For months, she had relied on her magic solely. She had not realized how lonely it made her to be cut off from il cuóri annodáto. Blessed be the Mother, she had missed it.
She looked at the black hole she had dug into the snow-covered earth. It was small and shallow. She had no time to do more though. There was no more energy in her body.
She opened her mouth to pray but she could only gasp for breath. She couldn’t form a word. Her ribs hurt too much. All she could do was push all of her intention into il cuóri annodáto and hope that it would guide her magic.
Mother, I give this final offering in complete faith that thine magics will keep this birthright protected until the Benandanti are able to reclaim it.
David shrieked in pain. Lightning shot through her body. Her head jerked toward the sound. The cry cut off.
Silence echoed across the forest.
Her heart thudded. She shook, trying to keep her body at the altar. She wanted to race to him. It didn’t matter that she knew he was gone. She wanted to be with him.
She cried silently. She couldn’t. She had to finish this. David’s sacrifice couldn’t all be for naught.
The broken mate bond crashed into her like an ice-cold wave. Her entire body hit the earth. Every muscle seized. She writhed in pain. Muscles contracted over broken bones.
Her mate bond was dissolving. David’s death had severed their connection.
She felt her life bleeding out. It was all too much. She was too far gone. There wasn’t enough magic left to heal what was damaged.
Not that she wanted to live long enough to die at the hands of her mate’s killers.
Hecate, Mother of magic, I thank thee for the love shown to my people and ask that this rite be blessed by thee. Thy magic willing, my devotion never ceasing.
With one final agonizing breath, she forced herself to focus. She needed to finish this. She gathered what was left of her depleted magic. In her mind’s eye, she tugged on the connection to il cuóri annodáto, her people’s most sacred secret.
She placed her hands into the altar and willed the il cuóri annodáto to return to earth. She felt the magic as it left her body. Her body grew weaker as magic flowed out of her.
As the last vestiges drained away, she recognized some of the final people to join il cuóri annodáto.
Her mother’s warm heart.
Her father’s wild spirit.
Her ever loyal Coven sisters.
She felt David’s familiar energy leave her body last, his being the most recent soul gathered into the Coven’s heart. Tears spilled down her frozen cheeks, burning her skin. Soon she would be there too.
She was filled with such painful longing. She wanted to be with her family so badly. She only needed to finish this.
Blessed be the Mother.
With that, she closed her eyes and let the magic leave her.
Ivy shot up in bed. Her body jerked, sending her crashing into the hardwood. She scrambled across the hall throwing herself at the toilet just in time to throw up.
Her whole body shook, thighs knocked together. She took a few deep breaths through her mouth. If she breathed through her nose, she would throw up again.
The sweat cooled along her skin. She couldn’t stop shivering. Dragging herself up, she washed her mouth out at the sink.
She took a moment to say thank you to her landlord. The woman was a little scared of Ivy. It meant she fixed the sink the same day Ivy had told her about it. She hadn’t asked questions either.
She braced against the cold surface. She traced a smear of makeup with a finger. She knew she was out of it but she gave herself some time to just…be.
She focused on feeling. The tiles under her feet. The water on her hands. Her legs that hurt.
Putting on her big girl panties, she looked in the mirror. She was a pale that bordered on grey. It made the dark circles under her eyes seem green. Her white blonde hair was growing out. Her brown roots were not the kind of grow out that looked good.
Good. She felt like shit. She should look like shit. That meant that whatever had just happened had not just been in her head.
She took a few minutes to check herself over in a very detached way. Yes, her finger nails were chipped but she might have done that at the hospital earlier. Same with the scraped on her knees. In the end, Ivy had a few new bruises but nothing else. She gave herself a mental slap. It was time to face the music.
If Ivy had to guess, she would say that Caterina Genetti had booby trapped her diary. Maybe it was a Benandanti trait. She had laid a spell of some kind to pull someone into a memory. Or to experience her death more likely.
