Genre: YA
Shuffled from place to
place in the foster system, Morrigan doesn't know the meaning of home. Plus,
she is different. She has power over fire, the ability to move objects with her
mind, and glimpse into the future. Just when she believes her life can’t get
any stranger, she discovers her true identity.
Filtiarn, a knight with
a dark past and a surprising secret, has been tasked with guiding the heir of
Tír Na NÓg through countless perils to be returned to her family. Once Morrigan
has been reunited with her mother and grandmother, their triad can save the
forgotten land of magic from being devoured by an ancient evil.
~Read an Excerpt~
Morrigan took out a
white candle and a stick of dragon blood incense, and set them up in the corner
of the room. She sat cross-legged, and leaned forward to light them. No matches
were necessary. No lighter either. She simply touched her finger to the end of
the wick, and with an iridescent spark, the candle flickered to life. It shone
at first with a bright blue flame that gradually settled into a more normal
orange. It was the same with the incense—another reason why she preferred not
to have an audience.
She stared into the
candle for a moment, and took a few deep breaths to clear her mind of all
thoughts but those of the magic she intended to perform. Danu and Dagda sat on
either side of her, instantly falling into silence, as though they knew she
needed her complete concentration. Their energy beside her only seemed to add
to the growing sense of power that charged the room.
Morrigan closed her eyes
and began to shuffle the cards. As she did, she allowed her breathing to become
more even. A silence filled the room as the rest of the mortal world fell away.
Soon the only sound she heard was the light thump of her own heartbeat, echoed
by the quicker, fast paced beat of the cats’ hearts. She wasn’t sure how much
time passed as the cards slipped through her fingers. It might have been
minutes. It might have been hours. When she allowed herself to fall into a
trance, time became insubstantial, irrelevant.
The tarot cards were so
old; the designs on the back were almost completely worn away. She had to
shuffle gently to keep them from crumbling to pieces in her hands. Yet they
held a power that she knew no newer cards could offer her. As she shuffled
them, she focused her energy into them, silently requesting to be given the
answers she was seeking. She allowed the image of her mother to fill her mind.
When she finally felt the cards had fallen into the order they were meant to be
in, she placed the deck face down on the floor, and cut them with her right
hand. Then, taking one last, calming breath, she lifted the top card from the
pile. With a trembling hand, she laid it down and read it.
“Wheel of Fortune,” she
said aloud.
In the center of card
was a wheel. As she stared at the picture, that wheel seemed to turn clockwise.
The movements made her feel slightly dizzy. The bedroom around her became more
and more surreal. The scene on the card became her reality. The figure of the
sphinx that sat on top of the turning wheel looked so very real. It might have
turned its head to look at her. Its lips may or may not have moved. Morrigan
swore she heard a deep, resonating voice whispering the meaning of the card
into her ear. Destiny approaching. An unexpected and sudden change was
coming—change that could lead to good fortune.
It was the card of fate
and karma returned. It meant that she needed to be prepared—to expect the
unexpected. Morrigan knew the cards were telling her something was going to
happen—and soon. Her destiny, whatever it was, was about to be realized. Even
if it did bring fortune, it still scared her to death. She considered packing
up the cards right then and there. Her rational mind had every intention of
doing just that. Her hands didn’t get the message her brain was sending. Before
she knew what she was doing, she had already flipped over the second card.
“The Empress,” she
whispered. She exhaled deeply. “My mother.”
It was the only
interpretation imaginable. Even as she said it, the pregnant woman, crowned
with stars and adorned in a gown decorated with pomegranates, turned to her and
smiled. She was no longer a vague featureless stranger, but the same woman
Morrigan had sketched earlier that day—a face that mirrored her own. It was an
older version of herself, which she saw in the reflection in the nearby full
length mirror, had turned chalk white.
The Empress was a symbol
of maternal power—of strong feminine influence. But could it mean that her
mother was returning? She had never allowed herself to consider such a
possibility. To dwell on something so unlikely would have been too painful. But
now, with just the flip of a card, she found herself daring to dream. There was
only one way to find out for sure. She had to keep going with the reading.
“Six of Cups.”
The third card in the
spread represented her past, and even her immediate present. The six of cups
specifically symbolized childhood, and she was, technically, still a child. But
she had a feeling that her childhood was about to end quite abruptly. The cups
in the picture were lined up across a high stone wall, each cup holding the memories
of her past.
