Arise (After the Reign Book 1)

  Arise © 2021 CK Dawn

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  ckdawnbooks.com

  Cover Design by Story Wrappers

  Contents

  About Arise

  Prologue

  1. Shiny Objects

  2. Silver Spoons

  3. What Goes Around

  4. Two Can Play That Game

  5. Small Price to Pay

  6. Something Wicked

  The Reign of Fae Universe

  Also by CK Dawn

  About the Author

  Horseman of War’s Daughter? Check.

  That’s the easy part…

  Half-human, half-fae, Mira Etain-Tice is all teenage angst full of awkward magic use when a cocky and way too sexy bodyguard throws a wrench into her plans of freedom. While her parents are away all she wants to do is feel like a normal girl and date, hang out with friends she doesn’t really have, and explore the human world she’s been hidden away from all her life.

  But when your mom’s the legendary mortal Chloe Etain who saved the realm from inhalation, and your dad is the infamous and feared Horseman of War, being normal gets...complicated.

  Mira isn’t just any hybrid that was transformed through magic. She was born. And she’s the biggest threat to the Fates, the three hybrid sisters who mysteriously vanished the day of her birth, or so she thought. Recently, she’s felt their ominous presence reemerge, and worse still, her unwieldy magic, her only defense against them has started to wane.

  Can she keep her newfound freedom amid such danger? Will her true power ever ARISE?

  Warning: Cliffhanger ahead! Arise is a short story introduction into CK Dawn’s newly expanding Reign of Fae universe. Yes, there’s now an entire UNIVERSE to dive into! So fear not, the After the Reign series will indeed lead to a happily ever after in its conclusion, but for now, you’ve been warned. Muahaha. Happy Reading!

  Dedication

  To my readers, you inspire me, motivate me, and keep me going. You are why I write. This one's for you, my superheroes.

  Prologue

  Toil and Trouble

  The Spree ~ Seventeen Years After the Scorch

  Eleven years, six months, ten days, and nine hours ago. Mira counted down to virtually the exact moment her freedom had been stripped away. The date was forever marked and even celebrated by humans. It was when power and electricity returned to their realm. She was six when it happened and worlds away. Watching then as her mortal mother transcended, becoming a fae in the skies of the Horsemen realm at the very same moment. The celebration had quickly turned from excitement to fear for her parents, though. She’ll never forget the look on their faces when the little pink watch on her tiny wrist had come to life. The flashing digital numbers on the screen began marking the change in the human realm and it horrified them.

  Pulled from her thoughts, Mira looked down at her school desk and her flailing magic experiment. It was dwindling into nothingness just as her freedom had so long ago.

  Her pronunciation of the difficult incantation had been flawless. The curious and complex ingredients had been measured to perfection, twice. Even the number of minuscule hide hairs from the willing unicorn had been meticulously counted and recounted. Seventeen-year-old Mira Etain-Tice just couldn’t figure out why her divination spell wasn’t working.

  From the front of the class, Finn Keytris and his friends chuckled at her looming failure. With his slender finger, Finn wiggled and bent the elongated tip of his pointed ear at her, demonstrating he considered her shorter tips as less than. Adding insult to injury, he turned back around, brushing his long white hair over his shoulder at her, lavishly showing off the bounty of golden rings weaved throughout his braids. There was an ancient custom, a rite of passage, still practiced by a handful of woodland elves like Finn and his friends, where the young fae were given single gold rings upon completion of a nearly impossible trial. Finn’s gaggle of goons had but one single ring decorating a solitary braid in their angelic-like locks. Finn Keytris had seven of them.

  Mira turned her head away and looked out the window, allowing her barren and drab brown waves to sweep over her stubby ears.

  Her desk was at the back of the class; it always was, farthest from Finn’s, and closest to the long windows overlooking the Spree’s cobblestone streets. The view allowed her an escape of sorts, daydreaming of breaking free from other faes’ ridicule. Still, her chosen seat wasn’t far enough from the woodland elf and his taunts.

  She inhaled the sweet scent of the lavender growing outside in the flower box next to her, trying to ignore his torment, but he’d been relentlessly mocking her since they were kids.

  Crouching over her desk, Mira rested her chin on her knuckles and watched helplessly as the concoction in her pot soured. The potion bubbled up and over the rim of the tiny cauldron like runny discolored cottage cheese. Murky gray clumps of sludge plopped onto her desktop, making a curdled mess, instead of becoming pristine amber liquid clinging to the smoldering pot like it was supposed to. Her foretelling spell wasn’t working and was a far cry from the golden honey-like brew her classmates around her had already created and were setting fire to.

  Matches were lit, shimmering sparks ignited like fireworks around the room, and students eagerly looked deep into their vessels at the futures that could quite possibly await them. She had no idea how she was going to read her results in the bottom of her cauldron, let alone if she would even get a formation of residue to decipher.

