Blood Coloured Flames - CHAPTER ONE

Is it going to win a Pulitzer? No. Is it a bit of fun here on Patreon? Absolutely! So here's a little fantasy romance novel I wrote a while ago. If you'd like further details on the trigger warnings then feel free to shoot me a message. 

An audio version of each chapter will be made available as soon as possible, but it will take a little time as Chapter One is going to be about 45 mins long. 

If you have any questions let me know, and I hope you enjoy this bit of silliness. 

TRIGGER WARNINGS - SA THEMES, VIOLENCE, SEX SCENES

                                                       CHAPTER 1

Eda’s loft is precisely four feet wide and nine feet long, tucked up under the roof of her aunt and uncle’s cottage, accessible only by a rickety ladder that really did need replacing. It is a small space yes, but small things are often comforting. A thin mattress protects her from the wooden floor of the loft, softened further by a quilt her aunt had made her as a small child. At some point she’d added the little curtain across the opening, shutting her off from the rest of the house, the rest of the world, and giving Eda her first, and only, intoxicating taste of privacy.

Eda stares at the ceiling, which isn’t all that far away from her face, watching the light change through a small crack in the wall. Shifting from darkest black to navy, the sky outside is getting closer and closer to day break which means she will soon have to move from her small, comfortable corner of the world, which she really doesn’t want to do.

She hasn’t slept. Sleep has never been kind to her so she usually doesn’t bother tossing and turning in frustration. Instead she just lays awake and rests through the night, letting her mind drift here and there. She listens to the woods beyond the walls of the cottage. The night birds, the scurry of small mammals in the leaf litter, trees creaking, wind whispering.

It was one of the few upsides of being a witch. With extended senses she could become part of the forest itself. She can hear the chatter of insects and squirrels and pick out their tiny forms amongst the foliage with ease. Smell had always been her favourite sense. There was something intoxicating and indescribable about it. Something special and magical in the truest sense of the word. Eda had a list a mile long of all her favourite scents; roasting meat, fresh acorns, the layer of ice atop a frozen lake, rabbit fur, pine trees after a bout of rain.

That was about where the silver linings ended… She’s always been in hiding, just her aunt and uncle for company. Her mother was taken by Witch Finders when she was just a few weeks old, far too early for Eda to have a single memory of her. After that, Aunt June and Uncle Elias had retreated further into the forest, taking their new charge with them. Twenty years they had kept her safe. Taught her everything there was to know about the plants and animals around them. Taught her how to control herself, use her magic and her more than human senses to smell if someone was sick and sniff out the herbs that would help them. Or, if needed, find the plants that would take someone’s breath away for good.

Mostly it was all lessons on how to hide, how to stay alive, how to avoid the rest of the world that would have them all strung up for witchcraft like her mother had been. Her ghost had always been used as a warning to Eda. If you don’t hide, that’s what happens. Fire. Death. So don’t get caught.

Rattling starts up below Eda’s loft and she can hear June wandering around with a sigh here and there. She would make breakfast for the three of them, and they’d go about their chores and another day would end and another would begin…

She sits up and combs the worst of the tangles out of her long dark hair, braiding it back off her face with minimal fuss. Her uncle had always said Eda looked as though she belonged out here in the wilderness, with pale skin and black eyes that matched her hair, she often flitted about the place like some sort of small creature.

Eda groans, forcing herself to get up instead of wallowing. After pulling her dress over her head and wrapping her belt around her waist, she flips her little curtain aside and backs out down the ladder.

“I’ve got a job for you,” said June as a way of greeting, getting her skillet ready.

“And what’s that?”

“Need more wild garlic. And whatever else you happen to find while you’re out there. We’re running low.”

June unceremoniously hands Eda a wicker basket (the only appropriate basket for collecting herbs so that moisture doesn’t collect at the bottom) and continues with her cooking. The years out here, hiding, surviving, had made her aunt hard as stone. There isn’t much room left for niceties. Especially with Elias starting to fade like he was, turning into a shadow while he was still up and breathing.

They hadn’t even bothered to lower their voices, but he continued to sleep soundly, snoring here and there with gentle puffs. He was old. June was old. Over the last year they’d both complained of more aches and pains and Eda was trying desperately not to think about it. Ignoring it hadn’t really helped all that much but she didn’t know what else to do.

