Light looped around the cave, dancing among the khrysaor’s and pegasus’ wings. Carefully, I separated the six distinct magics so each Angel’s hovered above us, six ancient sources. Then, I allowed them to melt back together.
“Look at how you’re controlling it,” Jez encouraged.
And as precisely as I had been toying with the magic, I recoiled that mass of power back into me, like a snapping of a band against my spirit. I stopped burning, and the world fell into stillness again.
Jezebel opened her mouth, but Erista gasped. “Come on!” she demanded, racing to the mouth of the cave.
We followed, a swell of noise mounting.
“What is it?” Jezebel asked.
But as soon as we parted the brush curtain, I knew. Far in the distance, away from the city, in a haze of burning ruby reds and deep violets, a sand storm swirled high above the desert.
“The Rites of Dusk,” I gasped. Swarms of Soulguiders danced among the dunes in the ritual.
“How does it work?” I asked Erista.
“The sands are blessed by Artale,” she explained. “It’s how we connect to her, though we revere the Angel more. The Goddess of Death’s magic laces the land, and when it’s stirred up, it pools in the air, like it’s being set free. As it falls on you and you say the ritual words, perform the acts, your own Soulguider magic is replenished.”
“How often do you have to take part?” Jezebel asked, likely counting the last time Erista had.
“Not frequently, once a year is typically enough. The Rites have been occurring more lately, though. In various places across the desert, mainly near major cities.” Perhaps the increasing warrior populations caused that. “They used to only be a few times per year, and timed fairly evenly. Now they’re sporadic.”
Sapphire brushed a wing over my shoulder, and I glanced down at the still-burning emblems in my hand, then back at the swirling Rite.
As Jezebel and Erista continued discussing the ritual, I recalled the magic unspooling across Ambrisk. Unusual temperatures and riled creatures.
And my skin chilled at the idea that it may all be connected.
Chapter Forty-Two
Ophelia
The day followingthe Rites of Dusk, the Lendelli Market was alive with the abundance of magic flowing through its warriors.
“Have you and Jezebel been here before?” Rina asked as we strode through the stalls. All around us, the scents of richly-seasoned meat wafted through the air; shouts about fresh fruit, newly-forged jewelry, and hand-spun scarves carried down the aisles beneath the woven fabric roof, sunlight dappling the streets.
“Once, when we were young, but I barely remember it.” Our entire traveling party followed Erista’s bouncing curls and trilling explanations of the vendors lining the sand-strewn stone streets. “My grandmother always shared dazzling stories, though.”
“She was born in Lendelli, right?”
I nodded, side stepping a man with a crate full of pomegranates. “And lived here into her first century. Once she turned twenty and came of age, she spent nearly a hundred years training to be a priestess of Xenique.”
Santorina halted. “The training is a hundred years?”
“It can be.” I looped my arm through hers and tugged her back into motion. “Her magic isn’t particularly strong. In Soulguider temples, priestesses make rank, so she already had the basic title and was slowly climbing up.”
“A hundred years,” Rina considered. To a human, that was a long lifetime. “What made her give up all that work?”
“Love.” I smiled fondly. “My grandfather was on an assignment from Palerman when they met. It only took him two weeks to convince her to run away with him.”
“Knowing Grandmother,” Jezebel interrupted, appearing at my shoulder, “she decided that first day that she loved him and was making him work for it.”
Santorina laughed. “That does sound like her.”
Jezebel skipped ahead to catch up with Erista, looping her arm around her partner’s waist.
“Sometimes I wish I’d learned more about that side of my heritage,” I admitted to Rina.
