Skies of Madness: Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

         Amelia Nathron tucked a lock of her curly raven hair behind one ear and bent down to plant a soft kiss on her baby’s forehead, combing his dark hair with a gentle caress. He was turning two next week, but it seemed like only yesterday that he had come into this world. Memories of pain, fever and being bedridden for a month afterward drifted in her mind before she brushed them away. One look at him and there was no doubt in her mind that he had been worth every second.

         Keiron chose that moment to giggle, clapping his hands together and pointing at her. His foot bumped the smooth wooden ball he had been playing with, and it rolled away from him.

         Amelia laughed with him. Her heart filled with a profound love that made her feel like her body was too small a frame to contain it. When she was younger and wanted to have a baby more than anything, Amelia had never imagined that she would come to love him as fiercely as she did. She was a witch, able to manipulate magic, but there was a mightier magic to her devotion of Keiron that was beyond anything she had ever known.

         Her son by now had noticed that the ball was no longer there. He caught sight of it rolling to rest against the far wall and began to cry. His hands reached out for it.

         “It’s alright, Keiron,” she said as she stood to pick it up.

         The ball wobbled and began drifting back toward the baby—against the incline of the floor. It rolled back into Keiron’s outstretched hands, and he giggled again. The sound was like music, but Amelia stared at her tiny child in alarm.

         Her baby boy had just used magic.

         Amelia knew very well that it was a rarity for a witch or mage to manifest their magic before they were in their teenage years. But her baby boy, just beginning to walk, had used telekinesis for the first time.

         She kissed her son again. “What will you become, little one?”