“Stop thinking,” June says gently, eyeing Eda as she crouches by the fire.

“What?”

“Whatever it is you’re thinking about to have your face looking like it is, step away from it.”

Eda purses her lips but says nothing. June’s advice was often pragmatic, simple and strictly black and white. Eda didn’t bother to mention that it was next to impossible for her to ignore her own thoughts, no matter how hard she tried, especially this early in the morning. It was an old argument and not worth the breath to go over again.

“Is garlic your only request?” Eda asks.

“If I think of anything else then I’ll send you back out later,” says June without so much as looking at her, far more focused on her skillet.

Eda keeps her comment to herself. June didn’t seem to realise how much she bossed her about. But what could Eda say? Sorry, but I’ll be busy later. Busy doing what?

“I’ll be back for breakfast,” is all she says, glancing at her uncle who was, for the minute, still breathing.

                                                                 ~

With Autumn setting in and stripping the forest bare, finding anything worth putting in her basket isn’t going well, let alone finding specific plants. They’ve been stockpiling as much as they can, especially with Elias fading as much as he was. Eda had been dimly wondering if her uncle was going to make it through the winter. But she hadn’t voiced her concerns to June who had been doggedly making enough medicine to last the bitter months that were fast approaching.

There’s nothing in her usual haunts worth picking, nothing at the less usual ones either. Suffocated and irritable, Eda doesn’t exactly feel like heading home empty handed, so she heads out further than she usually would.

By most people’s standards she’s dimly aware that it wouldn’t be considered a great distance, but crossing the small stream into the deeper forest feels like she’s crossing some invisible boundary. The fear of wandering too far away from home had been drummed into her before she could even remember and even now Eda felt uncomfortable whenever the hut was out of sight. But sometimes she needed to walk that little bit further away and remind herself that there was a whole world that existed out here, if only for her sanity.

The trees in this part of the forest are older, darker, and her feet crunch through what must be a lifetime's worth of leaf litter. Nothing as fragile as wild garlic is growing in these shadows, nothing green that needs the sun. But along several fallen logs and ancient trunks are a cascade of mushrooms growing from the wood. That will have to do.

She starts collecting what she can and with enough mushrooms to fill five baskets let alone her one, Eda knows without a doubt that June will send her back out after breakfast to collect more. She’d be better off taking a sack with her, something she could throw over her shoulder…

There’s smoke.

As Eda crouches next to a log she smells the briefest hint of burning on the wind. It’s faint enough that at first it’s almost like she imagined it. She hopes she imagined it. Heart thrumming in her chest, crawling up her throat as her anxiety spikes she hopes with everything she has that she imagined it. She grips the handle of her basket till her knuckles turn white. She strains her ears but can’t hear anything; her nose has always been strongest, the witch’s blood in her veins helping her to smell further, hear more, every sense heightened.

When you’re a witch, the smell of burning is never a good thing. So when another gust of wind brings the scent of fire with it, strong and undeniably real this time, panic settles deep inside Eda’s stomach. Without thinking she stands up, basket abandoned and runs towards home. Everything she’s ever been taught has revolved around hiding from things like this. Eda should be running in the opposite direction, far away as fast as she can, not towards the smell of burning.

But Eda doesn’t really feel as if she’s in her right mind, like she’s not in control of her legs as she runs home. But her footsteps slow as she starts to hear snippets of things in the distance. Shouting, horses, crackling flames. Screaming. A column of smoke is now visible, climbing into the sky, high above the trees, muddying the clear blue above her. Eda turns herself invisible, slipping out of sight and forcing herself to slow her steps, to not make any noise, to not be noticed. Then she stops altogether and watches.

What was her home is now a pyre, and even a hundred yards away Eda can feel the ferocious heat of the flames on her face. It’s so bright, so orange and angry in the middle of all this green that it doesn’t look real. The smoke pluming upwards is so dark that it’s almost black, the smell of it overwhelming any other scent in the area and making her head spin.

She sags against the tree nearest her, knees buckling without her permission when she finally takes in the people responsible for the blaze. There’s at least twenty of them, but with all of them moving Eda can’t get a solid count. The Witch Finders are everywhere, dressed in black and red, a mix of leather, armour and weapons. Half of them are on horses, big, snorting beasts that are wary of the fire so close to them. Flags snap and flutter in the wind and the men are shouting to be heard over the ruckus of it all. Eda feels empty as she watches them milling about.