Ivy had walked right into it. In her desperation for answers, she hadn’t checked the book for spells. She dragged a hand down her face.
Whatever spell Caterina had laid in that diary packed a punch. She touched her aching heart. She had felt every second of that vision. It had been like she was Caterina. Everything Caterina thought, Ivy thought. Whatever pain she experienced; Ivy experienced.
Ivy shivered. She could still feel the frozen earth tear her nails out at the beds. Caterina’s nails she corrected.
She had felt the freezing winter night. Her toes curled remembering the feeling of Caterina’s thin leather shoes. The woman’s body had been failing. Ivy had felt the weakness hanging to her.
And yet she kept running. Her desperation to perform that last rite had been stronger than her body. What the hell had she done in those woods?
Ivy met her eyes in mirror. Caterina Genetti had given her life as a final offering to keep her magic away from the Salici Sacri. She felt that knowledge settle heavily on her heart.
She wasn’t the only one to give their life.
David.
Her face crumpled. Poor David. Ivy remembered his sorrowful bay. The memory broke Ivy’s heart. She started to cry. She stumbled to the toilet and sat on the cover. She sobbed into her hands.
Caterina had been David’s mate. For a moment in time, Ivy had been Caterina. Their relationship had been decades long. They had been childhood friends, sweethearts, before they formally mated. In Caterina’s mind, David had thousands of memories associated with him. Ivy had experienced them all. She had felt the weight of their love.
Mate had a new meaning for Ivy. She had always known that shifters had mates but she hadn’t understood. A mate was someone entwined with your soul. They were someone you grew with. Losing David had hurt more than anything else she had experienced. Her soul had literately torn in half.
It hurt less than feeling the magic drain from Caterina’s body. Ivy had never felt a bond that strong before. Her heart broke for David and Caterina. She cried until her voice was hoarse.
When her sobbing died down, she wiped her eyes.
The Salici Sacri had followed them across the world to hunt them down like dogs. Lawrence was right. They were going to raze and burn the territory.
Ivy turned on the shower. She kept reliving Caterina’s last minutes. Staring down into that tiny, dark hole. Ivy stepped in and closed the curtain on auto pilot. She poured soap into her hand and started scrubbing her skin.
Thoughts came and went but she never hung on to them. Her mind was overloaded. She washed her hair twice before she remembered that she had already wash it.
She shut off the water.
Before she realized it, she was in the living room. She was wrapped up in one of Grace’s donated towels. It had seen better days. She rubbed it against her leg. It was soft at least.
She forced herself to get a glass of juice from the fridge. Juice always helped. She took the glass to the couch.
It took some time, but the juice did its job. Ivy’s brain started to wake up. That’s what it felt like anyways. She felt her lungs fill. She blinked until her eyes didn’t feel so dry. She felt her synapses start to fire. Everything started to come into focus.
She started thinking about her experience analytically. There were so many things she wanted to pick apart.
Her
mind kept coming back Caterina’s prayer. It broke into her thoughts when she tried remembering anything else. Caterina kept repeated the phrase il cuóri annodáto.
What was il cuóri annodáto? The words translated to ‘the knotted heart’. Caterina had used it like a proper noun so Ivy assumed it was a name but she had no idea what it was.
Ivy went to her bedroom to grab her notebook. She didn’t touch the diary. Until she could put a nullifying spell on that little book, she would not be touching it with bare hands. She didn’t linger either. She was such a coward.
Plopping back on the couch she went back to her first page of translations. She skimmed through every handwritten line. She even made herself read the part she had been translating when Catarina’s spell had hit her. There was no mention of il cuóri annodáto or anything related to knotted hearts. Her head hit the back of the couch.
This was it. This was what Caterina was so desperate to protect. She had called it her people’s most sacred secret, the Benandanti’s birthright.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to experience Caterina’s feelings.
She rubbed at her chest, “…nodo nel sol cuóre. ‘A knot in the heart’.”
