Hopeless Magic (44 page)

I breathed in preparation, gripping at the floor, digging my fingernails into the frozen ground, and feeling the first flicker of internal flame ignite in my blood. The flame spread, catching the rest of my bloodstream with a forest fire of pain rushing through my body and blinding me with torment.

Finding no rest, I flailed helplessly on the floor, cutting my arms and face with the broken glass littering the dirt next to me.

If someone would have asked me which pain was worse, the King's Curse or the initiation, I don't know if I could have said. Both were the equival-ents of the eternal suffering belonging solely to the gates of hell. With the initiation, there was no one to help me. No one to share my agony with.

No one to encourage me to fight through the overwhelming death and survive.

I remembered Avalon and his resolve to survive the King's Curse. It would be the same resolve he 685/711

would fight Lucan with until the day he died. It was the resolve that gave him confidence in the back of the prisoner's truck, surrounded by guard and without magic to heal his broken bones. It was the same resolve that would give him defiance even in the bottom of a prison cell, being tortured and beaten. Even then, he would not recall his magic. Even then he would stand for what was good. Even then he would fight for justice.

And that was what I needed to do. I needed to fight. Not just this excruciating torment, but the whole of the monarchy. Avalon was enough to remind me that there was good left, there was an end that needed writing and it was left to me.

As the darkness clouded my mind, and the walls of unconsciousness closed in on me, I remembered Avalon and believed I would survive this. I had to.

My people had no one else to save them. I was the last of the Rebellion. There was no one, but me.

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I was the next Oracle.

----

I woke up slowly. My head was pounding and my blood still felt uncomfortably hot, suffocating my lungs and slowing my heart rate. The snow had started again and was falling heavily on me, covering me with thick, ashy snowflakes.

I lay still for a moment longer, allowing my thoughts to gather completely and my senses to waken. The snow was unrelenting, but I was hot, so hot.

My eyes flew open and I sat up quickly, not on the dirt floor of the underground cellar but in the middle of a forest. Our forest.

Our forest that had been set on fire. Flames devoured the once breath-taking flowering trees, hungrily engulfing the delicate petals, leaving no evidence of their beauty behind.

I gasped, inhaling the ash I had mistaken for snow. As it fell down from the ruins of our 687/711

dream-world it covered me in a thick paste of grey grime. I stood up, shaking out my hair, but the flames of the fire were destroying the forest too quickly for it to matter. The ash would continue to fall until there was nothing but scorched earth remaining in the celestial meeting place Kiran and I had fallen in love in.

I shouted his name, over the roar of the inferno, piercing the very depths of the magical world.

But nothing came back. I knew he wasn't here.

He had brought me here to prove a point and nothing more. This was the end of anything we had.

I sunk back to the earth, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. The glistening emerald of my engagement ring looked out of place in the middle of the destruction around me.

I held up my ring-finger, feeling violently ill, and then I fingered the necklace still dangling against my chest. How had I been so blinded by 688/711

sparkling gifts and empty promises? How had I let this happen?.

In this place, in the place built by Kiran, the ar-chitecture of a secret, enchanting world made only for us, I couldn't think about Amory, or Avalon or the lost. Watching the towering trees reduced to cinders and the wildflowers disinteg-rate into the raining ash I thought only of Kiran.

I had loved him deeply. Wholly. And he was gone.

For the first time and the only time, I allowed myself to grieve not the lives lost today, but the love lost. I allowed myself to feel the pain of a heart ripped in two and the sickening separation of soul mates.

I let my head fall to my knees and wept, loudly and without control. Above the roaring of the flames eating away all of the life in this place were my sobs; my throaty, raspy, raw cries of pain.

I stayed that way for what felt like hours, until the flames had died down, leaving blackened tree 689/711

stumps and the smell of sulfur burning my nostrils. I cried until there was nothing left, until there were no more tears left to be shed.