They would have only had to glance within the home to decide what to do. Herbs hanging in bunches from the ceiling, the few small wards her aunt had made over the years nailed to the walls, the medicine sat next to her uncle's sleeping form… medicine was for learned men only. Anyone else who dabbled in it was, if not magical themselves, as good as a witch. Why bother with questions, with evidence and proof? They would have set the building on fire then and there.

The cottage is burning so hot and bright it's like a star has fallen to earth. There’s no doubt her aunt and uncle are inside. She heard the screams through the roaring of the flames as she ran here… but they’re not screaming any more.

                                                                      ~

The first night is the worst. It’s not pitch black, not like nights should be. There’s the moon and stars rising high, casting their light on everything below and Eda’s convinced that if the Witch Finders are still looking then she’ll be lit up like a beacon, easy to find. Easy to kill. Eda waited until all of them had moved off before getting to her feet and running in the opposite direction, resisting the urge to go to the blackened spot where her home had stood and rifle through the ashes as though she might find something there. But there would be nothing left after that. She has nothing. No one.

So despite the fact that it takes energy that she doesn’t have, she keeps herself invisible, curled up into a tight little ball, eyes wide and watchful. By morning her muscles are stiff with cold, trembling now and then from not moving. She no longer has the energy to remain invisible, no matter how hard she tries to flick the power back on. There’s no food. No shelter.

There’s nothing left to do but start walking.

                                                                       ~

Time passes, but Eda isn’t entirely aware of it. She sleeps in snatches when her body simply can’t go on anymore without rest. But even in the dead of night she can’t relax enough to truly fall asleep, to sink into that deep rest that would actually help her keep going. Her eyes remain open and the back of her neck tingles as if she’s being watched wherever she goes. Her jaw starts to ache from how hard she’s grinding her teeth together.

There should be some sort of panic. Some sort of grief. But all of that feels very far away. Eda walks along the forest road, going so slowly she’s barely walking at all. A week of travelling by foot, and the last two days without food at all, have left her hollowed out. Her bones ache. There’s a drumbeat in her head.

She could probably find food if she used her magic. She could sniff it out, try to summon it to her with a spell. But the thought of using magic makes her sick. Makes her empty stomach spin. She’s too weak to turn herself invisible and if anyone sees, even suspects that they saw her draw a rune and mutter a word or two… well all the running would have been for nothing. Her stomach wouldn’t be full for very long before they strapped her to a pyre and fanned the flames. Now that she’s seen how fierce flames can be she’s not eager to be flung onto burning coals.

So she doesn’t use her magic to find food. She stays hungry and exhausted. But half an idea has flickered to life in her brain. She’c convinced exhaustion is the reason for coming up with something so stupid and reckless. That, and she has nothing left to lose.

The plan is to go to the castle and beg for work. Scrubbing floors. Feeding pigs. At this point she’ll throw herself at any task available and claim to be happy to serve her king and country in the most humble of tasks, even though she knows that a servant isn’t always much better than a slave. Her aunt worked in the kitchen and laundry of a great Lord’s house when she was younger and her hands and arms bore the scars of the job till the end of her days. Her back, too, ached and throbbed from those years of work. That would be Eda’s life, if she managed to get a job. She had no illusions about that. But she’ll have a roof over her head and food to eat. The roof in the servants quarters might leak and the food provided might be mouldy but it’s better than what she has now. But the very reckless, very stupid part of the plan is that if the King is looking for witches and sending out his Witch Finders to round them up… the last place he will look is in his own castle. Food and shelter is all well and good, but safety is what she needs more than anything right now. It might be a counterintuitive way to get there but, well… at this point she’s got nowhere else to go, no other ideas. It’s bleak no matter which direction she turns.

So she walks. Her long black hair whips around her face in the biting wind, the closest thing she has to a shawl. Her lips are cracked, red against her pale skin. Her dark eyes are too bright in their sockets, feverish and fuelled by flagging adrenaline. Her gown is torn and muddy, leaves stuck in the rough weave from burying herself in leaf litter at night, desperate to stay warm.

She can’t bear to make a fire, no matter how cold it gets.