Her past. It was nothing
but a childhood filled with longing—longings which were perhaps about to be
fulfilled. She visualized herself taking each cup down from the wall, and
pouring the troubling memories away. It was time to start fresh. A new world
was about to open up for her. She had known it as soon as she had seen the
image of her mother’s face. But what would that world be like? What was waiting
for her in the future?
Morrigan turned over the
fourth card.
“The Knight of Wands.”
The man on the horse
carrying the staff had her baffled. Not because she didn’t know its normal
meaning, but because as she stared at the card, it began to take on the
physical attributes of the knight in her drawings. He had the same long
dreadlocks, the same bewitching stare, even the same cocky smile. The
familiarity did not cancel out the meaning of the card. The knight of wands was
representative of a dark man filled with a kind of honey-tongued charm. He was
also fiery and arrogant, a man with a definite possibility of a dark side. If
the knight of wands was coming into her life, she knew she needed to proceed
with caution.
She thought she was done
with the fourth card, and was preparing to move on to the next, when once
again, she found she had lost control of her body. This time, her hands refused
to move, while her eyes forced their way back to the knight in the card. She
watched as the long haired stranger began to move forward—wandering over
various landscapes, some high mountains, some meadows and fields ripe for the
harvest. He kept looking back over his shoulder, as though he were speaking to
someone. He was on a journey, and he wasn’t alone. Morrigan didn’t need to see
his companion to know who it must be.
So, her journey would
soon begin, and she wouldn’t be traveling alone. She would have a guide.
Whether or not that would be a good thing was another question best left to the
cards to answer. The next card told her nothing she didn’t already know.
“The Moon,” she said.
“Caution.”
It was a scary card. It
warned of tricks and illusions. The two howling wolves that stood under the
moon looked back at her menacingly, growling, showing their pointed fangs in a
snarl. For the first time since she began the reading, Danu and Dagda made
their presence known by lifting their heads and hissing threateningly in the
direction of the beasts.
Even the cats sensed it.
The journey she was about to embark on wouldn’t be all fun and family reunions.
There would be obstacles and deceit, most likely from people she thought could
be trusted. The moon was a sign that danger was certainly awaiting her. In was
an ominous omen.
“Shhhh.”
She hushed the hissing
cats, and gave them each a gentle stroke to try to settle them down, though she
was far from settled herself. Again she felt the urge to stop the spread. Her
instincts were telling her that no good was going to come out of this reading.
She was only going to scare herself. She should never have done it in the first
place. When would she learn that sometimes it was best to let life play out
without interference or prophetic warnings? Then again, she knew that to be
forewarned might be her only advantage. So with more bravery than she felt,
Morrigan flipped over the final card.
“No . . . .” she gasped
when she looked down at the terrible, skeletal face. “Oh no.”
She should have known.
She thought a part of her did know even before she glanced down at the gruesome
scene—a skeleton with a scythe in a field of body parts. With the divination
going in the direction it was, what else could be the final outcome?
“Death,” she whispered.
“Death.”
She knew that in most
cases, the death card was a symbol of personal transformation rather than
literal death. But a deeper sense of understanding told her that this time the
card was meant to be taken literally. She saw only glimpses and shadows in her
mind. Brief flashes of faces, some familiar, like her mother and the
knight—some still strangers, like a beautiful, almost angelic blonde woman in a
flowing white gown. But around them all, including herself, she saw the shadows
of death.
Morrigan felt decidedly
shaky as she gathered up her tarot cards. She placed them securely in the
bottom of her bag just as she heard the door downstairs slam shut. The reading
hadn’t made everything as crystal clear as she had hoped, but one thing was
certain. Her whole life was about to change.
Laura “Luna” DeLuca
lives at the beautiful Jersey shore with her husband and four children. She
loves writing in the young adult genre because it keeps her young at heart.
In addition to writing fiction, Laura is also the editor of a popular
review blog called New Age Mama. She is an active member of her local pagan
community, and has been studying Wicca for close to eight years. Her
current works include Destiny, Destiny Unveiled, Phantom, Morrigan, Player, and
Demon.
~Giveaway~
Laura is giving away (US ONLY) a candel gift set, incense gift set, two collectible plates, an Infinity necklace, key chain, and an amber box.
For a chance to win please fill out the rafflecopter below.
Genre: YA Fantasy/Paranormal
