When Stars Die
Author: Amber Skye Forbes
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Synopsis: Amelia Gareth's brother is a witch and the only way to save her family from the taint in his blood is to become a professed nun at Cathedral Reims. However, in order to become professed, she must endure trials that all nuns must face.
Surviving these trials is not easy, especially for Amelia, who is being stalked by shadowy beings only she can see. They're searching for people they can physically touch, because only those they can touch can see them. Amelia soon learns why she is being stalked when she accidentally harms her best friend with fire during the third trial. Fire is a witch's signature. The shadows are after witches.
Now Amelia must decide what to do: should she continue on her path to profession knowing there is no redemption, or should she give up on her dream and turn away from Cathedral Reims in order to stop the shadows who plan to destroy everything she loves?
SNEAK PEEK
The sound is a
dagger scraping crosshatches on a frosted windowpane, its echoes loud in this
insensible room I’ve been locked in for the past few days. I want to remedy my
fears over the sound, but I’m more terrified of the impending trials that will
determine my readiness to be professed in the Order of Cathedral Reims. The
trials are the reason I have been locked in here.
Colette sits beside
me, lost in knitting a scarf she has been working on for a week—the amount of
time we’ve been trapped in here with minimal food, water, and sanity. Her
ability to shut out the world with a click of the needles is something I have
always envied. For her, the world is nonexistent.
But not for me.
The sound strips my
nerves raw, so I tighten my shawl and rise from the creaking mattress. My
boot-clad feet meet the floor, and in spite of my stockings, cold still shoots
through the soles, hibernating in my bones. Pulling in a deep breath of biting
air, I tiptoe over to the door and press my eye to the keyhole that overlooks a
bright hallway. The air freezes in my chest. I knew I heard those blasted
shadows, the eerie, almost impossible sounds they make whenever their black
cloaks trail along the cobbled floors of Cathedral Reims. Sometimes I wonder if
they’re witches, people born of the Seven Deadly Sins and considered worse than
murderers in the eyes of the law. Then I remember my little brother is nothing
like them. They are mere shadows. Mere shadows.
Two of them stand
outside the room. I recognize them. The tall one is Asch, and the little one is
Sash. I don’t know where I heard their names. Here, in my dreams, in nightmares,
or somewhere else.
I wish they would
go away. I wish, I wish, I wish. I close my eyes. Open them. They are still
there. Why must they be here? Theosodore, our Mother Superior’s lackey, could
gather us any moment for the first trial, a trial that will test everything we
are made of, and here are Asch and Sash teasing my nerves with their cold,
white fingers. But I don’t know what it is about them. They haven’t done
anything in the two months since I’ve started seeing them, but their presence
makes sharp fear burrow into my muscles and knot them. I believe I’m the only
one who can see them. This frightens me. Perhaps waiting for these trials has
made me mad.
About the Author: Amber Skye Forbes is a dancing writer who prefers pointe shoes over street shoes, leotards over skirts, and ballet buns over hairstyles. She loves striped tights and bows and will edit your face with a Sharpie if she doesn't like your attitude. She lives in Augusta, Georgia where she writes dark fiction that will one day put her in a psychiatric ward...again. But she doesn't care because her cat is a super hero who will break her out.
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