Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(120)
Author: Alexandra Bracken

 

“Hail Mother of All, the heart of the world—” Caitriona’s voice choked, but steadied again as she began to chant. The words were grave and edged with no small amount of anger. “Earth of your body.”

 

“Earth of your body,” Olwen repeated, licking her cracked lips as Caitriona added a handful of dirt to the chalice.

 

“Water of your blood.”

 

Olwen echoed her again, pouring water into the chalice.

 

“Breath of your daughter.”

 

Olwen leaned forward and breathed into the chalice.

 

Sickly mist rolled up and over the steps, as if called forth by the chanting. It spread through the great hall like roots in dark soil, feeling its way toward us.

 

Caitriona used the statue’s candle to light another. “Fire of your soul.”

 

“Fire of your soul,” Olwen said. And then, together, they said, “We call upon your power.”

 

Caitriona shut the book and picked up the athame, chanting as she sliced her palm and squeezed blood into the chalice.

 

“Let that which dies know your light and be born again.”

 

Olwen took the ritual dagger next, cutting her palm quick and neat, before adding her blood to the gaping mouth of the cup. At our feet, mist gathered.

 

“Let that which dies know your light and be born again.”

 

Neve was next, repeating the words.

 

“Let that which dies know your light and be born again.”

 

And then it was my turn. I felt their eyes on me as I brought the fine tip of the blade to my hand. My arm ached in memory, and an image of the High Priestess flashed behind my eyelids until I forced them open. With one last deep breath, I sliced down. The blade was sharp enough that my skin only stung for a moment.

 

“Let that which dies know your light and be born again.”

 

I added my blood to the chalice. The damp touch of the mist crawled up my legs, my hips. There was a tingling at the center of my chest that spread, sparking like the firecrackers Nash used to buy Cabell and me at the start of the new year.

 

“Deliver your heart from darkness, as you have delivered us. We call upon you, Mother, to be reborn.” Finished, Caitriona took up the wand, closing her eyes. As she drew the instrument up, the mist followed like a spiderweb caught on its silver tip, glittering with the light of the statue’s candle. She held it there, silent and still.

 

Until her arm started to shake.

 

Until Olwen closed her eyes, crushed.

 

I didn’t know what was supposed to have happened, but it was painfully obvious that nothing had. The ritual hadn’t worked.

 

Caitriona set the wand down on the altar, looking as if she’d love nothing more than to break it into splinters against the stone.

 

“I told you,” she said derisively. “The Goddess will not lend us her power. Her heart has turned away from Avalon, if she ever possessed one at all.”

 

She walked away from us, moving toward the bags we had gathered for the journey, and stood there, an expectant look on her face that only partly masked how close she was to tears. I started toward her, the blood dripping from my palm onto the altar and floor.

 

“Wait.”

 

Neve’s voice hooked me, drawing me back. She was staring at the chalice, transfixed by what she saw inside.

 

The dark liquid whirled within the belly of the cup. Threads of mist rose from its center, growing as they wound through the air, twining between us. Caitriona slowly drifted over to the altar, clearly uncertain, even as the liquid rose from the chalice, billowing out with a sudden fury to stain the mist.

 

“What’s happening?” I shouted.

 

The mist became a hurricane of pressure and wind, spiraling faster until it tugged at our hair and clothes. Instinctively, I reached for Neve’s hand. She gripped Olwen’s, and Olwen Caitriona’s, until, finally, Caitriona reached for my free hand, and we formed a linked circle around the altar.

 

The ground trembled, rattling the chandeliers and tables. I held on to the others, fighting the pull of the violent air around us. The column of dark mist rose to tower over us, spreading through the great hall, tearing banners from the walls, upending chairs.

 

There was a voice in the wind outside the tower, desperate to get in. I closed my eyes, trying to focus on it, to make out what it was saying.

 

A song. The voice was soft, fair and low, like a mother’s lullaby. It grew in strength and loveliness, at odds with the maelstrom around us. It was the voice of warm sunlight, the refreshing water of a clear pool, of dew on petals, and the breath of trees. It was outside me, and in me, urging me to sing.

 

Sing.

 

The others gave voice to the phantom song—struggling at first with the unfamiliar words, to capture the blood-thrumming perfection of its melody. It was intoxicating, irresistible even if I’d had the strength to fight it. The foreign words, words with no translation, only a feeling that tasted like honey on my tongue.

 

The wind and mist swelled with our song, and the world trembled with it. My whole life, I had never felt power like this—magic, true and pure magic. It blazed through my body like lightning, electrifying every sense until I became it.

 

This was what it felt like to be caught in the palm of a god. To call their magic down and unleash it into the world, to be reborn along with it.

 

The ritual was working. I shouted the song now, desperate for it to rise above the harsh winds and stormy pressure gathering around us. Tears streamed down my face, and I was overcome by the magnitude of everything I felt. The joy, the pain, the release.

 

I forced my eyes open, trying to capture it all, let it live in my memory until breath left my body. The glimmering ribbons of white shot through the wild haze of expanding darkness. The power lifted us at the heels, until I was balanced on my toes, then off the ground altogether.

 

Through the squalling air, faces emerged, glowing and iridescent. Their features sharpened the longer I watched, fighting the need to shield my eyes from the whipping of the mist. Lowri. Arianwen. Rhona. Seren. Mari. Betrys.

 

Flea.

 

My heart felt like it would explode at the specters. I squeezed Neve’s and Caitriona’s hands, trying to get them to look, my throat aching. But the ghostly eyes were fixed on me; their lips were moving but no sound emerged above the song in my ears, and the wind that threatened to carry us away. Singing with us. Joining their power to ours.

 

No. As quickly as it had come, the elation evaporated. Their faces weren’t ones of love—they were ones of terror. All of them were screaming. Shouting the same word.