A War of Daisies Read online

  A War of Daisies

  The Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse

  Book One

  _______________________

  A.A. Chamberlynn

  Books by A.A. Chamberlynn

  The Four Horsewomen Series

  A War of Daisies (Book 1)

  A Death of Music (Book 2)

  A Famine of Crows (Book 3)

  A Pestilence of Pride (Book 4)

  The Zyan Star Series

  Martinis with the Devil (Book 1)

  Whiskey and Angelfire (Book 2)

  Vengeance and Vermouth (Book 3)

  Black Magic and Mojitos (Prequel Novelette)

  Sorcery and Sidecars (Origin Story Novella)

  The Quinn Chronicles (A Zyan Star Spin-off Series)

  Death and Dating (Book 1)

  Death and Promises (Book 2)

  Death and Eternity (Book 3)

  The Timekeeper’s War Series

  Huntress Found (Book 1)

  Huntress Lost (Book 2)

  Huntress at War (Book 3)

  Other Books by A.A. Chamberlynn

  Of Blood, Earth, and Magic

  www.AlexiaChamberlynn.com

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  A land ravished by magic, a circus of rebels, a girl with a deadly secret.

  There was a time when the Tribes lived in harmony. Sun, Moon, even the fabled Shadow Tribe. That time is no longer. Now the land has become a wicked wasteland, plagued by strange creatures, enchanted storms, and bubbles of trapped time, remnants of the Shaman Wars. Magic has been outlawed by the Sun, the Moon have gone into seclusion, and the Shadow are all but annihilated.

  For Elea, the idea of peace between the tribes is a nothing more than a legend from the history books. She works for a circus of outcasts who travel between the Sun cities. All she wants is freedom: from the circus, to perform her magic, to be herself. But she possesses a deadly secret that makes any chance of liberty impossible.

  Ashe is heir to one of the seven Sun cities. He rebels against his overprotective father by competing in illegal fight dens. Like most Sun, he believes that science is the future, and he's never traveled outside the walls of his city due to the dangers that lie beyond.

  When a new kind of evil begins to terrorize the land, Elea and Ashe find themselves thrown into the center of a coup that could destroy Iamar. To fight the enemy, the Sun and Moon must unite, something that hasn't been done in three hundred years. But first they must find the Moon Tribe, and that means crossing Iamar, which grows more and more unstable as the dark magic spreads. Dark magic which has everything to do with Elea and her terrible secret.

  Copyright © 2020 by A.A. Chamberlynn

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information contact A.A. Chamberlynn at www.alexiachamberlynn.com

  Cover design by Novak Illustration.

  Prologue

  There existed no town quieter than Hawk’s Hollow. A town of farmers and a town of merchants, a town with a lazy creek meandering through it, a town nestled beneath the shadows of red mountain peaks. It was not the sort of place one might expect to be the spark point of the Apocalypse.

  But then, of course, that’s why they chose it.

  From his vantage point atop one of the skinny buttes jutting up from the valley floor, the demon watched the lights of the town sparkle below him. Night settled across the earth like a blanket, and a fingernail moon dangled high above. He could hear the cicadas in the valley below, thrumming and chirping. He’d go mad if he had to listen to that all night. The earth plane was so…visceral. A cool wind scraped across the rock, and the soft whisper of it almost masked the sound of something—someone—landing quietly behind him.

  The angel stepped up next to Beziel, his golden wings brushing against the demon’s red ones.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” Beziel said with a wry smile.

  “It begins again,” Alinar said softly. His skin seemed to soak up the moonlight, emitting a faint glow that encircled them both. “Do you think you can pull it off this time? We won’t go quietly.”

  Beziel smiled again. “Arrogance is one of our traits. Watch yourself.”

  Alinar made a hmmph sound in his throat, barely audible.

  “These four… they are special,” Beziel said. “Powerful.”

  Alinar locked the demon in his amethyst gaze. “We will see what side they choose.”

  From the hills behind them, the lone howl of a coyote broke the stillness. The angel and the demon turned their eyes from each other and back to the quiet town below.

  Beziel’s words shivered between them. “Well then, old friend, it begins.”

  Chapter One

  Willow

  The afternoon blazed so hot and so bright that Willow was having a hard time taking proper aim, and damn it all, if she missed her shot she would shoot the sun itself out of the sky. Waves of heat rose up from the hard, red earth, covering everything in a haze of watery lines. Sweat dampened the base of her spine, and dust swirled around her boots.

  She fired.

  The high, sharp sound of glass shattering sounded better than a choir of angels. Her target, a bottle on a log, now lay broken in tiny pieces, a spray of blue across the dirt. Willow’s heart skipped a beat and her blood pulsed swiftly in her veins. She lifted the Colt to her lips and kissed it, and the metallic tang in her mouth tasted like victory. Victory and power.

  A soft nicker from her mare Bullet alerted her to company. For a moment she didn’t see anything, which didn’t sit well at all, but then a familiar Appaloosa emerged from the copse of birch trees near the river. Its rider sat bareback, her skin the same cinnamon tone as the mountains rising behind her, her hair ink and midnight. Willow stuck her gun in her belt as they approached.

