Page 10 of Sophie’s Ruin (Crimson and Shadows #2)

“We begin with the fundamentals,” Celeste said, before taking a sip of her tea.

We were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table.

A steaming cup sat before me as well, but I was too on edge to even think about taking a sip. The herbal aroma was soothing, but it did little to help calm my nerves. My knee bounced under the table as I watched Celeste swallow her tea and lower her cup back down.

“There is energy around us, ebbing and flowing like a current,” she finally said. “Do you feel it?”

My knee stopped bouncing, and I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath.

Slowly, I let the air empty out of my lungs as I attempted to listen to the world around me.

My vampire ears instantly picked up on many noises—Isabelle and Wren talking softly in the living room, Waylon stirring from his sleep, the wick burning in the oil lamp on the kitchen table, Celeste’s steady heartbeat.

It was a cacophony of sounds, jarring and chaotic.

“I don’t feel it,” I said, opening my eyes and looking at the witch.

“You are not focusing on the right things,” she stated, matter of fact, as she brought her cup to her lips for another sip.

“The problem is…I can’t focus. There is too much chaos around me.” And in my heart, I didn’t add.

“You need to shut it all out and find your center.”

Shut it all out. Right. I could do that. It had been one of the first things I’d learned after becoming a vampire—the ability to tone down my heightened senses.

Placing my hands on top of my thighs, I sat up straighter in the rickety old chair and closed my eyes again. Sounds rushed in, loud and overwhelming. I let them wash over me and fade away until they were nothing more than a steady hum.

Find my center, I repeated Celeste’s instruction in my head.

My center was in my chest, near my heart that ached for Henry.

The second I thought about him, silence slammed down on me as if someone had covered my ears.

All sounds died, and the quiet stretched, growing taut like a bowstring until tiny vibrations tickled my eardrums. Whispers erupted, coming from all around me at once.

They were elusive, like smoke and shadows, and I couldn’t make out what the voices were saying.

Out of nowhere, a blood-curdling cry pierced my ears.

It was a sound of agony…and it belonged to Henry.

My eyes flew open as I gasped for air, scrambling out of the chair and overturning it in the process. I staggered back from the table, my heart pounding in my chest.

“What happened?” Celeste asked urgently, rising to her feet.

“I heard him. I heard Henry. They’re torturing him,” I rasped, tears streaming down my face.

Celeste’s features crumpled as deep sadness invaded her gaze, dimming her lustrous eyes.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said low.

“How is it possible? How was I able to hear him?” I asked, reaching up with trembling hands to brush the tears from my cheeks.

“The energy around us…imagine it as threads, connecting people and places, carrying information through the world,” the witch explained.

“Can I use the threads to communicate with him?” I asked, latching on to the idea. I needed to tell him, to give him strength to wait for me, and let him know that I would come for him.

“You can’t,” Celeste replied, and my heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. “He doesn’t have magic in his blood. He will not hear your message.”

Tears threatened again as I ducked my chin in disappointment before another thought crossed my mind. My head snapped up, hope flaring in my chest.

“Can I use the threads to find him? To find where they’re keeping him?” I asked, and held my breath.

Celeste tilted her head to the side. Her white hair gleamed in the light of the lamp as she thought it over.

“Perhaps,” she finally said, and my heart sped up at the possibility. “But even if you find out where they are keeping him, there is nothing you can do for him now. You need to awaken your magic and grow strong enough to face the clans.”

“I know,” I assured her as I picked up the chair I’d overturned and put it by the table. Even if I couldn’t go to Henry now, knowing that I could use the threads to find him later—when I was ready—made it easier to breathe. “I want to try again,” I said, gripping the back of the chair.

My fingers dug into the wood as I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

Find my center…I hesitated. What if I hear Henry again?

Under any other circumstances, I would give anything to hear his voice, but he was suffering, and I…I didn’t think I had it in me to hear the sound of his anguish and not break down. Especially because there was nothing I could do to help him at the moment.

With a shuddering breath, I opened my eyes and looked at Celeste. Her lips were pressed in a thin line as if she knew what I was thinking.

“Come with me,” she said, reaching for the colorful woven shawl hanging on the back of her chair. She draped it over her shoulders and came around the table.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I want to show you something.” Celeste extended her hands toward me as if expecting me to take them. “We will move through space using my magic like we did yesterday.”

I nodded, placing my hands in hers. I hoped the journey this time would be less unpleasant than the last.