I grieved for Kiran completely. And when I finally left the now-barren wasteland that would be abandoned in the empty places of my subconscious, I left with a new resolve and a new dedication. I would have no more thoughts about a long lost love, or the soul mate who betrayed me.

I woke up into reality, on the cold dirt floor of the cellar. I stood, still weak, not having any idea if days had passed or only hours. I walked through the wreckage of the room and through the now softly lit hallway. I climbed the stone steps into the first light of morning.

The sun was rising in the east, painting the wide sky with pinks and soft purples, and just the hint of blue stretching beyond the horizon. The fresh snow from the night before left the air crisp and pure, the iciness brought cleansing in my charred lungs. It was going to be a beautiful day, one of those rare winter mornings when temperatures 690/711

reach above freezing and the hope of a close spring was renewed.

I stared at the rising sun, feeling as though it were my kin. It was my turn to rise, my turn to shine. I pulled the engagement ring off of my finger and the necklace off of my neck, slipping the expensive ring onto the silver chain and then back over my head.

The jewels were not a reminder of a finished love or even of a forgotten life, they were tokens to fight by; the reminders of a vengeance left wanting and the war I would wage. They were the fuel I would light this fire with and then burn this kingdom to the ground.

I would find Avalon and rescue him and the others. I would bring down the monarchy. I would end the Kendrick line. I would destroy every last one of them. And I would start with finding my parents and rebuilding the rebellion.

I had no idea how to find them or where to start, but it didn't matter. My mind had concrete clarity 691/711

and I would do whatever it took to follow through, to carry on and finish the fight.

List of Resistance Teams

* Denotes the Team Leader

Brazil Team (Also known as the Rescued
Team)

Ebanks Camera

Oscar Rodriguez

Ronan Hannigan

Jett Fisher

Omaha Team

*Avalon St. Andrews

Jericho Bentley

Titus Kelly

Xander Akin

Xavier Akin

Czech Republic Team

*Ryder Thompson

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Fiona Thompson

Roxie Powers

Baxter Smith

Felipe Gonzalas

Trenton Chase

Australia Team

*Hamant Kumar

Christi Rogobete

Priya Fahir

Eshe Iyare

An Tang

Swiss Team

*Alina Pascut

Alexandre Ballamont

Hale Oliver

Ben Hamilton

Evie Santoz

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Morocco Team

*Caden Halstead

Bex Costello

Kya Hasting

Lucy Barello

India Team

*Te Che

Pan Che

Grace Lewis

Naima Desai

Sunny Magar

South Africa Team

Abraham Patel

Henrik Van de Merwe

Jess Zuma

Mamello Mensah

Mandisa Mensah

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Lenka Bello

About the Author

Rachel Higginson was born and raised in Nebraska, but spent her college years traveling the world. She married her high school sweetheart and spends her days raising their growing family. She is obsessed with bad reality TV and any and all Young Adult Fiction.

Hopeless Magic is her second book, and the second part in a four part saga, The Star-Crossed Series. Fearless Magic, the third installment of the series will be out October 2011.

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Follow Rachel on her blog at:

http://

Or on Twitter:

@mywritesdntbite

Or on her Facebook:

Rachel Higginson

Read an Excerpt from Fearless Magic coming October 2011

The old van rumbled to a stop in front of a faded, red sign declaring the entrance to the Inca Trail, the path that would lead to the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu. The trek would take four days of hiking, possibly longer since it was wet season and already the sky had opened up, emptying it's stores of water upon the earth.

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The trail was technically closed for maintenance during the month of February, but I would be taking it anyways. I was hoping the entire citadel would be less busy than usual, thanks to the con-sistent torrential down-pours that plagued the southern hemisphere in the winter months.

I took my bag from the short Peruvian man that had given me a ride from Lima to here. An old friend of Angelica's, he had driven the thirty hours with me in a much-appreciated silence. I handed him a stack of Nuevo Sol, the local currency, and turned my back on him.

Walking forward, I could feel the faint call of magic in the distance. They were out there.

