[excerpt] by Editor

to the glass, Lucian watched Serina grow smaller with each step the horses took from her.
    Serina stood at the edge of her lawn with one foot in heaven and her other foot dancing lightheartedly on earth as she watched her future roll off in the carriage. The sky dazzled her with stars. Each more brilliant than the next as they shimmered like tiny diamonds strewn across black velvet. The full moon’s glow replenished her energies better than the sun on a bright warm day. A simple grin graced her cheeks. What was this feeling that invaded her? Lust or love? Or was it just the heat and one handsome, gentle man with the most dreamy eyes she’d ever lost herself in?
    Her merry thoughts faded as she worried over Lucian’s attacker. Even with the heat, shivers bit into her spine like the blustery March winds on a rainy day. Serina retreated inside and locked all windows and doors. She wasn’t sure at that point if it was easier to die from heat stroke or a vampire attack. Serina went with heat stroke. It seemed the lesser of the two evils.
    Curled up in her bed, she lay quiet under her quilt, feverish and sweating, yes sweating, her knuckles woven into the quilt for a sense of security more than anything. She began to rethink the night’s events and was astonished with the outcome. She’d saved a very handsome, eligible man, his sister, and even gotten a dinner proposal. Not to mention her first kiss. She could still taste him on her lips and what a rare delicacy. Serina drifted off to sleep hoping to dream of the new man in her life, but her dreams were not so kind.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
    The first dream of many began with strangers pointing accusatory fingers at her. “Witch...she’s a bloody murdering, whore of a witch. Kill her,” they cursed in unison.
    Nothing like a good tongue lashing to get your blood to boil. “I am not a whore,” she cried out in her sleep, arguing with no one in particular. “Why wouldn’t you defend yourself against being a witch?”
    The fact that she didn’t have a brilliant hypothesis irked her.
    The rocks these heathens launched, as she hung on the wooden stake about to be crucified, filleted layers of her skin. It didn’t take long before her flesh resembled one of her autopsies, except she happened to be quite alive and very unappreciative of the pain. Her tormentor’s lifeless faces, with their eyes pecked out from their sockets, and necks ripped open, accused her of the one thing she prayed she was not. But in complete honesty, Serina had questions. How could she do the things she did, to heal the deathly ill or read people’s minds or adjust the weather? All right, she still had to work the kinks out of the weather. It never turned out as sunny as she wanted.
    Serina didn’t have the answers, but those ruining her good night’s sleep did.
    Witch.
    At least they’re no longer calling me a whore.
    “Whore of a witch!”
    Dammit!
    Serina’s dreams dragged her through the wee morning hours and ended when she awoke screaming. Her heart thumping loudly, Serina lay as still as the proverbial church-mouse, drenched. A none-to-subtle headache prodded her mind, and left her feeling as if she were up to her eyeballs in quicksand.
    What the heck?
    After a frantic few minutes, she’d figured out the culprit was dehydration. The previous evening depleted her. Roughly five feet away she spotted her destination; a nightstand with a water pitcher. The quilt went first. Serina dangled her feet over the bed and attempted to cross the room. Stepping onto the floor, she found the quicksand beneath her. With every step she took the deadly granules sucked at her, surrounded each toe and weighed her feet down. She pulled each leg up and placed it in front of her, in an attempt to walk, but her thighs burned and her toes turned into knotted cramps. The water pitcher may as well have been a mirage.
    Her reflection in the looking glass, parched lips, cracked and bleeding stuck out