Underneath a Dark Moon (Twisted Dark #3)

Chapter One: Try Again

I stared at the dark sheet that hung above the altar, the dark red swirling designs barely cutting through the darkness that lingered in the candle light. My heart beat heavily in my throat as I drew the ever familiar symbol in the air. "Powers of high, listen to my plea." My voice shook and wavered, the pleading was clear. I wanted this so badly it hurt. "Three aspects of the Divine, I invoke thee." I lit the pillar candle in front of me, my eyes never leaving the designs I could see. I just wanted them to glow for me, just once. "This magick time, this magick hour. I ask you to lend me your power." I drew the symbol again, this time above the lit candle.

"Bless this symbol with your love, bless this symbol with your might, I feel you with me day and night." I did. I felt the magick so tantalizingly close. It was right where I could reach but it always scurried away before I could firmly grasp it. "Hear my call, hear my plea." I wanted to blink, my eye burned but I kept them open. I needed to watch the tapestry, needed to watch for the sign. "Three as One always with me! Three as One forever be!" I inhaled deeply, waiting in anticipation but just like the two thousand, five hundred times before, there was nothing.

I slumped, exhaling my disappointment as I pushed my hood back from my face. Giggling sounded off from behind me but I did my best to ignore it. "Perhaps next time?" I looked up at the tapestry with a hopeful gaze before I straightened and blew out the candle. "Bless you, three Divines, for your patience with me. I will see you tomorrow." I drew the sigil for thankfulness in the smoke from the candle before I stood up, using the altar to pull myself up as my knees groaned their protest. I had been kneeling too long and they were complaining the harshness of the floor. One would have thought I was an old crone rather than merely twenty-six.

"You think she would just stop it. She's Nolo Vis. The Divines won't touch her." The words were a venomous hiss that scraped down my spine and I knew they were loud enough for me to hear but I ignored them, reaching out and brushing my fingers across the tapestry with a touch of longing. BamBam would have turned around and told the two younger witches that they could shove their words up their asses before lighting their robes on fire but I wasn't Bam. Not even close.

I was Lacey 'Novis' Lenkirion, I was a level one witch with barely enough magick to conjure up a candle worth of flame, let alone set someone on fire. Besides I was shy and non-confrontational. The most I confronted people was by going by Novis. Bam told me it was the best way to snub my noses at the bitches who laughed at me and I had to admit that, despite how I hated having Nolo Vis hissed at me, it brought me great pleasure to turn around and tell them no, it was Novis.

"Are you going to be done in this century?" At the agitated voice I deliberately moved slower as I picked up my candle and other items. I could feel their agitation rising and I carefully put everything back into my bag before I turned away from the altar. "You would think a Nolo Vis would know where they didn't belong!" The young witch hissed the words at me as she narrowed her eyes darkly.

I fought back my anger at the words and smiled at her. "Novis." I watched as she frowned, as if confused by my reaction.

"What?" Her face twisted up further in agitated confusion. That made me feel a little bit better. One of these times I did the ritual it would come back the way I wanted it too and I wouldn't need to go by Novis, wouldn't need to be hissed at but until then, I would take my little bit of confrontation where I could safely get it.

"Not Nolo Vis. I'm Novis, but I can't see how you would be confused." I smiled at her once more as I moved smoothly by her and her friend. I wouldn't have to see them again after this, they would awaken their magick and go to another coven and a tiny feeling of spite rose up in me. "Perhaps when you get better educated you will come to understand the difference instead of speaking as if you are the coven idiot." The mocking words escaped me and my heart jolted as I hurried away, unwilling to stay and take whatever retaliation that would come from the witch.

A perfect example of why I was nothing like BamBam. She was my big sister and I loved her but she always spoiled for a fight and with me, if someone merely raised their voice I felt like crying. I was a mouse, a pushover, a pansy. There was no denying that. I didn't have a hard bone in my body. Sometimes I felt like BamBam had taken all the hardness from me even before birth and had left me with all of the softness but that didn't hold up. I had eleven other siblings that were better than me as well. I was... well I was Novis.

Sometimes I believed that my life would have been more simpler if I had been born human. There had actually been a time when I had been convinced I had been a changeling but my mum would always stroke my hair with a smile and tell me I was right where I belonged. She always believed in me, always told me to keep reading and keep discovering. I knew everything a high powered witch should, except I had no magick to back it up. Still my mum had been there for me, teaching me diligently as if it didn't matter that I could never use anything she was teaching.

I sighed, it still would have been easier to be born a human. I wouldn't have to worry about any of the magick bullshit, wouldn't have had to deal with the drama of being a witch with virtually no magick. I wouldn't have had to deal with the fact I was completely and totally inadequate. I had been expected to be amazing after BamBam had been born. I was the second eldest. I should have been just as good as BamBam or close to her power level. Instead there had been nothing.

I was a disappointment.

I was fairly certain my family wished I had been born a human too. Well mainly my father but I barely saw him anymore. He never came home and I was fairly certain he was cavorting around with his harem. I grimaced at that before my face fell as I walked towards home. I would never be married to a warlock. I was a witch with little magick, that left me to be nothing but a bed warmer. Someone a warlock could fuck but not marry. I would be part of the harems I so despised and I hated myself for it.

There was nothing I could do about that fate, if I wanted a warlock that would be as close as I came to one. There was no way a warlock would willingly marry me. Any child we would have would be mediocre at magick at best, completely without magick at worse. I wore Novis to keep the hurtful words at bay but being Nolo Vis was a fucking curse.

Just once in my life I wanted to look up and see those damned lines glow in the darkness of the room as the Divines blessed me with the power I knew I should have been born with. I wanted to see it just once because then I wouldn't feel so sick inside when I looked in the mirror. Perhaps then a warlock would see me as something of worth rather than something he could fuck and discard.

I scurried down the side of the buildings, looking for the familiar lines of my family home. "Tomorrow. I will try again tomorrow." I said it every day but that hope, that want to see it happen, kept me going back to the awakening temple to do my spell day after day. I would try and try again. There was nothing else I could do.