It wasn’t until one evening when my parents had to go out to attend a meeting that I saw him again.
He climbed through my window.
“What happened?” he asked. “Why have you been ignoring me?”
I looked down at the floor in embarrassment.
“This is to do with my aunt, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
He sighed deeply and sat down on my bed, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I want to see you,” I assured him. “But my parents won’t allow it.”
“You’re just going to do what your parents say?” He looked at me challengingly, one eyebrow raised, his head cocked to one side.
I stared at him and bit my lip.
“No,” I said finally.
“Then come with me.”
As I left with him that evening to take a walk down to the river, I rationalized to myself that my parents were wrong about him.
But that evening was the first time Rhys displayed his true colors to me. It was the first time I saw that dark fervor in his eyes. It was the first time I felt afraid in his company.
But being a headstrong young girl, I wasn’t going to back out of a challenge that easily.
Waiting for us down by the river was a group of other children our age, including Rhys’ siblings. It was the night they cursed our class teacher to die in her own bed. And we all watched until the final breath passed out of her.
“You don’t understand,” Rhys had said to me, his eyes gleaming in the firelight. “This isn’t about hurting people for amusement. This is about sacrifice for a greater cause.”
His words sounded strange coming from the mouth of a boy his age. Those words didn’t sound like his own. Those words sounded like his aunt’s.
“Our council calls this forbidden magic,” he continued. “They are hypocrites. If it weren’t for our Ancients pushing the boundaries of their magic, we wouldn’t be in the position we are today. We have lost a sinful number of abilities since their time. There was a time when our race could open up gates into other realms. Now we can hardly protect our own. We have frittered away all those thousands of years’ worth of knowledge and become lazy, enjoying the fruits of their hard labor. We’re a disgrace to our own kind. Our Ancients intended for us to use the knowledge they left for us in the Scrolls to continue their work. They wanted us to advance further, not—in the name of sanctuary—become lazy and lose everything they had worked for.”
That was the evening I was first invited to join their cause. Revivalists, they called themselves. At first their ideas sounded exciting—even if scary—because I was doing all this independently, without my parents watching over me. And Rhys’ enthusiasm was infectious. I wanted to be strong and bold, like him. I wanted to take risks. I wanted to be powerful.
So I followed blindly.
Ignorant as I was, I agreed to take the oath of allegiance to their cause and be bound by it. Rhys performed it himself. Within a few weeks I was actively taking part in what they justified as restoring the boundaries of magic. Reviving our Ancients’ legacy. The Scrolls—the only recorded instructions left by the Ancients for future generations—became the rules we’d live and die by. Rhys believed that following those laws patiently and faithfully would eventually restore their powers within us. And once we had cured ourselves of the impotence we were born with, thanks to the newer generations of witches, we would take over The Sanctuary, and run it the way our Ancients had always intended it to be run.
Then one evening, we all got caught. A member of the council had been taking a walk along the river bank when she saw us.
My parents and family were shocked and devastated. But they were barely given a chance to even bid me farewell before I was expelled.
We were all exiled. I followed Rhys to the only place we knew to go—a little island north of The Sanctuary where his aunt Isolde had taken up residence.
And it was there, once Rhys was reunited with his aunt Isolde, that we all spiraled down into levels of darkness that were much further than I was willing to go.
When I admitted one day that I regretted my decision to ever join the cause, and that I wished I could return home, he became angry that I did not appreciate being a part of this. And in that moment of rage, with the help of his aunt, he performed a spell that was to alter my life forever. He bound me to him.
Still, not understanding the implications of betraying both the oath and binding spell at once, I escaped back to my family.
My parents pleaded with the council that I was innocent and should not be expelled. But they along with the rest of my family died before the case even had time to go to trial. And my powers as a witch vanished.
After that, I was beaten, labeled a heretic, and thrown out of The Sanctuary once again. I had no choice but to return to Rhys. I didn’t think I could survive on my own in the wilderness at such a young age, especially not without magic. I’d never left The Sanctuary all my life until the day I first left with Rhys.
But over the years I spent with Rhys, his aunt, and the others who left with us, I realized that going out on my own, even without magic, was a far more attractive option. I was a slave to a cause I didn’t believe in. A foolish decision I’d made as a child, I was now suffering the consequences for as an adult.
I understood my curse by then. Everybody I loved was already dead. I had nothing left to lose. So I made the decision to leave and never get close to anyone. That way, I could have my freedom without anybody getting hurt.
What could go wrong?
* * *
Rhys, Isolde and Efren gathered around my bed the following morning.
“It’s time,” Rhys said.
I wrapped myself in the black cloak he handed me and followed them out of the room.
We entered the large chamber with the red door and I took a seat around the circular table next to Rhys.
“We should begin with Mona stating her oath,” Isolde said sternly. She walked over to the cupboard and withdrew a heavy leather book—the Ancients’ Scrolls—and brought it back to the table. “And before we begin this, remember, each time you run away, the oath you take next time will be stronger, and come with more consequences should it ever be broken. This is your third time now taking this oath. Should Rhys see that you have broken it again, he will have no choice but to abide by the rules and kill you himself.”
Rhys glanced my way, looking uncomfortable.
I knew that he wouldn’t want to kill me. But Rhys didn’t ever act according to personal desire. He only acted according to the rules set down by the Ancients. As was the way of every other witch in this coven.