Sonata

Lyra R. Saenz

Description

What's more frightening: The mask? Or the reason it's worn?


Forced to flee her lover, the witch Wren Nocturne knows she still owes a debt. She must exact vengeance for those who resurrected her. Alone, and masquerading as an abused Firefly, she struggles to satisfy the blood curse threatening to tear her soul apart. With nightmarish beasts blocking her way, Wren’s search becomes a cat and mouse game with another powerful witch. Summer Helsdottir has returned, and this time, she's hunting Wren.


Meanwhile, a steadfast Kaito Miyazaki races to find his lover before another technomancer tracks her down. Ready to put everything on the line to reconnect with Wren and keep his witch from facing a second death, he's hot on her trail but always one step behind. Will he catch up before either a witch-killing technomancer, soul-eating curse, or dangerous creature turns his beloved to dust? Wren is counting on her disguise to keep her safe but with peril at every turn, she may need more than magic to escape her fate.

Sujets

• Fantastique
• Romance fantastique
• Romance
• Romance Fantasy
• Paranormal
• Fiction
• Witches

Informations

• Publié par: 4 Horsemen Publications, Inc.
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781644503881
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

Table o f Contents
The Lovers (Reve rsed) – Wren
The A ce of Cups
Fou r of Wands
Que en of Cups
The Hermit
Three of Pentacles
Five of Swords
The Moon s (Part 1 )
The Moon s (Part 2 )
Ace of Swords
Seven of Swords
The Su n (Part 1 )
The Su n (Part 2 )
The Su n (Part 3 )
Fou r of Wands
Fiv e of Wands
Seve n of Wands
Two of Swords
The High Priestess
The Pa ge of Cups
Ten of Pentacles
Four of Pentacles
The High Priestess (Reversed)
The Queen of Cups (Reversed)
Ac e of Wands
Fiv e of Wands
The Hanged Ma n (Part 1 )
The Hanged Ma n (Part 2 )
Strength (Reversed)
Two of Swords (Reversed)
Eight of Swords
T wo of Cups
Glossary of Characters By Faction





Sonata
Copyright © 2022 Lyra R. Saenz. All rights re served.


4 Horsemen Publication s, Inc.
1497 Main St. S uite 169
Dunedin, FL 34698
4 horsemenpublicat ions.com
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Typeset by Niki Tantillo
Edited by Jen Paquette
Triskele design by Sea Cat Art - Instagram @sea .cat.art
All rights to the work within are reserved to the author and publisher. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 International Copyright Act, without prior written permission except in brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please contact either the Publisher or Author to gain per mission.
This is book is meant as a reference guide. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All brands, quotes, and cited work respectfully belongs to the original rights holders and bear no affiliation to the authors or pu blisher.
Library of Congress Control Number: 20 22931311
Paperback ISBN- 13 : 978-1-644 50-389-8
Audiobook ISBN- 13 : 978-1-644 50-387-4
Ebook ISBN- 13 : 978 - 1 - 644 50 - 388 - 1


Dedication
To the cat who sits on my lap for the sole purpose of letting me know how much she disapproves of my constant attention to an inanima te device.




Prologue
The Lovers (Reversed)
Wren
8 th Day in the Month of Falling 1877 A.P . – 3 : 00 AM
S omething wakes Wren at gloomtide, Kai’s arm thrown over her waist—the same old witching hour wakefulness. A nightly happening ever since her magic awoke, she’s long grown accustomed to the sleep lessness.
Despite the darkness, she can see Kai’s face clear as day, a little perk of being a creature of the night even if the gentle browns of his hair and the lavender tones of his skin wash out in the murky wash of nightshade. Her hand gently traces from his brow over the slumbering tech nodes at his temple, and they flicker in response. Her fingertips glide to the ridge of his cheekbone, past the smooth plain of his cheek, and across the edge of his jaw to his where a line of prickly stubble grows, inciting a quiet snuffle from the sleeping tech nomancer.
As her lover settles back, Wren sighs. What might it be like to have this every night, to wake up to this every morning? Between her legs, she can still feel the evidence of their tryst, damp with just a touch of soreness for spice. She purrs, rubbing her knees together and feeling the residual heat of their intimacy.
Kai’s breath fans over her fingertips as she outlines the bridge of his lips, into the divot of his cupid’s bow, and through the slight scruff of facial hair grown out in the night. He nuzzles into her palm, and Wren shifts to replace her fingertips with her lips but winces as the cuts on her fore arm throb.
When she shifts to examine her arm, a horrible sticky sensation travels across her skin. The bandage is soaked, stained a blackene d crimson.
She scrambles out of bed, stumbling into the bathroom. The three cuts on her arm drip rivulets of blood like veins taking root outside her skin and staining the countertop. She yanks on the cold-water faucet and shoves her arm under the water. Swirls of red spiral down the drain.
Unceasing, the bleeding does not slow, and her vision blurs, edges darkening despite the brightness of the mirr or lights.
¡Mierde! How long has she been bleeding?
A sound above the sink draws her attention: a long, croaking rasp rattling out of smoke-soaked lungs. She looks up, and out of the mirror, burning hands reach for her throat, a woman’s face scorched and twiste d in rage.
“ Betrayer!”
Wren chokes on her own scream as charred fingers wind around h er throat.
The witch wakes from her nightmare, the very real cuts on her arm still bleeding though at a much more sedate pace than in her night terror. She draws herself out of the embrace of her lover, goes to solve this new mystery—a burning woman calling to her in her dreams—but the hour following her wake-up call is a waking nightmare all on its own.
While some children in Deriva have nightmares of El Cucuy, Wren has never been afraid of such fantasies. Sleep-generated ghosts and whimsies true nightmares do not make. The bogeyman, the vampyric visitor, the howl of a wolf in the night, the old hag who kidnaps and devours children: nothing so mundane could ever truly frighten Wren. She’s spoken to too many spirits, befriended too many monsters, chased off too many demons. No. People scare Wren. Conversations and expectations, responsibilities laid on her shoulders, and the judgements of strangers… these are what fuel Wren’s most pri mal fears.
And for Wren, being chased from Kaito’s arms is worse than any haunting or night terror she c ould face.
Chased from the first safe place she’s found since before her first death for the simple crime of being who she is, for the name she bears, for the glowing markings on her skin, a part of her wishes she’d never come back in the first place. At least in Death’s embrace, she knew she wouldn’t be c hased out.
But… t hen again.
She was ripped from that safe h aven, too.



