Back to the Beginning #4
“No.” I shake my head. “Not my fear. Their fear.”
I do not need to explain further. He knows the coven from which I come, the community that I have called my home. We have always trafficked in caution and concealment. Only my own coven knows the extent of my magic, and they demand I keep it hidden.
He can hear my thoughts. “Is that not the reason the witches have come here? So that they do not need to hide anymore? And yet, here you are, hidden away like something shameful among the very people who should celebrate you.”
My cheeks flush with a flood of emotion I do not expect, and am powerless to conceal. Tears swell unbidden in my eyes, and I blink them away, angry with myself. I do not want him to see my pain—only my strength. But—
“Pain is strength,” he whispers. “Use it. Claim it. Do not let them deny you. I have seen what you can be—what you will be. Do you wish to see it, too?”
A frisson of fear shudders through me, but I do not bow to it. I steel myself, and look up into his eyes instead; and it is like falling into two deep pools, falling… falling…
The vision hits me like a bolt of lightning.
Raw magic coursing through me, as I rise from flame and crashing wave and swirling winds, the earth cracking beneath me, the collected intention of a thousand ancestors gathering in my fingertips.
My eyes are stars glittering in an endless sky, my hair a billowing cascade twisting like vines, ensnaring all within my reach, pulling it within my control, as a gown of seafoam and blossoms and fire rises to envelop me, as every living thing in the Cove and beyond kneels at my feet, like to a queen.
Their fear sustains me. Like air, it fills my lungs and my heart and my spirit, and I feel infinite. I am infinite.
I blink, and find myself breathless and panting, staring into his unreadable face once more.
“Do you see now? Do you see what you can be? What we will be, together?”
“Yes.”
“The key to that power is here.” He nods his head at the archway behind him. “Together we can unlock it, and all you have just seen will come to pass. All you need to do is take my hand.”
I look down at his outstretched hand, like a promise. I take it.
He is the Darkness. He is terrible. He is beautiful.
And I serve him.
Torn from my host, I am lost.
I had known it could only be temporary. Even our shared bloodline could only protect her for so long.
As the days passed within the walls of the prison, I had felt her mind deteriorating, driven mad by the unnatural joining of two souls within a single body.
Soon she would be useless to me, and I would have to abandon her to find another.
But then the Vespers come. They destroy my best-laid plans. Again.
I can feel it again—the inexorable pull of the Source. I fight against it, as I did all those years ago, but I am weak and tired from the effort of clinging to Bernadette’s mortal form. I do not know how long I can resist it. This is the moment I almost give up.
Like the tide dragging at the grains of sand on the beach, the Source pulls me closer.
I plead with the Darkness to find me, to save me, but I am met only with silence.
With no body, and no magic, I am nothing to him anymore.
I am no longer pentamaleficus. I am only shade and shadow. I am an echo of dust.
At last my will crumbles, and I find myself wandering the beach, drawn to the entrance of the cave.
It is over. I have nothing left to fight for, no shred of hope that I can rejoin him.
I prepare to give myself up to the Source, to let it swallow me.
I do not know or care what awaits me on the other side.
If it is not him, it may as well be nothing at all.
But I am not alone. A woman stands between me and the entrance to the cave.
She sees me, of that I am certain, and yet my sudden presence does not surprise her. She stands with hands calmly folded in front of her, her expression impassive. She is waiting for me.
“Hello, Sarah.”
“You know who I am.”
“I do.”
“Who are you?”
“I am the woman who can give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”
I laugh, because this is absurdity. She smiles.
“You don’t believe me,” she says.
“I do not.”
“You ought to. The Darkness awaits your return, and he is not patient.”
My laughter dies. My mind goes still.
“Who are you?” I repeat.
“My name is Veronica Meyers. I am a member of the Kildare Coven.”
“That name means nothing to me. You are nothing to me.”
“Not yet. But hear me out. The Kildares came to Sedgwick Cove after your time, but it is your legacy that we have striven to come into.”
“My legacy.” The words sound so strange, spoken from living lips. I was a pariah in life, and in death perhaps even more so. It is inconceivable that this woman speaks the truth. “What do you know of my legacy?”
“I know you were the first pentamaleficus to walk this stretch of shore,” the woman says. “I know that, together with the Darkness, you sought to harness the great and terrible power of this place.” She looks behind her, at the cave’s entrance.
She knows, I realize. She knows what this place is. How can she know?
“And now I know he seeks another in your place. Another, more powerful witch to help him fulfill his destiny.”
“She is not more powerful!” The words explode from me. “It is only because… because I cannot… I no longer—”
“You no longer have a body through which to channel your power,” the woman replies. “But what if you did?”
All I can do is stare. She looks calmly back at me.
“I do not understand,” I finally say.
“You need a body. We need to unlock the mystery of the Source. Let us do so together.”
She appears so calm, so assured. All I can do is laugh.
“I fail to see the humor,” the woman says.
“There is much you fail to see,” I reply.
“I cannot possess you indefinitely, and I am not interested in a temporary body that will deteriorate with every moment I spend inside it. You will lose your mind before you can grasp even a fraction of what the Source can do, and then your body will be useless to me. What foolish bargain is this you seek to make?”
But the woman still smiles. “I am not proposing you use my body. Another will be provided.”
“Foolish woman. It must be a witch, or I cannot inhabit it. The body will rot.”
“And a witch it shall be. Our coven is willing to sacrifice one of our own for this cause.”
“You lie.”
“I promise you, I do not. If you can prove to us that you can unlock the mystery of the Source, we will give you the body you require to rejoin your master fully. And to prove it, I will Bind the promise in blood to seal it.” She lowers a hand, and brushes it against her jacket, revealing the glint of a knife holstered at her hip.
If I still had a heart, it would surely be pounding now. “What do you gain?”
“You promise to share the knowledge with the rest of our coven. You teach us how to access the magic.”
“You claim to know my legacy, and yet you seem ignorant of the nature of who I serve. If you wish to access the deep magic, then you will have the Darkness to contend with.”
The woman’s smile grows. “Then we shall contend with him. Do we have a bargain?”
I hesitate. My last attempt to crack open the Source went terribly wrong.
There is no guarantee that it will go right this time.
And even if it does, the Darkness surely will not be pleased that I shared the secret with another coven.
I study the witch before me. She is confident—ludicrously so.
She does not understand the Darkness the way I do.
She does not comprehend the full extent of his power, or she would not be so foolish as to propose such a plan.
What does it matter if I share the secret with her?
The Darkness and I, together in our power, will crush her and her coven to dust.
We stand there, two witches in the dark under the blood moon, each sure she will get what she desires.
Only one of us is right.
“A bargain,” I whisper.