Page 26 of The Coveted
I felt my heart swell, and hers did too, and in that moment, I couldn’t tell which was which because we wereone—and that wasn’t uncomfortable at all anymore, because I knew we were innately connected. We were family, not by blood but by something just as sacred.
And I’ve been waiting foryou. All of you. A community.
Her jaw set, and she turned away from the mirror so I couldn’t see her anymore. “We will have that again. They will not win. They will not squash us down and divide us—sell us false histories and non-truths—convince us that our tradition, society, and magick is weak or wrong.”
We’re stronger,we said as one. That was when a heavy pounding sounded from somewhere nearby.
I—well,she—walked through her rustic and small bedroom, where candles were scattered about and herbs hung to dry on the walls. It reminded me of my mothers’ cottage back in Northern Ireland. She made her way down some steps and to the front door, where more pounding ensued.
A middle-aged man stood on the other side, tall but thin, his skin uneven like it was scarred from acne. He had a dark beard and bushy eyebrows, and he was wearing a black uniform that sort of reminded me of old-fashioned police. I could feel Seraphina’s heart pound hard in her chest.
“You’ve been accused.” He smiled, but his eyes showed only spite.
“Of what?” she asked, and I could tell she was raising power, preparing for attack.
I’ll help,I said quickly, dread pooling in my stomach.
“You know what, you filthy heretic,” he spat, and soon he was bursting through the front door. “You’ve been condemned to the dungeons. For life.”
Seraphina stiffened and backed away from him. When he lifted his palm, she raised her hands in an X-shape in front of her body, gathering up the power we both had channeled into a shield. Soon the man was sending hexes her way, pulling out handcuffs. In the astrals I could see that they held a black aura extending out past the metal, indicative of dark magick. Lucius’s magick. The shield out in front of our—her—body glowed white and deep blue.
I know you want to try and protect me, but you can’t use the full scope of your power. It’ll raise suspicion and probably get me killed, she said, straining against the dark, paralytic energy eating away at her shield.
Where are these dungeons? Are they a prison?I asked. This man was unusually strong, and his power held the exact same imprint as the King’s. It carried with it a trail of death and pain. It seemed he was one of the ones who received a boost of unnatural power in exchange for his loyalty. Lucius had extended his power into his followers like a parasite.
“Underneath the King’s City,” she whispered before crying out.They’ll torture us until we die.
The man narrowed his eyes at her, his magick slowly eating away at the shield. I wanted desperately to use my power against him, but I also knew she was right about it drawing suspicion. Yet again, I was trapped and without control, wholly unable to save someone from Lucius’s evil. It shattered my heart.
Let go,she directed, and so I did.
The hex overcame her, knocking her to the ground. I felt its stinging pain envelop every nerve ending and render her body immobile.
“Poor thing. Are your herbs and amulets not enough to save you? How about you pray to your perverse fertility goddess. I’ll wait,” he sneered, swinging the handcuffs back and forth as he approached. “If only you’d recognized that the only true power comes from the King, ordained by the high realms, and followed the rest of us into twenty-first fucking century.”
I couldn’t let one of the last living members of my community be tortured until death. I couldn’t let him shackle her.
Áine, listen to me. Whatever the King has done is polluting the original magick of the land. Those of us that are left can sense it. It’s radiating out from the castle, weakening us. We fear it’s going to affect the borders between the dimensions.
We watched helplessly as the man took hold of her wrists, his hands calloused and cold. He snapped the cuffs into place as another wave of pain shot through her body, and I knew they had snuffed out her ability to use magick.
I will find you. I will save you,I said, emotion rising within me. The man’s breath was sour, and his eyes were devoid of any semblance of humanity.
She screamed, and the sound of it pierced through my soul.I know you will. Until we meet again.
Everything went black. Everything was still. She’d lost consciousness, and now I was free again. When I opened my eyes, I heard the rushing sound of waves and the calling of seabirds. Sunlight kissed my skin.
A calmness enveloped me despite the chilling events I’d just witnessed. I was home. This was our home—mine, Daelon’s, and Seraphina’s—a place that was once filled with magick and beauty. I sat up and realized I lay atop a dune, the sand shimmering in its multi-colored iridescence, like millions of tiny crystals. I gazed out at the ocean, and it looked back at me. The waves were mild, its waters tranquil and a clear blue. But soon a familiar pulling sensation had me turning around in the opposite direction.
Finally, I saw what I had always been called to see. It was never the ocean itself. It was the village beyond the dunes. The lump in my throat grew, and waves of grief moved along my spine. All that remained was rubble and ash. The wildflowers, tall trees, and lush greenery of Daelon’s memory and my mothers’ stories were black and dead. The way my mothers spoke of this place made it seem like an eternal paradise. Now all that remained was the mark of Lucius’s evil.
My people’s song was faint in my eardrums, and as I pressed my palm into the warm sand, I could still feel them. I could feel their bravery and love for each other. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I looked out over the destruction. Below the layer of evil lay great power still, embedded in the soil of this land. I rose, but when I tried to climb down the dune and into the town I was met with a firm energetic wall.
When I focused on its energy, I realized a blackened boundary line ran in between the dunes and the rubble as far as the eye could see. Just as my mothers had said, a part of my purpose was to free our ancestral lands—so that witches might be reunited with the magick of their communities that had been nurtured and utilized for centuries. My mothers taught me that honoring one’s home was essential to witchcraft. There was a special kind of magick that arose from honoring the places we came from, and there was a certain kind of evil that arose from removing people from their sacred lands.
I channeled these truths now as my palms sunk deeper into the sand. Every birth, every death, every prayer, every spell—they wove together beneath the earth, fulfilling the reciprocity of give and take that the Universe relied upon for stability. Lucius and the witches who waged his so-called wars destroyed this—not just buildings or houses or streets, but our connection to each other and our connection to things higher than witches and humans—traditions that had endured for millennia, and ties to people that loved and supported us until we returned to the earth once more. They burned up our memories and our sacred prayers. They burned up our mothers and fathers who would never watch us grow up, fall in love, or have children of our own.
The Kingdom wanted us weak. They wanted to erase us from history and dry up our magick. Lucius believed they were successful, that I was merely a weak and futile attempt at fighting back. But I did not just have my people on my side. I hadallwitches, whether they knew it or not. He had his power, his lies, and his arrogance, but he was alone. It was just him and his puppets. I had everything and everyone, and that’s how I knew he would never win. I just had to find a way to dethrone him before he took the entire world down with him.
