Page 3 of Heart of a Witch
I licked my lips, casting the memory of the execution from my mind. If I was to one day become a hunter, I had to get used to it. Nights like last night were going to become my new normal, whether I wanted it or not.
The carriage pulled up to the wrought iron gates of the academy. Protective charms against witches hung from the fences surrounding the obsidian building. I stepped out before Corbin, forcing a stoic expression.
I spotted my friend, Charles, and nodded in his direction. He pushed one of the girls walking by into a mud puddle. He looked at me, and I did what I had to: I laughed.
Because I was Elijah Shaw. I wanted anyone who thought about bullying my brother to think again.
One
Six Years Later
Victoria
Staining the silk handkerchief with my bloody hands, I let out a tense breath and climbed my gaze to the branches above. Dappled light cast shadows to the ground as the sky lightened with the first pinks of morning. Spiders climbed the low-hanging twigs, spinning their webs toward the leaf-carpeted ground.
One landed on my hair. Careful not to crush it, I pulled it from my black strands and let it crawl over my fingers and onto a branch next to me. I returned my gaze to the mess of feathers and crimson-stained leaves at my feet, surrounded by a circle of symbols—symbols that would earn me a one-way trip to the gallows if they were ever found.
Normally, I wouldn’t dabble in dark magic, the kind pulled from the depths of the underworld and the demons that inhabited it, but I was desperate. I kicked the symbols made from sticks, scattering them. I kneeled at the site I’d labored over for the past four hours.Under the cover of darkness, innocence quickly suffocated, and nothing seemed as bad, but when day dawned, the cruelness in performing these types of rituals was laid bare.A breath of wind caught my dark curls, sweeping them over my shoulder.
The bird’s talons were curled up beside the silver blade between them. I pulled the dagger from the crow’s stomach, releasing its body from the ground. There was so much blood for such a small creature.
I sighed at the makeshift grave I’d dug in haste. The creature had already been close to death when I’d found it, but it didn’t make me feel better.
Grabbing the grimoire pages and the five pieces of jewelry I had hoped to succeed in spelling, I sighed. I threw them into my satchel alongside the black and purple half-melted candles.
“Victoria.” My mother’s sharp voice found me. I hadn’t heard her coming. “Get inside before someone sees you.”
Closing my eyes for a moment, I reined in the pain that threatened to crack my voice, composing my emotions before turning on my heel to face her. Her honey-blonde hair fell flat around her shoulders, lacking the life it once had, matching her face.
“No one comes out this way,” I replied. I hated being on my own with her, ever since the incident.
“Please, honey.” Her voice lowered to a whisper, and desperation tugged at her words. “We need to be cautious. Thathunteris in town. I can’t risk anything happening to any of you. Think of your sisters and brother.”
My fingers flexed, then curled. That was precisely what I was doing. The hunter was the whole reason I was out there in the first place, trying to shield our family from his wrath. Damian Shaw,Salvius’s most esteemed witch hunter and priest. I wished I could spell the skin to peel from his bones, but I couldn’t without the rest of my family paying the price for it. My actions had already cost my mother too much.
“I’m coming,” I promised. “I won’t do anything to put our family in danger.”
The skin under her eyes had sagged, appearing as if it had lost contact with the bone beneath. Her snake-green eyes matched my sister’s, Ember, and in them, I found her, softening me. “I’ll be in before the shop opens.”
“Hurry, sweetheart.” She brushed a fallen wisp of moss from her shoulder, snagging her apron on a twig as she found her way out of the tree line. I supposed we were fortunate to have an entry to the forest in our backyard. The trees were the perfect place to hide the remains of our rituals and spells.
I stepped backward, crunching a bone under my boot. Finding dead birds was easy in this part of the forest. Many who landed among these branches seldom lasted long. The lingering effects of magic seemed to drag the life from the area. It wasn’t the worst thing; their bones made for good grounding items when casting more forbidden spells. The temptation over the years to practice the darker arts on occasion had become too much. I’d performed four successful rituals in my life, using magic from the underworld. Each time, it left me feeling unwell for a short period, which was why I was careful about how often I did them. Using that kind of magic frequently could cause a person to lose their mind.
I turned back, emerging from the trees into the first rays of purples and gold. Beyond the grassy bank sat our manor house.
Yet another day had passed since my cousin’s murder, although the people of Salvius would disagree with the term. They believed he had been rightfully executed, as he’d broken the law and killed another, but I know for certain he hadn’t done anything wrong. Damian had found him, and everyone knew that once he set his eyes on a witch or warlock, it wasn’t long until they were dead. He was the cruelest bastard in the entire kingdom, fabricating evidence against good witches and stringing them up. It didn’t matter that we were supposed to get a fair trial if found hiding among the humans here.The hunter was after blood, and the humans didn’t care. They turned a blind eye as long as it suited them. Why would they fight it?
Ambling over the grassy yard, passing the leaf-covered swing that hung from a low, thick branch of a maple tree, I gazed upward at the alcoves over the windows, then at the glass panes and the ivy smothering the stone. It would have been easier for us to live in Istinia, where witches lived separately from the humans here in Salvius, but my mother hadn’t been able to leave my human father. Our manor bordered the cemetery where he was buried too, and she visited him often.
Living in the human kingdom wasn’t the worst thing. We weren’t forced into covens when we were children, like they were in Istinia, and made to leave our families behind so the young could serve their communities.
Although, we did have to hide what we were because if anyone found out, especially someone like that hunter, we were as good as dead. The treaty between our lands didn’t mean a thing to most humans, as was proven by what had happened to my cousin. I supposed they didn’t care that we were made from gods—even older than the ones in Istinia—from a race spanning back a millennium, and we had their magic in our blood. When they’d had children with humans, the first witches had been born.
Running my fingers along the stone banister of steps leading down from the garden to the front lawn, I smiled. Ember waved at me from the downstairs window. She ran out the front door, clutching a book, then dragged her disapproving gaze down to my bag of candles and spells. “You were out again all night, weren’t you?”
“I’m trying to protect us—protect you.” My dark eyes met hers, and she softened.
“Did it work?”