Celeste’s magic poured out of her, and my skin prickled a moment before the world went black like it had when she’d whisked me away from the mansion.

This time, I paid attention to the sensation, aware of the pull of magic on my limbs.

It felt like being sucked into a void, floating weightless for a moment, before being thrust back into the world full of colors and sounds.

A harsh exhale escaped me when the soles of my feet connected with solid ground.

I swayed where I stood, but Celeste steadied me by clasping my shoulders.

“Where are we?” I asked her as I waited for my head to stop spinning.

“We are not far from my cottage. In a place that has been our safe haven for the last century.” She made sure I was steady on my feet before she let go of me.

“A White Witches settlement,” I breathed, slowly looking around.

Small wooden cabins with thatched roofs and stone chimneys jutting from their sides clustered all around me.

They looked different from the cold, stone buildings of New Haven, appearing whimsical and cozy.

The whole atmosphere was different in this place, where the air itself seemed to be charged with magic.

Its concentration made my skin hum and my fingertips tingle.

The feeling wasn’t unpleasant, as warmth invaded my chest and settled in my heart.

In a strange new way, I felt like I belonged here.

This place felt like home, and I wondered if that was because of my witch blood.

Like called to like, and it seemed the magic here recognized me as one of its own, welcoming me into its warm embrace.

Slowly, I turned around, taking it all in.

The cabins sat in a circle, spreading outward, and in the middle of the settlement, a big bonfire burned, with people clamoring around it.

Some were dancing while others were playing string instruments, sending twangy, bright melodies into the night.

A pleasant smell of roasting meat and potatoes, and fermented honey wafted through the air.

There were a lot more people here than the mere fifty who’d shown up to join the clans to fight in the war.

There were men and children, too, their joyous laughter adding to the lively hum of the large group.

“They are celebrating you defeating the Dark Witches,” Celeste explained unprompted.

“There are so many of them,” I said. “Of us,” I quickly corrected myself.

I was a White Witch like them, though that part of me was more muted than the rest. I liked to think that the human part was the most dominant one, but I couldn’t deny that the vampire part had been growing stronger.

I feared it might soon take over if I didn’t have Henry by my side to remind me of who I was—to remind me of the light he’d promised to keep burning inside me.

“We didn’t want to send everyone to the border when the war was upon us. We needed people to stay behind to care for our young. Our men stayed behind as well. White Witches usually bear daughters, so we protect our men to carry on our bloodlines.”

My brows lifted at her words. There was so much I didn’t know about my people.

“How have you been able to stay hidden for all this time?”

“There are powerful magical wards veiling this place, much like the ones around my cottage.”

“They are powerful enough to hide an entire village?” I looked at her in disbelief.

Celeste’s features were aglow from the dancing flames of the bonfire. We stood a short distance away from it, but no one seemed to be paying attention to us, reveling in their celebration.

“It’s not an easy task to accomplish on such a scale,” she admitted. “We all contribute to it, constantly pouring our magic into the wards.”

“Have the White Witches ever considered coming out of hiding to settle in the Empire? You could have been hidden behind the border, out of the Dark Witches’ reach.”

“We have always feared that instead of offering their protection, the vampire clans would choose to destroy us, not wanting to risk us turning dark and joining the ranks of Xanthus’s followers. We were safer here, in the Black Forest, than inside the Empire’s guarded walls.”

My heart squeezed in my chest at her words.

For a hundred years, the White Witches, much like humans, had been trapped between two supernatural evils.

They hadn’t trusted the clans enough to seek refuge in the Empire.

They’d chosen to dwell in these woods instead, sharing them with other supernatural creatures who were all out for blood.

“The Black Forest…has it always been this dark and unnatural place?” I asked, barely suppressing a shudder. I remembered my encounter with a giant wolf in these woods all too well.

“No, it was a thriving and beautiful place when the White Witches first settled here centuries ago. It wasn’t known as the Black Forest back then.

When the White Witches began turning dark, their black magic bled into the woods, poisoning the land and trees, morphing forest creatures into monsters. ”

I found it hard to imagine these woods as anything different than this dreadful place full of twisting, slithering shadows, all primed to snuff out any sliver of light.

“Will the forest go back to how it was now that the Dark Witches are gone?” I asked, hopeful.

Celeste’s words had made me realize that the woods and the creatures dwelling within were not malevolent in and of themselves. They were victims, just like everyone else who’d suffered at the hands of the Dark Witches.

“Perhaps, but it will take time. It takes a lot longer to restore something to its former glory than to ruin it in the first place.”