Holding her gaze, I say solemnly, “I’ll never leave you, my love. Ever. Sisters stick together and protect each other, yes?”
She watches me, gauging my sincerity for a moment before nodding. “Yes.”
I blink several times, pushing aside the swell of emotion that rises at the prospect of separating from Leisel. We haven’t been apart for more than a few hours from the moment she was born. Turning back to the saucepan and grabbing a spoon to stir the milk and honey together, I try to gather my thoughts. Unfortunately, all that results in is a fast-forward reel of memories with my little sister.
I didn’t have time to grieve my mother’s death because I had a wailing infant to look after. An infant that I had no idea how to care for. I remember walking from the birthing establishment in town into Aesara’s market with a tiny Leisel bundled in a blanket in my arms and tears streaming down my cheeks and asking Mariketa—who I already knew well—what to do. Horrified at my predicament, Mariketa ushered me to my cabin with Parker, bringing an excess of supplies needed to care for an infant left over from the birth of their son.
For several days, Mariketa lived here with me, teaching me how to care for Leisel. Parker would drop by with Wesley periodically. After three days, although I was still bursting into tears randomly, sick with grief, I had a good idea of how to look after a baby. Mariketa gave me a woven basket that doubled as a portable cradle. So, while struggling to keep the farm running—still working the land, hunting, and caring for the horses—Leisel would always be within arm’s reach.
She was a relatively subdued and quiet baby but was incredibly attuned to my emotions even then. When I was sad, she started crying. When I was having better days, she’d be smiling. She grew so quickly, and before I knew it, she was a toddler—still glued to my side at all times, running around me while I worked.
The first time I left her alone in the house for a few hours was when she was five. I knew she didn’t enjoy hunts—it’d make her sad to see any sort of life taken—so I’d snuck out early in the morning to get my business done. When I came back she was sitting on my bed, clutching my pillow, and sobbing. When I’d asked her what was wrong she said she thought I’d left her. My heart broke in two, and I made a point to tell her any time I planned to leave her for even an hour or so from then on.
Beyond being my last living relative, Leisel was…everything to me. She still is and always will be.
Which is why Ihaveto win the duel tomorrow. I can’t leave her. I would never put her in the precarious position of living amongst shifters—but I also refuse to separate from her.
I turn off the stove, pour her milk into a mug, and set it in front of her before taking a seat across the table from her. “Drink up, sweet girl,” I tell her. “Tomorrow I’ll put an end to this craziness. Neither of us is going anywhere, and we won’t be mates to anyone, you hear me?”
She gives me a single nod. “I hear you.”
Chapter Five
Idon’t sleep that night. I can’t—I’m too wound up to do anything but think and train. For hours, I run through every fighting move I learned from my father, almost breaking the meager furniture around my house in my crazed enthusiasm.
By the time the moon is starting to set, as evidenced by peeks I take through the curtains drawn over my windows, I’ve concluded that, although I’m confident I’d hand most humans their ass, my odds against a shifter are not good. Which means I’ll need to fight dirty.
I know there aren’t any weapons allowed—which is ridiculous, since shifters have sharp claws that come out on command, and I’m sure whoever my opponent is will be happy to use them. I’ll have to use my brain as much as my body during the duel and think several steps ahead to have even the tiniest chance of success.
In an attempt to get myself into a strategic mindset, I pull out my father’s chess set. We used to play the game several times a week, and he taught me many tactics to win. The primary one being to think atleastfive steps ahead, though ideally eight. For hours, I play against myself, imagining each piece on the chessboard to be a fighting strategy or person and setting them against each other.
Then, as the first rays of light start to peek through the curtains, I sit on the floor in front of the worn old sofa in my living area and pray.
Praying isn’t an abnormality for me—I pray to the gods almost nightly, asking for health for both Leisel and me, and praying that my parents’ souls are resting in peace. This morning, however, my prayer is different. More ritualistic. It’s a prayer directly to the goddess of magic, Hecate.
All mythic species have a specific god they pray to, the same god that’s said to have created them. For shifters, it’s the moon goddess Selene. For vampires, it’s the war god Ares. For sirens, Poseidon. For demons, Hades. For witches, Hecate.
Although my magic is from the earth, it’s magic nonetheless—which gives me a direct line of sorts to the goddess of all witches. Possibly more so than witches from other realms, since there are many of them and so few earthly witches. My mother once told me to only pray to Hecate when truly necessary because she will always hear me, but she wouldn’t be pleased with unnecessary disturbances.
The last time I prayed to her directly was when Leisel got pneumonia at five years old. I was watching the life slowly seep out of my sister, listening to her wheezing breaths and horrible coughs, horrified at the possibility of losing her. I begged the patron goddess of witches to heal her, to let her live. The following day, Leisel was cured, as if she was never ailed in the first place. That was a miracle in itself since she’d been at death’s door mere hours before. The following week she developed her first—and so far only—power: healing.
The power became apparent when Leisel had accompanied me on a horseback ride through the forest—not a hunt—and had seen a baby chipmunk being ravaged by a ferret. She leaped off of Duchess, scared the ferret away, and took the bloodied, barely breathing chipmunk in her hands. She held him to her chest, and I remember seeing a faint golden glow emanating from her hands. When the chipmunk wasvisible again, he was completely healed. Leisel proclaimed that she was keeping him and named him Chip.
Since then, she healed Shadow when he broke his leg during a hunt and healed me multiple times when I would hurt myself working the farm or out in the forest.
I don’t expect my prayer to Hecate to result in another miracle—but I hope to get some guidance. Something that will help me in my upcoming fight.
My mother taught me the way to activate my connection to Hecate before a prayer; to shed a drop of my blood and use my magic. So, I prick my index finger with a sewing needle, and let loose the power I’ve spent countless hours learning to control.
Holding the palm of my unbloodied hand to the ceiling, I let out a deep breath, and summon a small bit of fire.
From my understanding, having the ability to summon and wield fire isn’t uncommon among witches. What makesmyfire such an anomaly—a dangerous anomaly—is that the flame I summon isn’t red and orange; it’s gold and black. It’s a flame that destroys anything it comes into contact with—incinerating objects with a mere lick.
The ability first manifested when I was eight and demolished an oak tree by accident. I’d broken my leg while in the forest with my father, and the acute pain somehow tore my power out of me. Both my father and I had been terrified because it was merely a spark of the golden-black flame that turned a century-old oak into ash. For years, I struggled to learn how to control the black fire, because it would burst forward whenever I was angry or injured. I was twelve by the time I truly mastered being able to summon and control it at will.
Since then, I’ve had no reason to use it, outside of the last time I prayed to Hecate. Even still, the flame manifests in the palm of my hand with ease, as enchanting and dark as I rememberit being. It’s black at the core, gray at the edges, with a gold shroud dancing across each flicker of fire.
“Hecate,” I murmur, keeping my voice quiet because I know how good shifter hearing is, and close my eyes. “I call upon you for guidance. In a mere few hours, I’ll be dueling with a shifter—someone who’s no doubt far stronger and faster than me. I fear for not only my own well-being but the well-being of Leisel. I cannot use my magic during the fight because I do not seek to expose myself. If there’s any assistance you could give, it would be met with my eternal gratitude.”
