The Witch's Tool (The Witch's Tool #1)

Crashing Down

Jace

Shit!

This was not how it was suppose to go down. I was to swoop in, like a knight in shining armor and save the princess (Zee), from the evil dragon (Sade Myers and her pack), and be the hero. Girls, mortals or not loved that kinda thing. And for Zee, I was always that hero but not today. Because instead of doing all of that, I openly gawked at her just like the rest of imbeciles, and when she saw my face; the look of absolute disgust and horror, she ran off.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

I had trained for this moment! If my father was here and had seen how for that one second how I might have ruined everything, he would have shook his head in disappointment, then tell me to "Darn well fix it!"

But no amount of training could have prepared me for what I saw.

I was coming towards her to, to defend her and be her knight in armor. But the moment she looked up and stared at me, I felt everything, every memory, every scream and anguish come forcing its way back. And for that single moment, I didn't see Zelenia, the girl I knew, the girl who wouldn't hurt a fly, the girl who preferred star gazing and books to loud parties and alcohol. No! In that moment I saw a murderer, a face that plagued my every nightmare, the thing that took everything from me. What I saw was a wicked, scheming, evil, murdering witch!

When I had first accepted my mission from the Order and left my world to come here in search of the only thing that could stop evil reincarnated, I had told myself that with a world of a billion souls I would probably never succeed in time. First I had started in Asia, searching and when I hadn't picked up a magical scent that matched, I then turned to Europe, then Africa where I still had managed no luck. When I had decided to come to North America I had feared for the worse because I knew time was running out. I had already lost two summers and I only had three remaining. But the luck of the stars and moon had been with me, for within a few months I had found her.

It was by pure chance that I had found her too. That and the fact that my father had told me that the magic infused within my bones would act as a magnet to her. But I believe more in luck than the workings of my father with magic spells. After all, luck was what we once believed in, along with chance. Before it was all brutally taken away.

My father had stopped believing in almost everything he had been brought up to believe with his whole heart. When my mother had been killed everything changed about him. He no longer smiled, laughed nor cried. It was as if the death of his soul mate had turned him into a man of stone. He said,

"I fear every joy, love and life I had in me has gone to the grave along with your mother," He turned to look me straight in the eye, "Even my heart."

Never will I forget those words, and worse the sound of his steal voice and the look of his void eyes. Then he turned around, staring at the chair he had built for her, the one she favored the most.

"But I'll have life. I will live, if it's for an eternity until that witch burns for what she has done. And then, then I'll go. And I and your mother will be happy. But until then nothing matters, nothing is more important until that witch burns!"

It had pained me to see my father, once a great man who cared for all, reduced to nothing. So I had taken it upon myself to grant my father, his one wish just to see him happy once more. If only a smile.

Serena stepped in front of me, face confused and worried. Her mouth was moving but I couldn't hear what she was saying. I shook myself from the dark abyss.

"Jace!" she shouted, but not loud enough so that everyone could hear.

"What?" I said in an angry whisper.