Spotlight on Destiny’s Dark Light – Excerpt!

Now that you know a little bit about the story, we’re going to give you a taste of the first part of Destiny’s Dark Light by Sara Dobie Bauer from our Enchanted trilogy.

In modern day Charlleston, lonely white witch Cyan Burroughs has waited her whole life to lead the battle against dark witches and eventually meet the man she is fated to love. A tragic trolley accident brings Liam Cody into her life. He is her destiny, but he’s also in love with someone else. Now, Cyan and her magic family must find the dark witch who caused the accident while Cyan fights her feelings for Liam–a charming Irishman with secrets of his own.

DESTINY’S DARK LIGHT: PART ONE

By Sara Dobie Bauer

Time will come for Loach and Dorcha to meet, but divining when is no easy feat. Born enemies, the Loach shall harness magic light, while Dorcha brings about eternal night. The Dorcha will have eyes of green and blue, while Loach will shine bright of hue. When they finally meet and their powers awaken, the magic world will be mightily shaken. Our people hope for light magic to triumph, But wishing against fate is an act of defiance. – The Book of Shadows

Cyan Burroughs reclined in the rickety leather chair that smelled of sage with her big, black boots propped on the desk edge. The dim morning light of her aunt Sybil’s secret office was more than enough to read by as she flipped through another dusty tome about spell casting until the pungent odor of painting oils crept up behind her. She turned to find Sybil—red hair in a halo of frizz and a smudge of black on her nose.

“What are you doing here already?” Sybil asked.

“I never went home last night.” Cyan closed the book and tossed it on the desk. They both coughed on a cloud of spilled incense ash.

From behind her back, Aunt Sybil pulled a small canvas and handed it to her niece. “I’m quite proud of this one. Finished it after breakfast this morning.”

Cyan sighed and looked down at the black and white painting—one of dozens her aunt had crafted over the years, never in color, because Sybil’s visions were never in color, as if the fates wanted her aunt’s psychic ability relegated to the silent film era.

The painting was of him again. Cyan had known his face since infancy, the man her aunt said she would one day love. This particular painting was of him in profile, sun shining across his dark hair and casting shadows down his handsome face.

“It looks like every other one you’ve done.” Cyan handed the painting back. She grew tired of his image sometimes, tired of waiting for him to show, tired… just tired.

Cyan jokingly called him “Dofheicthe,” Gaelic for “invisible”—“Dof” for short.

She laughed off all the paintings and Sybil’s promises of true love but secretly kept a folded piece of paper in her wallet—a tiny drawing of his face penned when Cyan was only thirteen, back when she believed fleetingly in princesses finding Prince Charming.

Sybil sighed through her nose and studied the small canvas. She sang, “Someday, my prince will come…”

Cyan yawned and stood. She used the rubber band on her wrist to pull her nappy blonde braids into a huge ponytail on the back of her head and walked to the bookshelf behind the midnight blue curtain, where Sybil kept the real treasures. Most people didn’t know about the secret books behind the blue curtain—books about curses, spells, and the Craft. They may have suspected, but they didn’t know, excepting a choice, old money few. Just as most people didn’t know members of the Plainacher-Burroughs clan were actually witches, Cyan’s father included.

Sybil owned a popular bookstore on Broad Street in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, known simply as Sea Books—an oceanside play on her abilities as a seer—and lived in the small apartment upstairs. People often came for Sybil’s books on natural remedies and self-help, while Cyan’s mother, Rue, taught classes about tinctures and anti-aging creams.

“Did you sleep at all, sweetheart?”

Cyan dismissed her aunt with a hand wave and fingered through spell books until she found one about potions.

Sybil muttered to herself and disappeared back to the front of the bookstore, leaving behind the smell of honeysuckle, a scent that heightened psychic awareness. Cyan resumed her position at the desk and kept reading; she couldn’t do anything else.

Cyan’s destiny had been determined while she was still in her mother’s womb—her powerful Grandmother Plainacher sensed that she would grow to be the Loach, the witch prophesized in her people’s Book of Shadows to take down the dark Dorcha, and Sybil backed her mother’s bid. So Cyan was born to fight, it seemed, but in the long history of her family’s magic, she was the only one who had not manifested during puberty.

The prophecy stated her powers would lie dormant until the appearance of the Dorcha. No matter how many potions her mother mixed, how many blood-bound spells her father cast, Cyan was defenseless in a world that expected her to one day be its protector. She toyed mindlessly with the black agate pendant at her throat.

“Go get me some hot chocolate, dear,” Sybil’s voice said from the front room. “You know how I like it.”

“Dark with heavy cream and two sugars,” Cyan grumbled, although maybe it was indeed time she saw the sun.