Warmth started radiated from her hand. Ivy started. Then she realized what it was. The presence was back. Ivy froze, waiting for it to do something crazy.
The presence didn’t do anything. It hovered over Ivy’s hand. She could feel it gently brushing against her.
When nothing happened, Ivy relaxed. She lowered her hand. The presence stayed over her heart.
It didn’t have a tangible form but she could feel where the air got warmer around the presence. Slowly, she cupped her hands around the ball of heat. It was roughly the size of a cantaloupe. Ivy could only tell when she was touching it because her palm warmed. She tried to grab the patch of warmth but her hands went right through it.
“What are you?”
It bumped against her chest flashing red hot.
Ivy jumped back. “Ow!” There was a little red mark above the towel. All of her frustration boiled over. “You know what? I’m getting dressed! You can wait.” She wasn’t sure why she was yelling at nothing but it felt good.
She stomped into her bedroom. She didn’t feel the presence follow her. Which helped calm her down. She pulled out a pair of jeans and a long sleeve shirt. She grunted when she pulled her pants on with too much force.
She came out of the bathroom with her make up on and her hair done. She had even magicked away her roots. She felt ready to take on the world.
The instant she sat on the couch her energy bubble popped. She was at a loss. There were a hundred things running through her mind. She couldn’t decide which was more important. Warning Black Bird about the Salici Sacri? Tracking down where Caterina had died? Figuring out what the hell she had been hiding?
She had to start somewhere. With a sigh she pulled out her phone. She pulled up her contacts and paused. She stared at Ezekiel’s name. Absent mindedly, she had pulled up his info.
Scared and unsure how to proceed, Ivy’s first instinct was to call Ezra and Ezekiel. It just felt like calling them would make everything okay. Like they would somehow know what to do. If she were being honest, she wanted to hear their voices more than anything else. They made her feel safe.
As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t call them. She literally couldn’t tell them what was going on. Not with that nasty compulsion Lawrence had put on her. And besides that, she had no idea how they could help.
If they would even help after she told them the truth. Oh, hey guys, guess what? I’ve known where Lawrence was this whole time! How? Well, I’m working for him.
Instead, she scrolled through until she found Lawrence’s number. Sure enough, he had somehow managed to add his number to her phone.
He picked up on the first ring, “Yeah?”
“I found something.” Before she could say anything else, the line went dead. She pulled the phone away from her ear, confused.
Lawrence stepped out of her bathroom. Ivy shot off of her couch. She had taken three steps towards the door before she recognized who it was.
“What the hell? You nearly gave me a heart attack!” She screamed, heart pounding against her chest. “How in the did you get in here?”
Lawrence didn’t break stride. He walked right up to her. “What did you find?”
“How did you get in?” She demanded. Her ward had strengthened last night too.
“I put a portal stone in your bathroom last time I was here.” Lawrence tossed off, like it was unimportant. “What did you find?”
Ivy didn’t answer immediately. She walked into the bathroom and started opening all of the cabinet and drawers. Her fingers tingled when she reached under the sink. She followed the feeling until she found a small quartz stone.
“Really?” She walked over to the toilet and flushed it. Lawrence didn’t argue. She would have to do a more thorough search of her apartment after he was gone.
“What did you find?” He asked, barely containing his impatience.
Ivy huffed at his attitude. “Before you get excited, Caterina didn’t hide a grimoire. I don’t know exactly what it was but I saw her bury whatever it was.” She raised her hands, palm up. “And I don’t know exactly where she buried it.”
Lawrence drooped, obviously disappointed. He shook his head. “You better start at the beginning.”
She told Lawrence about the vision she had seen. Lawrence asked questions at every point. He wanted her to recall every single detail she had experienced. Sometime during the story, they both went back to the couch and sat down.
Once she was done, they sat in silence.
