Risen Episode One

By Odette C. Bell

Bright things burn in this world. And I’m the brightest.
From birth, I’ve existed for one purpose – to sacrifice my life to the fire within to keep my world safe. But when the man I love banishes me to ordinary Earth, strips me of my magic, and throws me away, I refuse to give up.
I find a way to come back to our broken school and half-destroyed world. And I fight. Because that is all I, Arwyn Bright, was born for. And nothing, not even love can get in my way.
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Risen follows a witch hell-bent on revenge and the man who banished her as they navigate a dangerous magical academy. If you love your urban fantasies with nonstop action, high stakes, and a touch of romance, pick up Risen Episode One today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Jul 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005168391

Book preview

Prologue

Three Months Ago

There was no way I would stop. No way I could.

The end was finally here.

I raced down the side of the hill. The wastelands spread around me, just so much death and destruction, just so much dust, barren land, and ash.

Arwyn, Richard roared from behind me. Too late. My destiny was here, right? Because this was me – how I would end, why I’d been born, my sole reason to be.

As I skidded down the scree made of tightly clumped rocks and dust – always more dust – I saw Fenrir. The largest wolf of all sat in the valley. Its body was made of the void – pure dark death. Its power wrapped around it in coiling clouds, each one more malignant than the last.

They reached up its massive pulsing body to its eyes. They glowed these two flecks of deadly purple. They locked on me. And my gaze locked on it.

I didn’t have a moment where time stood still – I would never be that lucky. The final fight was here, and I was going to take it. Fenrir had murdered too many, taken too much land, destroyed so many dreams. I knew what I would do, but still, as he looked into my eyes and I looked into his, we were two enemies facing the same moment. I’d been born to kill him, and he had been born to kill me. Maybe the only thing that mattered about that equation wasn’t the fact we were of equal power. It was that we were equally trapped.

Arwyn, Richard bellowed louder from behind me.

I turned around and saw his uniform. It was already burned from the other wolves we’d fought through to get here. Only a few scraps of his royal blue remained. They barely made it over his large arm muscles, but at least they matched his eyes.

I even saw one fill with tears. Would he really miss me that much? Sure, we were together. And I suppose, in his arms, I’d briefly felt what it was like to actually belong to something other than a cruel destiny. But the whole point was it was over now. Sweet things don’t last. Everything ends.

I skidded to a stop at the bottom of the valley. Fenrir rose up. In the distance, I heard all the other wolves it had given birth to. I called them wolves, but they were nothing like the mammals. These were pockets of void space – complete pure destruction. Chaos given a mind, given hatred, and given one task – the annihilation of others.

Maybe the rest of the Boys – the elite fighting squad from the Academy – would be out there, fighting the small voids back. Did it really matter? None of our battles would count after this. There’d be no more nonstop, bloody, unforgiving wars. For everyone else, anyway.

Today, it would all end. Both the fight and my life.

I lifted two fingers above me using my left hand. I ensured my wrist was rigid and there was a strong line between it and my shoulder blade. The energy channels within aligned. There was a rush like I’d just jumped into the deep end of a swimming pool.

All the while, behind me, Richard screamed my name. Come back. You’re not ready.

Not ready? Funny, because Fenrir rose.

He didn’t have a body – not like mine. He could decide what his form would become, and now these two massive paws as large as houses pushed down into the base of the valley below him. The pressure was too much, and it created fissure lines that danced and cracked through the barren wasteland. There was no water here – hadn’t rained in years, ever since Fenrir and the wolves had moved in. This particular place had once been farmland, and to my left, just up the hill, I could see a few ruined buildings. There’d been a city out here. I’d been born there, in fact. Flashes of the past sparked through my mind now. Happy summers, cozy winters, family, friends – a life worth living, until the void had moved in.

All of that rage at all of that loss cascaded through me. It forced its way through my energy channels. I started to glow.

Richard reached me. He tried to pull me back, but I was already pulsing with bright energy. He might have been a royal himself, but that didn’t matter. His fingers were burnt. More of his uniform fell off, but those crystal sapphire eyes still locked on me. It won’t work, so don’t do it. Don’t sacrifice yourself for no damn point.

Sacrifice, ha? You know, everyone thinks sacrifice is something different. It’s only when you are asked to give up your life – the greatest sacrifice of all – that you truly find out what it means. There are facts you know with your head. There are facts you know with your hands. Then there are facts you learn with the last beat of your heart.

