DESECRATION, Serial: Part 3 of 3 (Book One of the Wizard Queen at Sixteen Series)

By Hadley Holt

In a hidden world of wizards where only men hold the power of magic, one girl arises with the power to change everything, if she isn’t killed first...
Adriana Victoriana Evangelista (Addie), daughter to the High Chancellor of the Wizard’s Council, has always been the perfect wizard girl. She never questions why men possess magical powers and women have no power at all, magical or otherwise. Male wizards blend into the modern human world, leading huge corporations while wizard women are sequestered away.
On her sixteenth birthday, Addie discovers she possesses magic. Under wizard law, she is a desecration. An ancient prophecy surrounds the emergence of a girl magic-wielder, the wizard queen, who is destined to bring about the downfall of the wizard-kin.
Addie has long had a forbidden crush on a human boy who lives in the wizard stronghold, Rory Devlin. As she delves deeper into the dangerous mysteries surrounding her own destiny, she suspects Rory might be more than just human.
Addie’s fate sends her straight into the path of a powerful and evil sorcerer, but the worst danger of all may come from right inside her own home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hadley Holt
• Release date: Jul 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311317629

Hadley Holt

Hadley Holt, author of paranormal, and fantasy YA (Young Adult) has always loved to write. She also nurtures an incurable fascination with all things supernatural and fantastical. From a young age, she imagined stories about dragons, wizards, witches, ghosts, shape-shifters, vampires, and other magical creatures. As life often does, it blessed Hadley with family and a rewarding career. Hadley spent many years in the not-so-magical world of finance and mortgage banking, but the stories were always there in the back of her mind, demanding to be set free.Thanks to the housing market crash, Hadley finally realized her dreams. She now breathes life into her magical tales of reluctant young heroes finding their inner power to stand up against terrible creatures and even more terrible odds.

Book preview

BOOK ONE OF THE WIZARD QUEEN AT SIXTEEN SERIES

DESECRATION

PART THREE

THE HEART OF MAGIC

HADLEY HOLT

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, places, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights and livelihood is appreciated.

DESECRATION

Smashwords Edition

Copyright (c) 2014 by Hadley Holt

Published by: Angela Cavener & Associates LLC

Excerpt from CONSECRATION

Copyright (c) 2014 by Hadley Holt

Published by: Angela Cavener & Associates LLC

All rights reserved.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

eISBN: 978-0-9915173-0-5

DESECRATION has been released as

a serial, which means it has been split into

separate parts to be purchased individually.

This is the THIRD of three parts.

Please visit the author at:

www.hadleyholt.com

What readers are saying about…

DESECRATION?

Desecration is an addictive book! I could not put it down, and I was done before I knew it! It was exciting to join the main character Addie and her besties on their adventure, including magic, girl power, danger, and forbidden romance! I cannot wait to dive into their next wizardly adventure! —Karen L., Publisher’s Advance Reader

An engaging tale that will lead you on an exciting path of discovery with a little bit of everything: romance, mystery, terror, humor, and a new twist on the world of wizards! You'll find yourself turning page after page to keep the story going. Wonderful 1st book of a series that I hope lasts a long time! —Brandi C., Publisher Advance Reader

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This book is dedicated to my family,

who believes in my dreams.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I love you.

Acknowledgements

I don’t know of any writer who does it all on their own, and I’m no exception. I have family, critique partners, friends, beta readers, and coworkers who have encouraged me, and have rooted for me. They’ve believed in me, even when I had those moments when I didn’t believe in myself (and we all have those moments).

I thanked my family in my dedication, but I want to thank them again, now. I’m grateful to each family member, but I’d like to give a special thanks to Brandi, Nathan, Elizabeth, Kyle, Christina, Mary Lois (Mom), Amy, Rob, Ann, Sylvia, and Kat for continually encouraging me, offering to read, art direction, beta reading, and all-around being vested in my writing. I’ll add a thank you to Parker just because he makes me smile and I make him laugh (he’s a toddler).

I’d also like to thank my long time critique partner, the talented Diane Kelly (author of the Death and Taxes series and the new Paw Enforcement series), as well as my wonderful critique partners: Muffet Frische, Sherrel Lee, Angela Hicks, and Trinity Blake.

I had so many kind people offer to beta read for me, but I only had time to enlist a few for this project (I’ll have more people to thank next time). I’d like to give a special thanks to the ultra-experienced professional beta-reading Karen L. Thanks also to the awesome Linda W., Linda M., Diann L., and Nicole M.

And to my amazing friends who are always in my corner Linda M., Linda W., Diann, Isabel, Sylvia, Tammy, Muffet, Kim, Marion M, and Sharon.

