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“It’s the flower petals the land chose for you. The land provides us with what is needed to tether our souls to it. Sunflower petals for your burning soul.” She pinched a few and dropped them into the pool of water. “Holy basil for endurance. Sage for cognitive-enhancement and brain function. Lavender to ease the fear growing within you. And last but not least, lemongrass oil. You enjoyed its lemony scent when you were an infant.”
“Oh,” I whispered as the water became a mixing pot of oils, herbs, and flower petals. “It actually smells fantastic,” I admitted as the soothing scents calmed the anxious energy growing in my emotions.
“The land wouldn’t cause you discomfort, child. It seeks to engage your soul and forge a deeper connection.” Once she was happy with the amount of herbs and petals she’d sprinkled in, she sat at the edge of the pool, soaking her feet in the soothing water.
“I don’t have a choice here. Do I?” My question caused her face to tighten as she considered her reply.
“No. Not unless you don’t wish to reach for your birthright. If that’s the case, then Hecate will continue to rule the land in your stead. But you can walk away from it and bury your head in the sand if you so choose,” she explained bluntly.
“Don’t hold back on me now,” I muttered before sinking beneath the watery surface. When I opened my eyes and looked up through the swirls of petals, there were several skeletal figures around the pool that weren’t there before. I emerged, already swimming back and away from the edge as an ear-splitting scream turned my throat raw.
“Aria!” Scylla shouted before flicking her skeletal hand to send a spray of water in my face. “There’s no reason to lose your shit, child.”
Her tone held humor, which shouldn’t have freaked me out, but it did. What the fuck? One minute, she’d looked like me, then she was freaking Skeleton Barbie! A glance around the pool showed everyone in it was dead, other than me. At least, I fucking hoped I wasn’t. Backing up, I held my hands in front of me.
“What the fuck?” The whisper barely registered before I screamed it, louder. “What the fuck?”
“I’m dead. What were you expecting? You’re literally inside my tomb, Aria. It’s a part of the Kingdom of Fire, which cannot be reached other than on the spiritual plane.” She shrugged her shoulders, which freaking crackled.
“You didn’t think to warn me! I mean, you’re a freaking skeleton, for fuck’s sake.”
“Would it have made you feel better if we had?” Her tone held humor, as if she’d enjoyed my hysterics.
“Maybe?” Her brows pushed up to her silvery hairline. “It would’ve fit perfectly on the fuck-it-bucket conversation we just had.” Crossing my arms over my naked breasts, I scowled at her and the handmaidens, who snickered. Slowly, as I continued to glare at the lot of them, the anger dissipated.
“Don’t be cross with my ladies, Aria. They followed me into the afterlife out of loyalty, which isn’t something most have chosen to do.”
“That’s about the only thing that makes sense at the moment,” I uttered beneath my breath. “What do I do to let the land know I’m willing to meld with it?”
“You remember how it felt to merge with the land?” Nodding, I felt my face tightening with pain. I remembered merging with each elemental. I also recalled not surviving a few of them. “It will be a lot like that, then the peace shall come.”
“How do the elements work? Because they taught me, they belonged to Hecate, but I know they don’t. Much of what I was taught was altered, or rewritten to change everything to fit her views.”
Scylla smiled, nodding her head subtly. “You’re correct. The elements belong to the Nine Realms and are mana. They’re not magic. Witches cannot harness, nor house mana. Therefore, when Aurora asked you to retrieve it, she knew you would be the only one who could take it as well as hold it. Though, I did find watching her attempt to hold the sliver you’d handed her, humorous. Of course, the land took it back rather violently from her.” Her tone conveyed disapproval, which was understandable. “You mustn’t trust her, Aria. She is of the same cloth that her mother was cut from.”
“I know that now,” I admitted.
“This will hurt for a while.”
“I’m not afraid of pain.” I wasn’t. Pain was an old bedfellow. In fact, I couldn’t remember a time before I’d felt some source of pain churning through my system. “Can you tell me what it will feel like?”
“I could, but I won’t. Besides, what I endured won’t be the same as what you’ll soon feel. Everyone’s experience is unique. I can tell you I won’t abandon you, though.” I found comfort in the knowledge that at least I wouldn’t be going through this alone. “First, the pool will bless you for your rebirth. The altar will begin your transformation. It isn’t something that happens overnight. Gradually, over time, you’ll begin to evolve. Normally, you’d have been blessed in the pool at birth, but distance was an issue. Also, it’s hard for the dead to speak to the living. It takes me months to consume enough mana to return from the afterlife.”
She climbed from the pool, then knelt beside it, placing her hands on her knees. As she spoke in an ancient language, the water began to spin around me. Lines of bright, glittering, golden hues slid up my arms, then twirled around them. Peering down, I frowned at the runes painting my breasts, marring the unkindness beneath them on my sternum. Below it, the circular design I’d placed on myself to ensure only Knox could father my children refused to allow any of the amber runes to even get near it, which forced a smile on my lips.
The water continually churned, glowing brighter until it hurt to continue staring at it. Using my forearm to shield my eyes, I frowned as a humming noise began inside the chamber. The ladies who’d followed her into death were using singing bowls to send soft vibrations throughout the room. It continued growing louder until I felt the compulsion to cover my ears from the humming. A moment before I would have, the water stopped as quickly as it had begun.
“Climb out of the pool so that you can lie on the altar. It is blessed by Freyja, who promised to hold her daughters during their darkest hours. I was born on the same altar. It’s also where I honored the arrangement, which we’d brokered to secure the future in the Nine Realms.”
The altar was ivory, with delicate runes carved into the base. Antlers littered the surrounding ground, and their tips glowed with small, swaying flames. In the trees around the altar, swords had been forcefully driven through the trunks and sap flooded the earthen floor. A skull with antlers wrapped in startlingly green vines with flowers adorning them sat at the head of the smooth, ivory slab. At the foot of the slab, there was a burner for the incense, which was filling the air with bergamot and sage.
My heartbeat was erratic as I walked, utterly naked, toward where the altar waited. The sound of it thundering in my ears was deafening as the handmaidens chanted, honoring my sacrifice. I’d like to say I didn’t want to tuck tail and run like a bitch, but that would be a lie. I feared what was about to unfold. Not for the reasons a sane person would, of course. I knew I had to reach for my birthright in order to face Hecate. I had come here for that very reason.
I couldn’t escape the prophecy I’d been born to bring about. Hecate was a poison upon the land, one which needed to be eradicated. I think I’d always known this was my destiny, even when I’d refused to acknowledge the signs or sensations flowing through me.
I’d been a child back then. The land had warned me of what would become of it should I fail to reach for the power it offered. Back then, I had reached for it, but it had been terrifying. As I’d gotten older, I’d allowed myself to feel the raw, unfiltered power slithering through my veins, but I’d never spoken of it to anyone—ever. I’d known it wasn’t normal to pull from a land I’d never been in before. Even without the original families in Haven Falls opening the portal, I felt the call of the realms beckoning me home.
Once, Aurora had spoken of sensing a great, untapped power source in front of me, and the land had recoiled from her as if her presence offended it. I’d returned to hiding in the corners, listening to the magic as it told me of the land I’d been forged from. As if they had cut me from the rocks and sculpted me to life by the essence of the world. I’d felt the rocky shores of Norvalla with my fingertips. Danced through the barren land of the Kingdom of Fire, uncaring that the skeletal remains swayed with me. On the highest peak of the Dark Mountains, I’d felt the wind beating against my cheeks as I soared through the breeze, sailing over the great white oak trees.
