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.
Give it to us.
The purple-black light licked at my skin the way flames lick at dry wood. There was no pain, but I felt a crushing weight in my mind, against my chest, in my belly. I gasped for breath and could find none. But I could not let them get my power. Desperately, silently, I sang my summon-power chant.
An di allaigh an di aigh
An di allaigh an di ne ullah
An di ullah be…
The words that I knew from ancestral memory were suddenly gone from me. An di ullah be… I got no further. The chant had been wiped from my mind.
No! I wanted to scream, to sob, but I had no breath. Don’t take it! No! Grief consumed me—grief for the magick that was being taken from me. Grief for this precious life that I was about to lose. Grief for Hunter, whom I would never see again.
Ciaran held out a silver athame. A ruby glowed dully on its hilt. He pointed the athame at me, and the dark power coagulated into a spear of searing light.
“You will give us your power,” he said.
No, no, no! I was no longer capable of coherent thought. Just—no!
The chanting broke off abruptly at a sound on the other side of the door. A muffled disturbance, a struggle…someone using magick against Amyranth’s spells.
Hunter! I felt Hunter’s presence, his love, his desperate fear for me. And it terrified me more than anything. Was I strong enough still to send a witch message? Hunter, go back, I pleaded. Don’t come in here. You can’t save me.
The doorknob turned with a click, and Hunter stepped into the room, his eyes wild. He glanced at me quickly as if to reassure himself that I was alive, then turned to Ciaran.
“Let her go,” Hunter commanded. His voice shook.
The jackal and the wolf raised their hands, as if to attack Hunter with witch light. Ciaran stopped them.
“No!” he said. “This one is mine. At least for now.” He turned back to Hunter, an expression of mild amazement on his face. “The council must be in bad shape, sending a boy to do a Seeker’s work. Did they really lead you to believe you could take me on?”
Hunter’s hand shot out, and a ball of witch light zoomed toward Ciaran. Ciaran drew a sigil in the air, and the light reversed course and blazed back at Hunter.
Hunter ducked, his face pale, eyes glittering. When he stood again, he looked taller, broader than he had only a moment before. A new aura of power glowed around him. He emanated both youthful strength and ancient authority.