Somewhere. I had no idea where, or how to find them, but I could feel the faint calling of magic and the prickling of electricity igniting in my blood.

The path was well worn, and difficult to walk.

The ancient stones were slippery in the relentless rain and the air thin with the altitude. But I was moved by the beauty of the Andes.

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I had never seen a place so vividly and distinctly green. The deep greens of the trees blanketed the distant mountain sides in dark, flowing tones that stood drastically against the stone of the towering mountains. And the lighter, softer greens of grass stood out starkly in the landscape as if the two greens were not the same color at all. God's brush strokes had painted these mountains and valleys with the blessedness of variety, and I could feel my soul swell in awe of the creation surrounding me.

The sky had never felt so big from this vantage point, even under the thick canopy that housed the trail I walked. The rivers and streams tumbled down the mountain side in blue ribbons of moving water, weaving in and out of the thick forests.

The raw beauty of such an organic environment reminded me that I was only a small piece to the elegant and divine puzzle that was this life. As small as I was in the middle of this magnanimous mountainside, so was my life in the scope of eternity. Yet, somehow, I found that comforting.

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I walked for hours, deep into the wilderness that paved the way to a once sacred escape for kings of old. Not that long ago, I would have been terrified to have had to take this journey alone. But now there was nothing, no fear, no anxiety. Just purpose.

I was beyond childish fears of the dark or being alone. I had reached beyond the naive immaturity that keeps one afraid of the unknown. When my grandfather died, something had broken inside of me. When they took my brother, the innocent part of my soul had died. When I watched my friends, my loved ones, be loaded into armored cars as prisoners, all of my fears had been faced.

And when my heart had been ripped in two by the cruelty of betrayal, I had given up on emotions and feelings all together.

Alone on the trail, I tried to stay focused on revenge, on those loved ones I would vindicate, but my thoughts wondered unforgivably. I thought of him, that name I would not let myself speak out loud or even think. I thought of the man that had 701/711

made me so blissfully happy and then betrayed those that I loved in the name of a selfish conquest.

The tears fell from my eyes hot with the stabbing pain of the memory of his betrayal. He had taken everything from me, everything. And then left me a shattered, and broken ghost of myself.

I stopped to catch my breath at the top of a slippery, steep, stone stairway and grasped at the necklace I had tucked underneath my rain jacket.

The large stone of the engagement ring dug into my chest, a painful reminder of it's existence, but one that I had come to treasure. As long as that ring stabbed at the place where my heart used to beat with desire for it's giver, I would always be reminded of what he had done.

And now, alone on this trail, this journey to re-demption, I would find others that had been wronged by him and his bloodline. I would rebuild the army of the rebellion and we would fight against him and what he stood for. And we would not stop until there was nothing left of the 702/711

Kendrick bloodline, until every last one of them was dead and buried.

----

I was soaked to the bone when the ancient city for Incan kings appeared in the distance. The rain had not let up for even a moment, but even through the fog and haze of the rain, the ruins, nestled against the steep cliffs, stood as a beacon for my weary legs. I had hiked the trail for days, fighting against the mud, the slippery stone and the overwhelming fatigue.

A few times, I had set up the small pop-up tent that fit easily into my backpack and slipped into the exhausted, dreamless sleep of the well-worn.

I hadn't truly been able to sleep since before....

since before the battle and always I was woken in pools of cold sweat, screaming and lashing out.

The nightmares kept the wild animals away and my magic kept my blood warm in the frozen temperatures once the sun had set.

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The nightmares had plagued me since Avalon had been taken. Every time my eyes were closed the haunting torment of my subconscious attacked and I was always thankful just to be awake, gasping for air and clutching my throat, but awake.

At first I wondered if maybe they were dream-walks, that I was being tortured in a subconscious sleep-world without my knowledge. But always before, the dream-walk had been done consciously, and I was always capable of remembering the details when I awoke. These nightmares were fuzzy and disorienting and always, the particulars slipped away before I could put them together.