Ciaran stared at me, his eyes wide with undisguised shock. “Your mother?”
And I realized that Selene had never told him who I was. She’d never told him I was Maeve’s daughter.
He bolted from the room then. I took it for the last moment of triumph I would ever know. I’d actually shaken the leader of Amyranth. And I’d only have to pay for it with my life.
Exhaustion descended on me like a heavy cloak. I hung my head, let my eyes close, giving in to the drug they’d fed me.
That lying, manipulative wench Selene! She knew this girl was Maeve’s daughter and she never told me! What other secrets did she keep from me?
Maeve’s daughter! You wouldn’t know it from the girl’s looks. She doesn’t have Maeve’s delicate, pretty face, the sprinkling of freckles across her nose, the soft waves of reddish-brown hair. All she has of Maeve is her power. Though there’s something about her eyes that’s damnably familiar.
How did Maeve and Angus manage to spawn that one without my ever knowing? And how the bloody hell did she find out what happened at the end? Even those who knew Maeve didn’t know we were mùirn beatha dàns, and no one, save Maeve and Angus, knew about how the fire started. All witnesses are dead.
Selene couldn’t have told her. Selene knew nothing of what was between me and Maeve. Or…did she? I’ve never been sure just what Selene did and didn’t know. All of which raises the question: What else is there that Selene didn’t tell me about this girl?
My thoughts are heaving like the sea. There’s something at the edge of my mind, a disturbing presence on the edge of consciousness. It has a truth to show me.
Damn it. What is it? What is it?
Hunter, putting the silver chains of the braigh on David Redstone…Mary K., huddled in a corner of Selene’s study, confused, frightened, and spelled…Cal, absorbing the cloud of darkness that Selene hurled at me…His beautiful golden eyes…
No! I started out of my stupor, shaking and grieving at the images that kept parading in front of me. For a moment I couldn’t imagine where I was. Then memory returned. The house with the vines. The masked witches. Ciaran.
I was now in a much larger room. My head ached, and I felt even dizzier than before. With effort I focused my eyes on the ceiling, on the leaves and vines and ornate plaster molding, all horribly familiar. Black candles flickered from sconces and from an elaborate silver candlestick atop an inlaid ebony cabinet. Black drapes covered the windows. I cast out my senses. They were frighteningly weak, but I could still faintly detect objects of power inside the cabinet—athames, wands, crystals, animal skulls and bones, all emanating dark magick.
I was lying on a large round table, my hands and feet bound to it with spelled ropes. The table was made of some sort of stone, inlaid with patterns in another stone. Garnet, I thought. There were deep grooves in the surface of the table. The panic I’d felt in the visions returned full blown, and for a few useless minutes I struggled against the bonds.
Panic never helps, I told myself. Focus. Find a way out of this. But it was so hard to think through the haze of Amyranth’s drugged tea.
I called on the spell that was binding me to reveal itself. I saw the faintest glimmering of something that might have been a rune before it winked out. I tried to summon the spell again. Nothing happened, and I felt another jolt of panic. Breathe, I told myself, just breathe.
But it wasn’t easy. What had happened to my precious magick? I couldn’t connect with it, couldn’t feel it.
It’s mine, dammit, I thought furiously. No one—especially not Ciaran—is going to take my magick from me.
Maybe I lost consciousness again. I’m not sure. I never heard a door open or close, never heard footsteps, but suddenly Amyranth surrounded me. Witches in robes and animal masks formed a perfect circle around the table. Jackal, owl, weasel, cougar, eagle, bear, hawk, viper, jaguar, and a wolf. Predators all. The masks seemed distorted, horrible caricatures of the animals they represented, but I could also tell there was something wrong with my eyesight. It was impossible to say how accurate my perceptions were.
My visions and dreams had come together. Even through the haze of the drug, I could appreciate the irony of it all—if we hadn’t tried to prevent my dream from coming to pass, none of this would have ever happened. Never try to mess with destiny.
The bear murmured an incantation, and I realized the power-draining ritual was beginning. The others picked up the incantation, turning it into a low, insistent chant. They moved widdershins. The air felt cruel and thick with danger. This was a Wiccan circle of destruction.
And Ciaran was leading it. I couldn’t see his face beneath the wolf mask, but I could hear his voice, familiar yet terrifying. Just like the vision. Goddess.
I could feel Amyranth’s dark magick flowing around the circle. It crackled like lightning. The air was charged with it. Slowly the strength of their power intensified. I felt an unbearable pressure along every inch of my body. Amyranth was calling up a ravenous darkness.
Irrelevantly, it hit me that Cal had never had a funeral. The council had taken his and Selene’s bodies. As far as everyone in Widow’s Vale was concerned, Cal and Selene had simply vanished from the earth.
Or maybe it wasn’t so irrelevant. That was what was going to happen to me. My family would never know the truth about my disappearance, and it would always torment them.
The circle stopped moving. A thick, black mist clung to its members. “We give thanks,” Ciaran said, “for delivering to us a sacrifice whose powers will make us that much stronger.”
“How much power does she have?” asked the owl.
Ciaran shrugged. “See for yourself.”
The owl held a hand over my stomach. Fine silver needles of light dropped from it. For a second they hovered inches above me, then began to glow red. The owl murmured a syllable, and the burning needles dropped down. I couldn’t hold back a scream as they seemed to pierce my skin. Dozens of sharp embers sank into my belly, my arms, my legs. Involuntarily my back arched, and I pulled against the spelled ropes.
“Stop it!” I cried. “Please, stop it!”
“Be quiet!” the owl said harshly.
And then the fiery torture intensified, burned deeper into my body. I imagined my heart shriveling into a blackened lump, my bones crisping. I was wild with pain.
I can’t take this, I thought frantically. I’m going to lose my mind.
“That’s enough,” Ciaran ordered. “You’ve seen what’s in her.”
“Strong, very strong. She’ll serve well,” the owl agreed.
As suddenly as it had started, the pain was gone. I sobbed in relief and hated myself for that weakness.
The wail of a siren came faintly from outside, and a flash of red light shone through the black drapes. The vision again. Oh God, every detail was coming true. I had seen the future. Now I was living it. Amyranth was going to steal my powers, leave me drained, hollowed out—without magick, without a soul, without life.
Ciaran began another chant. One by one the others joined their voices to his. Again the dark energy began to move, gaining power as it traveled through Amyranth’s circle. I lay there helpless on the stone table, every muscle in my body clenched tight against the next horrible assault.
I thought of Maeve, my mother, murdered. I thought of Mackenna, my grandmother, killed when the dark wave destroyed Ballynigel. My family had suffered for their magick. Maybe no more was being asked of me than had been asked of them. I had the Riordan strength flowing through my veins. I had ancestral memories and a legacy of incredible power. Surely that meant I had their courage as well.
Give it to us. I felt the darkness clawing at me, trying to find its way into my very marrow.
Amyranth continued the chant. The dark energy shifted, no longer crackling around the circle. Now it hovered over the table, wreathing my body with sparking purple-black light.