Magic Spawn Origins

Magic Spawn: Chapter 16

by Meredith Skye

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For a moment, Rian paused there in the dark, before he nodded to Kyran and they ran for the house.

The front door had been broken in. Rian froze. "Mom!" He ran up to the door and into the entryway. Kyran ran after him.

Had the necromancer been here? Did he know where they lived?

The delicate china that Mom had always warned Kyran against breaking lay all over the floor in pieces. Mom was going to be mad.

A chair lay overturned. A painting along the way hung crooked.

"Mom, are you here?" shouted Rian. Kyran followed him into the kitchen. Broken plates and cookies lay scattered all over the floor. And in the center, Aunt Aldena knelt clutching her wrist as blood dripped onto a small pool on the floor.

Blood magic. Kyran wasn't sure how he knew that-but he knew.

Rian looked shocked, trying to fathom what had happened.

"She's gone," was all that Aldena said, her voice thin and shaky. "He took her."

Molan.

Kyran had never seen Aunt Aldena show any weakness. She always seemed aloof-above it all. But she sounded genuinely scared. "I was reading out in the guest house." That was where she frequently stayed when she visited. The old barn had been fixed up as a guest house. "I heard the noise and I got here in time ... I saw him. And I ... hesitated." She looked crushed at the admission.

With some effort, she stood. Rian helped her up, staring at her wrist, as if to ask a question.

"I did this," she said.

"You cut yourself?"

"In order to summon the Arlunni."

Despite the gravity of the situation, Rian laughed. "The Arlunni?" When Aldena shot him a forbidding glance, he said. "The mythical guardians of the Continuum?"

They'd both heard the stories. Rian had told Kyran the same old stories his father used to tell Rian-all about the realm of Cathal.

"Not mythical," said Aldena soberly.

Rian scarcely believed her. "Not mythical?" He looked surprised. "And Molan?" The evil wizard in all the stories, the one that Kyran was certain he'd seen in the crypt.

"Also not mythical," said Aldena.

"And what does my mother have to do with this? How did my father die?" asked Rian.

At last, his big brother was asking the right questions.

Aldena stared at him. "He was murdered."

"By Molan?" asked Rian.

"Yes," she said. So, Kyran had been right!

"Why?" demanded Rian.

Their aunt took a deep breath. "To create him." She pointed at Kyran, as if in accusation. It made him shiver. And Aldena took a step towards Kyran. "You," she said with a viciousness that surprised him. "What have you done?"

A panic went through him. Kyran suddenly wanted to be somewhere else.

Kyran looked at Aldena and back at Rian, feeling torn. "I ... I didn't ... it wasn't ..." he turned to Rian and sputtered. "I brought you the sword!"

"What sword?" demanded Aldena.

Rian pulled the sword out of the scabbard and showed it to her.