I pull myself out of my memory and sigh. If I hadn’t been so stupid back then, I might have been able to prevent the problems we caused. I know I can fix the problems I’m now facing. I just have to ensure no one can interfere with what’s to come.
Hell I even told Areyna a lie by saying my parents were killed by a hitman after a case they were working on went wrong. The truth is they were killed by magical backlash from the spell. First my mother, then my father a few days later. The spell drained them of everything they had and my mother never told my father that she’d linked him to the spell. It’s one of the biggest regrets I have, but I still wouldn’t tell anyone the truth.
Witches have rules that we’re supposed to follow and that night, doing that spell, we broke more than a few. I’ve been careful since then not to cross those lines, but without having anyone to teach me properly, I’m fairly certain I’ve crossed the lines a few times now.
The biggest rules Witches have to abide by are;
Never tether the magic to a person without their permission.
Never raise the dead.
Never create life from nothing.
There are hundreds of minorlawsthat follow those, but they’re the main ones that will result in a death sentence without trial if broken and caught.
Of course there’s also the don’t expose magic to humans, but everyone has a work around for that, even me. My preferred method is the memory wipe spell, but that’s a tricky one to cast, sometimes it erases more than you mean for it to.
SIX
Rourke
It’s beenyears since I felt like more than just a glorified babysitter. I knew when I signed up to become an elite member of the Dragon Guard that life wouldn’t always be fights and rescues, but I never imagined that I’d spend most of my life catering to the whims of a spoiled brat who thinks the world should revolve around him.
I’ve been summoned like a servant by the only remaining Dragon to perform a task that will probably just get me laughed at, but I go anyway.
“You called boss.” I say as I enter the room he’s sequestered himself in for the last few weeks. He’s added more photographs of the girl he thinks is his sister. I’m not so sure about her though. It’s possible she could just be another dead end, an orphan who’s similar in appearance but ends up being someone else.
“Yeah, I need you to go collect someone for me. They have information I need and it has to be done before dusk tomorrow.”
“Information or power?” I enquire knowing full well that he’s not only been searching for his sister but also for the mythical coins that have been carried by the heirs to the Council. So far he’s hired a witch, a kid who barely looks old enough to shave but has immense power and he’s hired several seers to help him search for Eliza. If he ever finds Ir-Regina tieghi (My Queen) I’ll be the first to kneel at her feet, but it's been over ten years, there’s no possible way she could have survived.
Ossias survived simply because he was young and the Dragon Guard were able to bring in the best healers within minutes of his injuries occurring, but his sister was gone before we arrived on the scene. The amount of blood where her body once lay was enough to tell me she didn’t survive. My guess is that whoever murdered Ossias’ family, took her body for some nefarious reasons that I’m incapable of comprehending.
“Possibly both, if this person is who I think they are.” He says cryptically while flicking his blue-black hair away from his eyes.
I glance out the window watching the guards as they make their shift change. There’s a twenty second window where they all just mill around before the new guards move along to their posts. I make a mental note to look into the guards we have on staff, from what I’ve seen some of them are far too lazy to be of any real use in protecting the Boss.
“Take a unit of men and bring back the one who surrenders. They’ll come to you before the sun sets so just be patient.”
I take the piece of paper with the address on it and turn to leave.
“Oh and Rourke, I want them brought inalive.No harm is to come to them, understood?”
“Yes sir.”
SEVEN
Richard
I watchin rapt awe as my little lamb comes flying out of the house, tears streaming down her face. The smile that pulls my lips up feels stiff, as though it doesn’t belong there but it’s there all the same.
She runs headlong into the street, but the odd thing is, no one chases after her. I take a step out of the shadows, wondering if now is my chance. The squeal of the tires has me freezing in place. I watch trapped inside my own mind, unable to move even an inch as the van slams right into my precious little ray of sunshine. The sound of her body hitting the ground has me jolting forward, but before I’ve taken more than that single step, Jason is flying out the front door, skidding to a stop beside my girl.
He checks her pulse, shakes her shoulders, then screams at the top of his lungs. Something wet hits my cheek as I stare at the scene before me. I feel so detached as I watch her lie there, blood pooling around her prone body. I know being hit by a car isn’t enough to kill Areyna, she’s far too tough for that, but for one second, all I want to do is rush over there and make sure she’s going to make it.
Jason’s screams draw the others out of the house, they crowd around her, creating a shield with their bodies as Remington gathers the crowd of onlookers near the van that struck Areyna. He says a few words and they all return to their homes or wherever they came from. The driver of the van shakes his head a few times before finally nodding and returning to his van. He climbs in, starts the engine and splutters away down the street, right past me. As he passes, I hear him muttering, “A fucking dog. I can’t believe I hit a fucking dog.”
Everything happens in seconds but it feels like it’s drawn out into hours by the time the group carry Areyna back inside.