Prologue - Halo of the Realms: The Divination

Halo of the Realms: The Divination (book 1) Available May 30th 2025

Physically, today looks the same as any other day this week. Completely ordinary. The Forsaken Lands are never warm but with the sun shining and soft breeze rolling through the tall stalks of dried grass, it can’t be ignored. The unusual warmth for this late into the fourth month of Autumn, was our first sign of the changing tides. Farming fields are nearly empty after being harvested weeks ahead of schedule. There have been no sightings of the usual rogue Suhkil’s canvasing the tree line threatening to slaughter us solely for their enjoyment.

Today is a picturesque day of good harvesting weather. Or maybe the sun seems to shine brighter because realistically, we know it may very well be the last we get.

Spiritually, we know there is a reckoning coming.

The Gods have something planned that puts us humans at their mercy.

And not the leaders of the magical side of Albulena who masquerade as Gods.

“I’m done. I’ve got everything packed into bags. We’re ready to go at first flame.” Ruth huffs, dropping her emergency bag of food rations and motioning for her two little girls to join the rest of the young kids down the hill playing different games.

“That’s great but what if you don’t get back to the tent fast enough? What if they start attacking before nightfall? What if the Suhkil’s-”

“We can play the ‘what if’ game all day. It does nothing to help us.” I silence the perpetually skittish Lacey with a glare that keeps her thoughts to herself but doesn’t stop her wringing hands. The village has been hectic all day and I can’t handle any extra what if nonsense. I take a steadying breath to calm my nerves while thankfully my childhood best friend takes over.

“Look, we are all a little tense but it’s good to get the kids out and let them roam around before whatever chaos happens. So, enjoy the time outdoors while we have it. The men are working on their jobs, and we have ours.” Ainsley Livingston gestures to the children playing around the grass hill without a care in the world.

“That was your job. Ours,” I gesture to Lacey, Nicole and four other mothers dressed in various shades of brown tunics and plain pants. “was vegetable duty. Thanks to the early harvest, our yields were down from last year.” It’s all anyone in Daimai can talk about.

The mothers standing around under the shade of the large summer trees chatter in pairs, panicking about the foreseeable shortage of food. At least we are far enough away from the prying ears of our children to discuss the diminished vegetable supply.

“Try not to worry there’s enough to get us through the entire winter.” I cross my arms, huffing at Lacey who’s on my last nerve after hearing her constantly go into worst case scenario mode every five seconds.

“Maybe, if we ration the food. But half the families don’t have enough as it is.” Across from me, Nicole argues, fear lining her usually soft facial features.

I take another breath in, willing it to fill my lungs and praying it takes the anxiety with it on the exhale. I need to be strong, for everyone here. As the wife of the Rebel Leader, that’s my unspoken job every minute of every day. “Owen and I already discussed this. We are doing everything we can. We’ve sent out letters this morning to the other major villages to see what extras they can spare.”

A ridiculous scoff comes out of Ainsley’s mouth and if I didn’t love her so much, I might do something that I would regret a few days from now. “You know as well as we do that the other villages won’t give us a single spare carrot even if they had more than enough. They would rather them rot than share.”

Murmurs of agreements sound through the mothers and I sigh knowing she’s right. In the human lands we fight against each other, only when corrupt Magicals get involved do we band together.

“Owen will talk to them. They can’t refuse the Lead-”

“Momma!” My little girl’s high-pitched voice rings out. “Momma! Aunty!” She whines, powering up to the top of the hill where us adults stand in an ever-shrinking circle. “Aunty! I can’t find Delario. He’s not playing fair!”

Tileena stomps her bare feet, balling her hands into fists at her sides as Ainsley nods her chin to me, passing off dealing with this issue.

Heat rushes up my neck knowing all the other mothers are looking at me as either an example of how-to parent, or simply judging how I parent my two kids. By some stroke of luck, I landed Tileena as my second child. Strong-willed doesn’t even begin to describe my little firecracker.

“Tilly we are talking.” I crouch down, leveling myself to her brown eyes, so dark they are nearly black even with the sun beating down. “You need to try again. Look at what’s in front of you and I’m sure you will find him. Try harder.” Tucking a strand of straight black hair behind her small ears, I lightly grab her shoulders and spin her around with a soft nudge on her bum to get her moving.

