For Love and Blood and Fury (Lilith’s Legacy #1)

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Zuri slammed her car door and started for the Mediterranean Revival mansion on the outskirts of Coconut Grove—a neighborhood older than Miami itself and alive with power. The number of cars parked on the huge cracked driveway were already fewer than anticipated. A fact Zuri absorbed like a gut punch.

The air was humid for an early spring morning, signaling what a hot and shitty summer they were going to have. It was the kind of oppressive heat that made her sweat the second she stepped out of air conditioning. The kind of day that made her think about leaving Miami and never looking back.

Halfway up the walk, she reached the shade from the overgrown Banyan trees taking up most of the sprawling grounds. The coven house reeked of neglect. Of dwindling resources. Of too few hands to tend to the needs of a structure that had stood for well over a century.

The mansion was where all the witches in her coven had learned how to weave the particular magic they inherited from their mothers. Control over fire to forge a weapon, or air for divination and influence, or earth to consecrate and protect. Water, Zuri’s dominant element, was the most flexible. In her, it had manifested as the ability to flow into a person’s mind. And then there were the spellcraft skills all witches could master with patience and time. It was crushing how little there was to learn now.

Zuri reached the once-imposing double doors, flanked by chipped marble columns now obscured by creeping ivy. As soon as she entered the dimly lit foyer that never lost the smell of mold, Zuri felt a familiar pit in her stomach.

Every inch of the house was steeped in magic, but the energy was growing so thin. The pit instantly filled with rage.

In the mansion’s heart, the coven’s meeting room awaited. The triumvirate sat at a curved table facing fifty high-backed chairs. When Zuri was a kid, there’d been twice as many seats and the younger witches had to stand along the edge or sit on the floor. This room, where decisions were made, where magic had once crackled in the air, was lifeless.

Scanning the room, she counted thirty-two women. Five fewer than last week.

Fucking Elena.

Hand in her pocket, Zuri fiddled with the gold ring she’d given her all those years ago. The one with the blade. She should have known that Elena wouldn’t keep up her end of the bargain. That she could only rely on herself.

Taking her seat between the only two witches she knew would never abandon her, Zuri's mood was poisonous.

“I gave your vampire my blood for nothing,” Candela grumbled to her right.

“Told you so,” Avani muttered on her left.

Gritting her teeth hard enough to crack a molar, Zuri was sure she wasn’t going to keep quiet. That she’d hit her breaking point.

And then the triumvirate glided in.

Three women in their late eighties took their seats behind the curved table. The three lines of leadership cut into their cheeks had been there so long that the scars were faded and hard to see. As if Mother Nature herself was telling them it was time to go. To give someone else a chance.

Zuri had hoped that if Elena got the other coven to back off, she could show the triumvirate and the rest of her sisters that she was a better leader. That she would do anything to protect them. To bring them back to the coven of her childhood. The one her grandmother had led with vibrance and pride and so much power that no one would have dared fuck with them.

She thought of the millennia old anchor buried at the center of the house. The ancient artifact that fueled their coven.

Outrage bubbled up Zuri’s chest and out of her mouth before she considered holding back. “What are you going to do about this?” she roared, her voice echoing against the yellowing plaster walls. “We’ve lost more?—”

“They’ve made their choice,” the witch on the end said, her white braids moving when she shook her head. “We can’t force anyone to stay.”

From the middle, Alondra—the most senior witch—crossed her arms. “There will always be an ebb and flow. It’s the natural order of things.”

“Natural order of things?” Zuri’s caustic laugh brought her to her feet and propelled her to the front of the room. She needed to look at what was left of her coven. Needed to look in their eyes while she made her plea. “Why do you think people are leaving? Because they’re sick of sitting here trapped in the past?—”

“We honor tradition, Zuri. It is the way of our grandmothers. Our grandmothers’ grandmothers,” Alondra snapped. “ Your grandmother.”

“And our tradition used to be innovation,” Zuri countered, pulse pounding in her ears like the generations of witches that came before her were cheering her on. Pushing her to wake up the zombies around her. “We used to be a powerhouse. On the front lines of social activism—pushing not just for our sisters, but all women. We can’t do anything if we’re shrinking?—”

“What are you proposing?” Alondra pressed, her features sharklike and aimed at intimidation, but Zuri couldn’t care about appearances.

“A vote.” She turned her back on the triumvirate to face the aging crowd. “If we can’t keep young witches, we’re going to go extinct. Everything our families have built here—gone.”

“Vote? To replace one of us?” Alondra asked, forcing Zuri’s attention back to her. “Which one?” She looked to either side of her in confusion before her milky brown eyes turned to Zuri. “And who are you stumping for? Certainly not for yourself. You know the rules. Because of your grandmother’s turn on this counsel, your bloodline must wait three generations?—”

“This isn’t about trying to backdoor my way into some kind of monarchy, Alondra?—”

“Balance is critical, Zuri.”

“You think this is balance?” Zuri’s voice cracked under the weight of her frustration. Her disappointment. “We’re fucking dying. All these rules, these traditions, they’re killing us.”

“Ego—”

“This isn’t about my ego.” Zuri turned back to the small group. “If we don’t change?—”

“It is easy to cast off tradition when times are difficult,” Alondra interrupted her. “But that is exactly when we must hold fast to them.” She paused, studying Zuri’s face before she addressed the rest of the coven. “This is no dictatorship. You cannot sit on this counsel, Zuri, but you can have your vote. Sisters, if you share Zuri’s views and wish for a formal election with eligible candidates on the new moon, speak now.”

Heart pounding, Zuri wished she’d had more time to convince them. She’d been hasty in speaking up, but she couldn’t abide another loss. Candela and Avani stood immediately, as Zuri hoped they would.

Instead of a torrent of revolution tearing through the rest of the coven, only six more witches stood. The next ones to leave , Zuri thought bitterly before turning her back on the room and starting for the door.

This was partly Elena’s fault, and she was about to hold her accountable.