Fire Heart by Angharad Thompson Rees

Author:Angharad Thompson Rees [Rees, Angharad Thompson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little Whimsey Press
Published: 2018-07-18T22:00:00+00:00

16

Blood Oaths

The light splintered into a billion pieces, dancing like falling snow under a blue moon glow, and Morganne had the chilling feeling that the world as she knew it, was already dead.

“Your blood for your family, your heart for the boy, your strength for the fire horse, and… something else to break the bond.” Emrysa could not hide the look of glee and greed in her eyes. “Your life.”

Those black orbs pulsed and danced in the blue light, and Morganne could see the fear in her own reflection staring back.

“You will take my life…” Morganne’s innards lurched, as if a hole deeper than the crevices below her entered her soul. “You will kill me?”

“Oh, I won’t kill you, of that I promise. Now, follow me,” Emrysa said.

The witch turned and shuffled deeper into the cave, her physical form flickering like a candle flame in the wind. Feet sloshed in rank and stale water that smelt of broken promises and guilty secrets. Morganne followed, each step her own undoing, but shuffled on regardless. The witch led her to what once would have been a grand fountain, now sitting decrepit in the center of an oval opening. Morganne had to tilt her head back to see the structure in its entirety. Bones as white as ghosts interlinked to form the basin, and the rim around the structure stood on a base of skulls. Morganne clutched her chest as she peered in, but the fountain had long ago run dry, the bones cracked with the passing of time.

“Your arm,” Emrysa demanded, holding her hand out expectantly. Morganne responded, shivering at the witch’s touch as her wrist was grabbed with more force than the old hag’s fragile-looking hands seemed able. With her free hand, Emrysa stroked the soft and sensitive skin on the underside of Morganne’s forearm, relishing in the beauty of its youth. She snarled then, and pressed into Morganne’s skin with a nail as sharp as a raven’s claw. She cawed with fiendish pride as a prick of red swelled around her nail, and Morganne gasped, gritting her teeth with feigned bravery. Though her bowels felt weak, she clenched her fear inside.

Emrysa pulled Morganne closer to the fountain, turning her arm and skewering the nail deeper so blood trickled into the basin. Morganne gasped again, pulling back.

“Stand still,” the witch demanded, yanking Morganne’s arm toward herself.

Her blood dripped on the top of the skulls forming the basin. Black smoke swirled from the crimson liquid that looked like dark ink in the hollow blue light. The witch finally flung Morganne’s arm back at her, and stared at the bowl. Morganne compressed the wound to stop the bleeding though it still crept through the gap of her fingers as she watched her own blood in the basin swell like a mini ocean—crashing with dreadful red waves as it spread outwards and upwards. Soon, the entire fountain roared with cascading blood, filling the cavern with a sweet and sickly metallic twang.

She recoiled when the

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