Finding Amelia Book 2: Becoming Amelia
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Daphne Anders
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Chapter 1
Book 2: Becoming Amelia
AMELIA
FIFTY YEARS LATER
Crimson. Burnt orange. Bright.
Last night, the first blood moon appeared in the skyâit was the first to appear in a long time.
My mother, when telling the story of my birth, used to say that the first blood moon in hundreds of years rose on the eve of my arrival.
I let out a heavy sigh as I stared out the window, watching the vibrant colors of the moon cast shadows through our room.
Alexander was sleeping soundly beside me. His breath was a distant hum in the quiet night, one I couldnât quite recognize but sensed was familiar in some deep way.
Eventually, I drifted off to sleep, more from my own need to dream than anything else.
I woke before the sun even touched the horizon.
The dim blue light of dawn glowed against the lace curtains. Alexanderâs breathing was slow and steady, his arm resting heavily across my waist, anchoring me somewhere between reality and dreams.
But I was no longer dreaming. Not really.
It hadnât been a nightmare this time.
It felt like a memory.
The kind of memory that doesnât arrive simply in images but instead in sensationâthe metallic tang of blood at the back of my throat, the unbearable heat of fire crawling across my skin, the sound of my own scream bouncing off stone walls. There was a voiceâAlexanderâs, I thinkâcalling my name in desperation. And then, nothing but the cold silence that comes after loss.
I drew in a slow breath and let it out carefully, trying not to stir him.
For fifty years, weâve lived like thisâsafe, quiet, and mostly forgotten.
And yet, as the memory faded, something else came in its place.
A prickle.
A watching.
A warning, even.
I slipped from beneath the linen blanket, my bare feet meeting the worn wood floors as I let out a breath. The cottageâs floors creaked as they always did, the old stone bones whispering beneath the weight of my presence. I pulled one of Alexanderâs gray wool sweaters over my nightgown and started toward the kitchen area.
Outside the window, the forest stood like a wall of its ownâbark in the form of concrete as birches and dark firs stood tall, their branches woven with frost-covered ivy and littered with moss. Latviaâs forests were ancient, older even than the partially rebuilt home we now claimed as ours.
I poured a cup of steaming teaâchamomile and lemon balm that I had dried last autumn. The steam brushed against my face as I inhaled the decadent scent.
It has been more than fifty years since I awoke in Rachelleâs body, with her mind but without my own memories.
Itâs been fifty years since I found Alexander again.
Sometimes I forget what it was like before. Sometimes I wake and wonder if the time I lost was a dream.
But then I see himâhis green eyes across the beautiful garden we built together, the warmth of his hand in mine, the way he says my name as though itâs a promise instead of just a word.
Amelia.
That alone is enough to anchor me.
But this morning, the forestâs quiet felt different.
I set the mug down, crossed to the front door, and stepped onto the porch. As my gaze tracked across our boundaries, beyond the herb beds and the trees, my eyes lingered in the forest beyond.
Magic here had always hummed beneath the soilâcandles lit with a single soft word, herbs grew in days instead of weeks. But lately, that hum has become a murmur.
And nowâŚa pulse.
For the briefest moment, the edge of the forest shimmered and shined, as though the air itself shifted between worlds.
I looked down at the place where the dark mark used to taint me. It was gone, but the lingering feeling still lasted even in its absence.
I blinked, and it was gone.
Behind me, footsteps sounded.
I turned to meet his heavy gaze.
âYouâre up early,â Alexander said, his voice soft and steady.
âI remembered something.â
He stepped beside me, draping the burnt orange wool shawl from the rocking chair over my shoulders. âPerhaps a dream?â
âNo,â I whispered. âA memory.â
His jaw tightened. âFrom then?â
I nodded.
He didnât ask which oneâthere were too many to even name, and some memories were better left untouched.
My grip on the shawl tightened. âI think somethingâs here.â
âWe havenât had trouble in decades,â he said calmly.
âMagic doesnât vanish,â I murmured. âIt waits, and I thinkâŚitâs waking up again.â
âYour magicâs been growing, hasnât it? Do you think itâs still affected by what happenedâŚby the darkness you used? By the blood magic you harnessed?â
âYes,â I admitted truthfully. âBut itâs more than that. I hear the forest even when itâs silent. I feel the old wards in the soil. And this morning⌠I saw her out there, beyond it all.â
âHer?â
âMyself.â
He didnât flinch; he just studied me with that steady patience Iâve always envied, the kind I could never quite harness myself.
âI saw myselfâstanding under the oaks. Watching me.â
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then his fingers slid into mine. âYou once told me that magic loops.â
âI said that the day we married,â I murmured.
âThen maybe this is another loop.â
Maybe.
But deep inside, I knew it was more than what I thought it would be.
Something was bleeding throughâsomething that had been waiting for me to forget.
And I hadnât.
Not truly.
âDo you regret it?â I asked.
âRegret what?â
âComing back here and rebuilding this placeâstarting over.â
âNever,â he said without hesitation. âThis land is old, but itâs ours. We reclaimed what was stolen from my family, for my mother too, and we found peace.â
âPeace never lasts.â
âNo,â he agreed softly. âBut love does.â
I leaned back into him and closed my eyes against his chest.
Thenâa noise sounded from the forest before silence overtook me again.
âI think we need to prepare,â I said.
âFor what?â
âFor something coming.â
Alexander didnât argue. He never does when my magic tells me something. âThen we speak to them.â
It took me a second to realize who he meantâthe resistance.
Even after all these years, the word still carried weight.
Once, it was nothing more than a handful of us, something we formed for protectionâs sake after what happenedâafter I was kidnapped, lost, memories torn from me, then witchkind was attacked as a whole.
The resistance was formed of witches who left their covens, werewolvesâor in other words, shapeshiftersâwithout packs, and Fae who had been cut from their courts. Those who didnât want to stand with their own, or couldnât for the sake of rigidity or tradition. Those who wanted to band together in order to keep magic kind safe.
And now, we were a part of that group, willingly, since the covenâs rigid traditions and power-hungry nature no longer fit our mold.
Alexander and I had both bled for the cause. We smuggled children with sparks in their blood to safe havens. We forged false identities for magical creatures who wanted to live normal lives outside the traditional expectations of their kinds.
And slowly, over decades, our survival became structured.
The resistance became something more than just a scattered networkâit became an underground society of its own. There were cells in every major city, hidden farms in the countryside, and strongholds far and deep into the wilderness.
It worked.
For thirty years now, no major raids. No burnings. No disappearances in the night. We had bought our safety with caution and secrecy.
And yetâŚ
I felt something linger.
âThe wards wonât stop whatâs coming,â I said, because I felt it within my bones.
âYou think itâs tied to the resistance?â Alexander asked.
âEverything is tied to the resistance,â I said simply. âWeâve been too quiet, and if Iâve felt the shiftâŚthe others will too.â
He didnât argue. And I knew that his silence was agreement.
And I feared the forest was telling me that time had come.
