Prologue
We Elemental Witches of Haven are the guardians of Mother Earth and Father Sky. Our ritual work has placated the elements and brought harmony throughout the millennia.
But, now, Witches have been forced underground, hiding ourselves from persecution.
As a Haven Hereditary Witch, my commander Windsor Loxely—direct descendent of Robert and Marian of Loxely (known in lore as Robin Hood and Maid Marian) —walked a tightrope in the Resistance.
In her role as a Resistance commander, Windsor hid her magical powers and the powers of the Witches she directed.
In this age, Witches were burned in the balefire.
Despite the dangers, we Witches fought alongside the Mundane – men and women of non-magical descent. The single goal of the Resistance was to be free of the oppression constructed by the Elite in the Southern Realm.
The Resistance fights for the right to a decent life – healthy food, clean water, power for heat and light, a good education, medical care, to speak as we wish, to have hope. Most importantly, we fight for the right to worship without censure.
It was a daunting task, working to regain control.
We Witches have been fighting for centuries.
We swore an oath.
I am Sterling O’Neal, a hereditary Witch with an affinity to Metal, and I can promise this: I will not bend.
The Witches of Haven will never yield.
Chapter One
“Sterling, I know you have a plan brewing, but Trojan horses are expected and therefore deadly.” A ubiquitous scowl tightened Windsor’s otherwise pixie-like features. She propped her shoulder against the wall, crossing one ankle over the other, comfortably settled into her role as commander.
“I agree with you one hundred percent, Commander.” I reached for a paperweight to represent our enemy’s forces. “Using a Trojan horse puts our fighters’ boots in dangerous territory, when it’s completely unnecessary to risk their lives.” I placed the brass globe along the shoreline to the north on the 3-D topographical map. “However, creating a Trojan horse is not the goal here. What I mean to do is move the Elite’s security forces north.” I drew my finger from the Enclave of the Southern Realm, where the Nobles and Significants reigned with iron fists, and ran it toward the weight. “If the defenders and enforcers were up here, we’d be able to sneak our people into their warehouses and take what we need before the blizzard blows in, saving lives—not risking them.”
Windsor stared down at the map stretched across an enormous wooden table. She pushed off the wall and took two steps closer, posting her knuckles on the edge of the table, leaning her weight forward. After a moment, she looked up to catch my gaze. “From their prognostications, the Council of Elders believes we have four, possibly five days before the storm hits. Maybe a week until we’re immobilized by the height of the snow accumulation. We’ll be locked in our homes for about a month once the snowfall abates. In that time, our people will starve. Getting the stores that the Elites are hoarding and dispersing them amongst those in need is going to challenge our capabilities even if we started today. This minute.”
“Four or five days,” I repeated, feeling the stress of that short window.
Here in the Range where the commoners lived, we struggled beneath the oppressive gluttony of the Elites – the ones who drove our world to the brink through their power-hunger and eco-destruction. Those on the Range were treated like surfs of ancient Europe, straining body and soul for our meager existence, only to turn over most of what we produced to those who lived in the protected area called “the Enclave” – a bubble of riches and entitlement.
By choice, I lived out here on the Range. I’d spent my toddler years here, before I had the good fortune of being sent to learn Witchcraft on the Isle of Haven. Returning to my early childhood neighborhood, I trained to get a job within the Enclave as an enforcer, a high-caste security professional – a cover for my work as a spy for the Resistance.
In my earliest days, prior to my education, I remember living through the great hunger, when the weather destroyed the crops for a full year.
What was harvested was horded within the Enclave.
In the Range, the lower castes suffered day in and day out with the pinch of emptiness in their stomachs. I remembered well the sound of sobbing children, begging for respite from their want. Their cries lit their parent’s nerves on fire. How many parents, in their own physical and mental distress, were quick to burn with rage? How abusive did they turn, when faced with their own inability to assuage their children’s pain, slapping and shaking their precious offspring to make them stop crying and begging?
It was soul wrenching. To this day, I woke from nightmares of that time.
Starvation was a slow and horrific way to die.
Yet we were facing the prospect again. And I wouldn’t –couldn’t—allow it.
Under the circumstances of a major blizzard, the Enclave would feel safe. They had food stockpiled behind their stone walls. They wouldn’t be worried at all in this moment. Even if they knew that this weather system was blowing down on us, they’d assess and realize that an angry uprising wouldn’t happen in the deep snow. The Productors of the Range would hunker in their homes, waiting for the snow to melt, and then they’d be too weak to fight.
Too hopeless.
Too busy burying the dead.
We in the Range had been here before. Corpses would pile outside the doors in the ice to be gathered and placed in a communal grave. Having lived and died side by side, it seemed right that they’d nestle up close and take comfort in their eternal sleep in the vast pits that were dug in the warmer months, standing ready for the inevitable winter deaths.
But I had a plan to save us. I was sure it would work if the Fates would allow.