Delario plays by the rules, there’s nowhere he would have gone.

Not past the tree line and certainly not into the forest.

“But Momma!” Her angry protests are cute, but I don’t have the time or patience right now.

May the Gods help whoever is strong enough to marry my tough rebel cookie. They are going to need all the help they can get.

“Stop whining Tileena. Go find my boys. If you find them in the next five minutes, I’ll give you a surprise.” Ainsley calls out, motivating Tileena who’s obsessed with sweets.

“Thanks.”

“Anytime, but you should thank the Gods for only giving you one of her.” Ainsley smirks folding her arms over her chest, winking at me. “You wouldn’t have survived the colic with twins.”

She’s right. The first few months with Tilly were what I picture hell to feel like. Add stomach cutting surgery with only the strongest herbs as pain killers and a nearly five-year-old to take care of, I was a walking corpse for four months.

The tiniest wave of relief washes away some worry when a few mothers in the circle give me a reassuring smile. There’s a shared understanding that no matter how much you love your kids, they are hard and hellbent on driving you insane.

“Ken has been counting the arrows and checking the bows four times a day.” One of the women whose husband oversees the archery patrollers adds, twisting her hands in knots.

“Good, Tim says we need all the arrows we can get for the fight. The farther back we can keep the werewolves the safer we are.” Anna jumps in, moving the general voice of the conversation to the right.

“We don’t even know if it’s going to be a fight.” Tina’s the perpetual ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ voice of the village and it comes back to bite her in the ass every so often.

“We know it’s coming. You better get your tent in order and your clothes, food and blankets packed or el-” The usual lecture dies on Ruth’s lips when her eyes widen as something over my shoulder and down the hill draws her full attention. Her face fully drains of colour turning my blood to ice, causing my lungs to get stuck in my throat.

One by one the women stop talking to stare, some start moving and running but I can’t move. I’m frozen. I can’t look.

I just… can’t.

“Fire!” Ainsley screams, causing all the women to scatter in different directions.

Some scream for their kids to move out of the way, some run back over the hill in the direction of the water wells.

Tileena’s screaming finally spurs my body into action.

“You cheated!”

But when I look, it’s not only her in the field of burning grass.

She’s in a standoff, face to face with a werewolf just a few feet away.

It’s not the normal fully grown larger-than-a-tent werewolf. It’s a pup. The tiniest and cleanest Suhkil I’ve ever seen. His white fur is burning.

My mind doesn’t comprehend what I’m seeing. It’s not just him in flames, my girl is on fire too.

There’s no time to think as instinct kicks my legs into gear. Ainsley and I sprint down the hill parallel to each other, dodging and jumping over rocks and the tiny stream.

Orange flames race up my girl’s arms, forcing my legs to pump faster, knowing she’ll die in that fire. The dried knee-length grass set ablaze around her makes my heart beat uncontrollably for fear that I might already be too late. Static in the air cracks and sparks around her while the orange circle of flames only increases with each passing second.

Faster I will my legs to pump. Faster to get to her. My feet hardly connect with the ground, carried mostly by momentum, straight for her.

If that’s a pup of a werewolf family… the rest of them must be close by.

A fearful Kearan jumps out from behind a cracked boulder as I maneuver around him, only to slow when I realize Tileena isn’t on fire.

She is the fire.

Ainsley doesn’t stop, she launches herself at the wolf pup only slightly smaller than herself and tackles him into the tall grass where I lose sight of them.

“He cheated! He can’t do that!” Tileena screams in a fury I’ve never seen from her before. Flames pulse higher as she stomps her feet and slams her fists against her side.

It’s… wrong. All wrong.

My mind tries to align what I see with what I know to be true.

She should be screaming in pain, begging for it to stop. But instead, she’s… angry at the wolf as if she knows him.

Lightning strikes the grass and trees around us as thunder rumbles barely a second later. On instinct I duck from the lightning, covering Kearan as best I can with my body. Evergreens, not even thirty feet away spark on fire as the bolts crack into the trunks, splintering them on impact.

