“Are you just going to sit there?” She demanded of the meditating fey.
He was sitting cross-legged and straight backed between Azusa’s front talons. He hadn’t spoken in hours. And it was driving her crazy.
She’d searched every wall, ceiling, floor and cranny looking for a way out of this one roomed nightmare, and there must be a way out. Aunt Silver wasn’t the type to leave a place without an evacuation plan. Her mind snidely pointed out to her that it was exactly the sort of thing that Silver would do if she considered the place completely impenetrable. And if she believed that it meant that absolutely no one other than Silver knew where this safe room was. So no-one would be coming to get her, probably for at least a hundred years. She glared at the non-responsive fey across the room from her, a hundred years and she would definitely end up crazy. There had to be a way out.
“Why are you just sitting there?!” She all but yelled at him.
He finally opened his eyes. “Within minutes of arriving here, we both knew that the only way we will leave this bunker is when your aunt wills it. I am choosing to use the time productively. You are behaving irrationally, Princess.”
Hands itching for a dagger she’d left under her pillow Asha contented herself with trying to extract Keir’s claws from their purchase on the fabric of the chair.
“I’m not irrational. I’m just bored.” Asha groaned.
“Try knitting?” Riven suggested, not moving even as the cushion she threw struck him in the face.
“I don’t knit.” She scowled. “Send that in one of your reports back to your backstabbing council.”
Though his face never changed, his shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly.
“I would never relay such a message; it would get my sister’s hand chopped off.” He almost whispered. “Do not mistake me for a willing spy, princess. The elders have never been masters I would have chosen to serve had I had another choice.”
Flopping down into the chair she had just extracted her familiar from, Asha stroked Keir’s head as she contemplated what she was being told.
“Why do you hate them so much?” She asked, “Obviously holding your sister ransom, but I assume it goes deeper than just that.”
Riven chuckled slightly. “Did you notice people giving you scathing looks as you walked through our eyries, princess? You must have thought it was a natural distrust for outsiders. But it’s so much more than that. You and your familiar are Avakar just like Azusa and I. Abnormal wing-siblings, abominations to the system.”
“Avakar.” She tried the gryphon word out on her tongue. “What is that?”
“The closest translation in any language is ‘aberration’. You possess a wing-brother instead of a wing-sister. Same sex siblings are the norm in fey-gryphon society. Only one in a thousand births are Avakar, and most of them take their own lives before they reach a hundred, as a result of becoming outcast from their families. The rest become hermits, rarely interacting with others, and neither gryphon nor rider is allowed to marry by law, just in case the aberration manifests in the next generation.”
“That’s ridiculous. They can’t do that just because you chose a different gryphon.”
“You don’t choose.” Riven explained bitterly, “the wing-sibling tests are simple, you either fly or you fall. Once a year they put all the children who can walk into a pen with the unclaimed gryphon children. The gryphon they fly out of the pen on is the one they’re bonded to for life. The child and gryphon are adopted between each other’s families and they spend the next few years learning to fly before they take the aptitude tests that determine their place in society. Usually Avakar aren’t allowed into the Wing Brotherhood, unfortunately our aptitude for anything else was dismal.”
“I get the feeling that was no co-incidence.” Riven didn’t deny it. “Why did you not just pick a male gryphon? Surely there must have been one?”
“I tried all of them.” Riven growled. “Do you think I didn’t know how bad it looked when I was the only child left? I’d fallen from the back of every male gryphon there. Neither Azusa nor I wanted to try, but we did, and we were bonded. It was the outcome we’d both dreaded since we stepped into the pen. We were only lucky that both our parents refused to cast us out when the elders offered them the chance.”
“You didn’t mention your parents, are they also hostages against you?” Asha asked.
“My parents were already complaining against the treatment of Avakar when I was born.” Riven replied. “When I became bonded, they redoubled their efforts; the eventual result was that they were executed. After their deaths, my sister had me made officially outcast from her family on the day of their funeral.”
“Yet you were still willing to die to protect her?”
“I was not planning on dying, princess.” He replied.
“Of course not.” She dismissed the subject by emulating the callous wave she’d seen Silver perform a thousand times. “Since we are stuck here, I suggest we spend the time on my lessons with Keir.”
Riven nodded his head. “You have not been practicing.”
*
When Kate teleported Silver to her, she knew keeping her there was going to be a challenge. Gaillean’s methods had been ridiculous and doomed from the start where the Silver Eyed Wytch was concerned. That was the reason she’d decided to meet just close enough to the Dark Coven for Silver to feel at home, rather than in her realm.
“I’m amazed Gaillean is still walking.” Kate informed her as she appeared. “But it appears that instead of vengeance, your first instinct was to protect your niece.”
“Good luck finding her.” Silver grunted. “You know torturing me would get you nowhere.”
“I have no plans to kill my only grandchild today.” Kate tried to reassure her, “I knew from the beginning that Gaillean was up to something, I just didn’t know what until he took you.”
“If you think I’ll believe you that easily, then you’re a fool.” Silver retorted. “As for Gaillean, his days are numbered.”
