Page 133 of Blood Feast

“Yes,” Lio said, “this could work!”

She pressed one bleeding hand to her pendant, the other dripping blood down Rosethorn. The letting site’s power splitand funneled into her foci. A wild, chaotic third current of power sought for her missing focus.

“I have a unified duality and two foci,” she told the Lustra through gitted teeth. “Take them or leave them.”

She braced herself and drew on the blood magic flowing in her veins.

Her Hesperine power flowed into the lines of the rose, and the rightness of it, the relief made tears prick her eyes. The current of her blood magic pulled her plant magic along with it. The letting site’s power shuddered and built, a raging river trying to crash through the narrowest ravine. Lio folded himself around her, holding her against the onslaught.

She felt small. The vast Lustra threatened to roll over her and return her to dust.

No. She was immortal. Recreated by Hespera, she had nothing to fear from the power of creation.

The unanchored third current snapped into place, melding with the two channels pouring through her artifacts. The force of nature pouring from the letting site followed her blood magic into the thorns and petals of Hespera’s rose.

Lio gasped. “Goddess bless. It’s working. You can do this, Cassia.”

Flecks of blood floated around her. She caught their scent and realized they were Lio’s blood. Every stain their battle had left on him rose from his skin and hair and robes to fall, wet and bright, into the center of the rose. Mak made a surprised noise, watching the gore on his chest lift away and stream into the center, mingling with the blood the spell pulled from Lyros.

The green lines of the nonagram faded to darkness. The spell wrenched itself out of Ebah’s ancient pattern and reformed along every petal and thorn of Hespera’s Rose. It sang, with two nodes keeping the whole chaos in balance—one concentration ofpower swirling around her and Lio, the other encircling Mak and Lyros.

She heard her pendant and the stone speaking to each other in that language she couldn’t understand. This enchantment was created by soothsaying, the wisdom of people. The magic of words. She grasped at the few words of the old tongue she knew.

“Ebah,” she said, the name of ivy, of the sorceress who had crafted this spell. An invocation of her matriarch. Then she said in Divine, the mother tongue of Hesperines, “I am your daughter in this epoch. Your past is mine by right.”

The pendant was warm, almost too hot against her hand. Lio ran his thumb over hers and didn’t let go.

“Ebah,” Cassia demanded a second time. “I am your immortal daughter. Trust me with your secrets, and they shall live forever with me.”

The whispers grew to a cacophony. They spilled forth from the stone and rushed toward Cassia. The channeling hit her pendant and sent her staggering back against Lio. He held her tightly as magic poured into her chest.

Light raced along the patterns of the nonagram, erasing the symbol line by line. The standing stone crumbled to dust before their eyes.

“No, no—” she began.

But the whispers interrupted her. Now they were coming from her pendant.

The current of magic faded and left her feeling light and unsteady. The whispers quieted, as if going to sleep. But the feel of the magic inside her pendant had changed. Grown.

Slowly, Mak and Lyros lowered their wards. Lyros was the first to speak. “What just happened?”

“Incredible.” Lio, immortal as he was, sounded breathless. “The enchantment in the stone was designed to be transferredto another artifact. It merged with the spells inside Cassia’s pendant.”

She flicked her hand and left one more emphatic splash of blood where the stone had stood. “And we did it on Hespera’s terms.”

The floorboards creaked, then the wood under the fresh bloodstain cracked, and a vine of black roses blossomed in the center of their defiant Ritual circle. Magic echoed in the vines, in the bloodied lines of their spell, and in the Union between the four of them, which battle had only strengthened.

“I know this isn’t how any of us expected to spend Winter Solstice,” Cassia said, “but let this be our Ritual in Hespera’s honor.”

THE REAL TOWER

Cassia traced the intricatecarvings on the pendant. Power. Answers. Right under her fingertips yet out of reach.

“There’s only one problem,” she said. “I have no idea what this enchantment is for. It’s still useless to us.”

Lio’s smile faded, giving way to the harsh determination she had come to recognize. His impossible vow to restore her lost magics. As if he would shake the world with his bare hands until it yielded up her power.

“So much has been preserved here,” Cassia said. “Perhaps we can learn more than we did at the other Lustra sites.”

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