Page 43 of Claws for Celebration
"Both," Lucien replied with the honesty she'd grown to treasure. "The Council recognizes how crucial your abilities are becoming. But I see how happy you are when you're working with your magic, how proud you look when the other witches praise your technique. That has nothing to do with supernatural politics, it’s about you finding your true calling."
Their quiet conversation was interrupted by Elena's urgent voice from across the café. "Moira, you need to see this."
They approached the table where Elena had spread out several hand-drawn maps of the surrounding mountain region, each marked with symbols that indicated supernatural activity. Red marks clustered around Hollow Oak in patterns that made Moira's blood run cold.
"What am I looking at?" she asked.
"Magical disturbances detected over the past week," Margaret explained. "Each red mark represents a location where our perimeter sensors detected otherworldly energy signatures."
"They're forming a circle," Moira realized, studying the pattern with growing alarm. "A very large circle with Hollow Oak at the center."
"A summoning circle," Cordelia corrected grimly. "Someone is using our town as the focal point for a magical working that requires significant preparation time."
"The vampires?" Lucien asked, though his expression suggested he already suspected the answer was more complicated.
"Vampires don't work with summoning magic on this scale," Elena said. "This is something much older and much more powerful. Something that's been planning this convergence for a very long time."
As they studied the maps and discussed possible explanations for the supernatural activity, Moira felt an urgent pull from the direction of the bookstore. The Shadowheart Codex was calling to her with increasing intensity, as if the ancient tome had critical information that couldn't wait for their ward-strengthening work to conclude.
"I need to check the grimoire," she said, gathering her jacket and bag. "Something's been bothering me about the timing of everything. My arrival, the vampire interest, the failing protective barriers, all of it feels too coordinated to be coincidence."
"Want company?" Lucien asked, already rising from his chair.
"Actually, let me look at it alone first. The grimoire responds better when I'm not distracted by other people's magical signatures." She touched his hand briefly, drawing comfort from the contact. "But stay close? I have a feeling whatever it shows me isn't going to be pleasant."
The walk back to the bookstore took her through Hollow Oak's quiet downtown streets, past shop windows that glowedwith warm light and residential buildings where families were settling in for the evening. The normalcy of the scene felt precious in a way it hadn't before, like something that needed to be protected at all costs.
Inside the bookstore, Moira approached the Shadowheart Codex with reverent care. The ancient tome practically hummed with urgency, its leather binding warm to the touch as she opened it to find pages covered with text that hadn't been there that morning.
The Convergence Approaches
"Convergence," she whispered, settling into her usual chair as elegant script continued appearing across the parchment. "What kind of convergence?"
Every seven centuries, the barriers between realms grow thin. Ancient entities that were banished to shadow dimensions probe for weaknesses, seeking ways to return to the mortal world. The last Convergence brought the evil that Seraphina sacrificed herself to bind. The next begins at the autumn equinox.
Moira's hands began to shake as she calculated dates in her head. "That's less than two weeks away."
The awakening of Shadowheart blood magic is not coincidence but necessity. The granddaughter's power must be fully developed before the Convergence peaks, for she alone carries the magical signature needed to either strengthen Seraphina's bindings or witness their complete failure.
"Witness their failure," she repeated, dread settling in her stomach like a cold stone. "You're saying that if I'm not strong enough, if I can't master my abilities in time, the ancient evil breaks free during this Convergence."
Not just the evil that threatens Hollow Oak. All of them. Every entity banished during the last seven centuries of supernatural conflicts. They will pour through the weakenedbarriers like water through a broken dam, and the mortal world will face horrors it is utterly unprepared to survive.
The magnitude of what the grimoire was revealing made Moira's vision blur with overwhelming terror. This wasn't just about protecting one small mountain town. This was about preventing a supernatural apocalypse that would affect the entire planet.
The Shadowheart bloodline was created for this purpose. To stand guard at the moment when ancient darkness seeks to reclaim the world. The granddaughter must choose: embrace her full heritage and face the Convergence as her ancestors intended, or watch everything burn in supernatural fire.
"No pressure at all," Moira whispered, but the grimoire wasn't finished with its revelations.
Beware those who would claim to offer protection. The vampire seeks not just a powerful witch but a weapon he can wield during the Convergence. The mate bond provides strength, but only if both parties accept their destiny willingly. Half-measures and hesitation will result in failure catastrophic beyond mortal comprehension.
As the implications of the grimoire's warnings crashed over her, Moira felt something shift in the magical atmosphere around the bookstore. The protective barriers she'd woven earlier flickered and strengthened, responding to her emotional state with increasing intensity. But underneath the familiar golden warmth of her own magic, she sensed something else. Her body suddenly grew goosebumps as if in a warning.
Something vast and hungry and utterly malevolent, pressing against the barriers between dimensions with patient determination. Something that had been waiting seven centuries for this moment, for the chance to break free and reclaim a world it had once tried to devour. But it didn’t feel as if her strength was making it weaker, but stronger.
She had taken what the Codex said as truth and aide, but what if it wasn’t a guide to finding herself, but feeding what had been locked away?
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