“You’ll never manage to outwit him.” Kate advised, inwardly cringing at the thought of Gaillean dying the way Llewellyn had. No, Gaillean was far too powerful as the eldest of them all for Silver to manage to do something like that. “Gaillean is too much like you, too prepared for every eventuality to be caught completely off guard.”
Treading carefully, hoping beyond hope to convince Silver to discard her plans against Gaillean, Kate continued. “Rather than destroy him for his well-meaning, if slightly dysfunctional, plans, why not create a better alternative? One that is more palatable for everyone?”
“How well has any Ancient ever taken the news that they weren’t the font of all knowledge in the universe?” The tart reply was enough to convey exactly what Silver thought of Kate’s race.
How insufferable they must seem to her. Plotting, scheming, backstabbing and manipulating things like master politicians. All on a level just above Silver’s reach, but still cruelly within her sight.
Ironically, Romana would have been in a better position to get involved with the Ancient politics. Despite her clear disinterest in the topic, her near pure blood afforded her the same status that Marta and Isaac’s children currently held and a small advisory role in their goings on. The only true difference between Romana and Kate was that when she bled it was red and not golden. Kate hadn’t seen her own blood flow since she’d used it for the acts of creation so long ago.
Just thinking of it had her tracing her fingers along the delicate tracery of veins in her forearm.
Silver shifted her weight to the other foot and Kate remembered she was probably still waiting for an answer.
“I was asking for you to collaborate with me,” Kate clarified. “I did not mean to suggest you would have to bring the idea to Gaillean’s attention alone. Surely you do not truly wish to harm your father?” At least Kate sincerely hoped Silver didn’t. “I do not think it would be easy to explain his death at your hands to Romana and As
ha.”
“Just like any other.” But the slightest sag in her posture told Kate Silver was considering it. Good.
“Prove to Gaillean that we can win this war without sacrificing his granddaughter.” Kate pressed Asha’s clear reliance on a positive outcome as hard as she could. “The rest will surely fall into place.”
Silver didn’t nod, but as she cast her portal back to the dark coven she looked back, and it was that action which convinced Kate that she had been successful.
*
“We’re going to kill another Ancient.” Romana announced to her Coven, still not quite believing the words herself. “And we’re going to do it in collaboration with the Dark Coven.”
Unsurprisingly the underground glade they used for coven meetings on the new isle erupted into chaotic debate.
“… we don’t have the power…”
“… the only way to weaken…”
“No outside help…”
“….no chance!”
It took only a few seconds from the moment she raised her hand for silence to settle once more. She left her throne, made like the other fifteen from the woven roots of living trees, to pace around the circle.
“Sisters,” She began, looking each and every one of them in the eye. “When did we lose our brave and fierce reputation to the Dark Coven? In the years before the split we allowed very few of those murderers into our midst, yet we were still regarded as a force to be feared! Now because a few renegade wytches have been banded together does that make us less?
“I say NO. We are no less than we were before, we are equal if not greater than our sister coven because of the trust between ourselves. We know how our individual powers can be bettered through working with one another, we do it every single day. We are stronger and we cannot fail.” Somewhere insider herself Romana was surprised by how much she herself needed to hear these truths.
“I stand among you awed. We number healers who can break the human body with their gift if they need to and clairvoyants who can do a palm reading or turn the mind inside out with a wave of their hands. Even our weakest member can draw the moon into unstoppable magical beams of energy.” She nodded at Cass who beamed. “Our temperaments may be peaceful, but we are NOT weak.”
There were cheers and she waited for them to die down before she continued. “Two days hence we shall gather at the ruins of Toyke with our sister coven. The fortress is to become the base of operations for all of our allies and as such is neutral ground. Put aside any personal grudges and behave like the wytch queens that you are. Heads held high and magic at the ready. We go into war demanding the respect of ally and enemy alike.”
Strategies flew around the glade for about an hour after that. Romana listened, guided and yelled in equal measure, glad in her heart that the wytches were finally beginning to reclaim the confidence they’d lost when the Dark Coven had appeared out of nowhere.
When she held up her hand again, silence was instant, expectant and respectful.
“Now, though I appreciate the major change in topic, we have one last task ahead of us tonight.” Joanna and Cass whooped, happy that they were the few who knew what was going on. “Come forwards.” Asha stepped towards them, covered from head to toe in the cloak of a coven initiate. “Lift your hood, wytch, and gaze upon the seats of the Light Coven Circle of the Wytch Queens.” Romana commanded in the ritual words, and her daughter obliged, lifting her hood back and gazing wide eyed yet calmly around.
“Sisters.” Romana announced, instantly drawing Asha’s and everyone else’s attention. “The Light Coven is one queen short. Who have we selected to fill the seat of the Light Coven?”
“Asha, granddaughter of Ancients and bestower of balance,” They answered.
“Why is she here?”
“To become a wytch queen,” they chanted back. “To gain her title and take her place in this circle of queens.”
“What must she first do?”
