Storytime Blog Hop - Awakening (1 of 3)

Hello hello readers! Welcome back to the Storytime Blog Hop. This one came to me as a trilogy of novels, but since I already have enough to do, I fought it down to short-story-sized… three parts, one this blog hop (July), one next hop (October), and one in January. Yes, it’s cruel, but I’ll link them all so you can refresh between readings. Sorry/not sorry.

Currently, I’m waiting for one of my absolute favorite authors in the world to complete edits on book 2 of a trilogy (?) … Book One, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me is absolutely wonderful AND ENDS ON A CLIFFHANGER so at least I’m not making you wait while I write up over 225k words for each installment. Just saying. Book One is so worth the read (and re-read) though, and I’m sure follow up books will be too. I LOVE ILONA ANDREWS!

Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom for more links for short stories from around the world.

So, without further ado, a short story written by me for you - installment one:

Awakening - Part 1

I blink into existence halfway across the continent, shuddering as the last of the my tutor’s magic slides off me like a dank, slimy blanket. Chin up, Mariah, I remind myself. Hide your secrets. Survive.

My belongings follow. All the tricks I’ll need to convince the king’s mages that my magic is good enough, my family is strong enough, to continue as nobles in the land. For the sake of my people— for Sara and Jay and Natly and all the others who need us to protect them from a power-hungry king— I must show more power than I have.

I dress in new court clothes, then add a ring from my aunt, laden with fire magic, a necklace from my father, suffused with his shadows, a knife bloated with my younger sister’s plant magic. The other magic gifts from those who could spare them. I have barely enough of my own magic to use them, and that is not enough to retain our titles. So, to protect ourselves and each other, we will cheat.

The contestants gather and we size each other up and the king’s son— tall, dark, handsome— murmurs in my ear, “I want you to win.” Before the first trial, he tells me his plans and tells me exactly how to best him.

Is it a trap? A trick?

But it works— at the last second, running through the maze, I use my borrowed plant magic to wrap around the feet of every contestant, swipe the golden berries from the prince’s hand, and sprint past them all, thrusting my prize into the hands of the king. First.

The king’s son pays open court to me, bringing me flowers and sitting cozily next to me at dinner, and answers any question I ask of him except why he is doing this.

The second trial is a trial of blades and fire. Though I can barely light a candle on my own, I have trained with swords and knives since I was a child, and with my borrowed magic, I battle across the sands, fiery and fierce. And because he’s told me, I know the prince’s last feint is just that. I slide past it, send flames into his face, stab through his shoulder, and become the first to wound him. I imagine I can hear the king’s teeth gritting together when he declares the winner this time, “Mariah of the Frozen North.”

The third trial is a trial of logic, and though I’m quick, the king’s son knows the answer and is quicker still. “It would look suspicious,” he whispers to me between kisses in the shadows, “if you win every single battle.”

“Agreed.” Though if he hadn’t know the answer, I think this was the game I could have won on my own. Then his hands are on my hips and my thoughts are swept away.

During the fourth trial, I use my father’s shadows to hide from the king’s light, and step in front of the prince just as he crosses the threshold, so that he pushes me across first, in front of him, and I’m comforted by the feel of his body cradling mine.

Amid the glitter and gold of the court, the sudden attention of all the nobles, the blush of unexpected victory after victory, I fall in love.

“I accuse Mariah.”

What? Three simple words that run me through like the sharpest fire-sword. “What?”

The sideways glance he flicks at me is cold, so unlike his usual warmth. The glints of gold in his brown eyes burn bright. “You’ve seen it, Father.” His tone is low but somehow carries to every ear. “Every game, I should win. Each time, she steals from me at the last second.”

Nods all around us. Of course no one expects the backwater noble to win against the king’s son.

Betrayal sings in me. “But you—”

He points. “She is cheating. Using others’ magic as her own. Have the truth sensors question her.”

My borrowed magic flares around me, trying to protect me, but the group of king’s mages are stronger than one girl. My sister’s knife is the first to go, wrestled from me even as I draw it. Someone kicks my knees and they buckle. I twist away, then a mage pulls me from the shadows and breaks the necklace from my father. Another dampens my aunt’s fire and wrests her ring from my finger. Bit by bit, my people are torn from me and I am beaten down. I curl in on myself, just myself, and catch the king’s truth seeker nodding.

This is all I am.

Then they close a shackle on each wrist and my tiny magics are sucked away, leaving me hollow.

I trusted the wrong person.

Failed my family. Failed my people.

The king’s mages gag me and drag me down into the dark.