Page 1 of Shadowed Fate

Prologue

The Morrigan stood amidst the chaos, her midnight hair whipping in the wind. Broken bodies and shattered weapons littered the blood-soaked earth around her. She raised her arms, fingers splayed toward the roiling sky.

"By blood and bone, I bind thee."

The air sizzled at The Morrigan's words. Raw power surged through her veins, setting every nerve alight. A keening wail rose from the earth itself. Filaments of mist began to seep from the ground, coiling around the ankles of fallen warriors. It spread with unnatural speed, a living shroud descending over the battlefield.

The mist slithered and twisted, taking on a life of its own. It caressed cold flesh and rusted metal with unsettling tenderness. Piece by piece, the carnage vanished beneath its undulating surface.

The Morrigan breathed deeply and watched as the mist devoured all traces of the slaughter, leaving only pristine, untouched earth in its wake.

"Let the veil be drawn.”

The mist swirled faster, forming into ghostly shapes that moved at the edges of perception. Remnants of battle cries and clashing steel whispered on the wind. Then, as quickly as it began, all fell silent.

The Morrigan stood alone on an empty field, not a drop of blood in sight. Only the vengeful glint in her eyes betrayed the magnitude of what had transpired. The old ones materialized, their ethereal bodies ephemeral with particles of darkness and starlight. Their ancient eyes fixed upon The Morrigan.

The Morrigan's lips curled into a savage smile. "Come to watch the show, have you?” One, a being of swirling golden light, spoke. "You tread a dangerous path, Morrigan."

She threw back her head and laughed, the sound crossing the now-pristine field. "Dangerous? Oh, you have no idea."

The Morrigan's eyes gleamed with unholy light as she raised her arms once more.

"Listen well," she intoned, her voice dropping to a resonant whisper that vibrated through the very fabric of reality. "The order will crumble, and from its ashes, a new power will rise."

The old ones shifted uneasily, their forms rippling like heat mirages. The Morrigan's words hung in the air, heavy with warning.

"Blood will call to blood," she continued, her eyes unfocused, seeing beyond the veil of time. "The forgotten will remember."

"You go too far, Morrigan. This prophecy—"

"Is not for you to judge," she snapped, her power flaring. The Morrigan's voice softened, becoming almost seductive. "The threads of fate are mine to weave. Everything has been taken from me. You will allow me that."

She turned her back, dismissing them with a flick of her wrist. As she walked away, her final words drifted back to them, a promise and a threat intertwined:

"The game begins anew. Let the pieces fall where they may."

Chapter 1

Brigid

The pencil moves in my hand as I draw.

Dark forms emerge from a bleak, ravaged landscape. Barren trees claw at a desolate sky, their branches like gnarled fingers. Grotesque birds swirl across the page, all claw and beaks.

The drawing is horrifying.

I close my eyes, willing the pain in my head to quiet. Slowly, blessedly, the ache fades to a dull pressure.

When I open my eyes again, I'm struck by the contrast between the chaos on the paper and the calm that's settled over me. It's always like this after I finish— a brief intermission from the storm in my mind.

I exhale slowly, my shoulders relaxing for the first time in what feels like hours. I close the cover of my sketchbook so I don’t have to look at what the pages show.

My fingers are black with charcoal, darkness etched into my skin. I flex my hand, feeling the stiffness from holding it in one position for too long without stopping. The silence in the room is almost oppressive now that I'm no longer in the trance-like state.

"Another masterpiece for the gallery of nightmares," I say sarcastically, but there's no real bite to it. These drawings are my curse and my salvation, the only way I know to quiet my brain.

It’s not my day to open the shop, so I have some time before I have to be at work. I shuffle over to the sink, my bare feet padding against the worn wooden floorboards. The cottage creaks and groans around me, a familiar sound of settling wood and old pipes. It's small, barely more than a glorified shack, but at the end of the day, it’s a reprieve from judging eyes and bitter tongues.

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