb the flames that were heading straight for him.

Mum ignored Shaun and ran towards me. She grabbed the athame at my ankle and held it level with her heart. ‘No!’ I screamed, batting her hand down just as she dragged the blade towards herself. Rather than striking herheart, the athame plunged into her stomach and she let out an agonised gasp.

‘Rune ruin, Amber!’ she bitched at me. ‘Now you’ve just made my death slower.’

‘I can heal you!’ I said desperately as I pulled off my tote bag, tore it open and pulled out the healing potions.

‘That’s not the point, Am,’ she said softly. ‘To destroy the harkan we need a willing sacrifice. I’m willing, Amber.’

‘Well, I’m not!’ I snapped.

Across the room, my father and Oscar were fighting. My father glanced across and took in the tableau of my mother and me, and suddenly a wave of black magic rolled out from him. It destroyed my healing potions instantly. ‘You bastard!’ I screamed at him.

‘It’s okay,’ Mum said weakly, grasping my right hand. It wasn’t. It absolutely wasn’t.

My mum was dying but I still had one last option to save her. The world could go to hell for all I cared.

I reached into the harkan’s box and seized the malevolent jewel in my left hand.

Chapter 49

‘No!’ Mum shouted. ‘Put it down! Don’t you dare bond with that thing!’

The jewel was so happy to see me that it crooned at me. It had been made sentient by my mother and so it loved me in the same way that she did. I was the harkan’s dearest daughter, and together we could destroy so many things. We could kill anything and anyone we wanted; we could coat the world in blood and rune anything. We could use the dead bodies we made to create so many potions. We could achieve greatness unlike anything anyone else had ever achieved. The few that survived would worship us – and then we could open the gateways to the other Realms and destroy those too. I had always wanted greatness.

‘Amber, darling, come back to me. Look at me!’

It tooka real effort to wrench my eyes from the beautiful maroon depths of the harkan, and in my mind it hissed with displeasure as I took my eyes off it.

‘Listen to me, love,’ mum pleaded. ‘Ineedto die, Amber. I need to right this wrong! Lucille can’t preserve me much longer and I won’t go back to being what I was! I won’t go back to not knowing you and Oscar. I am done. This ismymove and it’s my choice to play it.’

And this is mine,said Abigay in my mind. Don’t you dare let her die, Amber. Tell my bestie that I love her.

Seemingly of its own volition, the pendant around my neck rose and blazed with a white light that was so bright it was painful to behold.

The harkan sensed the threat and sent a cloud of black magic bubbling outwards, but the blinding white light from the pendant pierced the thick black ochre that clung to the jewel. Then the glowing pentagram dropped and touched the harkan itself.

The jewel screamed into the depths of my mind.

Across the room, my father screamed too. He dropped to his knees. ‘Lycia!’ he cried.

I felt a surge of satisfaction from Bastion and then he was on the move, coming closer to me. He’d killed myfather’s familiar but he was in such pain. I struggled to compartmentalise his agony.

In my hands, the malevolent jewel pulsed once and struck my mother with a flash of red magic before crumbling to nothing. As it folded in on itself, a huge shockwave of power flew outwards and I doubled over as it hit me like a punch to the solar plexus.

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