Page 54 of An Empress of Air & Chaos

At that point, she was transported into a new world, a home she didn’t know. Looking around, she saw her grandmother, yet she was younger, her eyes less wrinkled and her frown lines non-existent. Her honey hair, long and weaving down her back. Her grandmother’s voice broke through the silence. Her face spoke a hundred words.

“You will not marry him, Sereia.” Her mouth twisted around her teeth, making her snarl.

Emara turned to see her mother standing in front of her, her face wet with tears. Emara’s legs weakened in this world and they wanted to give way, but the ancient voice coached her to stay strong.

“I love him, Mother,” Sereia pleaded, her voice almost non-existent. “You can’t change that.”

“Love makes you weak,” her grandmother spat. “And weak is what you are for declaring your love for him.”

Emara flinched at the fierceness in her grandmother’s face. Although her grandmother could be harsh with her, she had never seen the ferocity that now lay within the plains of her face. “If not weak, then downright foolish. You are destined to be the Empress of Air. You are the daughter of the supreme. You are to ascend in just a short number of days, the coven needs you.” Her grandmother’s chin raised. “Marriages are an alliance for women like us. Marriages bring us protection. He will not be your husband; he offers no real protection. What he offers is war. Your fate was sealed long before you fell in love with the enemy, Sereia.”

“I will not have that fate. He is not the enemy. Mother, please, I am begging you. Let me slip into the night with him or let me go to the prime and beg for us to be together. Let them grant us the grace of the law…”

“The daughter of the supreme does not beseech anyone to change a witching law, nor will she marry anyone beneath her.”

“I will run, Mother! I will go with him.” Sereia’s voice broke with a threat she didn’t want to resort to. “I don’t want to be the empress of a coven that I don’t belong to. I don’t want to be an empress at all.”

Her grandmother flew across the room and slapped her daughter across the face.

Sereia’s head snapped to the side, causing her to lose balance.

“You belong to the House of Air, don’t let me hear words escape your mouth that determine otherwise. No daughter of mine will be a disgrace. No one else knows that you are a dominant fire-bearer, and it will stay that way, you foolish girl.” Her grandmother’s eyes turned black with rage. “You are next in line to be the reigning supreme of the witches. As you rise, I will fall. That is what the prophecy states. If the fire-bearers knew that you were dominant in fire, they would claim you for their own. The House of Air will not accept that, and I will not allow it. The House of Air cannot lose your alliance—”

“I don’t care about the hunter alliance. I won’t be the supreme, I will refuse to ascend to empress.”

Her grandmother’s hand flew out and Emara braced herself as her mother squealed. Instead of her hand making impact with her face, she stretched out her fingers and the air from her mother’s throat was vacuumed out of her lungs. Emara watched as her mother struggled to breathe, clutching at her throat.

“Stop!” Emara tried to scream, but it was no use. They couldn’t hear her. “Stop! Stop! Grandmother, stop!”

Sereia flung out her own hand in a desperate attempt to blindside her grandmother and a flame of fire seared from her palm. Speedily, Theodora Clearwater ducked to the side.

Another blast of fire sparked out of her mother’s hands as she screamed but Theodora tossed an arm around in a circle motion, casting a shield of water that put out the attacking fire. Damp ashes fell to the ground.

Emara couldn’t breathe as her grandmother’s airy mist wormed its way around Sereia’s waist.

“Stop! Please stop!” Sereia screeched. “I am pregnant. I am with child,” she cried, trying to catch her breath. The water from her grandmother’s shield splashed to the ground and her mist fell, too. “There’s nothing you can do now,” she panted, gasping for air. “I will be with him and that will have to serve as my fate to the Gods. The prophecy was wrong, Mother.”

Air blew through the scene, wiping away everything Emara could see in a misty haze. A surge of power jerked Emara back in her seat, to the present. Her head whipped back and strong hands were on her shoulders, pinning her as if to prevent herself from an injury.

She blinked open her eyes.

Her hands ripped away from the ball, tearing away from Melione’s grasp. By the look on her face, she too, had saw the vision. The two of them sat face to face but not one of them spoke.

Finally, Melione croaked, “You are the granddaughter of Theodora Clearwater.” Her brown eyes expanded in disbelief. “But she—you died in a fire.”

“My mother died in a fire, not me.” Raspy breaths left Emara’s throat.

“You are the promised one. Promised to the House of Air.”

Goosebumps spread like a virus over Emara’s body as she turned to ice. Emara’s blood ran cold. Every muscle in her body stiffened into hard marble. “You are mistaken,” Emara quivered.

“I saw what you saw,” the Spirit Witch confirmed. “I am not mistaken.”

“Emara? Speak to me! Are you okay?” Clear blue eyes penetrated hers.

Melione advised him to give her a second by gesturing to him to step back.

He refused.

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