Possibly a first chapter

I'm thinking of calling it "House of Thorns."



You can't break destiny, they told me. Destiny breaks you.

They weren't kidding.

"Hey, Emma. How are you feeling?"

It was Greg's voice, baritone, soothing. I half stirred from my sleep. My internal clock insisted it was entirely the wrong time to be waking up, and when I peered through my eyelashes I could see that it was still dark outside. Night. And then I saw his silhouette, backlit from the streetlights streaming in the window. He was sitting beside me on the bed, still fully dressed, obviously home from a late night at the office. Greg. My husband. He was home. I smiled drowsily and reached out to twine my fingers with his - and my hand hit the cold cotton of the comforter.

I sat bolt upright and flung my hand out to turn on the touch lamp - and Greg was gone. The comforter was smooth and unruffled, untouched. No one had been there. I sighed and buried my face in my hands, willing my racing heart to slow down.

It was just a dream, or maybe a dream mingled with memory. It had been a year. Greg was dead.

"Sorry, Emma. I didn't mean to scare you."

Greg's voice again. I opened my eyes, and there he was, standing in the corner of my half-empty bedroom. Greg was dead, and a year later, his soul was still hanging around. I wondered what it meant about my husband, that in death he was dressed in a suit sans tie as if he'd just come home from work. He hadn't died in the house - I wouldn't still be living there if the building was burdened with that. I shuddered and tried not to think of the way he'd lost his life, of the last time I'd seen his mortal remains --

"I didn't scare you, did I." It wasn't a question.

I took another deep breath. "Hey Greg."

His smile, though faint, was as sweet as it had been in sunlight. "I don't mean to bother you."

He didn't bother me usually, not really. Catching me half awake, however, was catching me vulnerable. "What's up?"

"There's something you have to see." He stepped forward, offered a hand. He was even more powerful in death than he had been in life, and in life he'd been a virtuoso beyond all expectations, even as the scion of the House of Hawthorne.

"Is this a demand from the House?"

"A warning from the Three." His tone was grim.

I took a deep breath. I wasn't on good terms with the Three. Greg knew the reason. Greg was the reason. He wouldn't have asked if it was for a good reason.

"All right." And I put my hand in his - almost. Before we would have touched - because we couldn't touch - I tumbled into the future.

A cellar. A six-pointed star drawn on the floor, overlaid with a tree of life and runes. Too much magic, too many different kinds. Walls lined with books, floor to ceiling. A man standing in the middle of the star, shirtless and supermodel thin, a book open on his palms. Ink dancing up his wrists, twisting up his arms, twining across his torso.

A lock of brown hair falling into brown eyes alight with a shy smile. A wide, generous mouth, soft in a kiss and quick with arcane words.

Long-fingered, spidery hands dexterous with a coin to make children gasp as it disappeared, smile as it reappeared. Those same hands curled around a gun, squeezing a trigger, six shots, deadly accurate.

A portal, gaping, open, straight to the Deep Nines.

A ring of seven golden candles, and those hands playing with a string of seven shining stars.

Blood. So much blood. His blood. Screaming. A shattered soul. His lips shaping my name.

"Emma. Emmaline."

My name, on his lips, in my dead husband's voice.

"Emma."

The future turned to grey.

"Emma, come back now."

And I was back in my bedroom, sitting on the edge of my bed. Greg sat beside me. I was breathing hard, hands clenched into fists.

"W-what was that?"

"I can't see what you see." Greg's tone was apologetic. "I never could. But it's important."

"Did the Three send a message with it?" I lifted my head and looked into his eyes. I used to imagine that if I looked long enough and hard enough I could tumble into his soul, feel more than just his magic.

He nodded. "They said --" and his expression became slightly puzzled, because the riddles of the Three were beyond the finite reasonableness of his necromancy -- "to watch for your destiny and to give him everything."

I raised my eyebrows. My destiny was a him and not an it. But of course. I'd refused to Stray all growing up, and when I finally Strayed, it was into Greg's arms. I'd already come into my full power, and it was too late for a Stray to be harmless. My proper destiny had finally arrived.

"Thanks, Greg."

Again with his smile. I knew he would have to leave forever one day, but before he did, I wanted to see him smile in the sunlight one more time. He'd stopped reaching out to try to touch me, to comfort me, but knowing he was there was everything. We'd been best friends before we'd fallen in love, and most of the time, I could imagine we were best friends again, the inseparable duo we'd been before we married.

"Anything for my Emmaline."

"I know you don't like talking to them either." I smiled up at him.

"The House of Hawthorne has its rules, and I am still its scion." He rose up. "You should try to get some sleep."

I nodded and crawled back under the covers. "Yeah. Depositions tomorrow."

"Good night."

I smiled. "Good morning." And I sank back into sleep.

Destiny was coming for me.

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