Birth of Magic: A Sun-Blessed Trilogy Novella

By Carol Beth Anderson

This novella may be read before or after the Sun-Blessed Trilogy or as a standalone.

I loved the suspenseful twists in Birth of Magic... Couldn't put it down!
-EL

"The entire story is magical."
-Brenda E.

"I love the story all together. Not only is it a great one, it was unexpected."
-Tracy M.

"I was planning to only read a little tonight and then a little more each day...sort of take my time. Nope, not today! I couldn't put it down!"
-Alain D.

*****

"You belong to me. You'll regret ever thinking you could get away."

Fifteen-year-old Kari is the oldest of ten children. When their father abandons them and their mother dies, Kari must care for them all. Overwhelmed, she flees to a nearby city.

Desperation and hunger drive Kari to the only work available—at a brothel run by Roza and Yolin, a cruel madam and her husband. There, Kari forges bonds with another woman and a young handyman. But friendship and fine dresses can't veil the despair of her grim new life.

Knowing Yolin's savagery toward runaways, Kari doesn't dare escape—until an unexpected pregnancy compels her to try. She hides in the forest, where a mysterious magical force shields her from Yolin's pursuit.

When she's most vulnerable, Kari's supernatural protection disappears. Yolin attacks, and she must fight for her life, her dignity, and her child.

But Roza and Yolin are ruthless manipulators. And all Kari's furious strength may not be enough to defeat them. 

Whether you're new to the Sun-Blessed Trilogy or an existing fan, this prequel will captivate your imagination from the first page. Kari's story is a breathtaking tale of unstoppable women and unforgettable magic.

*****

Author Interview:

How does Birth of Magic fit into the rest of the Sun-Blessed Trilogy?

Birth of Magic is a prequel to the Sun-Blessed Trilogy, and it can be read before or after the other books. It's a novella, which means it's shorter than a typical novel, about one-third the length of Facing the Sun.

What audiences is the series appropriate for?

This series is clean fantasy. It's free of cursing, sex scenes, and gory violence and is appropriate for most teens and adults. Birth of Magic has some content that is more mature than the trilogy. However, I was careful in how I addressed sensitive topics such as life in a brothel and the physical ramifications of childbirth. The book is free of explicit scenes. My goal was to deal honestly with the emotional fallout from such difficult life experiences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carol Beth Anderson
• Release date: Jan 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386862888

Book preview

Chapter One

How did magic—that benevolent, untamed force—first enter the world?

---

I have traveled to a dozen lands and have heard twice that many versions of this story. To begin, I shall relate the tale my grandfather told me.

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Generations ago, how many I know not, humanity was on its deathbed. Most children died of starvation, disease, animal attacks, violence, and storms. Fortunate was the person who lived to adulthood.

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Eventually, only one community remained. Some who lived there were desperate. Many had lost even their desperation as they patiently waited for death.

---

-from The Origin of Wild Magic by Edoren the Bard

I want Orsen! The cry rose from a hoarse throat and exited through lips pulled back over crooked teeth.

Oh, Mama, I’m sorry. Kari took her mother’s hand and immediately regretted it when her mother squeezed hard enough to bruise her fingers. Wincing, Kari said, You’re doing a good job.

From her seated position on her old, straw-filled mattress, Kari’s mother threw off her daughter’s hand and returned to her hands and knees, her animal grunt filling the room.

I can see the head, Mama! Kari pushed hard on her mother’s back, just above the swell of her hips, where it always hurt during labor. You’re almost there!

She was overstating it, and she knew it. This entire labor had been slow, and her mother’s pushing was no exception. Only after two more hours did her mother’s excruciating efforts at last pay off.

Another girl! Kari cried, helping her mother recline on lumpy pillows and placing the wailing babe in her shaking arms.

A girl, her mother breathed. Oh, Orsen loves his daughters. Maybe he’ll come home and meet her. Her hopeful gaze fell on Kari’s face.

Maybe he will, Mama. Kari avoided her mother’s eyes. She didn’t believe it for a minute. Her papa had walked away half a year earlier with no farewell, tired of caring for a perpetually pregnant wife and nine children. He certainly wasn’t coming back to meet the tenth.

Kari’s mother spoke soft, adoring words to her screaming babe. She brought the child to her breast, and the crying stopped.

Before long, she pushed out the afterbirth. Kari placed it in a bowl and set to work tying the cord so she could cut it.

Ohh.

Kari turned to her mother to see why she’d made that soft, moaning sound. Her mother’s face was pale, eyes half-closed, arms limp under her new child.

Mama, what’s wrong?

There was no answer.

Kari looked down to where the baby had emerged minutes before. She stumbled back, shocked by the quantity of thick, crimson blood spreading on the old birthing quilt underneath her mother’s hips.

Mama? Kari grabbed her mother’s shoulder and shook it hard. But her mother’s eyes were blank. Mama!

The second Mama was a scream, and moments later, the bedroom door swung open.

What’s wrong? Jenki asked, her eyes wide.

Kari was crying too hard to answer her little sister.

Jenki was thirteen, two years younger than Kari, and she’d helped with a couple of their mother’s births. She ran up to the bed. Mama! she cried. She grabbed the baby, who was no longer suckling, and pushed the newborn’s little mouth back onto their mother’s breast. It’ll help the bleeding stop; Mama told me that!

Kari couldn’t move. She watched the baby latch onto a breast that wasn’t moving up and down as it should be. Her mother’s eyes were still partially open, as was her mouth, but she wasn’t looking at anything.

Jenki looked up to the ceiling. Sava! she screamed. Make my mama breathe!

