Twin Crowns (Twin Crowns, #1)

by Catherine Doyle

Her emerald gaze slid past Rose, to the man still standing over her. ‘Our souls will never die.’ Her final words were a faint rasp, but Rose swore the ground trembled as she spoke. ‘Some day, the witches will rise again and the rivers of Eana will run red with your blood.’ The Protector threw his head back and laughed, and before Rose could think better of it, she flung herself at him, ready to tear the sound from his throat. Her hands met nothing but air, and when she landed, her knees sang with pain. She looked up, not into the eyes of an evil man but the bough of a great and weeping tree. The Protector had disappeared. When she turned around, the body of Ortha Starcrest was gone, too, and Rose was alone again. It had been a memory, she realized with sickening relief. The worst one yet. She collapsed at the base of the Mother Tree and began to sob. For Ortha Starcrest and for her mother; for all the witches who might have lived if things had been different, fairer. Storm, who had been hovering nearby all along, returned to Rose’s side and gently nudged her shoulder, as if to say, It’s over.