Sneak Peek....
History of Fire
(A Dark Faerie Tale #5)
Spin Off #1
by
Alexia Purdy
Release date: TBD 2014
Blurb:
No one knows the secrets he keeps.
No one knows of the worlds that exist right alongside ours.
Benton is human, but he walks the line between two worlds: the mundane and the supernatural; the commonplace and the extraordinary. As a rare Fire Elemental Warlock, he finds himself in trouble more often than he cares to admit. It doesn’t help that his sister is a Faery Queen of the Summer Seelie Court.
This is Benton’s story as he makes his way between the mortal world and a world where magic reigns. Do you dare follow? Do you dare see what lurks just beyond the edge of perception?
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Prologue
“What is this place?” Benton peered around, studying the massive quantities of magical artifacts. He never knew his mother had this hidden sanctuary deep under their home. She’d forgotten about it herself for seventeen years due to a memory charm placed on her by her faery husband causing her to forget everything magical about herself and forget him. She had just recently recalled its existence, along with the rest of her unique elemental magical talents.
“It’s my Pyren Sanctuary. Only witches, warlocks or sorcerers of elemental magic have them. It is a safe haven, hidden from the world in which I hide all the magic history of my family. It was all passed down to me since I’m a pure elemental witch and Evie was more of Fey blood. Here is all the history of our fire element, back through hundreds of years. Every weapon and every spell our family has ever wielded is housed here. My mother brought all of this from her old Pyren when we moved here.”
Anna’s eyes scanned the enormity of the collection occupying every nook and cranny of the room. Even Benton had no snarky words left to describe the brilliance of it. Piles of grimoires filled every desk and hard surface, stacked to the ceiling in precarious towers. Weapons and artifacts were arranged neatly around the room on mismatched shelves and desks. The whole place vibrated with energy crawling across everything in it.
“What do you do with it all?” Anna reached for a long, polished Birchwood staff with a large dull, turquoise sea glass rock affixed to the tip. Jade, their mother, did not stop her, but watched with elated happiness lighting up her face as her daughter touched the staff of Aednat. It was simple, yet sleek and beautiful. Anna curled her fingers around the age-worn wood, and watched the cool blue-green stone begin to glow softly, illuminating her face with its eerie warmth.
“It’s humming under my skin,” Anna glanced at her mother, hoping it wasn’t a bad sign.
“The staff of Aednat likes you. That’s a good sign. It could recoil from your touch if you were not worthy to use it.” She winked, even though Anna’s complexion paled.
Benton looked away and studied the array of parchments laid out in a messy pile across a dark wood desk next to some of the grimoires. There wasn’t any dust throughout the room, leading him to believe it’d been enchanted. Jade was a powerful fire elemental witch, not only talented with the wielding of fire, but all kinds of natural earth energies. He held the same such talent coursing through his body. A natural born fire warlock.
“Benton,” Jade motioned him over after he’d stared at some indecipherable scrolls to no avail. He couldn’t read the ancient text and wondered if he’d ever learn to do so. Could his mother read them?
“Yes?” He approached her and waited as she pulled a long pleat of linen off of a rack of weapons. It was his turned to gawk at the arrangement of intricate swords and unusual blades. At the top of the rack laid the wickedest looking device he’d ever seen. It was a sword, sort of. Its blade was blue steel, curved and fragile in thickness, but the hilt was woven with a simple design of metal wrapped leather for grip. The blade was so thin and sharp, it looked brittle, as if it could shatter if he tapped it on any kind of hard surface.
“This is yours.” She removed the same sword he’d been entranced with and held it out to him. It looked light enough for Jade to wield it without difficulty. Too light.
“A sword?”
“Not just any sword,” Jade’s eyes twinkled as it slowly lit up when her fingers touched the blade. “It’s an Empyreal blade. Only fire elementals can wield it, and that is only temporary unless you were born to use it.” She held it out to him and encouraged him to take it. “Come on, it won’t burn you.”
“It looks a bit…thin.”
Jade laughed and her smile made him feel foolish for underestimating the power of this slender blade. “It does. But it’s made of the strongest metal ever forged by magic. It will never break, bend or fail you. It is tied to our family by blood. Anyone may use it, but we must return it to the Pyren before each full moon, unless it’s true owner uses it, then he may keep it on his person wherever he goes, until he dies.”
Benton furrowed his brow as he took the blade into his hands. It was light, but felt substantial enough he could swing it about and not feel like it would fly out of his fingers. The grip was cool under his skin and he could feel its energy rumbling through it as it turned into an extension of his own fire power. It was so unexpected to feel it fuse to his aura, he dropped it from the shock it sent him when it latched on and stared at his hands, expecting to see his skin melting off.
