PROLOGUE
My home is burning.
I can't believe I’m even thinking that, but as smoke curls up and distorts the clear blue sky ahead of us, it doesn't seem as though there's any other explanation. The forest my family has lived in for generations, that has protected us, the Favored Children, from everything that has ever wished us harm, is not stopping the smoke from climbing into the air.
Tears are falling down my face, but my legs don't stop moving. My breath sears out of my chest as I choke on not only the smoke, but the sobs bursting from my mouth.
I stumble, but my brother, Pemba, gets a hand under my elbow and holds me to his side as we both run frantically toward the flames.
This can't be happening. This can't bereal.
As the smoke thickens around us, there's no denying that itishappening—itisreal.
My mother and father will be coordinating getting the coven away from our home, evacuating the area, and moving as close to the river as possible. We're coming through the forest from the wrong direction—the river is on the other side of the village—but there's always the chance that someone could be missed in the chaos. If there's anything we can do to help get as many people out alive as we can, then we're going to do it.
My grandmother isn't very mobile. As the Crone of the coven, she's the oldest living family member at almost one thousand years. I'm sure my mother prioritized getting her out, but there are others with mobility issues. I have ten younger brothers and sisters, some of them only toddlers. The thought of my parents trying to keep track of them all during an evacuation is scary. And we havedozensof cousins and other coven members… I feel sick to my stomach.
Pemba and I had reached the river that cuts through the forest, a two-hour trek away from the village clearing, and stopped to refill our water flasks when we’d first seen the smoke.
We’d known right away that our family was in danger.
The trees finally thin out around us, the tops of them alight and the smoke thick in the air, though, strangely, the underbrush and forest floor are untouched, even with the direction that the wind is blowing. It’s not acting the way that flames should, instead spreading in patterns that are too planned out and methodical.
There’s magic to this fire.
For a moment, my heart sings with joy, sure that my mother has been able to protect the coven and our home to stop the fire from touching us, or maybe the forest itself has done this, caring for its Favored Children the way it always has.
But then we find the first body.
Pemba and I both slam to a halt, our feet simply forgetting how to work as we look down at our friend's dead body in horror. Ella was three years younger than me, on the cusp of adulthood, and a strong, wise woman in the making. She wasn't one of the vulnerable coven members I was worried about. She was one of my closest friends. And with her strong magic, there is no way the smoke could have killed her so easily.
The three arrows tipped with black feathers in her back have done the job.
Someonemurderedher.
This fire… it's not an accident.
I stumble toward her, my hands reaching out as the urge to help her, to fix this, floods me. But as my hands get close to the arrows, I feel it.
Witcheswane.
The arrows have been tipped in the one herb that can instantly kill a witch no matter how strong they are. Someone came here knowing exactly how to immobilize and murder a coven full of strong and capable witches. It’s no secret that witcheswane is deadly to my kind, and there are many places in the Southern Lands where it grows plentifully.
Pemba takes my arm again, pulling me back to my feet and holding me close, as though he's shielding me from any more arrows that might be coming our way. I can’t blame him for being overprotective. Who's to say the murderers aren't still here? But our family is here too, and we cannot leave them behind.
I send a silent prayer to the Goddess for Ella's soul, hoping it has found its way to Elysium, and then we make our way toward our family's hut. Fear pumps through my body, flowing through my veins alongside my blood as I begin to shake.
Who has done this?
As the Mother of the coven, our mother lives centrally and so does the rest of our family, something that is terrifying now as we walk through the small village together, waiting for the attackers to jump out and kill us too.
Something compels us forward, and some small part of me knows I cannot run away, no matter how terrified I am.
At first, I try not to look at the bodies littering the ground, but then I remember that any one of them could be my parents or my siblings. My heart aches as though it’s my chest the arrows have pierced, my breathing slowly becoming ragged. Death surrounds me, the images consuming my mind so that, even when I shut my eyes, I still see the bodies strewn around. My magic bursts out of me unbidden like an invisible blanket as it covers the area, reaching out to them all as I try desperately to find some spark of life to grasp onto. The tiniest of sparks can bring someone back; I’ve done it before. But there’s nothing here.
Only the cold void of death.
I can feel a pounding in the back of my mind, the voice trying to break in and find out where this pain inside me is coming from, but my wards stay strong, something my mother trained me from birth to control. Even in the chaos and terror, they hold. He pounds again, the frantic sensation alerting me he’s desperate to hear from me, but the horror that surrounds me consumes me, keeping him out of my mind as my survival instincts kick in.