  From the front of the class, Professor Bradbury gave Mira a sympathetic smile.

  She’d always been Mira’s favorite teacher. Professor Bradbury was kind yet stern, even with novice spell casters. It was the same way the witch cared for and tended to the Spree as though the space between worlds was a living thing. The woman and twelve of her coven sisters had created the magical Spree almost three hundred and fifty years ago.

  Sitting in the Spree with a class full of other fae students, it was hard for Mira to imagine she was being taught by the same Mary Bradbury that had survived the gruesome Salem Witch Trials. The witch’s long red hair, youthful skin, and kind heart showed no hint of her real age or brutality she’d endured at the hands of humans and fae alike.

  A shiver ran down Mira’s spine recalling her father’s detailed story of how Mary had once been slowly turned into a helpless tree in the Hamadryad Forest by the evil fae Avery of the Light Court. Mira admired her professor’s kindness even more after enduring such a thing at the hands of her father’s fellow Horseman.

  Noticing her student was struggling and distracted, Professor Bradbury encouraged Mira to set her cauldron’s contents on fire with a slight nod.

  Mira struck her match and let it fall into the pot. An odd plume of billowing smoke rose, almost appearing to form into white wings before dissolving in the blink of an eye. She barely had a split second to wonder if the shape signified her future Horseman form before the cauldr
on gurgled violently. Something sharp flew out and pierced her thumb.

  Stupid silver shaving! She glared at the shrapnel. Plucking the needle-like shard out of her skin, she sucked a blood droplet from her finger’s tip and into her mouth. Unsurprisingly, her skin began to stitch back together, as though her flesh had never been punctured. What was surprising though, was the image that began to emerge in the pot even though she thought her experiment had been a failure.

  Peering down through the little kettle’s residual smoke, a tragic line from a play started repeating over and over again in her head. She tried to ignore the silent rhyming alarm. Beyond the smoke and scattered ingredients, three identical figures were scorched into the bottom of her cauldron, blacker than the rest of the pot. She didn’t need to decipher the burn mark’s meaning. She knew exactly who the triplets were meant to be.

  The Fates! Her heart started to race. An ache in her bones emerged as if they’d become brittle, about to break one by one...or transform. Her shoulder blades tightened, becoming too small, too human to contain what wanted out. The pain subsided, masked only by an intense fever that swept through her body as if her skin was the surface of the sun. What the--? Before she could wonder what was happening, the sensation vanished.

  “Class dismissed.” Professor Bradbury wanted to inspect the cauldrons for herself. As the witch let them go for the day, Mira glamoured over the burn marks. She shielded the three figures from sight, hoping the glamour’s veil would hold, and filled her pot to the brim with the goo from her desk as a precaution as well.

  Hugging her spell books to her chest, Mira got up quickly as her professor assigned their nightly homework. She avoided the wise elder witch’s questioning gaze and dashed for the door. Awkward as always, she maneuvered around students lingering in the aisle and Finn’s outstretched foot. He always tried to trip her on the way out of class, especially on days she found most difficult to fit in with the students who were excelling so easily with magic.

  The burn marks in the cauldron, the flash of heat, they had been a warning. She shook her head, trying to ignore the signs as she headed to the Spree Mirror to portal home. But her thumb still held a tingle from the jab of the silver shaving and the classic play’s foreboding line was still repeating in her mind. By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.

  1

  Shiny Objects

  Crimson Hollow ~ Present Day

  “Mira mine, I think that’s quite enough human television for one day. What do normal teenage girls even do these days?” Mordecai raked his hand through his short brown waves contemplating what to do with his new guest.

  Mira loved the hidden vampire lair. Visiting the alluring Gothic palace alone without one or both of her parents was like being allowed a single bite of forbidden dark chocolate. Glimpsing the decadence and sexual indulgences the coven members tried to hide from her innocent eyes was the best part. Leave it to her uncle, the master vampire, to ruin the mysterious and seductive ambiance, though.

  “Manicures? Play outside? No, definitely not outside.” He continued, rejecting the thought as he looked toward the row of arched red doors lining one wall of Crimson Hollow. “Your mother would have my head.”

  “Please, Uncle Mordie, just one more episode?” Mira was absorbed with the television, and oddly, had no interest in the outside world, for the moment at least. “You know I can’t binge anywhere else but here at the Hollow.”

  “Binge?” The word rolled off his tongue as though it tasted vile.

  Mira nodded. “They’re just getting to the good part.” She took down her suitcase from beside her on the couch and placed it on the floor, beckoning her uncle to join her. Wasting half a day doing nothing was a rare treat, and she was going to take full advantage of it for as long as she could. She hadn’t even unpacked for her three-month stay with her uncle, let alone seen the room he said he had painstakingly set up for her. “The witches and werewolves are about to battle the entire Mikaelson vampire clan in Lafayette Cemetery.”

