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Just a few months ago, I’d been completely alone and oblivious to any of this magical vampire shit. Now, I stood inside a blood circle with three ancient, powerful Triune queens, preparing to submit to the Great Mother’s will. Whatever that meant.
While my beloved Blood were locked outside.
I knew they’d eventually reach me. We’d find a way.
I didn’t have to like it, though.
The last drop of Undina’s blood closed the third circle and she turned to face the table. Lifting her hands, palms facing the table, she began to sing. Not in words, but deep, resonating sounds, echoing through the chamber like beautiful whale song. Her voice contained the ebb and flow of the tides. The majesty of an angry, stormy sea. The unfathomable depths sinking into complete darkness.
So deep, the sun never reached this place. Yet this darkness wouldn’t respond to me. It wasn’t my domain.
An edge of fear sliced through me. Her voice captured the feeling of awe, terror, and magnificence of swimming in deep, dark water where I couldn’t see what manner of creature might be lurking below.
“Great Mother of All, Skolos gathers to enact Your will in this world. Long it has been since we came to Your table. It’s been a time fraught with danger, but Your Daughters prevail.” She looked over at me, the skin around her eyes and mouth tight with strain. “A penitent queen comes before Skolos. Until judgment is passed, Shara Isador, daughter of She Who Is and Was and Always Will Be, is bound to this circle. So decrees the Speaker, Skolos High Queen, Undina Ketea, so let it be.”
Bound. No power. Unable to leave.
My eyes flared with shock, and my stomach churned on the bitter acid of betrayal. I’d come to help her. I’d saved her son. She’d witnessed my birth, which had helped me wriggle out of Marne Ceresa’s net.
I thought we had some kind of understanding, but evidently I couldn’t be more mistaken.
The Mother’s words from the dream echoed in my mind. :THEY NEED YOU, EVEN IF THEY DENY YOU. EVEN WHEN THEY DESPISE YOU.:
Averting her face, Undina stepped around the table opposite me. Three luminescent blobs pushed up out of the floor, each positioned one third around the table. They glowed with the same soft blue light, gently billowing like breathing creatures, though I didn’t see any arms or distinguishing features.
“I willingly take my seat at the Skolos Triune and offer my blood to the Mother.”
Her words rang with a sharp edge, and I didn’t miss the way she sat hard and quickly onto the gleaming blue blob, as if her knees gave out. She grabbed the edge of the table, and the seat flowed around her, growing larger to cover her entire body.
Even her face. Until she was completely swallowed in blue jelly-like stuff. I could still see her floating inside the mass, a darker center suspended inside. Her body jolted and red bloomed into the transparent blob.
Blood.
As droplets of blood spread, the blueish blob quickly changed colors. First darker, almost purple, and then gleaming red like molten lava from the center of the earth. Two streams of red flowed down her arms to pour into the table she clutched like a lifeline. Her blood spilled into the surface of the table.
All the blood in her body.
The blob faded back to blue and changed its shape, molding to her mermaid body. Her hands still gripped the table with long, glistening white claws shoved into its surface.
Goddess. Guillaume had tried to describe the process to me, but seeing it actually happen…
I let out a shaky breath. Someday, I’d need to do the same thing with Triskeles. It wouldn’t look the same, but the general process would be similar.
Nuri came to stand beside me, facing the table. Voice soft and low, she said, “the kraken is Undina’s son, a king, is he not? How do you control him without chains?”
“Love,” I replied. “The same way I love Leviathan. My kings serve as Blood because they love me. Not because I force them.”
“Fascinating.” She glided toward the seat on the left side of the table. “I, Nuri Kijin, willingly take my seat at the Skolos Triune and offer my blood to the Mother.”
Gripping the table with both hands, she bowed her head and blew out three deep, hard breaths. Then she dropped into the seat. It flowed around her the same way, draining her blood into the table, until the chair shifted into a sinuous serpent—though it still had her head with long flowing black hair.
My heart thudded heavily, my breathing coming too fast. Once Basilia took her seat, the Triune would be complete.
Though she wasn’t in any hurry to join the other two queens. After seeing with my own eyes what taking a seat at the table meant, I honestly couldn’t blame her.
“Skolos has a quorum,” she said. “There’s no reason for me to take my seat.”
“We need to be complete.” Undina’s voice stretched out in a deep, resonant echo. “Skolos gathers for the first time in nearly four hundred years.”
