Pelonie smiled. She was the mother, smoothing her long skirts, her mahogany hair flaring in thick, curled waves beneath the many braids, gleaming with the same otherworldly light glowing in her eyes. “You are a daughter’s daughter. Descended from a queen. Did you think me such a fool to believe the lies? Not see the deceit?” Hate was a scorching brand as she sneered, “Which queen was yours?”
Sweat slicked my skin.
“Was it Brenna? Or Malin?” The sorceress glided toward me; I questioned if her feet were on the ground, or if some evil wind supported her.
“Blood of the blood—still cursed. I can smell you.” Her lip curled. “I watched them with their greedy, grasping hands—those queens. So eager to cut their flesh, pour out the blood, desperate for the magic to give them unimaginable power. So blind, those women, to sacrifice their wolves. Did you think I’d ever give them back?”
My heart pounded hard enough to make the cavern spin. Should I step away or hold my ground? Run from this predator, or make myself larger, stronger, more of a threat?
The sorceress morphed into the crone and revealed a grotesque smile. The taint in her magic had the stench of rot and madness.
“So many selfish queens. Not just those two.”
A choking scent, and then the young girl stood in her virgin white, speaking with a voice pure and innocent. She tipped her head to the side, red lips pursed in sick contemplation. “Whose eyes do you have? I wonder—with that hint of a forest—if it was the timid Leonides. But your soul—whose rotten soul hides inside you?”
I took a backward step. Pulled Effa closer to my side while Caerwen stepped forward. The grotto nymph moved her hands. Rocks tumbled and blocked and crunched over the living bones churning in the corner. Beside her, Effa was building a thorny hedge, the vines whipping in a frenzied mass.
More bones, bodiless skulls spilling from crevices, bubbling up through the sandy ground. Flames guttered in the bronze bowls. The thick scent of incense was that of roses, while the flames turned the shadows red.
“No-ee!” Effa’s voice stiffened my spine. She was backing away while the Pelonie cocked her head and stared.
“You, nymph. You’ll be first, and I’ll collect your bones when we’re done. Or maybe I’ll leave them for the birds to peck. Drag into the trees to line their nests.”
Caerwen was already stepping in front of Effa.
Heat flared from the pocket where I’d shoved the effigy. Instinct drove me and I pulled the figurine free, held it up.
Light flared, turned into the shimmering force field that I’d once built in a vampire’s dungeon.
The witch screamed. Fell back a step while the surrounding bones clattered and flowed across the sand. Something in the effigy’s runes reacted to Pelonie’s magic. A writhing counter to it, perhaps? A protection against it?
Hadn’t the witch in the Farmer’s Market said I had everything I needed? She was a seer—had known what Grayson said to me long ago, with no one else around to hear.
She was a member of the greatest coven of seers ever to evolve—descendants cursed by the misuse of the seidr magic by this sorceress. To alter destiny.
Do not believe in fate, Noa!
Alter it.
Tossing the effigy to Caerwen, I said, “Keep it focused while I find that rune.”
Her grip firmed. The effigy twitched. Pelonie screamed. The runes pulsed with a glow the color of rubies. I ran to the closest niche, slid my hands over the stones. Cold, lifeless. None of them had carvings. I dashed to the second niche, then a third, a fourth. The breath raced in and out of my lungs. Behind me, desiccated bones rustled like deadened leaves in the first winter wind, stirred by an unseen hand.
I stopped. Light from the effigy was fading: the color of pink roses, now. Losing power? Pelonie continued to cower, shifting from crone to mother to the virgin until she was a blur. I closed my eyes. Let my faille senses seep out. Searching.
And there!
The faintest trace of energy.
Effa was shouting. Her vines slithered and shriveled each time they touched the bones. For every boulder Caerwen moved, more skulls, jawbones, leg bones rushed and gathered. The bones were up to my ankles when I found the last niche, hidden in a dusty crevice. In the low light, rune sparks flickered around the stones while the bloodstains had faded into dull, sad gashes. So many stones—and yet a precious few—but all of them were cold and lifeless beneath my hand. One remained; I sensed the faintest twist of life, a twitch so like the sigil on my wrist.
“I’ve got it.” The icy runestone burned my palm, and I shoved it into an inner pocket, where the effigy had been. Pulled the zippered closing tight.
“Leave,” Caerwen ordered.
“Throw the effigy,” I told her.
She did, and a blast of light bounced around the cave, blinding Pelonie. Dust bloomed in roiling, rancorous clouds. The ancient sorceress pressed a black cloth to her mouth, her nose, muffling her screams. Filtering the air she breathed.