Fenrir roared. The scream split across the wastelands. It pounded into me from every angle. If I hadn’t already called on my energy, I would’ve been blasted off my feet. Richard was. Though his arm had been burnt, he went to clutch my wrist again, but the scream struck him in the chest, blasting him backward. He landed several meters away, grunting, the air knocked from his lungs. His shirt fell from his chest. There went his regalia – a glowing badge just above his heart. One that signaled he was from the most important royal clan of all. Or at least he would be once I was gone. I was the last of the brights. The rest of my lineage had all gone the same way.

This was what we were born for.

So many people grope toward purpose in their life. I’d had mine from birth. But meaning requires sacrifice.

Trust me, in the end, everything requires sacrifice.

Fenrir roared one last time, brought his glowing eyes down, and locked them on mine.

I did it. I summoned.

Summoning was a rare gift, but rarer still amongst the royal clans. It required one to give their energy, to open up their channels, and to literally burn power from their bodies. There was no one like we brights, no one who could burn just as much.

No, this isn’t how it should be, Richard tried one last time.

I made the mistake of tilting my chin to the side and staring at him with my fiery red hair flicking around my face like groping fingers. Our eyes met. I wanted to say this would be a bittersweet ending, but there was nothing sweet about it.

In fractured blasts, I remembered us being together.

That didn’t matter anymore. It became like all my other memories – food to feed the light.

Grieves, I called. It was the ultimate form I could summon. As I whipped my left hand in a circle above my head, I felt the energy being pulled from my soul.

It was just as Fenrir reared. The giant beast pulled back, opened its jaw wide then wider still, then threw its energy at me. A jaw formed, but the rest of it created this massive billowing cloud of chaos. It surged toward me, dark purple strikes of lightning dancing in every direction.

It struck me with all its force just as Grieves took form above me. It was a glowing red-orange lion. It danced in a circle until it bit its own tail. Then the full force of my bright power was unleashed. I stood in the middle of the circle. Anything within the circle would burn, and that was the point – that was how I would die. But Fenrir tried to attack at the same time, concentrating the majority of his body just above me.

Grieves, burn, I screamed with the last force of my magic.

As my old life flashed in front of my eyes – from the ruined city beyond, to the magical academy where I’d trained for this exact moment – I got ready to let go, ready to give up. I’d come full circle, right? Hence Grieves biting his tail above. When you’re born but you go out into the world and learn your lessons only to come back, you complete your life. And this was me, at the end.

Arwyn, Richard screamed one last time. You’re not strong enough.

I let his words divert my concentration just at the wrong moment. Fenrir reared further back. Grieves had bitten his tail, and the summoning spell was manifesting in bright sparks of the deadliest flames. I was already on fire. Voracious licks of it chased around my cheeks, across my jaw, and down my back. I’d always wondered what it would feel like – and it was pain incarnate. Every single nerve ending exploded with it. All my body wanted was to get away. But I still channeled more and more force.

It wasn’t enough.

Fenrir suddenly broke away from me. The side of his face was burnt. But quickly the cloud of chaos consumed the damage, and he re-grew another head.

And I—

When you sacrifice everything, you do it to win. But when you don’t—

Fenrir roared one last time. I watched that new head form and a new smile spread across his lips.

He had me exactly where he wanted me – and the next move would be all his.

But the next move never came. With a grunt, Richard threw himself in from behind. Somehow he found the strength to crack through Grieves’s circle of fire and grab my stomach. He locked his own burning arms around my middle and pulled me back. He had to use the brunt of his own force to do it.

If I was fire, he was water, and I heard the crashing force of his magic like waves smashing against an already broken seawall.

I will not let you die. This has never been about you sacrificing yourself, Arwyn. This has always been about you living in any way you can.

On the words I will not let you die, it was like he gave a decree. He shoved his feet down into the burning dust just beneath us and yanked me back. It pulled me out of the spell.

Fenrir roared.

Though it seemed as if he’d absorbed all the damage I’d wrought, he was still wounded. I could see the flighty look in his eyes. He could take this moment to destroy me – and risk himself – or he could just take another in the future.

He roared one last time, then turned.

Richard kept a hand on my stomach and one flat on my chest. It was like he was trying to hold my heart in place. I couldn’t tell you if it beat anymore. My body… I’d never been in pain like this. This wasn’t just my burning skin. This was existential. I’d been born for this moment, but it had come and gone, and I’d lost—

This is enough, Arwyn. If you can’t see that you weren’t born to die, then you don’t get to play this game anymore.

I let out a spluttering breath, blood splashing over my charred chin. It’s not a game. People’s lives are—

At stake, he snapped over me as he bodily grunted and started to drag us back. How he had the strength to pull us up the hill despite the fact my Grieves spell had given him deep burns all over his front, I didn’t know.