The Queen, The Mirror, and The Creation (Fated Chronicles Book 5) Read online

  FATED CHRONICLES

  VOLUME FIVE

  Humphrey Quinn

  TABLE of CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  EPILOGUE

  Note from the Author

  PREVIEW of We Witches Three

  CHAPTER 1

  Juliska Blackwell swung her body around to meet the confronting menace that was Colin Jacoby—her son. Red and pink hues painted the skyline behind him as the sun disappeared below the horizon. The shimmering blush, a beacon of light that only made the defiance and threat of his presence, even darker.

  She said nothing, matching his penetrative stare. The contempt in her own, a seemingly permanent fixture of her appearance after so many years of practice.

  "Hello, Mother. Miss me?"

  A fluttering of emotion she hadn't experienced since she'd held her child in her arms rolled through her, causing a barely noticeable twitch at the corner of her mouth. The glimmer of truth revealed itself in the eyes that desperately peeled through the evidence so plainly there all along.

  She pushed her body forward, but stopped herself. Consumed by the defiant certainty swarming in her son’s eyes. The contempt he so obviously and deservedly held against her; the truth she'd never permitted herself to see. The voluntary blindness she'd buried deep below her own malice and resentment.

  Her son.

  Alive.

  Her son…

  Alive…

  Alive…

  Alive…

  He’d been alive all this time, and she’d been blind to the truth.

  Blinded on purpose. Such a blatant and obvious thing, she realized now.

  And how? How had she allowed this to happen? How had she been so blinded to this truth? Unable, or unwilling to see this was her child? Her son, once believed dead. Once believed murdered by those she'd sought revenge on all these years. The son she'd have died for. In some ways, had died for. Because she had not lived, not truly, not since he'd been stripped out of her arms.

  Yes, she'd been blind, but the ugly truth was she'd been tricked. This had been done to her. She'd been seduced into the lie and blinded on purpose. By Tanzea Chase. By Jurekai Fazendiin. They'd taken over her soul, now controlled by their purposes for her—fueling her desire to hurt all those who'd hurt her, and her son. Topped by her own inability to accept anything but the lie they'd created.

  When had she become so weak? So easily misled? So disturbingly blind to the truth?

  Regardless of the when's, or how's, whether they'd used magic to trick her, or merely words placed in her head at the right moment—she had chosen to believe them.

  Juliska witnessed in her son all she’d ever wanted, all she’d ever been—before the lie. All she’d done since giving in and believing the lie. All she’d loved, and lost…

  And it was lost. All of it. There was no going back. Not now.

  She hadn’t created the lie, but she’d believed the lie. Lived the lie. Brought the lie to life. She was the lie.

  Whether by Fazendiin’s hands, or her own, she was the lie. She was the thing used to further the Grosvenor’s plans. And she’d fallen for all of it. The consequences of her actions a putrid breath enclosing around her, and looming in front of her in the form of her son, a storm about to let loose.

  Her son…

  Alive.

  The emotions percolated and simmered, bubbling upward, but didn't quite boil and spill over the surface. She didn't remember how to feel them any longer. It was buried so deep, Juliska thought it would stay buried there forever. And perhaps it should. Perhaps there was no living that life again. Her past was gone—a life that no longer existed. There was no possibility of returning to that life.

  Colin was caught up in the lie now too. He'd not chosen to be. He didn’t deserve to be. And his powers—to gaze upon him on this rooftop pavilion, he looked—unstoppable. Determined. Focused, on his hate. His disappointment. As well as a distant longing—a hope, that was never to be. Because she would never be his mother. He'd never look at her like a son should look at his mother.

  Unless—unless—what if?

  "The only choice is to move forward." Her voice came out as a thought trying to bring itself to the surface. Colin wasn't so unlike her, perhaps there was a chance to persuade him to join her. She had no other place to go, so why not bring him—the thought so instantly sickened her. She didn't want this for him. And he was so much more like his father, than her—a good thing—that he be more like his father.

  Colin had no clue what Juliska meant about moving forward. He stared his mother down, his mind raging through too many potential reactions to decipher and focus on a single one. He wanted to scream at her. To hurt her. She was an evil woman—it didn’t matter that she had brought him into this world. She obviously hadn't cared enough to stick around. And—was she the reason he was like this? Out of control, unstable, and at the moment, not caring of either. It didn't even matter that Catrina was a few feet away begging for him to leave with her. She was off his radar, a distant worry.

  He closed the gap between him and his mother by a few tentative steps, tuning out all else around them. It was odd, but in a way, his thoughts had never been so one-minded on one single event. His thoughts were not rampant, but laser focused on his mother.

  Catrina didn’t think for a minute this was a good thing.