“Become a mistress of her magic. Become that which she commands.”
“What does she command?”
“Balance, the push and pull, the in-between.” they recited.
“Asha, to become one of us, do you understand what you must do?”
“I do.” She replied, and Romana made no effort to disguise her pride.
“Then remove the cape of the wytch, for it is no longer yours. Step into the in-between and become one with that which you command.”
Asha unpinned the cloak from around her neck and let it fall to the floor, a few deep breaths later and she disappeared.
Calming her instant motherly panic, Romana reminded herself that it wasn’t unusual for wytches to disappear while communing with their powers, especially since it was usually the method by which they would learn to teleport.
The rest of the Light Coven stood patiently waiting until she reappeared, Joanna using the time to command the threads of the initiate cloak to transform into Asha’s own wytch cloak, her hair was windblown, though there had been no wind, and her cheeks were kissed with the flush of power.
“You have proved your worth of the title we will bestow upon you. Pick up the cloak you discarded, and find it bearing of your seal.”
Romana watched as Asha donned the dove grey cloak, she examined the swinging set of brass scales that embellished the hem, and Joanna wasted no time in changing the rest of her clothes to match.
A throne waited on Romana’s right hand side for her daughter, and as Asha watched in awe the cushions that had waited so long to don a new seal transformed to match.
“Come forward, and kneel before your throne.” Romana instructed, remembering the moment that Kate had said those very same words to her with crystal clarity, another mother inducting her daughter into her birth right.
She followed orders, walking around the circle to the seat and kneeling on one knee, her head bowed before the throne.
“No longer are you Asha the balance wytch. It is your sheer power and the way in which you use it to the benefit of those you hold dear despite your own reservations that is the reason you were selected by the Light Coven. It was your personality and ability to deal with responsibility that won you the throne. From now on, you are Asha the Balance Wytch to all who know you. But to the Coven of wytch queens, you shall be Asha the Balance Wytch Queen. Do you accept this title to be your own?”
“I do so accept the title of balance wytch queen.”
“And do you accept that your familiar is Keir, elder gryphon?”
“I do so accept him.”
“Then rise Asha, Balance Wytch Queen. Take your seat at this council and know that you now aid in the governing of every light sorceress on this world.”
The moment her daughter settled into the throne cheering erupted. Asha wasn’t even seated for that long before Monique’s power caused music to grow from the simple background noise that accompanied her everywhere into a party anthem that had Asha dragged from her seat and into a mass of dancing wytch queens.
Silver’s presence in her mind kept Romana from joining them all,
“That was some speech.” Her sister said in greeting. “You’ll be pleased to know that Asha’s enforced curfew was successful in improving her grasp of the gryphon language. She’s mostly fluent.”
“If that was a hint that she needs to return there, I am aware.” Romana replied.
“No, she needs some time with company; she nearly bit my head off when I allowed her out. But I am merely here to remind you she has another initiation to undergo.”
“So the Dark Coven does retain some of the rituals?”
“Hardly. It’s just an excuse to show her power off.”
“Will you at least tell us which Ancient we’re targeting?”
There was silence on Silver’s end. “I never said that I was privy to that knowledge.”
The bond was severed.
With a deep sigh, Romana shoved a hand into her hair in frustration, pushed herself out of her throne and into the danci
ng mob.
Chapter Forty-One
PROUD
Asha looked uncomfortable, incredibly uncomfortable. But that could be to do with the fact that the girl was naked in the freezing cold. Silver was also sure that she could only tell that Asha was uncomfortable because she knew the girl so well. Masozi was with her, along with two other potential wytch queens who had found their familiars, all of them nude in the fading light of the dusk and staring at the desert in front of them like it was their doom. Which it was, because Silver wasn’t certain that all of them would survive their initiation.
They simply had to survive the night on their own and then teleport back to the temple. No outside help or magic was allowed.
But the desert was dangerous at night, as all of them well knew. Only one of them showed much confidence in her prospects, a harpy named Sekai who was the mentee of Grandmother Black. Being a harpy the girl had been raised by being kicked out of her clan as soon as she reached her first decade and told to find her way home. It was a practice repeated every five years for the children of a harpy clan until they were considered grown at age thirty. Sekai was nearly a hundred years old, probably considered this entire ordeal a waste of her time.
So they had provided her with a handicap. As well as being left alone, she would be unable to use her tiny furred wings. The moment she did, she would fail. Harpies were dependent on those wings for their speed, and could even fly for a limited amount of time. Removing them from the equation placed her in the same position as a human. She had protested at first, but had eventually acquiesced to having them bound to her back with a strip of cloth sealed with magic.
“You have twelve hours. At the end of that time, a green flash will erupt over the horizon to the west. You may then teleport back to the temple. If you die, your family’s lives and gold is forfeit as compensation for the trouble we went to in order to train you.”
The only one who didn’t look phased by that was Masozi, but ironically Silver was most worried about her. If she died, Keenan would be killed, so the little fey girl had better make it. She allowed her thumb to gently stroke the inside of her ring at the thought, as if for luck.
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