A sob erupted from deep within me, then another and another. No longer having to concentrate on holding the spell, my emotions poured out, and I was so shaken and upset that I wasn’t even embarrassed. Through my tears I saw glistening traces on Alyce’s face, on Bethany’s. Silver looked deeply saddened. Mr. Niall looked calm, focused. Hunter looked grim, purposeful, not angry or hateful. Still chanting quietly by himself, he spiraled the energy around Ciaran, slowly and completely. When at last he lifted the athame away, it swirled around Ciaran unaided.
Then the images began, the images that defined who Ciaran had been, who he had become. Watching through my tears, still shaking with sobs, I saw a boy, handsome and happy, running across a green Scottish field with a kite. It was diving groundward, and with a flick of his hand, young Ciaran sent it back up to the clouds. I saw fourteen-year-old Ciaran being initiated, wearing a dark, almost black robe sprinkled with silver threads. He looked very solemn, and I felt that in his eyes there was already a glimmer of the witch he would become. Ciaran aged in the visions, and we saw teenage Ciaran courting girls, working on spells, having arguments with a man I thought must have been his father—my grandfather. Then to my shock, I saw a teenage Ciaran with a young Selene Belltower, just for an instant. I blinked, and there was Ciaran, being wed to Grania, her belly already round with their first child, Kyle. My breath stopped, sobs caught in my throat, as I saw Ciaran with the woman I recognized as Maeve Riordan, my birth mother. Maeve and Ciaran were wrapped tightly together, clinging to each other as if to be separated would equal death. Then Maeve was crying, turning away from him, and Ciaran was staring after her, his hands clenched. I saw Ciaran darkly silhouetted against the bright background of a burning barn. On and on it went, these images being born from the energy and floating upward to disappear into nothingness. On the ground, Ciaran lay jerking as if he were having a seizure, and I could make out a thin keening coming from him.
The images turned darker then, and I flinched as I saw Ciaran performing blood sacrifices, then using spells against other witches who cowered before him in pain. I felt ill as I saw him calling the dark wave, saw the exultation in his face, how he felt the glory of that power as before him whole villages were decimated, the people fleeing pointlessly. It grew to be too much, and I closed my eyes, resting my head on my knees.
When I looked up next, I saw myself and Ciaran hugging, I saw us turning into wolves, and even from over where I was, I felt Alyce’s and Silver’s surprise. And then we were at tonight, when I had used his true name and he had been bound. When the last image had floated away and no more were coming, I knew that we had seen his life unraveling before us, seen the destruction of everything that had made him who and what he was.
My blood father lay unmoving on the cold March ground. Hunter drew his athame, and slowly the swirling energy surrounded it and seemed to be absorbed by it. When the last of the energy had gone, Hunter sheathed the knife and went to stand over Ciaran.
“Ciaran MacEwan, witch of the Woodbanes, is now ended,” Hunter said. “The Goddess teaches us that every ending is also a beginning. May there be a rebirth from this death.”
With those words, the rite was over.
When David had been stripped, Hunter had brought him healing tea, and Alyce had held him as he cried. I knew no one would do that for Ciaran. I wanted to go sit next to him, but my guilt was too great. Then Alyce, softly rounded, dressed in her trademark lavender and gray, knelt down on the ground near where Ciaran lay crumpled.
Hunter came and sat next to me on the cement bench, carefully not touching me. He seemed much older than nineteen and looked like he’d been battling a long illness.
Bethany stooped, touched Ciaran’s temple once, then came to me and did the same thing. I felt her caring, her concern, and then she left through the woods. Silver Hennessey came to clasp Hunter’s hand, then she, too, left, after a sympathetic glance at me.
Mr. Niall strode over to us. “I’m off, lad,” he said in his odd, rough voice. “Good work.”
I gazed stonily at the ground.
“Morgan,” he said, surprising me. “It was a hard thing. But you did right.” I didn’t look up as he walked away.
Alyce stayed by Ciaran, and Hunter stayed by me. We were all silent. It was past four o’clock in the morning, and I felt that I would never sleep or eat or laugh again.
We sat in the darkness like that for another hour until we heard Killian crashing through the woods, and then he emerged through the cedars and pines.
“Hey, sis,” he said cheerfully, and it was clear he’d been drinking. Great—he’d driven here from Poughkeepsie. He ignored Hunter, which wasn’t unusual.
“Killian,” I whispered. I had no idea what to say—words didn’t cover this situation. I motioned over to where Ciaran lay on the ground.
If I had seen my real father, Sean Rowlands, lying on the ground in the woods in the middle of the night, I would have run over immediately. But Killian wasn’t me, and Ciaran wasn’t anything like my real father, so instead Killian just gaped at him.
“What’s happened, then?” he asked.
“Amyranth has been casting dark wave spells,” I said tonelessly. “Ciaran wanted me to join him and Amyranth. I said no. So he decided to bring the dark wave on Kithic. I met him here tonight, and then a group of five witches stripped him of his powers.”
Killian’s eyes widened almost comically. He couldn’t even think of what to ask or say, just kept looking from me to Hunter to Ciaran in astonishment.
“No,” he finally said, all traces of alcohol gone from his voice. “He has no powers? Are you sure?”
“We’re sure,” Hunter said, not sounding proud about it.
“You stripped Da of his powers. Ciaran MacEwan.”
I understood why he was having a hard time with it. Ciaran seemed invincible—unless you knew his true name.
“Can you please take him to a safe place until he’s better?” I asked.
Killian still seemed unsure whether or not this was reality. “Aye,” he said hesitantly. “Aye. I know a place.”
“I’ll help you get him to your car,” said Hunter. “Watch him closely. He’ll be very weak for a while, but when he’s able to move, he might... hurt himself.”
“Aye,” said Killian, slowly absorbing the meaning of Hunter’s words. He gave me a quick backward glance, then walked over to the father he had feared and respected. Alyce edged back to give him room. Killian put a hand on Ciaran’s shoulder and flinched when he saw Ciaran’s face. I looked away. Then Hunter and Killian walked away through the woods, supporting Ciaran between them.
Alyce got up slowly and came to sit by me. “It was a hard thing, my dear,” she said.
“It hurts,” I said inadequately.
“It needs to hurt, Morgan,” she said gently, rubbing my back. “If you had done this without it hurting, you would be a monster.”
Like Ciaran, I thought. Hunter came back, alone. Alyce kissed my cheek and left, going back through the woods the way she had come. With only Hunter as my witness, I let go and began to cry. He sat down next to me and put his arms around me, hard and familiar. I leaned against him and sobbed until I thought I would make myself sick. And still there was pain inside.
“Morgan, Morgan,” Hunter barely murmured. “I love you. I love you. It will be all right.”
I had no idea how he could say that.
12. Alisa
“It’s a thin line between light and dark, between pain and pleasure, between heat and cold, between love and hate, between life and death, between this world and the next.”