Excerpt from As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Excerpt

As Many Souls as Stars

Cybil Harding was born on Christmas Eve, 1576, under inauspicious stars. Her father had drawn the chart himself; it told him that his daughter was destined for an early death, that she would bring calamity to those she loved and those who loved her. But that was hardly surprising, after all. She was a First Daughter, and a First Daughter was always cursed.

It was clearly laid out in the family grimoire, passed down between generations of Harding witches and written in ink that was no longer blood but might once have been: the firstborn child of each Harding generation would be a witch. But if that witch was a girl, then the grimoire was very clear. No woman could bear the weight of such power. She would be tainted, her magic uncontrollable, bringing disaster to all those around her.

Some would call the Harding inheritance evil, even Satanic. The grimoire spoke of dealings with shadows, a dark bargain made in years forgotten that had traded pieces of each heir's soul for power. But Cybil's father, a witch himself, refused to believe his ancestors would have made such a pact. Christopher Harding, a man of the Renaissance, saw his unusual inheritance as an angelic blessing. What else could such magic be but a heavenly gift?

The Hardings were an ancient family—a line that may have once been truly venerable, before the rumors began that they dealt with the dark. They had owned their land since time immemorial, had built their great houses on the same Suffolk hill, over and over, through myriad cycles of destruction: walls of daub and lumber and stone falling to war, flood, and flame; the tenants of their village dying from invasion, plague, and famine; and yet, still, they persevered. Now their walls were brick, they had the favor of Queen Elizabeth, and the village prospered once more after decades of failed harvests.

Christopher Harding had been raised within the fervor of the Reformation. He knew the false idols of stained glass windows and golden statues; he knew that God's plan, inevitable, ineffable, would never afford such power and prosperity to a family that dealt with the devil. Mayhap his misinformed ancestors had believed otherwise, but now he would lead the Hardings down a path of sanctity. With a touch, a chant, he could make lead into gold, sing a storm silent, cause the stars themselves to fade. All "magic" was an exchange, paying with the light of a soul to command the dark—was this not a form of conversion? The spreading of miracles?

To him, the Hardings were nothing less than a line of saints. But if their blessings were biblical, it made sense that—just as Eve herself was tempted—so could little Cybil, squalling red-faced in his arms, someday squander the angels' blessing and tumble into sin. There was only one thing to do with a First Daughter, the act all Harding witches before him had performed when faced with the same problem. He would leave her in the woods for the wolves to take.

Cybil had often wondered why he had not done it. It may have been Christopher's first and final moment of fatherly affection, cradling his child in his arms. It may have been the tearstained and pleading face of her mother, begging him to spare her. It may have been the strength of his faith, that great commandment prohibiting murder. But truthfully—and Cybil knew this well, she spent her whole life knowing it—the only thing that saved the little girl-child was Christopher Harding's hubris. He had heard the wails of his baby and thought, Here is the final puzzle, the final failing of our blood-line; I shall be the one to solve it.

Christopher Harding did not leave his First Daughter in the forest. He took her to the ritual table instead, laying a salt circle around her. He lit candles and chanted an incantation, calling upon the Holy Ghost to release her from her sins innate, to rebirth her pure. And—as he did so—Cybil began to glow with a light that Christopher could not consider anything less than holy. Her cries ceased, and she looked at him with eyes lucid and burning.

From the book AS MANY SOULS AS STARS. Copyright © 2025 by Natasha Siegel. To be published on November 25, 2025 by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.