  It was easy to see where his mind was, and although intent on his target, the inner turmoil was bubbling. Brewing into what kind of chaos, she was certain would only bode poorly for them all. Most of all, Colin, if the magic became more powerful than he was able to handle, and dragged him down into the darkness too far.

  Juliska aimed herself toward her son, her thoughts still rambling out of her. "He’ll have to join me. It’s the only way."

  Colin wanted answers. Wanted his mother to answer for her crimes. Needed her to explain just how she chose to abandon a son she once claimed to love. No. Once did love. He’d felt that love, in the musical memory Catrina had shown him. However, seeing Juliska Blackwell in front of him and picturing that feeling coming out of her, sent a shockwave of ra
ge through him.

  She was not capable of such a feeling. Juliska was evil. He’d always known it. Even when others scoffed at his claims, he'd been sure of it. And she had to be stopped whether she was his mother, or not.

  Catrina shivered in the bitter winter gust sweeping across the fortress. Though the sunset was breaking through over the horizon, not all of the gloom had lifted overhead—even with the magical protection barrier broken, and the constant layer of dark clouds was lifting, the sense of gloom still lingered and festered. Catrina's gaze slid between the young man she loved, and the mother inquisitively enclosing the space between them. She had to interfere before this mother and son reunion pushed Colin's emotions too far and he became erratic and uncontrolled.

  But how? She was one young woman with a magical gift that had gotten them into this mess, and served no purpose in getting them out of it. But if she didn't manage to drag Colin out of this enraged stupor, who would?

  She sucked in and forced a few bold steps, her intent to jump into the middle of the line mother and son were cautiously closing the distance of, only to gasp and freeze when a ghostly form materialized into the tense doom, dividing them, in her place.

  The spirit soaked up the space Catrina was about to claim for herself, so she held back, uncertain how to deal with a ghost. And wondering exactly why there was a ghost here in the first place.

  "Eddy, get out of my way." Juliska’s order warned she had no patience for her late betrothed’s intrusion.

  Eddy? Catrina gave her head a blunt shake—was this the ghost who'd helped Colin before? He'd told her all about him. Why was he here?

  The ghost held his head high and firm. "Sorry, Love. I can’t do that." His use of the word love gave Juliska pause, almost like she was trying to recall the memories of what it meant. And moreover, what it had meant, from him. What it had meant for them.

  Eddy twisted his ghostly form to get a look at Colin, for the first time able to acknowledge him as his father.

  "Hello—Son." The words slipped out as if he’d waited a thousand years to say them, and yet he found it so much harder to reveal than he’d expected. As if the one moment he’d given up his life for, was finally here, and it was almost impossible to believe, even for him.

  Colin stopped on the spot and stared blankly, his hardened stance softening ever so little. What had the ghost just said? He recognized the ghost, and yet, his focus was so overwhelmingly pointed at his mother, he had only partially heard him.

  "You are my son," Eddy spoke gently. "I'm not your uncle. I am your father."

  And this was the moment Catrina feared. When that laser focus started to sputter, a thousand demands forcing their way upward in Colin’s mind with the only way to free themselves, a rush of uncontrolled magic—the likes of which no one could predict the outcome of. The storm was brewing, about to break free, and she had no idea how to help him.

  The reality of what he was being told wound its way to the part of Colin's brain that realized, somewhere deep in his soul, that he'd already known this. Wanted this. Hoped for this. Arnon had raised him. Eddy had helped him when he'd first entered the world of magic—and Colin had always felt some pull toward the ghost, much more so than Meghan had. He cared for them both, but there was something else, something Colin had never been able to put into words, until now. Father…

  Not his uncle. Not just a long-lost relative who happened to be in Grimble waiting to finish unfinished business. His father—a ghost he'd trusted and looked up to, like he imagined he always would have if he'd known his father.

  But the reality brewing up in his mind was leading to a singular thought—another damn lie! What was one more to stack up on top of the rest?!

  His father was a liar.

  His mother was a liar—and so much more.

  And what chance did this give him? Was he doomed to follow in their footsteps?

  Did no one tell the truth in this world? Was it built on secrets? How did a world even function with so many secrets piled up? Especially when they were unraveling, one by one.

  This ghost, his father, was a complete stranger to him. This wasn’t the lovable Uncle Eddy who’d helped him and Meghan while in Grimble. This was the ghost of a man who’d once loved Juliska Blackwell. No, he still loved her. It was apparent even in his ghostly stature that he still loved her.

  How?

  How could he still love her after all the evil things she’d done?

  His features must have shown his confusion outwardly because Eddy guessed what he was thinking.

