42
Soleil
Dread consumes me as we reach Vayla’s workshop, where Allie let me know Marianne is waiting.
I left Finn in his rooms.
He grumbled a little about it, and maybe if I wasn’t such a damn coward I would have had him come with me to face whatever’s waiting.
But I’m not, and whatever it is, it’s my battle to fight.
Alone, preferably, in case it gets ugly.
“She’s waiting in there,” Allie says when we reach the workshop door. “Do you want me to come in with you?”
I shake my head. “No, that’s alright.”
She looks as if she might say more, but must decide against it as she gives me a reassuring smile and heads back toward the center of the court.
I steady myself with one last deep breath and prepare to face the music.
Whatever Marianne has to say, and whoever sent her to say it, it can’t be good.
But I also know I’ve reached the end of the road for avoiding it, and there’s nothing to do but face up to what’s waiting for me.
Inside the workshop, I don’t find anyone in the first room, or the second, but spot a flash of flaming red hair lit by the sunshine streaming into the greenhouse.
I find Marianne there, examining a few of the curious demon realm plants Vayla grows.
“You’re back.”
“I am,” she says grimly, turning to face me. “I barely made it to the coven hall before I was summoned to the High Priestess’s office.”
“She found out you came to see me? How?”
Marianne snorts. “How does Esme know anything? I’m convinced she talks to the walls, with how little escapes her notice.”
I give my head a frustrated shake and gesture to a table in the middle of the room. We both sit, and I can’t pretend for a moment the high-handedness doesn’t irritate me.
“She’s not omnipotent.”
“Maybe not,” Marianne says. “But she is pissed off, and unfortunately you’re the target today.”
“How bad?”
“You know she’s never one to yell, but when she found out where you’ve been, she got that… look.”
Dread settles heavy in my stomach. “You told her?”
“What was I supposed to say?” She throws up her hands in surrender. “The priestesses were half-convinced you were kidnapped or something. The unflappable Soleil Pendergast disappearing on the eve of her Ascension? Why would anyone assume you left of your own volition?”
She’s not wrong, and I swallow hard around the lump of shame in my throat.
Of course no one would think for a second I ran away by choice.
Not me, the witch who’s never broken a single rule.
The dutiful apprentice who doesn’t make waves, doesn’t speak my mind, falls in line and does what I’m told like a good little witch.
Marianne pulls a parchment scroll from her pocket, sealed with the High Priestess’s sigil.
“Esme sent this with me to give to you,” Marianne says softly, handing it over. “I didn’t read it, but I think I can guess what it says.”
Not allowing myself the cowardice of hesitation, I break the scroll’s wax seal and read the three brief lines of elegant script.
A summons.
Formal and perfunctory.
I’m to return to the coven hall at once and speak with her if I have any hope of continuing on with my Ascension.
If I refuse, she’ll consider that my resignation from priestesshood consideration.
My first instinct is to throw the letter in the fire and watch it burn.
My second is to read it again, and again, as if that will somehow make the words less awful.
I knew it was coming, but that doesn’t make the end of my brief taste of freedom any less bitter.
Marianne rises from her seat. “I won’t ask if you’re coming back. The less I know, the better.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Yeah, Esme’s orders were to deliver the note and return to the coven hall immediately.” She nods toward the door. “Besides, there’s someone else here who wants to talk to you.”
At first, I think she means Finn, but when I turn and find my sister standing there, my heart clenches painfully in my chest.
“I’d try to buy you more time,” Marianne says ruefully in parting, “but unfortunately I’m a firewielder, not a miracle-worker, so I don’t think there’s anything else I can do.”
“It’s alright,” I tell her. “I knew it was coming, no matter who the messenger was.”
Marianne leaves, and Seren walks slowly into the room to take her place.
“Hey, Sol.”
“Hey, Ser.”
She sits next to me, elbows resting on the table, eyes lost in thought and far away. “You got your marching orders?”
“Unfortunately.” I lay the scroll out on the table and she gives it a once-over before letting out a derisive snort.
“Never one for softening the blow, is she?”
I shrug and swallow hard. “It’s not like I don’t deserve it.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“I mean what I said.” I glare at her. Nothing like thirty seconds with my twin sister to already have me irritated. “I left. I ran out on the most important time I’ve ever had with the coven, so there’s no reason Esme should be all warm and fuzzy with me.”
“Oh, really? There’s no reason she should have empathy for her apprentices? No reason she should understand why a witch might freak out a little before pledging the rest of her life to the—”
“Just stop, Seren!” I burst out. “I knew the deal. I always knew the deal. However I felt about it was my own problem to handle.”
My sister gives me a look so sympathetic, so understanding, that it pisses me off even more. It makes tears gather behind my eyes, though I can’t say whether they’re from anger, stress, frustration, or some godawful combination of all three.
Because I can barely even stand myself, I push up from my chair and pace away from her toward the greenhouse windows.
I try to focus on my breathing, and fail.
I try not to let all the dread get the better of me, and I fail at that, too.
My chest is tight, my breath too fast, and I only manage to stop myself from spiraling when I feel a comforting hand on my shoulder.
All the air in my lungs comes out on a tight exhale, and before I can breathe in again, I’m wrapped up into my sister’s embrace.
Goddess, I’ve missed this.
I’ve missed Seren, missed feeling like half of a whole rather than walking around half-formed and unfinished, wondering where the rest of me went.
Our paths were always destined to diverge. I can see that now with time and hindsight, after years have blunted the sting of her walking away, of me refusing to go with her.
But damn if I don’t still want us to bridge at least some of the gap.
