Crowned by Fire by Nenia Campbell Read Free Book Online

The world was dead. Something horrible happened.” She paused. The memories were flooding back, and they were just as unpleasant the second time around. “I think I may have been the last one alive. There was someone—a man—trying to protect me. To keep what had happened to everyone else from happening to me. But then we both fell into the black water—and the dragons came.”
    “ Black water?” said the witch. He was still sitting far too close to her. “Dragons?”
    Catherine sat up a little, putting distance between them. “You don't have to like it.”
    Cassandra's tawny eyebrows knit themselves together as she watched them. A new thought was blossoming on her face, like a flower opening up to the sun. Catherine wondered what it could possibly be; the seer was almost as skilled at hiding her emotions as her half-brother. Even though she had been oozing fear earlier, the space around her body was now quietly empty.
    Her eyes went from her to the witch, and back again. “What did the man look like?”
    “Um—tall. Black hair. Dark, almost black eyes,” Catherine lied, describing David.
    The seer looked at her for a very long time. “Are you sure?”
    “Are you calling me a liar?” Catherine retorted.
    The witch scoffed, as though he held her mendacity to be a gospel truth unworthy of deliberation. “What do your scriptures say about readings like this?”
    “Like I said, I'm not permitted to reveal that information. You know that.”
    The witch's lips formed a thin, hard line. But he didn't argue, for once.
    Catherine did. “You can't tell me what it means?” she said incredulously. “Why?”
    Cassandra dusted off her sweats. “As I said before, there are constraints. One of them is that I'm not allowed to influence the future.”
    Catherine thought that was a pretty shitty arrangement. What was the point? “It expressly says that somewhere?”
    “ No. But bad things happen when I do. So I don't. Not anymore.” She paused. “I'm sure you're exhausted from driving all night. You're welcome to stay in the guestrooms upstairs. We usually have dinner around six. I'll call Dad and let him know you're here.”
    This last bit was aimed at the witch, who looked at her with a frown.
    “He'll need time to get used to the idea,” Cassandra told him tightly.
    “ Your lifespans aren't even close to long enough for that to happen.”
    “ Yeah, well, some advanced notice still might have helped,” Cassandra snapped. Then she caught herself. “Finn will show you your room,” she said to Catherine, in a civil tone. “Excuse me.” And with that, she turned on her heel and disappeared into one of the many rooms without saying goodbye. Probably to call her father, as she'd said.
    “ This place…is huge,” Catherine murmured.
    “ Maybe to you,” said the witch.
    Catherine turned. “Really,” she said, allowing her skepticism to shape the word.
    “Don't you know who I am?”
    “ I know what you are ,” she said. “That's enough. Trust me.”
    But then she remembered her mother stiffly bowing to the witch in her kitchen and wondered. But it was too late. The witch was ascending the staircase two at a time, forcing her to run like a little dog to keep up. By the time she got to the top she was annoyed—until she looked up, and then her breath caught.
    A large crystal chandelier hung in front of the glass window. On the other side of the glass the sun was setting in the sky and the rosy light of the sun shone through the prisms, creating shimmering patterns that looked like the aurora borealis.
    Light from the chandelier dappled her skin. When she held out her wrists to examine them, they were speckled like a leopard's. She looked out the window, high enough that she could only see the treetops from the front yard, and felt a fleeting sense of joy.
    “Your room is on the right,” the witch said, breaking into her thoughts. Reluctantly, she tore her eyes away from the light display and followed his