  “Oh?” Her very own real-life vampire seemed lured in by her description of the show.

  Mira flashed her bright amber eyes up at him and gave a sweet innocent smile she reserved especially for her uncle. “Please, Uncle Mordie, I lived the first six years of my life with virtually no electricity and completely denied the wonderful stories human actors and directors were capable of creating. Don’t take it away from me now!”

  “Oh, Mira.” Mordecai tsked but seemed to be softening to the idea of watching some frivolous drivel. He squinted and began to quiz her. “Potions homework?”

  “Finished.”

  “Incantations?”

  “Memorized.”

  “American History, World History, and the History of Fae?”

  “Um, still struggling with some dates.” Her hands went to her mouth about to bite her nails in anticipation of his approval of more do-nothing time. As if she were sitting under the sun’s glow instead of lounging on a red velvet sofa within the darkened walls of Crimson Hollow, Mira glamoured her long brown waves to be more reminiscent of her mother’s dark blonde highlights. She felt a little guilty for doing so, and her pale white cheeks flushed pink, but she used fae manipulation and glamoured the resemblance anyway.

  It wasn’t a very well-kept secret that Mordecai still held a flame for her mother Chloe. With an admiring and longing glint in his eye, he always commented on how much they looked alike. Mira couldn’t blame him for his infatuation, though. Her mother was hot in the most literal sense of the word.

  Mordecai’s white face paled even more and he clicked his tongue against his fangs at the realization of who she was trying to resemble. “That’s quite enough.” His disappointment was palpable, though he seemed to ignore her behavior, and said nothing more about the glamour. “Surely your human half has caught up on this mindless drivel by now.”

  The next episode of the vampire series started to play unimpeded because of her distraction. Not wanting to anger the testy fae-born vampire any further, Mira abolished the blonde highlights from her hair, and transfixed her eyes on the large flat screen in front of her instead.

  Brushing his hands down the lapels of his tailored suit, her uncle decided to let go of their point of contention as well and sat down beside her.

  The master vampire wasn’t Mira’s real uncle, she had no blood family besides her parents, but Mordecai had been part of her life as far back as she could remember and she loved him just the same.

  “You know,” Mira finally said, devouring handfuls of buttered popcorn. “This race track,” she had to stop herself from wiping her greasy hands all over her silk blouse. The top had been a present from her parents before they left for their long-overdue first honeymoon. The gift was her absolute favorite shade of teal, which they knew always made her happy. She already missed them dearly.

  Mordecai tsked again watching her near lapse in etiquette and handed her his paisley pocket square.

  “You should really get rid of it.” She pushed her suitcase further away and pulled up a black leather ottoman onto the clearing the track created in the lush hall. “It clashes with the Victorian Gothic decor and it’s a total waste of space.” She propped her feet up on the ottoman. “I mean, I haven’t run around it since I was a kid, you know? What was I, six?”

  The slick barren track was at odds with the opulence of the rest of the grand space. A juxtaposition of styles frozen in time simply for a child’s whim so long ago. The high vaulted Gothic stone ceiling was sprinkled with Chihuly-style chandeliers, each dripping with black glass, melting into the room like frosting falling over the rim of a cake. Under each soft lights’ glow were small seating arrangements, filled with lush red velvet chairs and supple black leather sofas. The intimate areas were veiled from view by curtains of chainmail, made of iron, of course, to ward against any unsavory and unwelcome lower castes of fae with an aversion to the metal. Far in the distance, warm grey walls flocked with paisley patterns wel
comed its vampire inhabitants home returning from their mortal playground beyond the row of red doors. Grounding the seating areas in place were large shag rugs made from strips of black leather, grey suede, and soft white wool. Mira enjoyed running her toes through the strands whenever she got the chance to visit.

  Mordecai looked at the black marble track that created an unnatural orbit around his meticulously designed safe haven. “Call me sentimental, but the track shall remain. Besides, keeping a clear path between your portal and my red doors isn’t such a bad idea, is it?”

  Crimson Hollow’s wall of magical red doors was one of Mira’s favorite things. Each Gothic arch led to a different city in the human realm, Paris, Rome, New York, they were all just steps away, though she’d never been allowed to visit any of them. Big bold black hinges shaped like arrows, and giant round metal knobs worn to a mirror finish, decorated each red door from the inside. But from the outside, the doors simply weren’t there. They were invisible from the view of unknowing onlookers, seamlessly becoming a facade of what was around them in the human world, or so she’d been told.

  “If evil lurks beyond one door,” Mordecai continued. “The cleared path allows us safe passage through another.”

  Mira shrugged off his warning. She knew the ancient-worrisome-one was referring to the threat from the elusive Three Fates. The three sister witches had all but disappeared the day she was born. So she wasn’t about to share the warning of their re-emergence after her botched divination reading recently.