The Wretched of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood #1)

“You took something from me,” Almaguer said. “You have been using it. I sense its power coming from you. Have you noticed the shadows it paints on your flesh? It leaves its mark on your breast. Water will not purge it. The stain spreads with time.”


Lia kept her eyes closed, even though his breath gusted on her cheek. The Medium was real. She knew it was. Her memories went further back – to the night of the storm. There was Jon Hunter, dripping wet, muddy from his fall. Pasqua being scolded by the Aldermaston. And there was the Aldermaston, his beard damp from the rain. His will had quenched the storm. How had he done it?

It begins with a thought.

No, it was not the Aldermaston’s will that had done it. You cannot force the Medium, Colvin said. If you try and force it, it flees. Instead, you open yourself to the Medium. You seek its will. To understand its purposes.

But why would it have sent her this far to fail? Why would the Cruciger orb lead her to a Leering in the middle of the Bearden Muir and not show a way to escape? Surely there was one path of safety that would have led from the thicket. Surely…

Do not doubt! Do not doubt, Lia!

Almaguer’s voice was cold, yet throbbing. “Once you have tasted this power, it grows like a hunger. Do you feel that hunger, child? Whatever you desire, you can achieve. Anything. Anything you desire. I must have it back.” She felt his fingers graze her skin, by her throat. But she did not feel afraid. The thoughts of Muirwood lingered. His hands were trembling, his fingers trembling. As if some power shook him. He was trying to pull out the ring from her bodice.

“Give it to me!”

Lia kept her eyes shut, thinking on that night the Aldermaston had calmed the storm. She remembered understanding his thoughts, that he dreaded she would learn to use the Medium. That she would gain access to its powers.

What would you have me do? Lia whispered in her mind. I will do it. I will do anything asked of me.

It was as if a key turned inside her thoughts and a new door opened to her. That was the only way to describe it. The door was possibilities. Connections, thoughts, insights, wisdom – a thousand intersecting strands, like a cobweb. It was a moment of clarity. She understood now. It came as a rush.

The Medium had not abandoned her to the sheriff and his men. It had delivered them into her hands.

Suddenly, from the silence of her thoughts, she heard screaming – all the screaming like a chanting sound rich with horror and vengeance. The blood of the dead mastons they had slain was screaming to her. Instead of being surrounded by smoke shapes, she felt the blood singing to her. Begging her to act. Pleading with her for justice.

It was time.

Another memory came – of a moment she and Colvin shared in the kitchen. Something in his words had caused a rush and heat through her. Leering stones help bring the power out of yourself. The stones represent us. They were exciting words – thrilling words. A great deep thought had brushed against her mind, so large she could not feel the edges of it. After the last few days, she knew more – she could feel the edges now. That somehow, the ability to cause fire, or water, or plague, or life slept inside of her, not the stone.

Her back pressed against a Leering boulder with her own face carved into it. The Medium had known this time would come to her. It had inspired the Aldermaston to carve what he did years in advance not because the Aldermaston had known it would happen. But because the Medium had brought all the events together for her to act on it.

Lia opened her eyes as the sheriff fished the ring out.

There it was, a gleaming gold wedding band, dangling on a string that she had worn since she was nine. Her evidence that the Medium was real.

Almaguer looked at it, confused, his face twisting with shock and surprise. Then he looked at her.

I do not even need a Leering to make fire, she thought.