I’d also like to thank two authors who have generously guided me (intentionally or otherwise), Kathleen Baldwin and Liliana Hart.

CONTRIBUTORS

Editors:

Content Editing: Elizabeth Lloyd

[e-mail]

Copyediting and Proofreading: Lauren Sweet

[e-mail]

Cover Artist:

Cover Artist: Nathan Reinhardt

nathanr.carbonmade.com

Stock Art:

Dreamstime

Published by: Angela Cavener & Associates LLC

CHAPTER 25

He Really Is Your Evil Twin

I woke up Sunday morning looking forward to leaving the stronghold and venturing out on our annual shopping trip to Woodstock and New York City. At some point on the trip, I was supposed to locate the Oracle and ask her how to find the Heart of Magic. But most of the trip would be dedicated to having fun and spending money. I couldn’t wait!

Since the liberation of the translation amulet and the codex Tuesday night, or more accurately during the wee hours of Wednesday morning, I had worked myself into magical information overload.

* * *

Hugo kept Izzy and me posted about what he was hearing through the wizard grapevine. News spread fast that there’d been a break-in at the school. No one mentioned anything about the translation amulet, but the missing codex was big news. The council had even met to discuss the stolen text and was supposedly performing locator spells, and even scrying for it. The first thing Hugo taught me that week was how to perform protection and cloaking spells to help keep the codex hidden.

My lessons with Hugo had continued after school Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Neither Hugo nor Izzy asked why Rory stopped coming to the waterfall. When they thought I wasn’t looking, they exchanged glances that made me think they were waiting for me to have a meltdown. For my own mental health, I had tried to push thoughts of Rory to the back of my mind so I could focus on what I needed to learn to survive.

Hugo taught me more magic basics, including how to form my own wizard light, how to suck electricity from a room or a car and use it to boost my magical energy in an emergency, how to detect the presence of an eavesdropping spell, and basic healing chants. He also explained that wizards could only light fires, whereas sorcerers could shoot bolts of fire.

Hugo told me that magic pulled energy from my body and it was important to stay hydrated with plenty of electrolytes. He suggested that I keep sports drinks on hand. Also, the use of magic would deplete my body’s potassium. He explained that sweet potatoes, carrot juice, halibut, tuna, yogurt, bananas, soybeans, winter squash, and even milk were high in potassium.

He also warned me that even if I replenished my body with the food and liquids it needed, a wizard could only do so much magic at a time or in the course of a day.

It’s the same as physical exertion, Hugo explained. Let’s say that tomorrow you decided you wanted to be a long-distance runner. You set a goal of running in a marathon, which is twenty-six miles or approximately forty-two kilometers. There’s no possible way you could run a marathon on your first day. Your body couldn’t do it. You’d probably begin by running three to five miles every other day and work up to twenty-six miles eventually, after weeks or months of training. Magic is the same way. You have to build up your stamina by exercising your magical ‘muscles.’

What Hugo said made sense, so I started myself on a magical exercise program and began to eat more foods high in potassium.

In the evenings after dinner, I had more lessons with Kai and Cheeva. We’d selected my closet as my home classroom, because we were fairly certain that neither my father nor Zarius would have bothered placing an eavesdropping spell in there. Nonetheless, I’d built the strongest ward I could inside the walls of my closet. Once I knew how to detect an eavesdropping spell, I confirmed we’d been right. There were two in my bedroom, but none in my closet or bathroom. There was something disgusting about the thought of someone eavesdropping on your bathroom.

Equipped with instructions from her father, Ju-Long, Kai helped me practice the primary offensive weapon of a wizard, the energy bolt. The positive or light energy of a wizard’s energy bolt attacked and even destroyed the negative or dark magic of a sorcerer. The problem was that sorcerers could do the same thing in reverse, and they could shoot bolts of fire, too. The only other weapon a wizard had was telekinesis, and if a wizard was talented and skilled enough, they could use it as an effective offensive weapon. Practicing my telekinesis and levitation became part of my nightly magical exercise regimen.

By Saturday night, my head was so full of magical facts that it was about to explode.

My biggest disappointment was that I hadn’t found anything in the codex about the prophecy. In spite of how Rory felt about me, I was determined to help him. I hadn’t found any texts about children born of both a wizard and a sorcerer, but the codex was a huge tome. I hadn’t even dented the information contained in its many, many pages. Unfortunately, I couldn’t risk taking it on my trip.

* * *

We were set to leave for our trip after breakfast. For some reason, for which I was incredibly grateful, only my mother was at the table when Cheeva and I showed up for breakfast.

After I finished eating, I put a service dog vest and ID on Cheeva. Wizards always found ways to keep their