When Ainsley finally stands, she’s as pale faced as her mocha complexion will allow. Her two hands securely wrapped around the shoulders of the boy I would give my own heart for. She stands Delario up as if to show me proof of what she can’t believe with her own eyes.

There is no werewolf anymore.

The same mocha skin and stern eyes he gets from Ainsley replaces the furry white wolf that was snarling at Tileena a second prior.

“Baby girl, look at me.” I call, trying to calm my racing nerves as I edge little Kearan behind me. The flames continue to grow around Tileena. The tall dried grass is caught in an uncontrollable wildfire the same way the ends of her hair appear to burn, thanks to the flames circling around her at shoulder height. If the flames don’t burn her, the smoke will gas her out.

I can’t lose her in there.

I refuse to watch my child die.

“He-”

“I know.” I push every ounce of fear down and try to pull out all the tools I have as a mother. “I know, my sweet Tilly, but do you remember what I always say? Show love. Everything you do, you do with love. Walk this way. We need to show him love and show me how much you love me by coming here safely.” My left arm stretches out for her, guiding her from over a dozen feet away. Trying to find the safest path for her to walk with the least amount of live flames. I pray that her bare feet aren’t too badly burnt.

Yet the scorching embers on the brush of the field seem to have no effect on her. At least there’s one saving grace from the Gods.

The closer she gets to me, the more the flames subdue themselves, acting on unspoken orders. As more human skin shows through, the red protruding veins on her hands and chest begin to recede with each pulse of her heart.

“Is everyone okay?” A quiver shakes Ainsley’s voice as she tentatively makes her way over to us, nervously eyeing up Tilly as if she might erupt again.

“You’re just a poor spor-” Delario starts in on Tileena as I inspect her for burns.

Not a single mark.

“Enough! We are family. We protect our own. We do not hurt each other. This is unacceptable from both of you.” My glare has both our littles shrinking with their heads down. I’m just as strict as I am loving, if not more so. Family is a hard line that I will not tolerate being crossed. “We don’t have time for this. The fire is spreading, and the flames will be high enough to alert the patrolling Suhkil’s over the dunes.” I shout to Ainsley over the commotion of the cloudless-thunderstorm and the mothers yelling while running with buckets of water, trying to control the rapidly spreading wildfire where Tileena was.

“They will take him if they find out.” Tears line Ainsley’s eyes.

I can practically taste her fear because it is identical to what’s in my heart. Fear of our kids being taken. We don’t risk losing only Delario. They would take Tileena and dissect her in every way possible to find out how she set the earth on fire. When they find out she’s Owen Steinheart’s daughter, she’ll be sent back to us in pieces until we give over full control of the Forsaken Lands.

Nausea rolls through my stomach from the thought of the Magicals finding out. I pray those who saw the fire don’t realize Tileena was responsible for it somehow or harbour any ill intentions toward my family. But realistically, over a dozen people saw, that’s the kind of news that travels fast between villages. Instantly I’m hunched over, mere seconds away from throwing up until Tileena’s warm hand lands atop of mine.

I am her rock, just as she is mine.

“They will take them both. We need to get out of here now.” I take control of the situation, my emotions and the conversation by flooding false confidence into my voice. Pushing the nausea down I grab their little hands, only for Tileena to resist, pulling my attention to her nervously tapping fingers.

“But Momma. What about the voices? Will they come too?” She looks around, left and right, then back to me as if I should be seeing something besides burning grass making its way up the hill with dark smoke looming behind.

She fixates on one spot to the left, a few feet away and my heart drops further than I thought possible. That petrifying gut feeling which I thought couldn’t go deeper, drops sublevel. Blood pulses in my ears, taking all my efforts to focus on her and not just toss her over my shoulder and bolt as far as I can carry her.

Tucking Tileena in close, I try to keep my voice from wavering. “My girl. What voices?”

“The ones who sing to us?”

Even the boys look around, looking for someone… anyone. It has to be magic. Powers that can’t be seen. There must be a witch here. Stories and myths of their powers have bled into our lands.

Invisibility being one of them.

