Author’s Note: This snippet into Vynasha’s past can be read as a prequel to Craving Beauty. Happy reading!
Vynasha had always known she was different.
“Wrong,” her sister, Adriaa whispered when Mother’s back was turned.
“Unholy,” her other sister, Iona sneered when Father wasn’t listening.
Tamyra, the eldest, was kindest. She would spend hours brushing and braiding Vynasha’s unruly curls. “Don’t worry about what people say. The village priest is afraid of Wynyth, and he spreads that fear to others.”
Vynasha wished she could believe Tamyra, but Adriaa and Iona never failed to remind her she would never truly belong. Their father had brought Wynyth and Vynasha home from his travels, a new mother and baby sister they had never wanted nor asked for.
“Does Father believe the priest, like Adriaa and Iona?” she asked her eldest sister.
Tamyra’s brow pinched in a frown as she threaded her fingers through Vynasha’s curls. “How could he when your mother is the reason Papa smiles again, and our home is so beautiful?”
Tamyra meant the roses Mother grew. The roses had been planted in the garden, among the wilting vegetable and berry patch enclosed behind stone walls. And over the years, Wynyth allowed her roses to crawl over the garden walls, then climb up the side of their home.
“How do you make the flowers last through winter, Mama?” Vynasha asked the moment she was old enough to. It was just the two of them in the garden, knee-deep in soft soil and new snow drifting onto the shawls covering their heads. The cold never bothered them the same way it bothered the others.
Wynyth smiled as she ran her hands over the thorny stems. Beads of blood caught along the edge of the thorns and the snow seemed to thin, the wind to sigh, and the flowers leaned closer to their hidden place in the garden. “To give life requires sacrifice, you see.”
Mother’s hand was almost too warm as she took Vynasha’s hand and showed her how to coax the other roses to bloom. Buds unfurled before them and though the thorns pricked her skin, Vynasha smiled.
“I see!” The air thickened with roses and spices, and her blood burned hotter, her senses seemed sharper. “Is this magick, Mama?”
Wynyth nodded and began to sing in the lilting tongue of her homeland. Vynasha sang along as best she could, though she barely understood the words.
Where will you go, wolf child,
when the blood calls you home?
What will you do, seeker,
when all hope is gone?
Go north, to Castle Bitterhelm,
wherein you may taste peace,
Before the long sleep.
The scent of magick was one of Vynasha’s first memories. The other was her brother, Ceddrych.
As the eldest child and only boy, he remembered their father’s sorrow best. And so Ceddrych loved Wynyth and Vynasha and welcomed them without question.
“My sweet boy,” Wynyth called him. “Will you promise me to always watch over your sister?”
“I promise, Mama,” Ceddrych swore, tears streaming down his bare cheeks.
Vynasha lay curled against Mother’s side on the bed. Her skin was so cold, too cold. No matter how much Vynasha tried to share her warmth, nothing seemed to work. No matter how she pricked her palm on the rose stems adorning Mother’s bedside table…
Ceddrych found her like this hours after Mother’s last breath. The fire had gone out, but Father hadn’t come back since drawing the other children away. Alone, Vynasha had tried everything she could think of. She sang every song Mother had taught her, recited every spell, but nothing worked.
“Your mother is a witch, and so are you,” Adriaa once told her, but Vynasha hadn’t believed her.
“Father Andrus says witches go to hell,” Iona said, and it was this thought that drove Vynasha mad.
Mad enough that when she found Father’s blade, she wondered if it would work better than the thorns.
“Don’t!” Ceddrych snatched the blade and threw it across the room before gathering Vynasha in his arms. “Please don’t! Don’t ever do that again, Asha. Promise me.”
“I was just trying to save her,” she sobbed.
Ceddrych’s chest shook as he carried her away from Wynyth’s bedside. The air no longer smelled of magick.
Vynasha cried and wished she felt as cold as Mother. Anything but this endless fire, her cuts burning while Ceddrych hid her in the barn and carefully cleaned and wrapped her hands.
“You have to promise me you won’t ever do anything like that again,” he begged by lamplight.
Vynasha’s face was crusty with dried tears, but her bound hands soothed by one of Mother’s poultices. She stared up into her brother’s golden-green eyes and threw her arms around his neck. “I won’t.”
Ceddrych sighed with relief and held her close. “I promised Wynyth I would keep you safe.”
“And will you keep you leave me too one day?” Her breath hitched as panic crawled beneath her skin at the thought. What would happen if Ceddrych wasn’t there to soothe the burn? What if she lost control over the magick trapped in her blood?
“Never.” Ceddrych shook his head and squeezed her tight.
Vynasha was young enough to believe him. But a seed of doubt had been planted. “Do you think Mama went to hell, like Iona said?”
Ceddrych stiffened even as he ran a gentle hand over her curls. “If God doesn’t let Mama into heaven, then it’s no place I’d want to be.”
“Was she a witch like they said?” Vynasha turned her head so she could listen to Ceddrych’s heartbeat. The steady rhythm kept her heart from racing too fast. The fear still hadn’t gone away, and it never fully would.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ceddrych firmly replied.
“But the priest—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ceddrych repeated. He pulled back and forced her to meet his gaze. “Listen to me, Vynasha. The priest doesn’t know everything. Remember the books and maps I showed you?” He waited for her reluctant nod and smiled. “Not even the saints know all the mysteries hidden on this earth. And if Wynyth was a witch, then witches must be better than normal people.”
Vynasha returned his smile, and warmth bloomed in her chest, the scent of the roses filling her senses again. “I love you, Ceddrych.”
“Love you too, Asha,” he murmured as he pressed a kiss to her brow.
Ceddrych would watch over her, just like Mother made him promise he would. He’d never leave her, or so she hoped, and so he would. Until the war came to Whistleande Valley, and their lives were once again forever changed.
Nineteen-year-old Vynasha’s life is no fairy tale.
The fire that killed her sisters was her fault, and the magick that saved her nephew cannot heal their scars. They shouldn’t have survived, and the villagers either fear or loathe them. Until a mysterious stranger saves her, giving Vynasha the key to finding the only family they have left.
With nothing to lose, Vynasha dares the journey into the forbidden Wylderland. Through dangers untold, she makes her way to the forgotten city, but more than ghosts linger in the castle. A wicked curse shadows the land, shadows whisper that the one to break their curse has come, and a beastly prince makes a bargain Vynasha cannot refuse:
World of Wylder Tales 