So she just keeps walking, it’s all she knows anymore. But she’s so very tired…

                                                                       ~

“Girly?”

Eda blinks and she’s laying on her back with the sky and trees above. A gnarled face is looking down at her. Wrinkles and a tooth or two, a woollen cap pulled over his head.

“Ah, you is alive. Well, wasn’t expecting that.”

“Castle,” says Eda. She was trying to get to the castle. Why was she trying to get to the castle again?

“Well ain’t you lucky that that’s where Ol’ Malcom was heading. Come on then.”

Without any more chit-chat the old man hoists her up and carries her to a cart waiting a few yards up the road. He’s not that much bigger than her, a stick of a man, but he lifts her as if she were a feather. A mule is strapped to the cart looking at Eda with twitching ears. Her head swims as Ol’ Malcolm, as he called himself,  sits her down amongst cages of chickens that peck and cluck and stare at her. He walks off to the front of the cart. Eda’s hands are shaking. She doesn’t remember falling down on the road. How long had she been there? Time had lost meaning and she was cold to the point that for the first time she wanted to be near some sort of flame.

“Girly,” says Malcom, every word a soft rumble. He’s back and holding out a hunk of thick black bread and a flask of water to her. She reaches like a child, takes both the bread and the flask and cradles them in her lap.

“You’ll be alright girly,” he says, tapping the edge of the cart with his palm. He climbs in the front and orders the mule into action. Eda shouldn’t trust him. Some strange man saying that he just so happens to be travelling the same direction as her? She should say thank you, but no, and leave. It would be safer to be alone.

But Eda can’t bring herself to do it. Her legs are shaking, even sitting down they’re trembling uncontrollably and her senses are dull with fatigue. And maybe she’s just thinking with her stomach, but isn’t every choice dangerous in some way? So would it really be that stupid to trust him?

The wheels start turning and Eda is bounced around with the chickens. The smell of the bread is divine as she lifts it to her nose. The flour and yeast and the oven scorch on the crust. She sinks her teeth into the bread, rips, chews, swallows. She eats as fast as she can, sipping water when she can catch her breath, and slowly she starts to feel a little less closer to death.

Ol’ Malcolm doesn’t speak as he drives and doesn’t pepper her with questions like she expected him to. Instead they travel in silence that is somehow comfortable. Any time Eda finds herself falling into any sense of security she digs her ragged fingernails into her palms.

You’re being hunted, she reminds herself. If you think this nice old man wouldn’t hand you straight over to the Witch Finders the second he knew the truth about you then you’ve gone off the deep end already.

So Eva keeps her eyes open and forces herself to remain vigilant and critical.

As the sun gets lower in the sky and the trees thin, Eda can see the castle walls rising above everything. Her sharp witch’s eyes can pick out each brick and the face of each guard as they watch from the top of the walls. The walls are taller than she’d imagined. Thick and strong, built to withstand armies and whatever weapons they brought with them. Ol’ Malcolm steers his cart steady along the road, nonplussed by the massive scale of it all. They pass by simple one room houses of the sprawling village that surrounds the outer walls. Women beeline this way and that, always with something to do. Children play and squeal. Men build or talk or carry things to and fro. Eda has never been around this many people. There’d been a few occasions when travellers and fellow outcasts had stopped by their hut for a day or two, but that was the extent of things. To be in the midst of all this chaos was suffocating and thrilling all at the same time.

Too late to rethink her decision now, Eda is officially rolled into the lion’s den, the outer walls of the castle soaring above her as the cart approaches the gate.

Try thinking then doing, Aunt June would always say. You always do the doing part first and leave the thinking till it’s too late. It hurts Eda’s heart to think that she’ll never hear her say it again. That she’ll never be scolded for thinking too much or too little. Over the days of running, of hiding, it has been the first time Eda’s ever been able to implement June’s orders to just stop thinking about it. She’s finally cracked the code to wiping her mind blank because the alternative, thinking about her end Elias in those flames, is just too much. Instead Eda focuses on the rattle of the cart's wheels and the glint of the guards armour.

The gates of the castle stand open, closed only at night or when there’s danger looming according to Ol’ Malcolm who’s noticed her wide eyed staring with some amusement. The guards on duty let Ol’ Malcolm through without question or fanfare and he doffs his woollen cap to them. So he’s a regular here, thinks Eda. Good. She thanks whatever god was responsible for sending him and his cart her way. Alert from the food and water, trying to think like her aunt would, she takes in everything around them now that they’re within the walls. More small homes, market stalls and animal pens take up this outer ring of the fortress. More people mill around, going about their day.

