Witch of Shadow

PROLOGUE

Pre-Witched

The Gallows

Cadaborough, 1612

A crash spooked the air. A murder of crows shocked the sky. A hundred feet below, a coven quaked as the rope shuddered then hung taut.

Rainwater swelled in the hollow pit of Cadaborough's famed execution land. Pungent with the stench of death; mud, faeces and tears splashed against the webbed legs of a witch's execution stool.

Cordelia Whitley withered under the bitter stare of a dozen witches with eyes of ethereal iridescence that had once looked on her as a coven sister, a mother, a wife, a friend. But now they belittled her with condemnation, and Cordelia shook ferociously as the splintering pedestal sunk further into the mud.

On the plot to her right, the slight body of a girl no older than eight rocked stiffly in the wind. Like her own daughter, this girl was plump and had a snub nose guarded by ample cheeks. If the Fates wished further cruelty, Cordelia's infant would share the same breathless demise; the Bronwyn bloodline would end, ceasing their magic for ever.

Rain beat heavily on the audience of dark, drenched cloaks. The unjust bodies under them stabbed their boots into the slick ground. Among them, Cordelia's husband cradled the soft head of their new-born against his chest.

Nathaniel Whitley was a fine specimen of man: solid, primed like a soldier. With his robust stance and neat linen shirt, he was usually a force to be reckoned with, but tonight he was visibly shaken and smoothed unseen creases on their daughter's silk skirt.

"I beseech you, dear coven, see my wife safe, and let us have done with this." He turned his ferocity on the rigid figures of the coven.

Godfrey Pogue, a scrawny man with more intelligence than beauty, and once Nathaniel's closest friend, fell into a shuffling silence. Sweat beaded his hair like dew on trodden grass and he tugged his bell sleeves down to soak it away.

"Thou dost not have till dawn!" screeched the erratic voice of Marie Cromwell. "Send me to my death or let me free." Marie was the last of her family to suffer the consequences of the coven's order. Her dreary gown was less sallow than her skin; her fiery hair like dragons' breath. Nature could often sense when trouble brewed, and now shrubberies bent away to keep a safe distance.

"Wretched infant," she snapped when the shrill cry of the new-born slashed the gale. "Hush your whaling or join your mother by the neck."

Cordelia bit her tongue which elicited the warm, coppery taste of blood. Under normal circumstances it would have aided in spell, but her powers had been revoked and chants were now useless. Anything she said now would only cause detriment.

Marie cackled. "Pogue, fetch a noose for the child. Tonight you shall hang another!"

The intensity of Nathaniel's grief stimulated by his unmanned power was alarming. Spits and cracks of power thrilled the already wild ether. Although absent in the events that led to their coven's dissolvent, the Whitley magic, along with only two of the five families, would survive.

Marie howled louder.

"Silence from the gallows!" a gruff voice barked, but Cordelia could neither recognise nor locate its owner.

Godfrey lingered on the throng of onlookers, his long face florid at the sight of his coven's wilted bodies. A guilty conscience, Cordelia decided.

"Silence?" Marie repeated. "Hast thou no ears? No eyes? Who else is there to speak?"

The noose tugged on Cordelia's long, black mane as she strained to determine the already departed. Six pallid faces stared accusingly at the rising pool. They had been Cordelia's friends, her allies, before using their powers for harm, and yet these people, family to Marie, held no regard in their matriarch's thoughts.