Page 1 of A Witch for Solstice
CHAPTER 1
BRIGID
Flames dance behind the protective layer of glass covering the fireplace, lust blooming in my chest as I watch them twirl their orange hips. I press my hands to the surface, but the heat doesn’t penetrate my skin.
The Headmistress refortified the charms that block me from accessing my element before the coven left for the annual weeklong Solstice trip. I can’t feel a hint of the heat radiating from it.
Still, I try to channel its energy with all the strength I have, envisioning the power enveloping my body as my fists curl into tight balls. I concentrate until my head is pounding and tears of frustration are streaming down my cheeks.
Shivering from the exertion, I sit back on my heels and hang my head. This isn’t good for me. I don’t even know why I’m trying. It’s been a long time since I accepted that I’m never getting my magic back. I’ve made my peace with that.
I’m usually fine with the conditions of my punishment for burning down an entire wing of Shadowthorne Magic Academy when I was fourteen. It’s a miracle the Headmistress allowed me to stay on and continue a modified course of studies when she could have tossed me out on the streets. I had no family of myown to defend me from the council’s ruling, but she chose mercy by simply prohibiting me from using magic.
I’m grateful for that. Truly, I am.
But when the holidays roll around, and the campus is quiet, I can’t help but remember how good it felt to pull energy from the crackling hearthfire and use it to fly my broomstick through the longest night of the year.
Sometimes I wish I’d never experienced that soaring feeling. Sometimes I think my heart is being decayed by my sweetest memories.
Wiping my tears on my sleeve, I nurse the bottle of wine I swiped from the kitchen earlier this evening, when I crashed the house staff’s holiday party to fill my pockets with sticky buns and candy.
I wasn’t invited, so thankfully no one noticed me. They keep to themselves—the witches on staff who were born without magic. We might belong to the same layer of society, but they’ve always been wary of me–a gifted witch who wasmadepowerless.
Losing access to my element also made me an outcast of my coven. There’s never anyone to share the holidays with. I’m stuck here in my room while they’re racing through the milky sky of stars to celebrate the Solstice.
I drink up the last droplets of wine to ease my loneliness and chuck the empty bottle into the wastebasket before climbing into my bed.
“Alright, Brigid,” I mutter as I sprawl out on my green and brown plaid comforter. “Pity party over.”
The coven will be back next week, and the student witches will return to their studies. I’ll feel better then, when I’m busy working in the potions department as Professor Holly’s assistant, preparing her lectures and wiping down thecauldrons. The quiet ache for what I’ve lost will be dulled by my fatigue.
But for now, pools of celestial light swirl behind my eyelids, the weightless sensation of flying coming back to me as I drift off to sleep.
I’m startled awake at some point, my mind still hazy and my pillow damp with tears beneath me. I can’t tell what’s roused me so violently from my dreams until I hear the guards posted outside shouting.
“Huh?”
My heart is pounding as I dash across the floor and inch the curtain open. I press my nose to the window, my breath fogging the cold glass. Snowflakes scatter across the inky night sky, and through the sheets of white, I can see shadows moving. Giant birds are flying past the swollen moon, nearly blotting out its light.
I pull the curtains back a little further as they move closer. The winged creatures are way too big to be any sort of bird I can name.
They’re not birds at all. They’redragons.
All seven of them begin to shift, their true forms morphing into something close to winged humans. Their hind claws transform into long, trousered legs, and their elongated maws become faces covered in shiny scales as they float to the ground. They’re wearing black suits with gold pins on their lapels that mark them as soldiers of the Dragon Queen.
“Ooooh,”I whisper. “This can’t be good.”
The Shadowthorne Coven has been feuding with the dragons for ages. They must be here to fix an old grievance.
Maybe it’s the wine making my legs heavy and holding me in place, but I’m still clinging to the curtain, too entranced by the tall, muscular woman leading the horde to duck beneath the sill.
Two gleaming golden horns twist back from her temples, protruding from a crown of blonde braids that are nearly the same goldenrod tone of the scales lying in rows across her skin. Everything about her seems gilded, even the orange sparks that spray past her lips as she says something to the butler at the door.
My hand hits the pane instinctively to grasp at the fire she’s spitting. There’s no charm that can stop me from soaking up its raw energy. It shoots through my veins, and I gasp as the power floods my senses, reminding me how I’m supposed to feel.
How have I lived without my magic for all this time? How have I gone on for so long being so broken, so empty?
Smoke curls into my nostrils, summoning me back to reality. The curtains are burning.