  "I can’t stop loving her, any more than I can ever stop loving you, Colin. You need to know that you were brought into this world, out of love. You were not expected, or planned, but you were loved from the first moment I knew of your existence. By me. By your mother. We wanted you. It was not meant to be like this. We should have been together, as a family. Everything got… messed up." That was saying it lightly.

  Eddy found himself at a loss for words, with no easy way to explain everything his son deserved to know. And found that even with all her wrongdoings, he didn’t want Colin to hate his mother. Because though she had chosen to believe the lie Fazendiin presented to her, she’d done so because her love had died the day she thought her son had died. Her heart had burned out, turning hard and cold and bitter. Seeking only revenge on those she believed, had wronged her.

  Colin wanted to understand everything, and he wanted to understand nothing.

  He staggered backward, shaking his head, blinking hard as control thinned to a thread stretching thinner and thinner.

  In a burst of ghostly light, Eddy landed right in front of Colin and sank to his knees.

  "You can control this, Son. If not for me, or your mother, control it for her." He aimed his gaze at Catrina, who peered back at him like the world was about to rupture underneath their feet. But she'd never abandon him even if it did.

  His flustered gaze flew back and landed on his mother. Only, it wasn’t Juliska Blackwell, Queen, and doer of evil he saw there. She was a frail set of bones and clothes sunk down to the stone floor like it might devour her whole. A woman, living and breathing, but suddenly carrying a weight so heavy she was no longer able to remain on her feet, her hands flattened against the stone with barely enough strength to keep herself from falling over.

  There was a sorrowful sigh from Eddy.

  "Finally…"

  Colin didn’t look, he didn't need to. The word echoed out of his father, followed by a breath that if he’d been a normal ghost, meant his unfinished business in the land of the living was completed. And for any normal ghost, it would have meant peace, at last, and moving on.

  But because Eddy had taken his own life to make himself immortal in the only way he’d known how, it simply meant that he was now merely a ghost without a purpose, or a place, to move on to. But it didn’t matter. He’d finally gotten the woman he loved to break open, see, and accept the truth. And his son knew where he’d come from, however messed up a truth it was.

  But the moment passed. Although relieved, and his purpose fulfilled, his son was still in danger.

  Catrina slid over to Colin and grasped his arm like she meant to be the anchor who dragged him back into reality. He’d gone from laser focused on making his mother pay for her crimes, to understanding Eddy was his father, and now stared at his mother like he was seeing her for the first time.

  A stranger.

  A person.

  A woman.

  A mother.

  Not an evil Queen.

  This wasn’t the Juliska Blackwell he despised, sunk to the stone like life had just imploded and betrayed her in every manner possible.

  Colin had the instant urge to get away. To flee.

  Seeing her as anything but evil was not something he was ready to see, or accept.

  The unbridled emotions pushing upward wasn’t something he was prepared for, or capable of handling. The reality of these feelings putting them all in danger because his mind
would not keep any measure of control if he stayed and faced this now.

  "Go."

  Colin lifted his gaze to see his father wearing full comprehension in his ghostly eyes. Even the sympathy swimming there was too much. Colin wordlessly obeyed, in a hazy fog of magical movement, he removed himself and Catrina from the rooftop of the stone fortress. For today, leaving his parents behind.

  Eddy would find his son when the time was right, and Colin was ready to face the truth of it all. He’d let his son do it in his own way. And own time. That was all that mattered now, or ever. Protect his son. And he had forever in which to do that.

  His own true immortality, was at last, beginning. The tether to Grimble, the afterlife waiting area ghosts waited in to finish their business, severed for good. And since there was no place for him to move on to, he was free to roam the land of the living, or the land of the in-between, but never the afterlife, and never as a living man. The taking of his own life granting him his forever, in the only manner he’d known how. And he’d have made the same choice, the same sacrifice, a thousand times over to be here with his son. A son he hoped one day would call him, father. And understand all that had happened. And why. That his lies had not been to hurt him. But to save him.

  And Eddy could wait until Colin was ready. After all, they did have forever.

  CHAPTER 2

  Colin fled to the only place his mind ever thought of as home.

  The one place that had been closest to a home.

  Cobbscott, Maine. Where his younger self—before magic interfered—he'd spent his summers. The campground was deserted with it being the middle of winter. Empty of the warmth and life that summer brought with it. And colder, with the oncoming night.

  Catrina said nothing as he sank to his knees, his stare intent on the ancient oak tree where they’d buried Jasper Thorndike. The hard, frozen ground glistened in recently fallen leaves covered in splotches of lingering snow and ice from a recent storm. His hands didn't even react to the sudden cold contact as they pushed into the icy snow and he balanced himself.

  Catrina swallowed the pain-filled lump in her throat, unsure of what to say or how to offer comfort. How did she help him through this?

  Finding out all he'd just discovered would be difficult on a good day, for anyone.