  “You do know that no matter how good you are, they aren’t going to let you enter the sharpshooting competition or the race.” Penelope signaled her gelding to halt and swung off him. She always dismounted face forward by swinging her leg over her horse’s neck. “Girls aren’t allowed to enter.”

  “First of all, I’m a woman,” Willow said, hips cocked to the side, hands resting on them. “But—” she cut off Penelope’s protest— “I’m well aware that women aren’t allowed, either. Because Hawk’s Hollow is way behind the times. It’s nearly the 20th century for crying out loud.” She stopped there and waited until Penelope pressed for further details.

  “So, you’re out here shooting your gun for the fun of it?”

  Willow’s lips twisted into a smirk. “Well, not that that wouldn’t be a perfectly legitimate reason, but no. I’m going to enter the competition. I’m just going to do it as a man.”

  Penelope’s brow furrowed. “I’m not following.”

  “I’m going. To pretend. I’m a man,” Willow said with great patience and a roll of her green eyes. Sometimes her friends really lacked imagination.

  Penelope stared at her for a moment, and then began to laugh. Loudly. The sound of it carried up into the cloudless turquoise sky and bounced from the red peaks surrounding them.

  “What’s so funny?” Willow narrowed her eyes to dangerous slits.

  “You.” Penelope waved
a hand in Willow’s general direction. “You’re way too pretty to pull off being a boy. I mean, your hair for starters.”

  Willow looked down at her waist-length, arrow-straight platinum hair. It was true. The hair had to go. “So, I chop off my hair. And I bind my chest. Easy.”

  Penelope muttered something under her breath about not having much of a chest to bind, which earned another famous glare. “And what of your mother?” she asked, louder this time.

  “I’m technically an adult,” Willow began, but then stopped. It was a weak argument, and she knew it. Being an unwed woman and all, it didn’t matter that she was legally an adult. Again, antiquated. “But she’ll be out of town. Delivering a big shipment all the way to California.”

  Her mother really couldn’t blame her for being as rebellious as she was. After all, she herself was an airship pilot, and Willow’s dad was an outlaw. It was like putting together two tigers and expecting a house cat.

  A frown tugged at Penelope’s lips. “She’s going to find out. And she’s going to kill you.”

  “What’s life without a little drama?” Willow shrugged, then took two strides to her chestnut mare and swung up into the saddle. The leather creaked softly, her seat and legs melting into it like they were one and the same. She sighed. With a horse beneath her and cold iron strapped to her hip, she didn’t need a thing in the whole wide world.

  Penelope jumped back up onto her own horse. “Fine. It’s your funeral.”

  “Will you bring flowers?” Willow grinned, then let out a cry and pressed her legs against Bullet’s sides. The mare shot out across the earth.

  They led for an eighth of a mile, but the Appaloosa wasn’t about to let them win. Willow heard hoofbeats behind her as they came up fast. Nothing but flat red earth and blue sky lay before them, blurring like a watercolor painting as they flashed across the plains. Far, far in the distance, mountains waved them on. Out here Willow knew no boundaries; Hawk’s Hollow was a dot on a map that held no power over her. Out here she was the sky.

  The Appaloosa’s nose came into view at her elbow. His chest was flecked with foam, his shoulders dark with sweat. Penelope laid low across his neck, his black mane mingling with Penelope’s own raven locks. The horses drew neck and neck. One nose would surge forward, then the other. Red, black, red, black. An eagle swooped down from above to watch them, flinging its shadow across the parched dirt.

  And then it was over, the horses spent and the wind tired of chasing them. Willow reined in Bullet and gave the mare a pat on the neck. She pranced proudly in place.

  “I defy any of the men to beat us in a race,” Willow said. “We’re the fastest thing they’ll ever see.”

  “The race is about endurance, not speed,” Penelope pointed out. “Not as much your strong suit.”

  “That just means it’s easier,” Willow scoffed.

  Penelope raised her eyebrows. “A hundred miles in two days? If you say so.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, I’d better get going. I assume you’ll be at the fairgrounds tomorrow?”

  Willow nodded, eyes aglow. Tomorrow marked two weeks until the Hawk’s Hollow Annual Fair, and just about the whole town showed up to see who was signing up for the race, rodeo, and shooting competition, and to watch the try-outs for the team sports. It was almost as big a to-do as the fair itself.

  “You’re signing up for the rodeo, aren’t you?” Willow asked. Women were allowed to compete in roping, reining, and trick-riding, just not the bronco riding, shooting, or the race.

  Penelope shrugged. “Dynah is. And you know how that goes.”

  “You should do it anyway,” Willow said. “Your sister’s choices have nothing to do with your own.”

  A snort. “We’ll see.” Penelope waved farewell and turned her horse west.

  The two racers parted ways. Willow headed back to her house, taking the long route. Hopefully by the time she got there, her mother would already be gone on her trip. If not, there could be questions, or lectures about staying by herself, or offers to have the neighbors come check on her, and none of those things were desirable in the least. The sooner her mother quit worrying about her when she went on trips, the better.

  But when Willow got back to the little house nestled between the river and the red buttes, she saw to her dismay that her mother’s airship was still perched atop the cliffs overhead. Blast it all.

