Chapter 85 #2
“Someone I can’t lose,” I interject, earning her grandmother’s gaze. “If you want to punish someone, punish me. She was just trying to help. I promise we will leave here and never return if you just help me. Please.” My voice fractures. “I love him.”
The witch’s face softens as she appraises me.
“Why she returned is irrelevant,” Esther caws. “Did you or did you not choose to defect from the clan, to relinquish any and all abilities passed to you by your bloodline, through your mother and grandmother?”
“I did.”
“And did you not return with a slew of outsiders? Did you not keep your power, thus endangering us all?”
“I only used it when it was necessary. To defend our queen.”
My eyes snap to Marideth, my blood going cold at the mention of that word in reference to me.
“The law is absolute,” Esther retorts.
“It was my duty to help her! She is the last of her kind—the true leader. I would deny her nothing. Or have you forgotten that the Blackbloods once ruled you? Has time eroded your sense of loyalty? Your respect?”
The witches behind her are silent. Mar’s grandmother bestows a proud look on her. “This witch speaks the truth. The Blackblood came to her for help. I see no reason for punishment to be doled out.”
“This is blasphemy! Will justice not be served?” Esther rushes forward, desperate. I take a step in front of Mar, staring the bitch down.
“It has been. No blood shall be spilt this night.”
“The outsiders have seen too much.” Esther’s gaze shifts toward Kai and Dover. “They are a danger, and I will not suffer them to live.”
“Don’t you dare touch them!” Marideth snarls.
“They bear no ill intent.” The elder with the black hair and strange, striking eyes gives them a knowing look.
“And what of her magic? She defected! That magic no longer belongs to her.” Esther flings an accusatory finger at Mar. A few shouts echo through the room, backing her claim.
“Quiet,” her grandmother commands. With a sigh, she says, “Put it to a vote.”
“All in favor of stripping the traitor of her power?” Esther turns toward the thrones, her hand flying up before her sentence is complete. Four hands lift into the air.
“Very well. It has been decided.”
“You cannot just decide this!” I shout. “I am Serena Avery, the last Blackblood witch, and I demand you stop this right now.”
“Tradition demands a price,” Esther taunts. I feel my shadows curling around my wrists, poised to lash out and force them all to their knees if I have to.
“Serena, don’t—don’t hurt them. Please.” I’ve never heard Mar’s voice shake, but it does as she begs me to stand down.
Her grandmother steps forward, placing her hands on Mar’s shoulders and muttering a quiet incantation.
Mar goes pale, her eyes closing. Her body starts to twitch as if submerged in a nightmare.
Then her grandmother slips the ring off her finger, and she crashes to the ground, gasping.
Dover falls down beside her, reaching for her face with bound hands.
I walk up to Esther. “You will pay for this.”
Her only answer is the ugliest grin I have ever seen.
“Come. All of you.” Mar’s grandmother waves a hand, and the ropes binding my friends fall to the ground. We follow her outside—Dover a few feet behind, supporting Mar as I sidle up to her grandmother.
“Why did you do that?”
“To prevent mutiny. They would never have relented without some form of retribution. They cling to the old ways.”
“Mar didn’t do anything. She only used her magic to help me. This entire time, she has been helping me. She shouldn’t lose her power over that.”
The Blueblood stops, turning to me. And though she is several inches shorter, it’s as though she’s looking down at me.
“She is my granddaughter, and she always will be. But she did break the law. Do not question my choice to protect her and your friends the only way I know how.”
We follow her inside a nearby cabin. The multiroom space is large, fully furnished, and decorated with cottage-like warmth. Closing the door behind us, she moves toward Mar.
“Come here, child, let me have a look at you.” She tilts her chin up to the little fae lights dancing around above us. “You look different.”
“I was fifteen when you last saw me.”
Her lips invert into a frown as she regards the rest of us, windblown and steely. “You always did know how to find trouble. Just like your aunt.”
Mar’s mouth opens like she needs to say something, but the elder points at the plush-looking couch. “Sit.”
“I’m fine, Grandmother.”
“I won’t ask twice.”
She sinks onto the couch without further protest. The witch walks around and stops in front of me. “Now what is it you need, child?”
“My familiar is dead.” I swallow, the words tasting like charcoal on my tongue. “I need you to help me bring him back.”
She retreats a step, her mouth flattening into a thin line.