Kari stifled a sudden, humorless laugh. Jenki really thought the mysterious god in the sky would help their mother? They all heard stories of magic entering the world and helping people who were in trouble. But not people like them. If Sava existed, he certainly wasn’t aware of the big family crammed into this dirty little house.

Jenki’s gaze at last dropped from the silent ceiling and returned, hopeless, to their mother.

Kari walked toward the door, barely feeling the dirt floor under her bare feet.

Where are you going? Jenki asked.

Kari didn’t turn as she answered, To find a wet nurse.

I can come twice a day. You’ll have to supplement with cow milk or goat milk the rest of the time.

Kari stared at the woman who lived three houses down. She was standing at her open door, bouncing her own baby on her hips.

Did you hear me, Kari?

Kari nodded.

It’ll be up to you to keep that baby fed. Twice a day from my breasts won’t cover it. You’ll have to be the one to mother that baby now. You’ll have to mother all of them.

The woman’s stern expression softened, and she stopped bouncing and placed a hand on Kari’s shoulder. I’m sorry about your mama. I really am. I’ve got a jar of goat milk from this morning. Give the baby a little bit now, and again at dusk. She’s a wee one; she won’t want much. I’ll stop by tonight. Sava knows I’ve got plenty of extra milk; she can drink her fill.

Kari nodded, took the milk, and walked home.

Kari didn’t exactly decide to leave. She just woke in the middle of the night, two days after her mother’s death and her sister’s birth, and knew she had to go.

She was fifteen. She couldn’t raise nine brothers and sisters. If she stayed, the whole town would expect her to take on her mother’s responsibilities. Not just caring for her siblings, but the sewing that brought in barely enough income to keep their family alive. Kari was a terrible seamstress, but they’d still expect her to do it.

On her watch, her siblings would be shoeless and hungry. She knew it like she knew her own name. First, she’d watch them suffer, and then she’d watch them die—the little ones first, then the bigger ones, withering to nothingness, bellies protruding from starvation, finally drifting to sleep and not waking up. And all because their sister couldn’t care for them.

If she left, surely the other families in the community would take her siblings in. They’d have to. Jenki was too young to care for the little ones; no one would expect that of a thirteen-year-old.

I don’t want to go. But the alternative, letting her brothers and sisters suffer under her care when she was still a child herself, was unthinkable. This is the only choice.

Kari packed a bag and got dressed. She tiptoed to her mother’s bed, then kissed her hand and held it over the three sleeping children there. She repeated the action at the doorway of the other tiny bedroom and at the entrance to the kitchen, where three children slept on the floor. By the time she held out her kissed fingers to the baby, who was wrapped in a blanket in an old basket near the stove, her hand was trembling uncontrollably.

She grabbed her mother’s boots from their spot by the front door and fled outside, not stopping to put them on until she was two houses down. Then she walked toward the edge of town, gaze straight ahead, quiet tears washing her cheeks.

The nearest city, Esherin, was a two-day walk from Kari’s town.

The trip was miserable. Not the weather; it was sunny and warm. Kari had enough food, too, and she could refill her water skin in the nearby river as often as she needed to. She even found a barn with a comfortable hayloft to sleep in.

No, she wasn’t experiencing physical discomfort. It was the silence that tortured Kari. It gave her time to think about her mama’s last moments, to question what she could have done to stop the hemorrhage. Had she pulled on the cord, detaching the afterbirth before it was ready? She didn’t think so, but perhaps she wasn’t remembering clearly. What about herbs? Surely her mother had something that could have stopped the bleeding. Why hadn’t Kari ever thought to ask that?

Every time she convinced herself to stop thinking along such lines, Kari instead questioned if she should have left. It was a terrible thing, sneaking out in the middle of the night. Her siblings would panic when they couldn’t find her. She even thought of going back, but that wouldn’t solve anything. Caring for nine siblings was impossible. She was fifteen, for Sava’s sake.

But it didn’t matter how many times she pictured her siblings safe and warm in the homes of benevolent townspeople. Another image kept intruding—her father leaving his family, just as she’d done.

I am a coward. A selfish coward.

She kept walking, the word coward echoing in her mind with every footstep.

When she reached the city, the odors of close living assaulted her—open sewers, fresh bread, spices, unwashed bodies. She breathed it all in, begging the pungent scents to replace her torturous thoughts.

As she’d traveled, a question had occasionally interrupted her self-loathing: Where will I stay in the city? What will I do? She’d pushed such practical concerns away, convinced she’d find a job of some sort, assuring herself that once she made a little money in the city, she could even bring her siblings to live with her there.

But as she walked the unfamiliar streets of Esherin, her optimism fled. Nobody knew her here. What would they think of a stranger with no skills to speak of?

Kari gritted her teeth against her doubts. Just go in the inn right there and ask for a job. It’s not that hard.

The inn had nice paint, flower boxes on the windowsills, and a big front porch where a woman was knitting. It looked like a place Kari’s mother would approve of.

Good afternoon, Kari said. Are you the owner?

The woman looked up. Her gaze flicked up and down Kari’s form, and she grimaced. No.

Kari glanced at her dusty dress and shoes. She looked like a traveler. That’s because I am a traveler. A confident traveler. She lifted her chin. Is the owner inside?

Yes. The woman returned her attention to her knitting.

Inside, Kari knocked on the open door of a small office. Pardon me, she said to a short man with a thin face, I’m looking for work. I can clean and even cook a little.

The owner appraised her with eyes even sterner than the woman’s had been. We have all the help we need. He stood and closed the door.

Well, then. Kari pressed her lips together and walked back outside.

As she made her way down the street, the establishments diminished in