  She hid the Colt in a wooden box at the base of a large birch tree, then took her time unsaddling Bullet and cooling her off in the shallows downstream from the house. The water from the mountains was cold as the stars and bit like a rattler. Bullet snorted and shimmied in place as she scooped handfuls of it onto her neck and shoulders. Willow didn’t hear her mother approach until she was almost on them, just the shuffle of a boot to alert them to her presence. Her mother never went noticed unless she desired it.

  Willow turned. Her mother stopped a couple of feet away, arms crossed over her chest, dagger sheathed in worn leather strung low across her hips. Faded jeans, fringe jacket, suede hat. Around her neck hung her pilot’s goggles, their huge, black eyepieces staring at Willow as if they suspected her plan. Her mother was desperately pretty, and they looked exactly alike except that her mother had more than a tint of strawberry in her blonde, a fact that made Willow jealous as hell. But we all have our struggles in life.

  “I’m headed out, kid,” she said. Her voice was like the rocks in the river, smooth but hard. “No boys, no guns, no booze, and don’t forget to feed the chickens.”

  “Of course, Lyla,” Willow said. She never called her mother by any of the maternal nicknames. “I won’t play with dynamite, either.”

  “Always the kidder.” Lyla didn’t smile when she said it. “Oh, and one more thing. Don’t even think about getting involved in that race.”

  Willow had been expecting this, so her face was perfectly smooth and her eyes unblinking as she said, “Yes, Lyla.”

  Lyla stared at her for a moment and then rocked back on her boots. “Okay, then. I’m off.” She turned and headed along the narrow path up the canyon wall to her ship.

  Willow waited until the gas tanks in the ship had ignited the flames that flared out the two large hot-air balloons atop the deck; until the ship had risen above the canyon, spooking all the chickens; until the secondary wings had unfolded and the vessel had soared out of sight. Lyla and her rules with it. Then she retrieved her gun, took Bullet to their little ramshackle stable that abutted the cabin, threw her some hay, and went inside to chop off all her hair. She was of half a mind to smoke one of Lyla’s cigars while she did it, but then she’d have to spend well-earned money replacing them before she got back, and it just wasn’t worth it. They tasted awful anyway.

  The cabin was built from small river boulders and boards made from birch and oak. It had a chimney, two tiny bedrooms, and a large kitchen and sitting room. A window in the front lined with brown plaid curtains let in the gurgling song of the river, a song that Willow was fairly certain echoed in her own bloodstream. She was in love with the river and the canyon and the sky and the open plains. But she was also in love with the idea of seeing other rivers, canyons, skies, and plains. Her father was out there somewhere, exploring the world, seeing new things. It chafed at her, just as much as the idea of leaving did. The two opposing yearnings warred inside her every day, some days one taking the lead, the next the other, like wild horses racing.

  She sighed, pulled the rusty scissors out of a drawer in the kitchen, and sat down in one of the wooden chairs. Taking a big chunk of her white-blonde hair in one fist, she tucked it inside the open blades of the scissors up near her ear. With a final mournful look at the shining glory of it, she brought the blades together with a sound both terrifying and triumphant.

  Chapter Two

  Penelope

  Penelope always dreamt of wolves. Red ones and gray ones, occasionally a black or a white one. Sometimes a lone wolf, other times a whole pack of them. Eyes like tiny harves
t moons, or perhaps with an edge of green the shade of an exotic lime. The dream often spun out beneath a dark, star-pocked sky, though sometimes it was daytime in the dream, a turquoise so bright it hurt. But one thing remained constant. The wolves always called to her. And when they did, she woke up.

  She was awake now, and instantly wished she wasn’t, because she could hear very adult sounds coming from her mother and stepfather’s room. Her sister, Dynah, lay asleep in the bed across the room. The moon streamed in the window, and for just a moment, Penelope thought she caught the fading howl of a wolf off in the hills. A real one, not one of the phantom dream wolves. The sound of it vibrated in her chest and made her shiver: wolves were much less common than coyotes in this area. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and got up.

  The window by her bed creaked as she swung it open, the glass cool against her fingers. The crisscross pattern of the wood framing the panes threw a shadow across her floor that looked like the bars of a prison cell. But this cell was open, and the prisoner escaping. She stepped into her boots, grabbed her leather jacket off one of the rough-hewn posts of her bed, and shimmied through the window.

  Night wrapped around her, chilly and welcoming. Her boots landed in soft red earth and a bit of sage that her mother had planted a long time ago. Now her mother planted neat rows of bright flowers at the front of the house. Tulips and geraniums and other flora from across the sea. They fit better with her new life and her new husband. Penelope, unfortunately, did not.

  She passed by the corral where they kept the horses and moved quickly and silently into the darkness. A few more steps took her into a copse of birch trees. The ground rose rapidly up toward the buttes at the edge of the canyon. At this time of night, the peaks looked black, black against a purple sky. Penelope hunched forward, using her hands to balance as she climbed the steep incline strewn with rocks and boulders. Her muscles warmed up quickly, and her breath came out in little white puffs. Above, the stars in the sky winked at her as she drew closer.