How many of them fear flames and shackles, Eda wonders bitterly. Probably none of them. There are women in beautiful gowns; simple things, yes, but bright and clean. Women weaving and knitting and chasing after children. Laughing. The men working with all manner of beast and trinket. Carving and hammering and smiling at their wives and daughters. Greeting friends and neighbours that pass by.

Never has Eda felt so dirty. So alone. Her life was so small and for what? The Witch Finders got to them anyway. So what was the point of all that hiding?

Ol’ Malcolm’s cart nears the inner wall of the fortress behind which the castle towers rise into the sky, seeming to scrape the clouds.

“You got family here, girly?” Asks Ol’ Malcolm casually as they approach a second gate, this one closed and more heavily guarded.

“No,” says Eda, her voice rough from lack of use. Rough from sadness. She has no more family.

Ol’ Malcom doesn’t turn to look at her, but tilts his head to the side in acknowledgement. He heard the sadness.

“Got work waiting for ya?”

“I was hoping to ask for some,” she says quietly and now her plan seems even more stupid than before. How many people must knock at these gates every day, begging for work?

Another tilt of Ol’ Malcolm's head. He scratches his neck as they roll to a stop at the doors and two guards approach, swords glinting at their sides, while another two start the process of opening the heavy gates. One guard bends forward to inspect under the cart. The other looks at Eda for longer than necessary. She feels her skin start to prickle. He smells of sweat mostly but she can catch the edge of alcohol around him, stained into his breath from constant consumption. It’s inside him too, that stench of liquor, his own personal scent that only she can smell.

“Who’s this, then,” he says with a smile and Eda frowns. It’s the same sort of smile a cat wears when they’re toying with a mouse. She can see the start of rot around the edges of his teeth.

“New kitchen girl,” says Ol’ Malcolm and Eda hopes the surprise doesn’t show on her face.

“Thought you were going to get chickens, old man, not a new girl,” says the guard, joined by his companion who has finished inspecting under the cart.

“Ask Agnes, it’s her business.”

Eda’s heart thumps out of time in panic at the obvious lie. But the guards think nothing of it. The one whose soul smells of alcohol shrugs and reaches forward, lifting Eda’s chin.

“You’d be prettier if you smiled,” he says with a chuckle, pulling his hand away.

“Touch me again,” Eda says, “and I’ll bite off your fingers.”

The grin falls from the guard’s face and his friend’s mouth drops open in shock. Ol’ Malcolm clucks the mule into action and drives through the inner gate. The guard scowls at her as the gates close on him. When they slam shut Ol’ Malcolm chuckles deep in his throat.

“Yeah girly, I think you and Agnes will get along just fine.”

“Who’s Agnes?”

“Your new boss if I’ve got any say in the matter. She’s tough but fair. Runs the kitchens.”

Any more questions fizzle out on Eda’s tongue as she looks up at the castle. Towers and flags reach into the sky. The villagers of the outer courtyard have been replaced by soldiers and knights. Horses are led to and fro and a blacksmith’s hammer bangs in even bursts. And the smells. Smoke and bodies and steel. Horses, dogs, men, dirt, but in the distance something finer. Incense and linen waft from the windows of the castle. And food. The smell of roasting meat makes her stomach growl in desperation.

“Why are you helping me,” Eda asks quietly, almost hoping he didn’t hear. But he did. Ol’ Malcolm is a lot sharper than most, it seems. He turns to look at her over his shoulder.

“I don’t think you realise how frail you look girly,” he says looking back at her. No pity. Just facts. He doesn’t smell of alcohol. He smells of straw and feathers, with a hint of sawdust about him. Eda feels like a strong wind could snap her in half so she must look worse than she imagined.

“I’m Eda,” she says. Ol’ Malcolm tips his hat.

“Pleasure,” he says. “I’m glad you weren’t dead on that road. That’d sure be a shame. Wouldn’t have got to see the look on that guard’s face when you threatened to bite him just now. Made my day that has.”

Eda allows the ghost of a smile to crawl onto her lips.