To quote the famous play , Hamlet:
“There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than can be dreamt of in your ph ilosophy.”
But Shakespeare had it wrong. Even in a reality as seemingly unlimited by magic and technology as ours, the waking world will always be limited when compared to boundless depths of the imagination, for nothing can stand against its cruelty, its malice, or its unending capacity to dream.
The last words of Ho lly Bishop
Hexen Philosopher, 1279 A.P.
1
The A ce of Cups
4 Hours Later – 8 th Day in the Month of Falling 187 7 – 7 : 32 AM
K aito Miyazaki tilts the visor of his helmet up, the sun glinting off the glass as Õr transitions from the orangey-red hues of dawn into the radiant white of true morning. According to the digital clock on his comm, he is scheduled to deliver a mission debrief to his brother in less than thirty minutes. It is a mission debriefing he will not be attending.
Hikaru can entertain himself through the morning.
By the time anyone realizes he will not be showing up, he’ll be miles from Yuki Ga Furu, possibly even beyond Tokiseishu’s city limits if traffic is good. Either way, there is no chance he will be tracked down. He’s left nothing to chance, the Jade Wing locked down to all but Renki’s investigation, Wren’s abandoned belongings tucked into his belt, and his swords strapped to his back.
Once again, he finds himself looking for Wren. His witch, his lover who has by some miracle been returned to the living world. Wren escaped death and, by the tides of fate, found her way back into his arms only to be banished from his view, driven into hiding once more for what and who she is. Her right to stay at his side taken from her by his own blood.
It is an offense he won’t so on forget.

Fifteen Years Ago – 2 nd Day in The Month of Songs 1862 – 7 Months After the Fall of Deriva
In the wake of learning Wren’s fate, Kait o mourns.
Mano, Wren’s bloodstained prosthetic, wrapped up and delivered to the Alliance compound like a consolation prize, haunts Kaito’s dreams. The macabre remnant of a beloved companion seared across his eyelids like a waking nightmare.
When there are no missions to be led, the second prince of Murasaki no Yama pours his grief into his music, playing an unending concert of lamentations to an audience of none. The piano keys resonate unheard in the quietest parts of the night when all but the de ad sleep.
He wears the traditional grays and lavenders of his people’s mourning colors and garbs himself in the plain fabrics appropriate for funerary rites. Not the ideal choice of wardrobe for battle but appropriate for the tumult of emotions that threaten to wash him away. Mirai, Fumiko, and Hikaru can only support him, quiet sentries at his side as Kaito wrestles with his grief.
Wren was more than his lover, after all. Wren was… Well, Wren was Wren.
So, the technomancer takes on mission after mission after mission, flinging himself into his duties. His augmentations buzz, hungry to tear down enemy barriers and tech, and where Wren’s voice no longer can, his blades sing, thirsty for blood. The months pass in a blur of battle and chaos. The mocking proclamation of Wren’s death acts as fuel for Kaito’s rage, a resounding reminder of what he is fighting for in this civil war.
Civil war—technomancer against technomancer/Seraphim and their nuclear might against the rest of the League—the great rift across the continent grows more and more harrowing the longer it progress