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Looking out at the group that has gathered for this, one of them unwillingly, I marvel at the power within these walls. If I am to survive the resurrection of a God, it will be with their assistance.
Mace falls behind the podium representing Avidor, resting his elbows atop it, steepling his fingers as he always does, green eyes fixed firmly on me. I cannot decipher what is behind those eyes. From this angle, he looks more like the Mace Nightroot of the Race’s opening ceremonies than the Mace who spoke to me from between my thighs.
The memory of his warm breath sends a shiver down my spine. I hope I survive just to experience that again.
Plume, her soft, beautiful face stricken with fear and worry, stands beside Mace at the Bloomtide’s podium. Once she settles her hands onto the top, she looks at me with hope and reverence one normally reserves for their Gods. This woman denied her best friend because she believes in me so much, and I hope beyond all hope I do not let her down.
Morrow, a stranger to me, joins the group at Solarius’ podium. He looks neither excited nor scared about the situation as he picks at his fingernails. It makes me wonder how much he knows of what is happening here. “Morrow, you know why we’re here, right?”
He nods tightly, gripping the edges of the podium. “Aye, bringing back a God.”
“You know this will probably kill me, right?”
He shakes his head with a laugh, the braids in his dark black hair cascading over his shoulders and down his back. “You won’t die, girl.”
I groan as I hear Tulip’s chair scrape, knowing what will come out of her mouth. “She’s not a girl! She’s a woman!”
Morrow swings his head towards her voice, eyebrows raised like he’s just spotted Tulip for the first time. Her face heats at the attention. “She is a woman, you’re right. Apologies, Viola.” He looks at me with a half nod, which I return before he fixes his gaze on Tulip again. “And so are you.”
I do not know how he managed to make those four simple words sound so sensual, but Tulip’s knees start to buckle as she lowers herself back to her chair.
Morrow turns back to face me with a pleased grin on his face. Mace catches my eye, and I stifle a laugh at the expression on his face at the exchange.
Stone stomps between the podiums and myself, his face schooled in anger. “You’re all too distracted! We need to begin. It’s time to set our intentions.”
“And what are our intentions?” I asked, confused at the formality of the spell. Until now, I’ve mainly just considered what I wanted and gotten it. Stone looks at me like I am nothing more than a nuisance. Before he can speak, Mace steps in.
“The ritual is deceptively simple to initiate, but the complexity is in its completion. Plume, Morrow, and I will set intentions to empower you to bring back Himureal. You will need to open your mind to spotting the intentions of our magic flowing towards you. Gather them, consume them,”
“Consume? Like… eat? You want me to eat your magic?” I interrupt.
Mace chuckles while Stone looks on in annoyance. “Yes, actually. You gather all the intentions and pour them into your body to merge with yours. From there, once our intentions are a part of yours, you will use that dagger to cut yourself, pouring your blood into the bowl.”
I wrinkle my nose. “That does sound too simple.”
He shrugs. “For our part, it is. You, on the other hand, have to hold the magic of three Seasonale inside of you, combining it with your own. It can be difficult to maintain hold of all that magic for enough time to combine all of it. Our hardest part was finding you.”
I look to Stone. “And where do you come in in all of this?” He fixes me with an angry glare.
“I am the one who translated the texts and orchestrated your entire being,girl. I am here only to welcome one of my Gods with open arms. Now enough. I will not wait a moment longer. It’s time to begin.”
I look down at the altar, where the stone basin sits with the ornamental obsidian blade. Reaching into my pocket with my Shadow-free arm, I pull out the tiny stone with the flourished M that my father carried my entire life. “Hey, Dad, if you’re out there, I hope I’m doing the right thing. I hope you’d be proud of me,” I whisper as I set the stone next to the blade.
A slight buzzing fills the air, almost imperceptible but raising the hairs on my neck. It’s quieter than the buzz from the Bliksem lights but no less insistent, itching my skin and pulling my attention. When I raise my head to look for the source of the noise, I am shocked at the most beautiful sight I’ve ever laid my eyes on.
Floating before me, growing more numerous by the moment, are shining petals of green magic, bright white flickers of light that flash like lightning bugs, and crumbling, delicate flecks of brown that could only be Mace’s magic of decay. Each fae in front of me chose their strongest magic to send to me for protection and strength.
I understand that I am supposed to gather and consume all this magic, so I will the particles toward me, swooping them into my hands. I start to raise my hands to my mouth, but my body is screaming at me to drop the magic from my palms. It is impossible to fight the sensation of wrongness as the magic is in my hands, so I toss them up, scattering the magic into the air around me.
Almost without effort, I call forward my own magic, and for the first time since I came here, I fully believe that I have it within me. All around me, I see inky black specks, drops of crimson, and flakes of blue fill the cavern of the garrison. My magic swirls together, collecting the petals of Spring, the light of Summer, and the decay of Autumn into a shimmering vortex above me.
Stone appears to be saying something, face angry at my departure from the planned ritual, but I cannot hear him. It is as if I am underwater, focused solely on the magic settling in front of me. I cannot look away from the beautiful blend of magic, my own taking up as much space as the other three combined.
The vortex spins down from the ceiling, swirling over the basin. It hovers in front of me like a specter, a physical manifestation of the destiny I have been fighting since I arrived here. I long to reach out and touch it, to bask in its warmth, but just as I knew not to consume the spell particles, I know that grabbing it is not what the magic needs. Shadow slips from my arm to the dagger next to the basin, and I reach to grab it. The familiar seems hesitant but allows me to take it into my hand. He climbs back up my arm and wraps himself around my head, tangling in my hair and anointing me like a crown.
Before I can rethink what I’m doing, I drag the pointed blade down the sensitive underside of my arm. Rivers of blood immediately pool in the basin beneath me. For the briefest moment, my eyes are transfixed, the flow of blood much greater than I expected. My skin gapes open, a waterfall of my life dripping down my flesh.
The moment the blood hits the bottom of the stone bowl, the magic vortex drops, colors and light and dark that disappear into the blood in a blend of my life force and magic intended to bring forth a God.