It was intact, and not any warmer than before.
“What was that?”
“You are the first male child born to my line in over three hundred years, Benton. It calls to your magic. You are meant to wield it.” Jade picked it off the floor and held it out to him again. “It does no such thing for me when I hold it. Nor would it for Anna. It was made only for you, a male of our family bloodline.”
He took the blade once more and let the sensation creep up his arms toward his center once more. It felt good, and after a few minutes, it felt as though it had always been a part of him.
“Wow, that’s awesome!” he smiled and took the sheath from his mother. It wasn’t anything fancy, a plain dark wood sheath that covered the brilliance of the fire sword as he slid the cover on and snuffed out the flames.
“Yes, they are impressive. I’ve only seen three other Empyrean blades, and that was when I was younger than you are now.” Jade turned to her daughter, still smiling. “By the way, there is only one staff of Aednat, made by our family centuries ago.
“Is it mine? Can I use it?” Anna reached up to touch the smooth sea glass.
“Yes, it was supposed to be Evie’s, but her faerie blood would not allow her to use it. It goes to the youngest daughter of the family.”
Anna smiled lovingly at the staff and rubbed her fingers together from the buzz coming off the wood that tickled her senses. “Thank you. What does it do?”
“It amplifies your powers. Anything you can do, it boosts each spell. It also offers you the use of fire underwater. With the jewel of Aednat, the sea glass gem on there, no water can extinguish your fire.”
“Cool!”
“And this blade? Is it more than just a weapon?” Benton held it up, pulling the sword out a little again to inspect the blade, finding small swirls and writing etched onto the metal. “What’s the writing mean? It’s like the writing in the scrolls, but I can’t read it.”
“It’s an ancient, old world language called Dtaia. Its origins are unknown, and it’s older than Sanskrit. It was said that the original elemental people of the earth spoke and wrote it, but it’s a dead language.” Jade peered down at the writing before looking over at the scrolls. “The sword is part of you now. It will heed your call, no matter how far away you are parted.”
“Wow, that’s wicked!” Benton put the sword away once more while a huge smile lit up his face. “So, how do you read these scrolls? They can’t be as old as the earth.” Benton lowered the sword, and let his eyes travel to the table of scrolls.
“No, there are a few who can read it. My mother taught me and Evie some before she died, but her knowledge was limited, too. No one in our family has read these scrolls in over five hundred years.”
“How did they not disintegrate? They’re so old.” Anna’s curiosity brought her sniffing around the ancient parchment, but she didn’t dare touch them, afraid of their delicate nature.
“They are enchanted and protected.”
“And the books? What are they for?” Benton stared at the piles of books, wondering why they would keep personal diaries of witches and warlocks centuries old.
“That is the other reason I brought you here. It’s time to catch up on homework.”
“What?” Benton and Anna chimed in together, a look of surprised disgust crossing their faces. “Like…study these things?” Benton continued.
Jade smiled, a wicked spark flashed in her eyes. “Yep, exactly. They tell us everything about our kind and more. Every spell spoken by our family is written in these books.”
“What about Shade? And James…Don’t they have to slave away reading this stuff, too?” Anna wrinkled her nose as she reached over and flipped open the front cover of the first grimoire nearest her.
“Shade is more faery than elemental, and busy with things in Faerie. I trust when you have learned everything here, you will share it with her and James.” Jade motioned for Benton to drop his weapon and join Anna on the books. “Come on. We have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Oh come on, it’s not like the world is over tomorrow.”
“You never know. Time must never be wasted.” The pain in Jade’s eyes as she spoke made Benton worry for a moment before he flipped open one of the grimoires to study the hash marks of writing within. A glance at Anna told him she hadn’t seen the foreboding concern in their mother’s momentary lapse, which was probably a good thing. Since Shade was the oldest, and busy in the land of Faerie on yet another mission to find her faery roots, he knew it was up to him to protect his younger siblings.
“I’ll make dinner, and when I’m done, you can take a break to eat.” Jade turned to leave through the hidden door that led into this chamber from the basement. Watching her leave left a nervous knot the size of a boulder in Benton’s stomach. The rustle of paper from his sister reminded him to return to the pages before him and read on about the history of one fire elemental named Barlow, his uncle from generations ago who had sailed across the seas to find a new world and discover magic untold.
Lost to the world in a place full of new potential and new magic, Benton followed his uncle’s musings until Jade returned and beckoned them back to the real world of trivial things such as dinner and high school homework.
 Spin Off #1 by Alexia Purdy Release date: TBD 2014 Okay....I thoug...){kind=link}
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