I sidled over to stand next to Windsor. “The bonus of moving the forces up along the coastline would be that the defenders will be out of the Enclave and a safe distance from the food stores. They’ll also be encroaching near the Northern Realm. The Northern Realm would very likely take offense.” I said. “It might even provoke something larger.”
“I’m listening, Sterling.” Windsor’s red hair was scraped back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. The lines at the corners of her eyes were etched from squinting into sunlight on the battle front, more so than from laughter.
There wasn’t much to laugh about in this war for survival.
I very much liked serving under Windsor Loxely. A commander for the Resistance, she was both a cunning and a battle-hardened warrior. Unlike most who fought in the Resistance, Windsor was also a Witch from the Hereditary Tradition of Haven. Her affinity was Air. We Witches didn’t call her a blowhard in the Mundane sense of the word. For a Witch, it was one of the highest accolades of accomplishment that one can attain.
“What exactly are you proposing?” she asked.
I smiled. “First, we need a dead body.”
Windsor quirked an eyebrow then jerked her gaze toward the door as Piper burst into the room.
“We’re here,” she panted out. “They’re in medical.”
“Medical?” Windsor rounded the tabletop map to follow Piper as she ran back out, leading the way.
I tagged right behind as we jogged through the corridors from operations, past the bunkhouse, to our medical building. Many of the wounds we got as Resistors couldn’t be treated in public facilities lest the security forces be hunting us.
When we pushed through the heavy oak door, I found Kael, lying on a gurney, propped up on his elbows, sucking a stream of air through his teeth.
Windsor’s gaze traveled over him. “Nothing life threatening?” she asked.
“No, Commander,” he replied. “A concussion from when they caught me. A strained ankle from the fight to get free. Bruised ribs. I’ll be back in the field shortly.”
I focused on Ember McGraw who stood at Kael’s feet. She was a Fire Witch, and a year my junior when we trained on the Isle of Haven. Fierce, fearless, strategic, she looked like she’d been worked over herself. Her face and hands were bruised and cut. The skin across her knuckles was raw. Her long red hair, that normally flowed like liquid flame, was matted with mud. Her leather pants were abraded. She must have gone hand to hand in a ground battle.
Her mission had obviously ended in a hard-fought victory.
I was about to say something about her injuries when her gaze sliced through my thoughts. She shifted her weight, and I held my tongue.
“Do you need immediate medical attention?” Windsor asked Ember.
“No, Commander.”
“Come,” Windsor said. “I’ll need a full report.” She swiveled on her boot heel and headed back out the door. Ember and Piper followed after her. “You too, Sterling,” Windsor called.
I was in the dark. I had no idea what Ember, Piper, and Kael had been up to. Kael was Mundane – a man with no magical powers. It was required if there had been magic afoot on the mission, that the debrief happen without him.
Last I knew, Kael and Ember were on a rescue mission to save Dr. Brighton.
Kael was taken? By whom?
“Dr. Brighton?” Ember gasped out as she grabbed her ribs. Piper slid up and put a supporting arm around Ember’s waist.
Windsor sent a scrutinizing glance over her shoulder then slowed her pace, considerably. “When we’re done with the debrief, you’ll go back to medical and stay there until you’re fit.”
“I’m fine,” Ember tried, but no one was convinced. “Dr. Brighton?”
“We sent him into the forest for the Healers to work on him. Brighton was unconscious and not reviving after Kael and Piper brought him in.” Windsor pushed through the door to her office, and we piled in behind her.
I had just arrived back on base myself after doing a reconnaissance mission that outlined food supplies inside the enclave. I’d been tasked with finding a means for evening out the playing field, at least in terms of food, this winter. With the foretelling of the blizzard, now was the time to put my plans into action.
But it was concerning that Dr. Brighton was unconscious and not reviving.
Dr. Brighton was one of our Resistance leaders. He was the scientific genius, developing an alternative form of energy that wasn’t weather dependent. He had been kidnapped, found by the Witches, and ostensibly rescued by the Resistance.
If the Defenders and Enforcers were searching for Dr. Brighton, they might be reluctant to leave the area no matter the enticement. I needed to consider these ramifications when contriving my plan for getting to the food stores.
Dr. Brighton’s rescue might throw a wrench into my efforts to get those supplies we needed so badly.
The security forces had to leave the Enclave.
People would die. Babies and children would die.
Chapter Two
Ember gently tried to find a comfortable position on the sofa in Windsor’s office, while Piper found a chair. I took my place against the wall.
Windsor pinched her chin as she looked at Ember. “The Council of Elders contacted me to say that you found two untrained Witches living amongst the Elites in the Enclave, and that you were tasked with getting them to the ship headed for Haven.” Windsor slid a hip onto her desk. “While on this mission, you were, somehow, in the right place at the right time to assist with rescuing Kael, though he put you in added danger?”