“I do not know what my granddaughter told you. But we do not deal in such magics.”
“But you know about them. You know how to help me.”
“It is dark magic, girl. Magic borrowed from the gods by your kind. You do not belong meddling in it.”
My temper flares. The walls begin to tremble, and the fae lights flicker. It’s only when I feel the flames dancing on the tips of my fingers, feel my eyes narrowing to slits, that I realize I’m the one causing it.
“His mother was one of us.” The elder’s eyes go wide as she stares at Marideth, unblinking. An unspoken conversation happens in the look they share.
She lets out a long sigh, glancing back to me. “I assume you brought the body.”
I turn to Dover and Kai. They nod, heading out the door to retrieve it.
“Is it in one piece?”
I cringe, forcing myself to nod. When they return with him, Mar’s grandmother waves us forward.
“Come.”
We follow her through a doorway hung with beaded curtains. Wooden shelves line the walls, housing colorful vials, grimoires, spices.
“Lay him here,” she commands as we duck beneath the bundles of dried flowers hanging from the ceiling.
Kai helps Dover lower Zadyn onto the wooden table. The witch moves closer, undoing the rope around his waist and pulling back the cloth draped over him.
I clutch my mouth at the sight.
He’s already starting to decay, his body a bluish-white color, the dried blood around his chest nearly black.
Horrible flashbacks play in my head. The sound of my blade cutting through flesh and bone to strike him in his most vulnerable place.
The sensation of my hands doused in his hot blood.
The vacant look on his face as he left me behind with a mountain of remorse.
As if noticing my horror, Mar’s hand slips through mine. I turn to her.
“Marideth, I’m so sorry. Your magic—”
“I was working with borrowed time anyway.”
I clutch her hand tighter. “I promise you, I will figure out a way to restore it.”
I’m not sure if she believes me, but she nods, a somber expression on her face. We watch as the elder gathers a bowl of blue liquid and smears a series of runes over Zadyn’s unmoving chest.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“It’s a spell to preserve the body while we work.”
“Work?”
She lifts her argent eyes to mine. “If you go diving into the After without any training, you’ll never come back. Just know before we embark on this journey that there is always a cost to these bargains. The price is to be paid with another life.”
“I’ll have to kill someone?”
“No. The Fates will decide who to take in his stead. It will be out of your hands. Are you still willing to proceed?”
I nod without hesitation. “Yes.”
I don’t care if that makes me a bad person. I don’t even care that I’ll be taking someone else’s life, taking someone from their family or friends. I just want him back.
I never claimed to be a good person. And right now, I’m beyond desperate.
She proceeds with her ritual, plucking a sprig of dried lavender from overhead, crushing it between her palms, and sprinkling it over the runes.
“You can trust her,” Mar says quietly. “She’s the Matron of our entire clan. If anyone can help, it’s her.”
The Matron’s eyes drift closed as she mutters something I can’t make out. She beckons me with a bony finger.
“Come forward, Blackblood.” Mar releases me so I can stand across from her on Zadyn’s other side.
“I require a drop.” Her hand unfurls toward me, a small knife glinting in the other. Without hesitation, I lay my hand in hers. More whispered words follow as she slits my palm and flips it over to squeeze a few drops onto Zadyn’s chest.
“We will see if there is anything left to work with.”
“What does that mean?”
“If your blood disappears into the runes, it means your connection is not fully severed. A modicum of life remains, though the body is expired. If the blood remains pooled and does not dissolve…I fear he is too deep into the After, and there is nothing to be done.”
My breathing quickens at the notion.
“It will dissolve,” I decide, glancing down at his face. I smooth back his hair as the Matron studies me.
“Your familiar, you say?”
I eye the tattoo on his chest, the ebony ink peeking through the gaps in blood and crushed lavender.
“I see the mark,” she says in an obvious tone.
“What are you asking?”
She arches a brow, her eyes roaming over me.
“Simply making an observation.” She moves toward the wooden cupboards, dipping her hands into a basin of water and wiping them on a towel. “Come. The body must be left alone now.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
“If you want to have a shot at this working, then you will. The spell needs room to breathe. And that room does not belong to the living. We petition Death now. Give her a moment to consider.”
She pulls back the curtains and waits with expectant eyes.
With one last look back at Zadyn, I follow my friends out.