I had a little hope after she came to me for help earlier this year when she was poisoned, but those dreams were swiftly dashed when she found out I was a candidate for Ascension.
I’ll never forget the look on her face when Esme let it slip—probably deliberate, now that I think about it.
It was as if my sister didn’t even know me. The way she looked at me—with so much horror and sadness and betrayal—was just one more reminder of what I’ll lose if I go through with this.
My sister.
My mate.
Any future outside the coven.
How can any of it be worth it?
Strangely enough, it’s Seren who stops those spiraling thoughts and grounds me back into all the reasons I’ve been so conflicted, all the certainty I felt about my path until just a few days ago.
“You know,” she says finally, arms still around me. “I think if anyone could turn that coven around, it would be you.”
My laugh comes out choked and damp. “Yeah, right. What good have I ever done in that place? Just marching around, following orders like a good little witchling. Doing all the meaningless tasks and projects Esme asked me—”
She takes a step back and braces her hands on my shoulders. “Bullshit.”
I glare at her, but I doubt it holds much weight with the tears threatening in the corners of my eyes.
“You were doing it even back then, you know?”
“Doing what?”
She gives me a look that clearly says oh, come on, and shakes her head. “You were always finding ways to stick it to Esme and the rest of the coven.”
“I…”
“Admit it, Sol. The way you always take the younger girls under your wing, make sure new apprentices know how to handle the priestesses’ moods and attitudes so they don’t get too overwhelmed.”
“That’s just being nice,” I argue. “It’s no more than anyone else would have—”
“It’s more than I did,” she interrupts again, then grins. “And what about all the shit you let me pull in your workshop? All the non-coven-sanctioned brews?”
I roll my eyes. “You’re my sister. Of course I wasn’t going to tattle on you.”
“All I’m saying—” She nudges me with her elbow as we both return to our seats at the table. “—is that I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit. You’ve already been changing things where you can. Imagine what you could do as a priestess. Maybe even High Priestess.”
My heart pangs with that old, bittersweet longing. A longing I’d bet most Crescent witches feel at some point during their time in the coven hall.
It’s not quite the same now, though.
I lean back in my seat. “Why do you think we even need a High Priestess?”
Blasphemy. The idea is absolute blasphemy. Enough to scandalize any Crescent witch.
Seren hums thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Probably because that’s the way things have always been and the way most of the coven believes things will always be.”
“Most of the coven?”
“Yeah. Most of the coven. Only takes a few to start changing hearts and minds, though.”
Again. Blasphemy.
And it’s not like anything would change overnight.
But it’s something to think about.
Just a thought.
A passing idea.
I tuck it away for later.
“What do I know, though?” Seren says with a sigh. “I left. I was never going to have enough patience or give enough fucks to want to stick around and change things for the better.”
“What if I never do?” I ask, giving voice to the fear at the core of it all. “What if I choose to Ascend, spend my whole life fighting against the way things are, and in the end I have nothing to show for it at all? What if I give everything else up for nothing?”
She doesn’t have a ready answer for that, and fuck, I wish she did.
I wish someone did.
I wish someone could just tell me if the sacrifice would be worth it, if I’ll achieve the change I dream of and still find some way to be happy despite it all.
That’s not how it works, though.
That’s not how life works in the slightest, and the huge, unfathomable cavern of uncertainty rears its ugly head again.
“Are you thinking about Finn, in all of this?” she asks tentatively. “What it would mean for the two of you?”
I roll my eyes. “You’ve got a demon mate. What do you think?”
“I think there’s pretty much nothing in the entire universe I wouldn’t give up if the alternative was losing Callum.”
Her words hit me like a gut punch.
“I just wasn’t sure if that was… the same for you. I know you and Finn are still figuring things out, and you aren’t—”
“I am.” I swallow hard. She isn’t the one I should be confessing this to. “I mean… it’s not just… it’s not just fun. For me. Finn and I… we’re…”
She lays her hand over mine on the table, silent permission for me to stop explaining myself. Silent reassurance she understands me, anyway.
“You know there’s no middle ground with the coven,” I say, throat tightening again. “It’s either all in or all out. Nothing done half-way.”
“Says who?”
The question draws me up short. “Says… everyone? Says… the Goddess?”
“Have you asked Her about that directly?” Seren grins, and my eyes nearly pop out of my head at the sacrilege.
“What do I know, though?” She raises her hands in surrender. “Like I said, I know nothing about the coven anymore, but the one thing I do know is that you can’t avoid it forever.”
“You’re not wrong,” I grumble, and lay my head down on the table atop my folded arms.
Seren reaches over and gives my shoulder another reassuring squeeze. “Whatever happens, though, you won’t lose me. Not again.”
My heart clenches painfully, and I turn my head a fraction to look at her. “Not even if I Ascend?”
“Not even if you Ascend.”
“Why? What changed?”
“I… have been made aware I sometimes rush to judgment and act before thinking.”
I lift my head a little more, an unlikely smile tugging at the corners of my lips. “Is that right? And would your demon have anything to do with that revelation?”
“He… might.”
I laugh, though it comes out a little wobbly. “Remind me to thank him sometime.”
Seren lifts herself out of her chair. “I’ll do no such thing. The more he thinks I’m perfect and infallible, the better.”
I stand as well, and she folds me into one last hug before we part ways.
“Speaking of demons,” she says, arms tight around me, “you might want to talk to yours about all of this. Finn will understand.”
“He shouldn’t have to understand. I should never have put him in this position.”
“Funny how we have literally no choice in that, isn’t it?” She uses her thumb to wipe away the stray tear trailing down my cheek. “And even funnier how you might be surprised once you finally decide to trust him.”