“Yes, Commander. Through a series of events that were instigated from Haven, I was ordered to save a young girl named Tara. As I investigated the situation, it came to light that she and her older brother Crispin were of Traditional Witches’ blood. Their mother, now deceased, never sent them to Haven in their Youngling years to be trained in their powers. It was a tenuous situation.”
“Wait. They worked for the Elites?” Piper asked.
Ember turned her focus to her best friend. “They are Nobles. They were raised by a man they thought was their father, a man named Ruthberg Noble.”
“Noble Sr.’s children are Witches?” I asked, shock painted my voice. “Crispin Noble is a Witch?”
“A Metal Witch like you, Sterling.” Ember cocked her head. “You know him?”
“Well, yes, I’ve met him at parties and around the Enclave while working as Elsbeth Nightingale’s enforcer. He’s a popular figure.” I popped my brows. “Very handsome in a Viking-god kind of way. Accomplished. Intelligent.” I saw a flash of jealousy – maybe ownership was a better word — cross Ember’s face. I filed that reaction away as something interesting but probably not important. “And you discovered this, that he was a Witch. There must be an interesting story behind that.”
My mind flashed through all the ways that one could discover that a Witch was a Witch. I’d never heard of a situation like this. Crispin wouldn’t know spell work, but he’d have latent power like we all had from birth. These powers were hidden from the Mundane until we reached our fifth birthday when we left the continent and sailed to Haven to be raised and trained in our powers by the Elders. Even if he had the abilities of a toddler, a Witch’s power usually was most visible to another Witch’s eye when, well, when the person in question was naked in the dark. My gaze rested on Ember’s face. If Ember and Crispin had made love, his magical energy would be hard to miss. Before I could develop that thought, Ember sent me a wink. I had to suppress my snort of laughter behind my wrist.
Good for you Ember.
“Kael?” Windsor redirected Ember’s thoughts.
“While I was at the Noble’s house—castle, what have you — trying to figure out the situation with the Nobles and come up with a plan, Piper’s raven, Socrates, flew in and asked me to help Kael.”
“Socrates was taking a message to Kael,” Piper explained. “He saw Kael being kidnapped and followed the enforcers’ car. Socrates reported this back, saying that the car was heading in the direction of the house where Ember was staying, I sent an air message to Ember under Socrates’ wing. He also carried with him a candle and a fire starter, so Ember had a way to communicate.”
“Alright,” Windsor said, turning her attention toward Ember. “You’re in the house with the Nobles did Kael go there?”
“The house was owned by Crispin, and I was his guest. His father was also staying there. The enforcers were connected to Ruthberg Noble. We called him Noble Sr. I know that Noble Sr. and his friends were extremely upset that the Resistance had rescued Dr. Brighton. They were looking everywhere for him. The enforcers brought Kael to Crispin’s basement where they planned to torture hm into sharing where Dr. Brighton was, and any other information he had about the Resistance.”
Windsor’s body tensed. “Were they successful in gathering information?”
“No, Commander,” Ember said. “I was able to intervene and hide Kael away until I could get all of them—Crispin and Tara Noble along with Kael--away from the home.”
“Noble Sr. is looking for you?” I asked.
“I killed him,” Ember said, matter-of-factly.
“Then I took Tara and Crispin and put them on the ship to Haven where they will be under the tutelage of the Elders. I brought Kael here, and that’s the quick overview of where we are so far.”
“Did Kael and I do something wrong when we drove the ambulance away?” Piper asked. “Were we followed?”
Ember shook her head. “From conversations that I overheard at the house, it was Dr. Brighton who gave up information during his torture session. Kael was on a list.”
“A list?” Windsor pushed to her feet. “We need to know exactly what information they gained from Brighton. Ember, I hate to do this to you, you should be in medical, but I need you and Piper to go back to the building and see what impressions can be gleaned from the room.” She turned her attention to me. “I want you there, too. If there’s anything metal, it might have held the vibration--especially of such emotionally-charged happenings. I want a full report immediately through the ether. We need to lock down anyone that might have been named and get their families to safety.”
With a nod, the three of us made our way to the vehicles’ bay. We had an ambulance that allowed us to get around without intervention from the Range defenders. Any other car was suspect, so they were rarely used.
We pulled orange rescue-worker jumpsuits from their hooks, and I stepped into mine. “We have to do something with your hair, Ember. You’re too messed up. If we get stopped with you looking like that, too many questions would follow. Actually, don’t put on that jumpsuit.” I reached out and took it from her. “We’ll just strap you to the gurney, and you’ll be our victim.”
Ember looked as relieved by my suggestion as her stoicism would allow. I helped her crawl into the back of the ambulance to lie down. I climbed in after her to spread the sheet and adjust the buckles of the safety rigging on the gurney.
Piper cranked the engine and spun around in her seat. “Everyone ready?” and with my thumbs-up, we were off.
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