Nightway Chronicles: Book One - The Resurrection

Chapter 3

I tumble onto a floor of cold, polished stone. I look around me and gasp in awe. Ornate, glossy chandeliers hang from different parts of the high ceiling. I look over to find my brothers have the same looks on their faces. My mother sighs with annoyance as she hauls Maximus up. “On your feet. All of you! I want you all to make good impressions. The best of the best are here.” She cracks her neck and opens a large wooden door with the wave of her wand.

My brothers and I follow behind her cautiously. On the other side of the door, dozens of men and women are scattered across the mountain top. A woman with silvery hair that goes to her ankles approaches my mother with open arms. “Pernella! It’s so wonderful to see you! You look dashing!” They embrace and kiss each other’s cheek. “Andromeda, these are my children. Maximus, my oldest. Benjamin and Peter, both quite gifted in earth magic.” Andromeda nods along until my mother reaches me. “This is Luciana. My only daughter.” Her voice is sour and not nearly as enthusiastic as it was when introducing my brothers.

Andromeda hugs me and smiles as my mother goes off to hug others. Her pale green eyes shimmer in the moonlight. “You are just as enchanting as your mother described.” I blush and smile a bit at her motherly touch. “You should go meet my children.” She points toward to black haired girl and boy leaning against a large boulder. “They have their father’s hair.” She tucks a bit of her silver hair behind her ear and turns to my brothers and begins to smother them in compliments on their physique.

I approach Andromeda’s children slowly and nervously. When I reach them, the thin boy with blue eyes extends his hand. “My name is Joshua Bullbow. I imagine my mother forced you to come over.” His voice oozes with annoyance, making me feel unwelcome. The girl, her jet black hair in a messy braid over her right shoulder, shoves him lightly and extends her pale hand. “I’m Alice. Don’t mind my brother. He doesn’t like socialization.” Her voice is sweet compared to Joshua’s. Her brother rolls his eyes and leaves to go talk to someone else. “I’m Luciana.” She smiles sweetly and releases my hand. “I know who you are.” Had my mother told people of my failure? Does everyone here know that I can’t even kill a whore?

“Don’t be alarmed. I see things. I saw this meeting months ago. I’ve seen most of these meetings actually.” She giggles nervously. I look around at the other witches and wizards. Maximus is talking to Joshua who seems to be a bit friendlier with him than he was with me. Benjamin is speaking to a girl with short red hair. Peter awkwardly stands in the corner, not knowing what to do or who to talk to. “Your mother doesn’t like you, does she?” I whip my head around and see her face, slightly embarrassed from asking the question. “Did you see that in one of your visions?” My voice comes out harsher than I expected. She shakes her head, “I saw the way she introduced you just now. I hadn’t seen it happen before. I could tell by her face.”

I look at my feet awkwardly. “Don’t be ashamed. My mother feels the same way about me. I’m a disappointment in her eyes.” She doesn’t seem too wounded about it. I sit down on a smaller rock and she sits beside me. “On my eighteenth birthday last year, I couldn’t kill the man.” My heart skips a beat. “I had sex with him. It was awful. I’m sure if I had loved him prior to our...encounter...it would have been enjoyable. But giving my virginity to a man I don’t know was not very fun for me. Telling him I had to kill him was a whole other obstacle to deal with.” I can see the fear in her pale green eyes as she recalls the memory from that night.

“I did the same thing only two weeks ago.” I admit to her, trying to make her feel even the tiniest bit better about not killing him. Her eyes light up a bit. “How’d you get out without your mother knowing?” I sigh and twirl a strand of my light brown hair in my fingers. “I didn’t. My mother came in and forced me to kill him. It was horrible.” She puts her hand to my head and mumbles, “Partem Memoriae.” As I relive the memory, I now see her in the room with me. She stands by my side and watches as I kill Milo. The memory ends and we both end up breathless. My head begins to throb as soon as I get back to reality. “Sorry about that, my magic with memories aren’t exactly that great.”

When my head stops hurting, I continue with the conversation. “Did your mom force you to kill him?” She shakes her head and looks toward Joshua. “My brother stormed in and killed him for me. He was busy with his own woman but he killed her with no hesitation. He’s always had a bloodlust.” They must be twins. “He left before my mother could find out. As far as she knows, I killed the boy.” I can see in her eyes that she would never have killed him.

“How are you, like you said, a disappointment?” I ask her. She chuckles wryly and twists a strand of her jet black hair in her long, pale fingers. “About a week or two after I had sex with that boy, I began feeling nauseous. As it turns out, I was with child. My mother scolded me until my daughter was born. But in all fairness, it could have happened to anyone!” She rushes to her own defense. I put a hand on her shoulder, “I don’t blame you.”

She smiles at me and puts her hand on mine. “You’d be one of the first.” Her greenish gray eyes lock on mine for a bit until my mother rushes over, my brothers in tow. “Come along, Luciana.” Her tone is harsh and hateful. I give Alice a defeated look and follow my mother