Page 84 of Claim the Twilight
She beams at me. “First the transfer of power.” She pushes back her chair and stands. “Come.”
I follow her out of the cottage and into the late afternoon sun. Harald trails after us, his anticipation a warm shadow hugging my steps.
Aster leads us around the cottage to a pavilion covered in flowering vines. Inside, the ground is etched with arcane symbols, and an aperture filled with earth takes up central space.
“The spell to transfer Moringa’s power happened here.” Aster kneels and uses her hands to gently turn the earth, digging a holeto expose a small wooden box. She lifts it out gently, cradling it to her chest. “A piece of Moringa lives in this box. Her hair, blood, and breath, sealed to solidify the transfer. Once I pass it back to you, once you open it, the spell will unravel.” She looked down at the box, her eyes misty. “You were meant to do this centuries ago. I wonder if you suspected what the price for your wish would be, and if you knew that you wouldn’t live to reclaim your connection.”
I glance across at Harald, standing, stoic and expressionless, giving nothing away. He’d killed the man Moringa loved, hoping to keep her for himself, and she’d hated him enough to give her life to punish him. Could I…Would I do the same?
Edwin fills my mind, and the answer comes easily. Yes. A thousand times, yes.
Aster holds out the box. “Take it. Open it and be whole. But be prepared for what may come.”
“The surge?”
“You will be fine,” Harald says. “You have an ancient, powerful soul.”
“I don’t feel ancient, and I don’t feel powerful…” I take a deep breath. “But this has to be done.” I lock gazes with Aster. “Are you ready?”
She smiles, warm and sincere. “Oh, sweet child, I am more than ready.”
“Okay.” I grip the box, expecting her to release it, but she holds fast. “Aster?”
“We must both be holding it,” she says. “Open it. Now.” Her eyes gleam with excitement, and a dark foreboding blooms in my belly. “Please, child,” Aster pleads. “Release me.”
I flip the small latch on the box and open it.
A gust of wind blows back my hair, and a wretched howl fills the air. A clap of thunder sounds, and the air crackles, the sun dipping behind a cloud to leave the world dark.
“What’s happening?”
Aster grins, tipping her face up to the pavilion roof, where a purple sphere of energy has materialized.
“Finally!”
“Dammit, what’s happening?”
I try to let go of the box, but it’s as if my fingers are glued to it.
“What are you doing?” Harald demands.
“Taking what should have been mine all those centuries ago,” Aster says. “Moringa was a fool. Powerful but led by her heart. It was easy to convince her that you’d murdered Finian. Easy to plant the evidence, to make you believe that maybe you had murdered him in a heartbroken rage.”
“You…Youkilled him!”
“I did what needed to be done to preserve the Lantana name and power. I convinced Moringa to lock you away and offered to hold her connection to the weave. And once her commune with the spirit was over, I slit her throat. It should have been enough to allow me to take full control of her connection, to own it as mine. But…something went wrong.” Her eyes narrow. “It seems my sister had a backup plan in the event of her death. A tether.”
“She hid a sliver of her soul in flesh and bone…” Harald let out a bark of laughter. “A living tether.”
I have no idea what that is or how it works, but now doesn’t seem like the time to ask for clarification.
“I could never find it,” Aster says. “But here you are, the product of the tether, walking straight into my arms. I can finally claim what should have been rightfully mine all along.” She looks up at the ball of energy, and something tugs inside me. A yearning. A needing.
“Take her if you wish,” Harald yells over the rising wind. “But give me back my power.”
I glare at him, eyes burning against the buffeting wind. “You bastard!”
“You’re nothing,” he sneers at me. “A remnant. The woman I love is gone.”
