Read Online Blackveil by Kristen Britain - Free Book Online Page B

thing.”
    Aunt Stace rolled her eyes. “Your mother’s family,” she told Karigan, “was mostly well-regarded on the island, for not all held as harsh a view toward magic as our father did. There were a few, certainly, who might smile to your grandmother Gray’s face, then make the sign of the crescent moon when she looked away, and some whispered of witches in the family and other rubbish. But on the whole? They were considered law-abiding, productive members of the village who followed the traditional ways. They even endured the rantings of the moon priest on rest days.”
    “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me this?” Karigan asked. Magic in her mother’s line? The brandy was beginning to look good.
    “You never asked,” Aunt Stace replied. “And no doubt our own antipathy for our past on the island made us reluctant to discuss it. But getting back to your father, he was so smitten by Kariny, he’d defend her and her family’s honor if he heard someone make a remark about their more uncanny side. This usually led to fights.”
    “Black eyes and bloody noses,” Aunt Brini intoned, nodding.
    “Not to mention an additional beating from our father,” Aunt Stace said, “who believed all the lore about the Grays and did not approve of Stevic’s interest in the youngest girl. If he spoke her name, or even glanced her way, out came the switch.”
    “Which of course,” Aunt Gretta said, “did not stop Stevic one jot. One evening our father spotted Stevic carrying some burden for Kariny from the village mercantile. The whipping he received—it was ferocious. That’s when he left the island.”
    “He promised to come back for Kariny,” Aunt Tory said, “as soon as he found work, made his way in the world. We had no hope of ever seeing him again, but his love for Kariny made him true. He came back and sailed away with her. We soon followed.”
    “Kariny never doubted him,” Aunt Gretta mused, and the others murmured in agreement.
    And that brings us back to you, ” Aunt Stace said. “Taking into consideration your own touch of magic, it is our belief that the lore about Kariny’s bloodline wasn’t just stories as she claimed. That uncanny touch has come down to you.”
    Karigan had already arrived at the same conclusion. It only made sense. How else could she explain the Rider call and her minor ability with magic? Where else would it have come from?
    She wondered how powerful her ancestors were, but she was sure her aunts would have told her if they knew; if there was anything of note from the island lore. Perhaps, just like Karigan, their abilities were minor, remained buried just below the surface, dormant until awakened. Karigan’s own surfaced because of the Rider call. The Green Rider brooch she wore, a winged horse, augmented her ability to fade from sight, seemingly to vanish.
    She brushed her fingers over her brooch, the gold smooth and cool. Her aunts probably saw some other piece of jewelry, or maybe nothing at all, for a spell of concealment had been placed on the brooches long ago allowing only Riders to perceive them properly.
    “Your father,” Aunt Stace said, “loves you. Loves you deeply. He was not thinking when he spoke out earlier.”
    Despite her aunt’s reassurance, her father’s words still hurt. Karigan’s hand went to the moonstone in her pocket. She believed her father was very much in denial about her mother. Perfect, he had called her. Pure from the taint of magic.
    Karigan shook her head, thinking she should just pack up her scant belongings and begin the journey back to Sacor City. Coming home had been a mistake, though she wasn’t sure how she could have gotten out of an errand assigned her directly by the captain. All she had done was stir up turmoil. The brothel and her father’s pirate past no longer seemed to matter.
    Then she remembered she couldn’t leave without her father’s reply to the captain’s message. That meant having to face him, but at least it