“Il cuóri annodáto?” Lawrence said it with a perfect accent. “What is the knotted heart?” He looked at her like she knew.
Ivy shrugged. “She called it your birthright. I thought you would know.”
Lawrence shook his head at a loss. “My mom never mentioned il cuóri annodáto or a birthright. It wasn’t like she could talk very openly about magic. Not with my father around anyways.” He leaned his elbows on his knees. “Describe it to me again.”
Ivy closed her eyes and tried to put herself back into Caterina’s memory. “It’s different than magic. Caterina talked about not using it because the Salici were drawn to it.” She recalled the moment of relief Caterina felt when she reconnected with her Coven’s cuóri annodáto. “I only felt it through Caterina. When she felt it, she could feel her family’s…” Ivy searched for the right word, “spirits. She felt her mom and dad and David.”
“What did it feel like to you?” Lawrence’s question drifted to her as she continued to focus on her memory.
“I thought it was her magic at first. It felt both palpable and ethereal at the same time. Like when you summon magic before performing a spell, those threads of magic, but more.” She grimaced at the description. It was the best way she could describe it but it was still not accurate.
“What made you think it wasn’t Caterina’s magic?”
“It felt aware, sentient. It was aware of where she was and what she was doing. I think it was trying to comfort her.” Ivy opened her eyes, disappointed with her description. It sounded vague when she said it out loud. She couldn’t deny what she felt though.
He shot to his feet and kicked the coffee table. “Fuck.”
“Hey! Don’t be shitty. That’s not even mine.” She glared at him.
He ignored her. “Where is the diary? Which entry were you translating?”
She took him to her room. The diary was still sitting on her bed. She squeaked when Lawrence picked it up. He started going through each other pages. Ivy got more and more tense as he made his way to the end of the journal. He shut the journal with a snap and stared at her.
He held the journal out, “Which page?”
Ivy didn’t touch it. “The last entry.”
She watched as he opened the book again and flipped to the last page. She tensed as
his hand drifted over the page. Nothing happened.
“I’ve touched this book a thousand times.” Lawrence argued. “I’ve never had a reaction. Why did you trigger a vision and not me?”
“I don’t know and frankly, we don’t have time to figure out why. The Salici Sacri have already infiltrated the territory.” She gestured to the journal. “We know what Caterina hid, even if we don’t know exactly what it is. Now, we just need to find it.”
Lawrence closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re right. We can find answers once we have the time to find them.” He looked at her. “Okay, where did she hide this ‘birthright’?”
Ivy opened her mouth, then promptly shut it. She hadn’t seen anything in Caterina’s vision that looked familiar to her. The trees were evergreens and the underbrush looked like every single forest she had been in since moving to the West Coast. “In an altar at the bottom of a ravine.”
Lawrence’s blank expression told her how little that was. “Did you notice any mountains or rivers? Anything that would narrow that down?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t notice anything. It was very disorienting.”
Lawrence nodded once. “Okay, so we know that Caterina buried the Benandanti birthright in a hole, at the bottom of a ravine, somewhere in the woods. So, we’re still at square one. Great.”
Ivy irked at his tone. “Hey, at least we’re not looking for a grimoire that never existed.”
Lawrence threw his hands up. “No, now we’re looking for something intangible that’s still lost in the fucking woods.”
Ivy sat on her bed. “How are we going to find Caterina’s altar?”
Lawrence sank onto the bed next to her. “Could you find it if you got close? Would you recognize the area?”
Ivy scrubbed her forehead. “I have no idea. I could try but I don’t know how safe it would be to walk around the woods alone right now. If I had help, maybe?” She didn’t sound convincing, even to herself.
Lawrence chuckled without humor. “Yeah, that would be a super good idea. You and me wandering around Black Bird when there’s a practically a bounty on my head and the Salici have wolves under their spell. We’d be eaten alive.” He groaned, “This is when a Coven would come in handy. Then, we could use the journal to perform a locating spell.”
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