From the Ashes

Chapter 18

Alright I'm SO sorry for how long you all have had to wait!!!! I wish I could explain, but then that would, in itself, become a novel.

QOTD: If you could meet Larson from this book, what would you say to him?

AOTD: FUCK YOU BITCH

It's a slow day, snow falling lightly from the blue sky. I'm staring out of the window, gnawing on my sweater that I'd bought that day with Danica. Damon was downstairs, arguing with Aron about Nora. 

The trees slightly sway right and left hundreds of yards away from the clearing. I wondered where Nora hid away, coming to my rescue so often.

She'd consumed my thoughts the past week. Damon refuses to let me out for a run out of fear that I'll see her again or I'll experience something like her mark, which I wasn't sure I could survive that pain again.

I'd been cooped up in Damon's study, trying to find anything I could about my history. I'd been searching for anything I could on witches, but I couldn't find anything. I was much too tired to even pick up another book. 

So far, I've gathered that witches exist in packs like us, but it's referred to as a coven. There are different types of magic, as Aron had touched on a while ago. A witch's magic is strongest when they're toddlers because they experience so many raw emotions that they don't understand. Take away a toy from a toddler, and expect your room to explode in flames. 

They're given their Type when they turn thirteen so they have time to practice it and perfect it within a life time - another scary thing in their world. They could live over 200 years, something I didn't understand. Why couldn't our race live to be that long? However it could also be considered a curse.

A knock on the door brought me out of my thoughts. 

"May I come in?" It was Danica's voice. 

"Yes," I called. On cue, she opened the door and walked in with apprehension written on her face.

"Is everything okay?" I asked her, feeling nervous by her unsure demeanor.  She came to my side and sat on the bed next to me.

"We've discovered more about the witch. We have a specialist in the pack who knows more about witches than we do, including Aron. She's young, only late twenties and her magic is different. She doesn't seem to have a set type like most witches."

I frowned, marred with confusion. "I thought that was impossible," I muttered, staring into Danica's ice blue eyes. She bit her lip.

"So did we. But we found another mark east of the river where you made it out of Sunscorch pack."

"What? Why-"

"We don't know. She's all over the map. One second she's deep in our territory, and the next she's at a boundary 45 miles east," she said, rubbing her temples. 

Stunned, I forced myself to think about if there was anything else I read about in the books, sadly none came to my mind.

"Wait, who found the mark? What was it?" I asked. I remembered the sheering pain in my head that night when I'd stepped back into the zone she'd used her magic at.

"A girl in our pack, Isabella. She's okay, just shaken up. The mark is the strangest part of this whole thing," She explained. My heart froze for a second. Isabella, why did that sound so familiar? 

"What's with the mark?" I asked.

"Well, before, when she did that thing you explained to the wolf, you experienced the same thing when you were in the midst of the mark. But when Isabella stepped in it, she forgot who she was, where we were," She explained, shaking her head. She stared at her fingers.