Other than the crackling of burning trees and women rushing with buckets of water to put out the fire - only resulting in hissing steam - there isn’t any other sound I can hear or soul I can see.

Every ounce of my willpower is tested to remain calm and loving, to hold back tears that threaten to spill. To keep my bottom lip from quivering and frightening her. “Who sings? What are they saying?”

Tileena’s tiny black eyebrows knit together in utter confusion that I don’t know what they are singing. “The women. Theres a whole band of them. They sing the song over and over. They even point to their arm.” She points to the side, transfixed by some focal point in midair that makes me pray to the Gods for a quick death.

Please don’t let it be drawn out. Please don’t let my kids watch me die.

“Gods above, save us from this reckoning-” Ainsley starts, head lowered against the top of Delario’s head as she prays aloud.

“Enough Ainsley. Keep it together.” I snap, turning my attention back to my girl. “Show me. Do exactly what they do.”

Maybe she’s envisioning something from a dream of hers?

The only other possibility is invisible witches speaking to my daughter and that thought sends shards of fear lacing through my spine, straight into my gut. I won’t let them take her. I fought from the beginning to have her. They will have to pry her out of my cold dead body before I give her up.

Tileena turns, pointing around us in a large circle where we become the center. Ainsley’s grip tightens on the boys as we unconsciously gravitate closer together. In the tall dead grass, I see no footsteps or broken straw. No pathways or weight markers to show me how many witches we face.

“Momma I can’t sing that high, but I try.” Tileena starts to softly sing in the highest pitch I’ve heard her use.

“ This little one will harness the powers of the moon and the sun,

where they will all converge into one,

ruling as never before been done.”

For the first time since I’ve had her, that sweet and sassy voice makes my blood run cold. The hairs on my arms and neck stand straight. My hands clench around my thighs, nails digging in so that my hands don’t betray my calm facade by shaking.

“Okay, Tilly, you can stop.” The words come out breathless, but she doesn’t stop.

She keeps the same eerily high-pitched tune as Ainsley and I stare at each other with pure fear written across our faces. If anyone hears her, we are dead. All of us.

“ Twins of the living flame,

will rule over life and death destined to share the blame.

These two appear to be kissed by the sun and the moon,

the powers of both the light and dark will untwine soon.”

“What does untwine mean?” Kearan’s innocent voice cuts through my fixation on her singing.

Ainsley acts on instinct to deal with the question, mechanically answering our youngest while I watch Tileena complete the next step by pulling up the tawny brown sleeve of her long shirt. Two faded bands wrap around her upper right arm that weren’t there this morning. Her confused gaze mirrors mine as she searches for answers I don’t have.

The top ring resembles a bleached line, whiter than her already pale pinkish skin.

The lower ring wrapping around the middle of her tiny bicep is nearly grey, similar to the way a tattoo discolours and fades over time.

Both are an inch thick and cause Tilly to wince like a bruise when I softly graze my thumb over them. They aren’t raised nor do they feel any different than her skin. 

“Momma, look. The ladies are gone.”

Instinctually I whip my head around to confirm if the invisible witches have indeed disappeared. I can’t tell, but I trust her. We raised them not to lie.

This is our chance.

“We need to get to Owen and Adrien and leave now.”

Nothing more needs to be spoken, Ainsley and I both know we are leaving tonight. Fleeing the second we locate Owen.

We quickly walk with the children up the grassy hill, pretending to hold a normal conversation between the five of us until we find the remaining two members of our mixed family. Our essentials are already wrapped up and any extra food we need can be packed quickly.

We will be gone by the hour.

Owen isn’t the kind of man who needs more convincing than a single word from me. Family comes first for both of us. Besides, he certainly won’t be needed to lead our men against a werewolf attack.

There won’t be one.

This was the reckoning.

Our human daughter isn’t fully human, she’s a witch.

A witch who can conjure flames from her bare hands without so much as a burn to her flesh. A witch who can make lightning strike from a cloudless sky. Suhkil’s have decimated cities for less.

Once they find out about her, they won’t stop until they have her. Tileena is a witch they will come for.

One they won’t rest until they find.

The daughter of the Rebel Leader is a witch they will hunt and kill to get their hands on.

We can’t let them find her.

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